Producers That Don't Colour or Chill-Filter

[Douglas]

Glenmorangie/Ardbeg declare non-chill filtered on most of their whiskies 46% and above.
No such statements apply to whiskies below 46% on their sites.

Blasda at 40% is chillfiltered and they state this in the product description on the back of the box.

I suppose anyone who bottles at 40% must chill filter or warn people it can go cloudy when cold.

[13th]

Balblair state natrual colour on their current bottlings but only the 75/79/78 declare themselves to not be chill filtered but having taken a number of bottles out of my cellar, which has been extremely cold recently, the 89 and 00 were cloudy and both are fairly pale anyway.

Meant to be another cold spell coming up so i'll keep my eye open for any cloudy/non cloudy bottles.

[peaty001]

Read all, there is a claim from Ardbeg and Highland Park that no E150a is added anymore.

http://whiskystuff.blogspot.com/2009/09 ... ut_05.html

This makes good points Pete and well spotted. And I stand corrected on my assumptions about Ardbeg.
The GMcP statement gives a hint at the bother around chill filtration right enough and begs the question what temperature constitutes chilling?

[C57]

As I've quoted elsewhere, normally around 0C for malt and -4c for blends - but it varies.

[karlejnar]

I suppose anyone who bottles at 40% must chill filter or warn people it can go cloudy when cold.

I don't think they must. Some of the Benromach bottles at 43% are not chillfiltered.
Raymond at Bladnoch once bottled a cask at 40% with and without chillfiltering. In that way you could choose between the two. No warning was necessary since the unchillfiltered bottles were already cloudy. Quite a number of customers chose the unchillfiltered bottle in spite of the appearance.

But all in all I too would prefer that it is mentioned on the label.

[roadrunner]

i was under the impression that highland park chill filtered their whisky?

[dramtastic]

Hanyu/Chichibu

[dramtastic]

Well if the list from that German website is accurate then Yamazaki can be added to the list. Strange though they show Hakushu 12 as having colouring but Hakushu 18 as not.

[Pete Smoke]

It's a shame the Yoichi 12 i had recently was flattened with caramel, simply too much of it, a pity as the underlying malt was superb.

[malt_boy]

Well if the list from that German website is accurate then Yamazaki can be added to the list. Strange though they show Hakushu 12 as having colouring but Hakushu 18 as not.

I think a few distilleries do this, don't know why they don't treat their expressions the same along the range. The Old Pulteneys are a classic example of this, the older aged bottlings are actually lighter in colour as the age goes up. The 12yo is the darkest

[Nick Brown]

Raymond at Bladnoch once bottled a cask at 40% with and without chillfiltering. In that way you could choose between the two.

Did anyone do a blind tasting?

[Mark C]

Since when did Raymond have a chill-filtration unit? Or did he have it bottled elsewhere? Having seen how they bottle down there I don't think they do anything much other than filter and add water (if that).

[Mr Tattie Heid]

Good question. I checked my journal for 2006, and this is what I wrote:

At the end, I am taken into the hospitality room and shown five bottles–-fifteen-year-olds at 40%, 46%, and cask strength (55%); a rum-cask finish at 56%; and Aiken’s Dram, a vatting of six highly evaporated casks, 46%. All are unchillfiltered, and the 40% is as cloudy as a weissbier.

[karlejnar]

@Nick - sorry but I never got around to trying them HTH. I did however try a 13yo and a 14yo at the pub across the road some years back. Though not the same cask - I'm sure - the 13yo UCF was better than the 14yo CF.

@Mark - you're absolutely correct in your observation. They don't have such equipment at the distillery. The first forum bottlings - the Tomatin and Macallan (aka the sock finished Mac) were in fact not filtered at all. Every now and again when they hand filled bottles for the shop they just used a simple mesh filter.

The mentioned 10yo were bottled at a time when most of their bottlings were done up in Paisley. So that's why most of them were chill filtered. But in between they did the hand bottling of one cask at a time using a barrel with a tap. That was done because it would take too long time to drive the barrels to Paisley and wait for the bottles to return.

It seems now they have a fancy "semi automatic" low tech bottling machine. But I noticed on one of Martins pictures on FB that they still make good use of the second hand centrifuges from the old creamery. Those were the one' s used at the "MacTom" forum bottling "party"

[13th]

oooffft.

Worst example of caramel i've had since Fettercairn Fior. Dalmore Rivers 2011. Tried all of them today, all very bad. Trying to cover up the use of some poor casks with an excess of caramel. Although they are all meant to be different, they are all very similar. Highly carameled and a bit soapy. Reminds me of the really poor blends I drank on holiday in cuba.

They've really shot themselves in the foot with these. Dalmore have had some good mainstream press (river conservation and all that) with these. Many people will get these who would not normally drink Dalmore and be let down badly. makes me a bit sad. The bottles are on my bar but god knows how i'm going to sell them as I cant afford to pour them down the sink... cheaply probably.

