Spearhead from Loch Lomond

@SpearheadWhisky was released as a new brand this month but study the label and you'll see it's a new addition to the @LochLomondMalts range.

Let's see what it's like!

Those that have visited Loch Lomond's distillery in Alexandria will know it's a Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory of a distillery - four different still types producing many different spirit styles which can be married together to produce a nearly unlimited range of single malts, single grains and blends.

What we are looking at here is a single grain from the Continuous Coffey Still on the malt side of the distillery. Loch Lomond use the normal malt-based grain as a base, it's distilled in their Coffey Still, the spirit is then aged in ex-bourbon barrels before being finished in four different toast levels of  virgin American oak barrels - two infra red toast and two traditional fire toast to add what they call "a deep sweet, chocolate type character and mouthfeel."

Michael Henry, Loch Lomond's Master Blender suggested that "the infra red helps with the chocolate notes - the intense heat without any burning gives those notes. The combination of four toast levels gives us depth across the "sweet" spectrum and helps adds mouthfeel. Again its the infra red that allows the vanilla and balanced spice release from the wood."

What do Spearhead say about their new release:

"With a reputation for making innovative, much-loved spirits, Spearhead is our latest whisky. Crafted from a single grain, it’s a bit of a rule-breaker when compared to other whiskies. We don’t believe in the binary decision between following or breaking rules. We believe there’s a third choice: writing your own as you go. 

Tradition, heritage and time-honoured practices can produce the world’s finest whiskies. Fact. But for every rule that must be obeyed and every statute that must be honoured you lose an ounce of originality and a spark of free spirit. Imagine what the forefathers and foremothers of whisky could have done with all the modern wonders of the spirits world!

We’re truly grateful to conventional scotch for giving us our starting point. But we see it as just that, a starting point. 

With Spearhead, we chose to take a new path. One that involves a cooperage in Kentucky, who help us select custom toast levels for our infrared toasted barrels. Toast levels that are set to a profile which extract properties in the wood to give sweet notes. Notes that are near impossible to come by with traditional toasting. As for the result? Let the tasting do the talking. We couldn’t be happier with our end product. And we’re sure you’ll agree."

So how does this differ from their other Single Grain releases - the Single Grain and Peated Single Grain? I'll do a side by side soon but the obvious differences are the branding, the ABV (43% rather than 46%), chill-filtering, added colour and at the end of the day it's purpose.

This isn't a dram aimed at the traditional single malt (or grain) whisky drinker - it's in competition with the likes of Haig Club as a mixer or cocktail base. Spearhead list a number of long drinks on their website all with suitably branded names : Spear & Beer, Rusty Spear, Spear Med, Peach Head and Spear Club!

I'm not one for cocktails, preferring my whisky neat, so let's see what it's like:

Distillery notes:

How exactly do we get that truly untraditional taste? Well, our whisky starts life as 100% malted barley. The barley is given an extended fermentation time of 92 hours before being distilled in our copper Coffey style still. Yup. Not a pot still in sight. The copper Coffey still operates continuously. And the continuous process allows us to make a lighter style of spirit without compromising on quality – which is completely unique in the world of Scotch whisky.

As for maturation? We knew exactly what we were doing when we teamed up with a cooperage in Kentucky. Using ex-bourbon barrels, the cooperage selects custom toast levels for the (almost unheard of) infrared toasted barrels. The result? A sweeter, lighter, scotch that’s made to be more mixable. That’s made to be different.

Nose : violet floral notes, dark berries - blackcurrant and blackberry, vanilla pods, caramel, dark chocolate

Taste : velvety mouthfeel rolls over the tongue. Red apple with lime citrus, vanilla fudge and light brown sugar

Finish : long smooth and sweet with melted brown sugar

My thoughts:

Appearance: Coloured - mid gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thick line and fall as slow thick legs.

      

 

Nose: Berries and milk chocolate - honey gives a sweetness. There's some vanilla notes and a ginger spice. Although it's made for mixing it's a pleasant enough nose.

Palate: Smooth and sweet on the palate, a little thin as you'd expect from 43% chill filtered but full of flavour - vanilla and orchard fruit - apples, apricots and stewed pears, there's no sign of the berries from the nose replaced instead by brown sugar and lemon zest. Then, as the liquid disappears, there's a satisfying warmth and a lovely kick of ginger spice.

Finish: Long sweet and spicy finish.

