The internet is a sham.

When is a Macallan not a Macallan?

On Sunday, I went to Trader Joe's in El Cerrito and I saw a bottle of single malt Scotch whisky that was labeled as "Trader Joe's Rare Aged Scotch Whisky" from the "Single Malt Collection," distilled at the Macallan distillery and aged for 18 years. The official Macallan-labeled 18-year bottle costs about $140 at BevMo, so I was shocked at Trader Joe's $42 price tag. It wasn't that I thought Trader Joe's was lying, I was just a little skeptical of the 85% discount.

So I asked the internet. Apparently, everybody has an opinion and feels that I need to know about it. Opinions are fine, but nobody has the facts. The one fact I did learn was something I had already suspected: the Trader Joe's bottle had a different alcohol content (40% ABV) than the regular Macallan (43% ABV). Finally, I decided to go to the source; I got in touch with the Macallan distillery. I emailed them after 5:00 PM, Scotland time. They emailed me before 10:00 AM the next day. So, if you ended up here searching for the real deal, here it is, devoid of my opinion.

My original query: I recently saw a Macallan 18 year bottle at Trader Joe's in northern California. The label said Trader Joe's Rare Aged Scotch Whisky and also said Macallan on it. How is this different from the 18 year old whisky that is not branded with Trader Joe's name and is sold normally with just the Macallan label. Is the Trader Joe's bottle a real Macallan?

The response from Macallan's marketing staff: This is what we call a third party bottling. When we were producing more new make spirit than we needed, we were happy to sell the surplus on for blending. We are no longer in the position that we have surplus available so this practice has been greatly reduced. However, casks still pop up from time to time and this is a case in point.

We have no control over the quality of the spirit that is bottled. Technically it is a Macallan in that the new make spirit was indeed produced from our stills. However, it has not been subjected to the quality controls that we impose on all official Macallan bottlings and we have no idea what quality the finished product is. It may be very good or it may be very substandard. We have not sampled it and cannot pass comment.

I hope this clarifies the situation.

It does indeed clarify the situation (for me, anyway). I want to taste what the distillers consider to be their best 18-year single malt. I don't want a blend (that's not what Trader Joe's is selling) and I don't want product the distiller did not bottle. The different ABV alone might not be enough to reject this spirit out of hand, and I'm open to the possibility that the Trader Joe's bottle is a wonderful Scotch, but it is not the Macallan 18-year single malt.

Labels: alcohol, booze

posted by Afshin @ 5:41 AM   9 Comments

Why Muslims (Arabian ones, anyway) ride camels, sober

Tom Standage, who is the technology editor for the Economist, has written a holiday op-ed contribution in the New York Times today. He writes that elitism in wine drinking has a long history, but that we should largely ignore the ratings and just drink what we enjoy. That's fine. And then we find this paragraph:

The close association between wine and sophistication in the ancient world contributed to its rejection by Muslims. With the rise of Islam in the seventh century, Mohammed's followers expressed their disdain for the previous ruling elites by replacing wheeled vehicles with camels, chairs and tables with cushions and by banning the consumption of wine. Being devout, they signaled, was more important than seeming sophisticated.

This is the first time I've heard this interpretation of Islam's prohibition on alcohol. As far as I can tell, it's entirely wrong. In fact, the injunction against alcohol is one of the best attested traditions in Islam and it can be directly linked to the Qur'an. The rest of the paragraph is inaccurate, too. Wheeled carts had been replaced long before the rise of Islam for economic reasons, and not class warfare. I'm not sure where Mr. Standage came to have this interpretation, but as the technology editor of a widely respected journal, I would expect him to understand the overwhelming technological benefit of using the camel in the Arabian climate. I don't know the social history of early Islam well enough to comment on his claim about the use of cushions instead of tables and chairs, but again, I would suggest that he is probably wrong and the lack of furniture may have more to do with the dearth of wood in the Arabian peninsula than it does with rejection of the imperial elites.

Labels: alcohol, history, islam, religion, technology

posted by Afshin @ 3:31 AM   0 Comments