Scotland: Single malt whisky through the producing distilleries: history, making and tasting

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Hart Brothers

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A meeting with Christophe Gauthier

Report of a very instructive discussion

A very nice discussion with Christophe Gauthier, export manager at Hart Brothers has been very useful as well. Unlike Mark Reynier from Murray McDavid, the Hart Brothers' politics is just marketing single cask bottlings.
The criteria to market a single malt seem to be very simple: the malt must please Alister Hart.
Bottling is a very serious job, and the number of available bottles is often very limited (because of the single cask bottling policy), and therefore reserved to a limited number of countries.
Only wooden corks are used and they are purchased directly at a renowned cork maker in Cognac.
Northern countries are very good customers for the independent bottlings, especially due to their love of high end quality. A very critical market, unlike those of Southern Countries like France or Italy, where the quality criteria are sometimes lower.

The French market


The French market is particularly flooded by low quality blends, which often have as result that people do not know what quality whisky is. If the French whisky market was reduced to the bottles marketed by some French companies selling cheap stuff (because bought in bulk for a derisory sum - less than one pound a litre...) one could understand that people like mixing whisky with cola, because it is not drinkable as is.


Whisky for a Scot


Single malt remains the national drink for Scots, and il will be consumed at all great occasions and festivals. Scots are a very proud nation, and whisky is their national drink? They will always try to share it with their guests. It remains a part of the Highlands culture.

Distilleries

Like most of the independent bottlers, one of the dreams of the Hart Brothers is to own a distillery. This would represent a huge investment which will not be profitable (if ever it is) before 10 years. This dream will probably remain an unreachable dream.
Why on earth an independent bottler would like to become owner of a distillery. Generally it is more for the prestige than a economic must. Independent bottling is a rather recent job and it was born with the new fancy for single malt. It is not really clear until now if the recent love for single malt is the result of the existence of the independent bottlers, or if the existence of independent bottlers is the result of that new fancy.
Generally, independent bottlers are blenders as well. This is their best warranty to continue to be able to get their whisky from the distilleries. We have to keep in mind that blends still represent 90% of the whisky sold through the world.
The single malt bottlings by independent bottlers is really marginal compared to the whole whisky production, and the distilleries have understood that the phenomenon of independent bottling is just good for them.
Some tacit rules which are generally obeyed in the world of blenders. For instance, they never will market single malt from distilleries which are represented in known collections belonging to distilleries, like for instance the UDV's Classic Malts. That's one of the reasons an independent bottler will hesitate before bottling a Lagavulin or Talisker. This could be damageable for is future supplying.
There are some exceptions, like the Cragganmore marketed by Signatory.
Unlike most of the other independent bottlers, Hart Brothers has currently only one whisky range.

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