Thoughts:  Ok it's not going to set your world on fire - but it's not meant for whisky geeks like you and I - but what it is is an easy if not dangerously drinkable summer dram!  Sweet and fruity with a kick of spice. There's no smoke notes even though he casks have been charred - the fire charring must have been very light, the infrared toasting instead giving chocolate notes - milk for me rather than the dark that the official tasting notes suggest. Worth £30 of anyone's money and if you are into cocktails then let me know how it does! 

 

Geeky stuff:

What is toasting / charring?

A cooperage can control the toasting / charring process for light, medium, medium-plus, and heavy chard/toasts. The intensity and duration of the heat and the amount of time the peak temperature is maintained affects the cask and the resulting matured spirit. Charring helps to break down the structure of the oak allowing easier, and deeper, penetration by the spirit. The charcoal layer which is created also acts as a filtration system, helping to remove unwanted flavours, such as sulphur, from the new spirit.

Charring also increases the levels of vanilla flavours and spiciness, the heavier the char the lower the levels of tannin and oak lactones. each time a cask is reused the impact on flavours from toasting or charring reduces therefore many casks are recharred between uses.

There are four main char levels, simply graded from numbers 1-4, with the lower number representing a shorter exposure to heat and softer char level: No.1 Char: 15 seconds, No.2 Char: 30 seconds, No.3 Char: 45 seconds, No.4 Char: 55 seconds ('Alligator' char)

Toasting is slower at a lower temperature: 15 minutes of firing produces light toasting, 30 minutes medium, 45 minutes heavy

The picture below shows 7 staves : Untouched, lightly toasted, heavily toasted and char levels 1 to 4.

Photo: BourbonR Blog

What is infrared toasting?

It's the use of infrared rather than fire to toast a cask. A horizontal apparatus is inserted into the barrel before the heads are put on. The energy from the short wavelengths and long wavelengths toasts the inside and the surface of the staves at different rates. 

Photo: Independent Stave Company

Infrared toasting isn't new, Buffalo Trace released a whiskey as part of their “Experimental Collection” series in 2016.

Traditional toasting and charring has been done by using a naked flame, infrared is a more efficient and controllable process, World Cooperage explain:

"Radiation is a form of heat transfer which exists in quite a broad spectrum. In fact, the tool which we use to classify radiation is known as the electromagnetic spectrum.

The electromagnetic spectrum depicts the variance of electromagnetic waves as it relates to their frequency or wavelength. It just so happens that as the wavelength varies so does the total energy. As the wavelength of electromagnetic waves become shorter, the amount of energy carried by the waves intensifies. The intensity varies greatly across the spectrum.

Next, we should define a term known as absorptivity. In heat transfer, absorptivity is a term that describes how well an object or material absorbs electromagnetic radiation. The absorptivity of an object will change depending on the wavelength of the radiation it is being subjected to and can be measured along a scale of 0 to 1 (correlating from 0% absorbed to 100% absorbed.) This fact is key for our purposes. We can use human skin as a great example. The sun emits radiation across three different bands: infrared, visible and UV radiation. It just so happens that our skin is significantly more reflective than it is absorbent across the visible and infrared bands but more absorbent of UV radiation emission. This is one reason why UV radiation is hazardous to our skin.

In much the same way our skin absorbs one wavelength and reflects another, the absorptivity of the oak wood in our barrels can vary depending on the type of radiation we apply to it, whether fire or infrared. This is the essence behind our infrared toasting machine. We have designed a toasting apparatus that differs from oak fire toasting in two main ways:

1. It operates across a different range of the electromagnetic spectrum 

2. We can precisely vary the wavelength since we have multiple emitters attached to the apparatus that function at different wavelengths.

We can utilize various wavelength combinations to create new, unique profiles. For example, shorter wavelengths penetrate the surface of the wood and toast deeper within the wood layers, whereas longer wavelengths reflect more, and thus, toast the outer layers of wood. Utilization of this technology also allows us to create high impact barrels without smoke – something that can be quite challenging to do with fire toasting. Infrared toasting is a very precise method of toasting that creates high levels of consistency for our winemakers. It is not more beneficial than toasting with fire, or vice versa. They are simply different ways of treating the barrel to bring about new and varied flavor profiles."

The key differences between fire and infrared seem to be controllability and it's impact on flavour - without the smoke producing fire, infrared toasting offers a more chocolaty note and helps bring out more of the spice from the oak.

More Geeky bits:

As well as whisky and spreadsheets I also have a passion for maps! The Spearhead logo contains a set of coordinates:

As expected this puts you outside the Loch Lomond Distillery!