[C57]

Apparently the only coloured whisky in the Glenmo range is Original. It has a very small amount if necessary in a batch, because it is the big seller and they want consistency. But in general Glenmo dislike caramel and no other in their range uses caramel.

[Peat Sampras]

oooffft.

Worst example of caramel i've had since Fettercairn Fior. Dalmore Rivers 2011. Tried all of them today, all very bad. Trying to cover up the use of some poor casks with an excess of caramel. Although they are all meant to be different, they are all very similar. Highly carameled and a bit soapy. Reminds me of the really poor blends I drank on holiday in cuba.

They've really shot themselves in the foot with these. Dalmore have had some good mainstream press (river conservation and all that) with these. Many people will get these who would not normally drink Dalmore and be let down badly. makes me a bit sad. The bottles are on my bar but god knows how i'm going to sell them as I cant afford to pour them down the sink... cheaply probably.

Only had the dee dram. disappointing.

[13th]

I assume that no independent bottlers use E150a? I see Douglas Laing, Signatory, Burn Stewart, Compass Box and Wemyss (single casks only). What about Gordon & MacPhail?

I'll be stocking up for the summer with big buys at the begining of March and April. I'll look into good independent bottlings of Dalmore and a few other offenders (any recomendations would be appreciated)

What about Diageo, I can think of plenty of their malts that surely dont contain any colouring and a few which are pretty suspect (lochnagar?, Blair Atholl? Distillers editions?).

[C57]

I assume that no independent bottlers use E150a? I see Douglas Laing, Signatory, Burn Stewart, Compass Box and Wemyss (single casks only). What about Gordon & MacPhail?

...

What about Diageo, I can think of plenty of their malts that surely dont contain any colouring and a few which are pretty suspect (lochnagar?, Blair Atholl? Distillers editions?).

There's another thread where it is said that G&M used colouring in everything in the Connoisseurs Choice, to get consistent colours across the range. It is also said they don't do so any longer.

As to Diageo, of course they do. Look at Laga 16 for a start. I would expect Diageo to be one of the worst offenders TBH.

[Nick Brown]

Dalmore have had some good mainstream press (river conservation and all that) with these. Many people will get these who would not normally drink Dalmore and be let down badly.

Whisper it softly (given the high prices that Dalmore commands) but Dalmore drams are really quite ordinary.

[Mr Tattie Heid]

But Nick, that can't be! They've been touched by Richard Paterson. They must be pure gold!

[Wave]

Another one to add is Mackillop's Choice. They are predominantly at their natural cask strength, without chill-filtering and without the addition of any caramel colouring, (E150). I have a few Lorne MacKillop (Mackillop's Choice) bottlings that are bottled at 43% but without chill-filtering. They're all in the 30 year +/- year range and probably weren't that high in alcohol content to begin with.

Banff 30yr 1973
Blair Athol 30yr 1973
Glen Albyn 30yr 1974
Glencadam 31yr 1974
Glenesk 30yr 1975
Glen Keith 33yr 1971
Glenlivet 27yr 1979
Glentauchers 27yr 1976
Highland Park 32yr 1973
Longmorn 29yr 1976
Longmorn 31yr 1975
Tomintoul 25yr 1981
Tomintoul 32yr 1973


Cheers!

[mongo]

at the chieftain's tasting i attended yesterday ed kohl demonstrated the effect of e150 by pouring some undiluted e150 into a full glass of water. he put in a decent amount (i.e not just a few drops) and got the water darker than an aberlour abunadh or similar. i asked if i could taste it. i was expecting a very strong flavour, but it was in fact really quite mild. nonetheless, there certainly was a flavour, most discernible in a slightly acrid note after swallowing.

however, i could readily believe that i would not be able to pick it out in a robust whisky, and that distillers could in fact use very, very small amounts to achieve significant colouring ends. i hasten to add that this was not what ed kohl was trying to demonstrate. chieftain's does not colour their malts, and he was demonstrating the artificiality of the use of caramel. somewhat unexpectedly my takeaway was that a whisky would have to have a huge amount of e150 in it for it to really bother me, and having seen the effect of a tablespoon or two on a full glass of water (12-14 oz glass) i doubt anyone does.

this is not to argue against the call to remove artificial colouring from the world of whisky.

[C57]

I generally get a bitter finish from coloured whisky. And I know some people are extremely sensitive to it, so I don't think you can conclude it is unnoticeable to everyone, just because you aren't particularly sensitive to it.

It's like sulphur in that respect - some taste it more than others.

[mongo]

I generally get a bitter finish from coloured whisky. And I know some people are extremely sensitive to it, so I don't think you can conclude it is unnoticeable to everyone, just because you aren't particularly sensitive to it.

but i'm not drawing that conclusion at all.

you may have been confused by the poorly-worded sentence that ends "i doubt anyone does". the "anyone" there refers to distilleries, and the thing i doubt any of them do is add so much e150 that i would be able to detect it (given how mild i found the taste of a very heavily coloured glass of water yesterday). the sentence should end "i doubt anyone does add that much".