A cold, dark, miserable day calls for the warm embrace of an old friend.

Goodbye, old friend. Springbank 32, distilled in 1964. Sweet sherry, a whiff of smoke, then Springbank. Fortunately, there may be one or two more in the bunker. I’ll need them to see me through until sunny days are here again.

Mark, how do you feel about current available iterations of Springbank?

Condolences on the loss of your “friend”.

Nothing on the face of the planet being made now, and only a tiny fraction of what has been made in the past, is worthy of kissing the toes of the bottle Mark posted above. It’s damn hot.

But that said, and to your question, Michael - Springbank is probably the distillery I’d say, if I were told nothing but the name, I could feel a shred of confidence I’d be getting something worth drinking. They are the only distillery that is 100% floor malted (all of their malted barley needs come from in-house), which says a lot, and they are not owned by a big conglomerate that also makes - I don’t know - wallets. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Springbank is magically doing it right while everyone else has sold out. No, they are opportunistic as well, and there’s likely never to be released anything again that comes close to the one above. It’s sad. The era of great scotch may very well be over.

Of course, I could be wrong. There are tons of new distilleries popping up all the time. A recent article in SMWS’s newsletter said that the number of new ones has doubled since 2014, and not all of them are owned by mega-companies. Maybe the craft movement in scotch can do what it did for beer and put the big houses on notice that what they are producing isn’t going to cut it anymore. The problem is that it takes 20 years to make a 20 year scotch, so it will be a while before we know for sure. I think there’s reason to be happy about this movement. Even if only a few of them turn out to be good, it’s something. The BS ones should disappear and perhaps there will be a few left that don’t answer the call or bend to the yoke of the big houses.

In the meantime, seek out the recent release Springbank Local Barley. It’s still available, not crazy expensive, and very good.

Sarah, I gather that (as to your first statement) based on what Mark has posted generally about old Springbank, old Ardbeg. It’s essentially reading about antiquities though, not the kind of thing one is likely to run across. So my questions are about the current stock.

Point well taken about the aging requirements here though. For what I can afford I’m trying to sniff out opportunities in independent bottling and trying to suss out which distillers might be doing something right. The prevailing logic of “not many, if any” is anything but reassuring, and keeps me from investing too heavily.

Sorry, I thought I did address your question about current stock and Springbank in particular. Maybe it got lost in my verbosity. While not what it used to be, I believe Springbank is doing things better than many other distilleries.

Since Scotch is going pretty much downhill these days, should we look for alternatives? I drink some mezcal these days and it’s awesome. Any other ideas?

No, you did! I was just clarifying! Thanks, and I’ll look into it soon.

I get a lot of utility out of cognac and Armagnac.

I think if you like scotch, there’s no substitute. Just because the landscape is changing, and some places are producing much more generic whiskies than they once did, doesn’t mean there aren’t some very tasty drams out there. I was lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) enough to be exposed to a lot of the old and rare stuff, and so I am keenly aware of the differences. But you can still, with a little effort, drink really good whisky. As a comparison, I’ve been mostly priced out of the greatest Grand Cru burgundies. I know that Savigny-les-Beaune isn’t the same thing, but I can really enjoy drinking it.