FINISHED WITH DEMMONS Ronnie Martin died earlier this year. Who?.. well, many SWR readers will recognise the name of the creator our Loch Fyne blend. To the industry, Ronnie was the DCL—done well, a production director in a changing time; Professor of Distilling and an O. B. E.—awarded to the man who drove through the definitions of the Scotch Whisky Act. I digress—but Ronnie was important to me, one of my Dads. This rant was to be aimed at the SWA and their lack of consultation regarding this vatted thing [see cover SWR 22 & Dave Broom, page 10]. As retailers it is we who have to sell, to explain this stuff and we’re not happy with blended malt either. But today a well argued document, Proposals for Further Legislation Governing the Sale, Description and Marketing of Scotch Whisky arrived, inviting our comments.... Here we go. We are uneasy about Blended Malt, we’ll lose sales, even after a lengthy period of ‘bedding in’. Please consider our Andy B’s suggestion of Mixed Malt Whisky. How’s about that then? Now, the SWA’s deliberations claim to be consumer driven so if we are going to law, let’s take the opportunity to sort out a couple of other consumer issues. To the proposed legislation let’s add: “A ban of the use of spirit caramel in the production (and presentation) of single malts (as now defined)”. You’re not fooling anyone: it’s redundant, it spoils the flavour of the malt and we consumers don’t want it. We are well enough informed to live without it, and it’s deceptive. Get rid of it, and raise the esteem of single malts even higher. “The abolition of the term ‘finish’ (or references to that practice) in the presentation of single malt”. This practice to back-end-load mediocre whisky is unsupportable. If you must do it then it is a mixed malt, otherwise it’s single maturation for single malts. Oh, and a reprimand for Wm. Grant’s hypocritical ‘triple malt’ nonsense. Prats. (Viz monkeyshoulder.com).