Loch Lomond Steam & Fire

Just to make things a little more complicated @LochLomondMalts have released a new NAS bottling with completely different packaging from their core range!

Ladies & Gentlemen I give you Steam & Fire!

Steam & Fire along with the tag line "Double Distilled & Heavily Charred" refer to the steam produced during distillation and fire used to char the casks.

Michael Henry explained:

"The Steam is all about how we distil and create flavour in the new make itself. the Fire is about our cooperage and how we are one of few distilleries to look after their wood themselves and it is part of our whisky making knowledge/understanding of how to use wood to shape the flavour. 

The blue is for water / steam showing images of stills / valves etc to build the picture of distillation and the red for fire with the coopering tools to build in the charring element."

The spirit, mainly unpeated but with a small amount of heavily peated, is a combination of spirit  distilled in Loch Lomond's straight neck and swan neck stills then matured in a mix of first fill and refill bourbon before being vatted together and finished in heavily charred American oak barrels for 10 months. Bottled at 46% ABV, non-chill filtered and a first for one of their core range expression at natural colour!

Loch Lomond say:

"Steam and Fire is a celebration of the incredible alchemy and engineering capability of  our distillery and a product of our exploration, experimentation and know-how as master makers, distillers and coopers. 

Loch Lomond Steam & Fire brings to life our diverse distilling process and our bespoke, hand-charred casks from our own time-honoured cooperage, resulting in this truly unique and imaginative whisky. 

Created using spirit from both our remarkable straight neck and more traditional swan neck stills. Then spirit was then matured in American oak casks and finished in heavily charred casks, flamed by our own in-house cooperage. The charring process adds a unique complexity and brings out lots of melted brown sugar character as well as a rich buttery mouthfeel with notes of orange and dark chocolate." 

Bottler thoughts:

Crafted with passion and innovation, this remarkable Single Malt Whisky is finished in heavily charred American Oak casks, which brings out lots of melted brown sugar character as well as a rich buttery mouthfeel with notes of orange and dark chocolate.

Steam & Fire single malt whisky is matured in three types of American Oak casks before a 10 month finish in heavily charred casks which have been fired in our very own award winning on-site cooperage. 

Tasting notes:

Nose: Toffee, apple, fudge, vanilla and cinnamon.

Taste: Silky mouthfeel, orange, peach, marmalade, coffee, melted brown sugar and roasted marshmallow.

Finish: Medium to long finish. Dry with dark chocolate and soft smoke.

My thoughts:

Appearance: Light gold in the glass, swirls leave thin lines which bead up and fall as slow thin oily legs.

Nose: As you'd expected from a Loch Lomond there's huge orchard fruit notes to start: apples, pears, peaches and apricots. A little citrus: orange marmalade; and some sweet honey. There's a little caramel, vanilla ice cream and a gentle hint of smoke.

Palate: Thick sweet arrival: honey and toffee with some dry icing sugar giving sweetness. There's the fruit from the nose - maybe turning a little tropical now? Some dark chocolate, then a big bite of dry spices: ginger, cinnamon and cloves. A lovely spiced orange marmalade note left on the tongue as the liquid disappears.

 

Finish: Lingering sweet fruit, dry icing sugar and a little smoke.

Summary:  This is a new direction for Loch Lomond: a new core range bottling, completely different packaging and with a name rather than an age statement - a little like the Open Golf Releases each year or the recent older single grain releases?

 

I liked it - but I'm a fanboy - the Loch Lomond distillery character is there - orchard fruit, gentle smoke, and spice but they've twiddled the dials a little, fruit up, smoke down, spice up!

A little more ABV would have maybe made this standout a little more: 48% or 50% like those single grain releases? but it's perfected drinkable - maybe one to start the evening with before you move on to the single casks?

Let's have a look at the packaging, it's had lots of comments on social media: some favourable, some not so. When I first saw it I was a little taken aback - what's happened to the 'corporate' branding - simple colours and big bold typefaces? 

The bold typeface is still there, as is the shield with the stag's head (whatever happened to it's crown?), but the single colour and bold age statement are gone - now we have two colours and lots of imagery. The blue showing "Steam"ing distillery equipment: mash tun, straight and swan neck pot stills, a spirit safe and a few valves and pipes. The red showing "Fire" cooperage imagery: cask hoops, casks being charred and tools of the Cooper's trade. There's also a strange numeric 36 on the box which I'm assured doesn't mean anything!

To me this doesn't fit in with the other Loch Lomond branding - it would stand out well on a supermarket shelf but this isn't a supermarket dram - it's meant for us whisky drinkers - it was exclusive at Master Of malt for a couple of weeks. It's 46% NCF and natural colour - a minimum line for most of us but well above supermarket fodder.

But whisky isn't about the packaging it's about the liquid in the bottle, or your glass when you pour a dram. This one doesn't disappoint, complex nose and  lovely mouthfeel and a little out of the box when it comes to 'standard' Loch Lomond's. Give it a try and tell me what you think!

I'm thinking there's some new faces in the marketing department - the new videos are a little different for Loch Lomond too: