Vintage action
Age ain’t anything but a number. At least according to Ronnie Cox, brand ambassador for scotch whisky The Glenrothes. “There is no particular reason why a whisky should be bottled at 12 or 15 years. Someone, somewhere decided it and it stuck,” he says, adding that “age statements are no guarantee of quality or taste. You have to ask more questions – what type of barrel was it aged in, was the barrel first or second fill? – and only then will you get an idea of the whisky’s quality.”
Whisky, like a fine wine, matures at its own pace. And unlike wine, one can actually test the progress of the whisky’s maturation, dipping in on a regular basis to see how the flavours develop. With the history of The Glenrothes distillery in Speyside and the oenological flair of Berry Brothers & Rudd, wine and spirit purveyors to the British Royal Family by appointment, Cox proclaims that “what makes The Glenrothes so exceptional is that we bottle our Single Malt Whisky at the moment it reaches its peak of maturity and taste.” Which is why all The Glenrothes whiskies are by nature Vintage, a term from oenology to an exceptional single year of quality. And it is for that reason that The Glenrothes whiskies tend to shy away from overt age statements, though they are there to be calculated with a bit of mental mathematics.
But tasting is believing, so they say. And what better way to showcase the finest vintage whiskies of The Glenrothes with a pairing dinner at the Intercontinental Kuala Lumpur’s Tatsu, with each dish carefully selected to complement the notes and finish of the three whiskies.
“In Europe, pairing food with whisky isn’t so easy. It tends to go best with something heavy, like foie gras or pudding, where the whisky cuts through the richness of the food,” observes Cox. “On the other hand, whisky lends itself better to Asian food, particularly Chinese and Japanese, where it goes well with the clean flavours of the cuisine.”
To that end, the chefs at Tatsu presented a five-course pairing dinner that began with the clean, briny flavours of a Hokkaido scallop carpaccio that married wonderfully well with the creamy, fragrant The Glenrothes Vintage Reserve, which also accompanied a delicate Rainbow maki roll with soft shell crab. Then came a tiger prawn – Jumbo with a capital J – grilled to perfected with thin slivers of garlic that went wonderfully well with the sweet and almost peppery The Glenrothes Vintage 2001. For the main course, a robust Australian beer striploin was wrapped around enoki mushrooms and served in a miso broth, perfect with rich and spicy The Glenrothes Vintage 1998. Dessert was a Chocolate Bomb, cheekily accompanied with the words ‘Hit Me’ in chocolate. No whisky was officially paired with it, but a couple of drops of the Vintage Reserve added a new layer of complexity to the chocolate. Don’t tell the chef.
The objective was to introduce and display the complexity and complete nature of The Glenrothes (pronounced glen-wrath-tis), so objectives met and fully achieved. If you wish to judge for yourself, The Glenrothes dinner pairing menu will be available until 30 November 2016 at Tatsu, Intercontinental Kuala Lumpur for RM380 nett per person.
