Anyone tasted Oban lately??

There has been a “dumbing down” of good single malt Scotches, and Glenlivet is the prime example. I just bought several bottles of Oban 10 which has been a favorite of mine over the years, and I can’t taste any smoke, it seems a bit sweet and one dimensional. Nice caramel note, way better than a blend, but not the Oban I remember. What do you say?

I’ve never seen a 10 year old Oban - did you mean Oban 14? I had some of the 14 recently and it tasted like it’s usual self - a solid, full-flavored Highland.

I didn’t check before posting, of course you are right – 14 on the cylindrical cardboard box.

I hope I am wrong about this, really, because it is one of my current favorites and I would hate it if they changed it, so far it is tasting different to me.

I just finished a bottle of Talisker though (THAT is where the “10” came from) and perhaps the lack of smoke in the Oban is just the result of that comparison.

Haven’t had the Oban lately, but it always seemed a tad too oily for my taste (and not quite as smoky as I prefer, either).

Bingo.

I haven’t had Oban recently, but I remember it being a very “clean” (little of the peat smoke element) style of Scotch, which I generally enjoy.

Frank,
My enthusiast friends and I all think that Diageo has dumbed-down its entire portfolio, the Island malts especially. Taste a current version of Talisker, Clynelish (not an Island whisky, but Clynelish/Brora was traditionally made in a peated style), Lagavulin, Caol Isla, or Oban in comparison to one from 20 years ago and you will tasted a world of difference. I suspect some of it is intentional to make the whisky appeal to a broader range than ‘peat-heads’ and some the result of almost all distilleries ceasing to do their own maltings.

Mark – I think Glenlivet is the most extreme example, probably because they are trying to keep the price down while selling more and more of it around the world. BUT even with Glenlivet when you get up to the 18 year version, or any of the higher priced better aged versions, you seem to get back towards the old style. Would you say that’s true for the Scotch you mentioned? I mean, if you can scrape together the cash for an 18 year old single malt, you are going to be rewarded palpably?

It depends. The Macallan 18 changed, for the worse, after the 1978 vintage due to a couple of factors: 1. They cherry-picked the best casks and put them into a separate, luxury bottling (Gran Riserva). 2. Like others, they experienced a huge increase in demand that they couldn’t properly meet, so many casks that would have previously been rejected and sold off to IBs or blenders were bottled. Remember, the 1970s and 1980s (at least the early part) were economically depressed in the UK and many distilleries were mothballed (Ardbeg and Springbank, for example) and others were outright shut (Brora being perhaps the most tragic example). When economies recovered and demand increased, there were insufficient malt stocks to meet it. A short version, but accurate, I think, of what happened. To answer your question about 18 year old whisky, I think the quality decline occurred in most cases with whisky distilled after the mid-70’s (mothballed distilleries, common maltings, etc). So a current version of an 18 year old (say, The Macallan or Springbank, or Lagavulin, now primarily 16, previously primarily 10 or 12, or Ardbeg distilled after 1977) would not in my opinion be on a par with whisky distilled before the times mentioned. When I was a college student in Edinburgh in '75, The Glenlivet was bottled as a 12 year old, now as a NAS…

Usually, the good old days weren’t as good as we remember them as being, but in the case of Scotch Whisky, it is demonstrably true. My whisky group gathers annually for a weekend involving hundreds of whiskies, old and new. One can easily see (added caramel and chill filtering) and taste the difference between pre and post '75-ish distillations.

If you want to see how the market values old v new, check out the current auction prices at McTears or, more easily, Whiskyauction.com

Do you believe this is true of all whisky, or is the “dumbing-down” done for different markets?

The problem is that you have to have been drinking Scotch more than 30 years ago to “get it.” Or you have to lay your hands on the older stuff. I have read that the same thing has happened in spades with Perfumes. What is being sold today, under the same name as 50 years ago, is very different stuff, and most of the rare and expensive ingredients have been deleted or replaced with synthetics.

In a related question – are New Jersey dealers OUT OF THEIR MINDS???

Great, now instead of just wine, I’ll be tempted to spend lots of money on old bottles of Scotch.

Seriously, though, thanks for the input. I didn’t know that stuff and it’s interesting to hear. Maybe one day I will splurge on an older single malt and see what it’s all about.

Frank,

I’ve seen significantly worse pricing for both Oban and Lagavulin. I would never be a buyer of Oban at that price b/c it’s not inherently worth it to me … but I would be willing to spend that on Lagavulin were it not available cheaper elsewhere.

I don’t believe this to be the case. Some distilleries and independent bottlers don’t bottle everything for the US market because they don’t want to bottle 750s (maybe a small run). Sometimes, the EU version is better than the US version, sometimes not. The most famous incident that I recall involved Springbank’s 1990s bottling of 12 year old, 100 proof. 100 British proof is 57.1% abv, US is 50% abv. The 12 year old spirit was significantly greater than either proof. Rather than reducing abv by watering (the standard procedure), Springbank reduced proof by adding old whisky (spirits lose alcohol as they age in cask because alcohol evaporates faster than water). Springbank added more older whisky to the US version than they did the EU version to reach 50% abv. We in the US got the better whisky, as a result. Older is not always better, but that Springbank 12/100 is famous in whisky circles. A stunningly great whisky. Good for the consumer in the short run and bad for Springbank, as they used up most of their old casks. Bad for us in the long run, as we’ve had to wait for Springbank to make great, older whisky since.

It’s sort of the opposite of Syms - where an educated consumer is their best customer. I mean why sell it at a competitive price when you can get another $25 per bottle?

Steve – of course Oban is available in Manhattan (close to me) for about $50, as well as other places around the country. What I -thought- was going on was that there is a special Oban on the market (I have seen some) which got into the NJ price book at $94 and then ignorant dealers put that price on ALL the Oban. In fact the prices are from Gary’s Wine Marketplace which is stellar in every way except this – I had driven up to buy them out of the Lapierre Morgon which is hard to find, and which I admire them for carrying. I tried to tell them the Oban price was wrong but nobody would believe me, and in fact the matching price on other single malts makes me think someone (Diageo?) is pulling a shift. If you are going to lower the quality of the product, then why not disguise that by raising the price.

In other words NJ may just be the tip of the spear and perhaps we should all stock up on Scotch while we can. If one buys enough then in 2040 we can sip our antique Scotch and reminisce about when it wasn’t purple and didn’t taste like Kool-Aid…

Thanks Mark. I haven’t had enough pre-'77 whisky to make an accurate assessment of whether it’s the fact that the whisky was just aged more, or that it was produced longer ago, but I recall a phenomenal bottle of Ardbeg “Very Old” acquired in 2000, a couple of 1977-and-older Ardbegs as being just tremendously complex and satisfying, and an ethereal 30-yo Laphroiag acquired in 2003. And all were purchased in the UK, so I haven’t had a lot of older US-market whiskies. So I’ve wondered which of those 3 variables was the true reason (or maybe more accurately the primary reason) for the difference.