For most scotch drinkers, it’s new single-malt releases, not blended scotch, that are cause for excitement. After all, single malts are exclusive by nature, showcasing a particular blend of ingredients barrel-aged in a particular environment for a particular number of years. All those Johnnie Walkers, Dewars and Famous Grouses, the big blends, are popular for their consistency as opposed to their exclusivity.
So when the word spread last year that a so-called triple-malt scotch was being rolled out stateside in early 2012, the reaction from the bartending and purist scotch-sipping communities was peculiar. They were excited. Very excited. Even more peculiar was the name of the product: Monkey Shoulder.
Named after a once common injury among distillery workers of yore, whose ceaseless hours of hand-turning malt with a wooden shovel meant it felt at the end of the day as if there were a monkey on their shoulder, the stuff has been around for more than five years in London, where it’s been embraced as both a mixer in cocktails and served on the rocks. Its price point falls comfortably between blends and single malts (about $30 in most markets), lending Monkey Shoulder appeal to both hardcore single-malt scotch drinkers and those who don’t want their Blood and Sand to taste like it’s mixed with bottom-shelf booze.
Au contraire: Monkey Shoulder, now available nationally, is a blend of some of the finest single malts in Scotland’s Speyside region, known for incredibly soft, smooth and sweet whiskies. Among the potential breeders are household-name distilleries such as Glenfiddich and The Balvenie, but we’ll never know for sure if those are in the makeup of a given bottle. Especially for a blended scotch, balance is much more important than brands, says Brian Kinsman, master blender at Scotland’s William Grant & Sons.
“The key is definitely the flavor,” says Kinsman. “We’re looking for a bit of malty character, lots of vanilla, then that fruity-floral aspect.” To achieve it, Kinsman personally samples every single cask in any number of a dozen or so Speyside distilleries. For Monkey Shoulder, he never blends more than three whiskies at a time, lending it the unique “triple-malt” classification, and the end product is a combination of 27 casks reflecting 6- to 12-year-old sauce.
“From Day One, (Monkey Shoulder) was about creating something flexible and accessible,” Kinsman says. “I’ll go through hundreds of casks, and we may find that we need a little more vanilla, or a little more fruit. So if you’ve got three (whiskies), each with a little natural variation, to get them to the same endpoint each time, you have to pick and choose. We’re always trying to get the best bits.”
