Talk:Single malt Scotch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Single malt Scotch is a former good article candidate. There are suggestions below for which areas need improvement to satisfy the good article criteria. Once the objections are addressed, the article can be renominated as a good article. If you disagree with the objections, you can seek a review.
Date of review: No date specified. Please edit template call function as follows: {{FailedGA|insert date in any format here}} |
 |
This article is a former featured article. Please see its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed. |
 |
Single malt Scotch appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 26, 2004. |
 |
Single malt Scotch is within the scope of WikiProject Scotland, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Scotland and Scotland-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page. | ||
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale. | ||
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale. | ||
|
Article Grading: |
|||
|
WikiProject Scotland To-do:
|
|||
See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Malt Whisky, a form that can be used to review tasting notes.
Came here because of the Featured Articles nomination. A technical question presents itself: Just when does the bulk of the starch get broken down? I suppose that kilning would denature the enzyme; so all the sugar production would take place in the Malting step; is this right? Then the Mashing section says that the hot water dissolves all the sugar and starch; but starch isn't soluble in water. Does some more starch get broken down here by the enzymes, or is this just a misprint, and should it just say that the sugar is dissolved?
Nice article; after some minor copy editing, I'll vote for its inclusion. Dandrake 07:33, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)
More tehcnicalities: is it actually phenol, C6H5OH, that is contributed by the smoke? Or is it a complex mix of phenols (various similar compounds)? I'd suspect the latter, since the flavors are so variable that more than one compound would probably be involved. Dandrake 07:41, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)
There's nothing here about the mystique of the water used in making whisky. (Falls on granite, trickles through peat, or it's not good enough for whisky.) Has this gone out of fashion? I know that many years ago when Inverness was considering fluoridaton of the water supply, obections were raised that it might interfere with the making of whisky (mainly or entirely mere grain whisky in this case). How serious that was, I don't know, but it did appear in the papers. And the magical water was one of the popular explanations for why no one could quite duplicate Scotch whisky. Dandrake 07:55, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)
- About the conversion from starch to sugar. If the malting process were to continue untill all the starch was converted to maltose the barley would be at full sprout, the cotyledon would be producing chlorophyl, and the resulting whisky would be very bitter. The kilning temperature is controlled so that the malt is never at a temp that would denature the enzymes needed to breakdown the starch. It takes several hours to dry the malt, up to 24 hours. Every refrence I have available to me suggests that the enzyme breaks down the starch during the mashing process, but you're right, the starch is broken down by enzymes and then disolves, not the other way around. I'll go fix that now.
-
- I've made beer, and it starts out starchy and winds up sweet. The temperature of mashing is critical in the nature of the beer - the malting produces alpha and beta amylases - alpha nibbles a single glucose off the end of a starch, while beta takes bigger bites. More alpha amylase activity gives beer more fermentable sugar, but beta makes malto-dextrins for "mouth feel". How, exactly, that plays out in whisky is not obvious to me.
-
- I've also lived with a distillery in town - they have a unique smell, not particularly pleasant to most people. Henry Troup 00:11, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- I think you're right, it's more than one phenol. I, as a biochemist, should have realized that such complex flavors could not come from one chemical, but I got caught up in the refrences always refering to phenol level, not phenols. I could go run an analysis on some Scotch to make sure, but why waste the Scotch? There must be literature out there somewhere in a peer reviewed journal describing such a test. Hmmm, more research, yippie. Fortunatly, that's another easy fix to make. Thanks for the input, and the copyedits. Gentgeen 08:07, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I put in a section on water, including the water source being the main consideration for placing the new Arran Distillery, which I hope covers "mystique" regarding water. As I don't fully understand it myself, (I'd use distilled or deionized water for production, so I could get consistent results, but that's why I'm a scientist, not a distiller) I must have left it out subconciously. Gentgeen 08:23, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Oh I did have one question. Does mashing involve mashing (like potatoes) or is it being used like in N England where you "mash the tea", which similarly involves hot water rather than beating/squashing. fabiform | talk 15:35, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- It's mashing as is done for beer production, hot water is used to get the desired compounds out of the grist, so "mash the tea" is probibly the right idea. The grist is about the same texture as cracked wheat, not creamy like mashed potatoes. Gentgeen
And it might be a good idea to take the link to the wikiproject out of the article, it leads to a template with items such as "another fake link" etc, which I don't suppose was intedted to be seen by readers. fabiform | talk 00:01, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I don't know. By clicking that link, readers and taken to a page that asks them to become editors. They are encourgaed to add tasting notes to the various whisky pages. Because of that link I went from doing copyedits to adding pages back when I was a newbie. Gentgeen
Regarding the lack of photos - despite my being in at least four different distilleries in the last year, I seem to have neglected to take a single photo (as such thinks are surely only for the touristas). I've emailed my companions to see if they have anything decent they're willing to GFDL/PD. Also, I think I can get a decent product shot tomorrow (sun), assuming it's sunny enough. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:58, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I got decent shot of Royal Brackla in the bottle today, will upload it tomorrow. Gentgeen 02:11, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Contents |
[edit] Title of the article
This might sound pernickity, but shouldn't the title of this article be 'Single malt whisky'? The word "scotch" is an Americanism - I know it's widely understood, but the as the originators of the drink, the Scottish themselves, would not call it "scotch", shouldn't the Wikipedia follow their usage? If people agree, I'd be happy to rename the page and make the appropriate choices in all the links.Katherine Shaw 15:31, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
- Scotch Whisky is correct. Plenty of Scots call it Scotch. See http://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/ . If you call a Scotman "Scotch" though, then you're asking for trouble. You can get single malt Irish Whiskey (note the 'e') and I think an article about that would be better of being called Single malt Irish whiskey than Single malt Irish whiskey, so maybe there is an argument to move the page to Single malt Scotch Whisky, but I don't think it's necessary. Mintguy (T)
-
- I've just come across this article. I too was surprised to see it under "Single malt Scotch". I always refer to it as "Single malt whisky", and would never ask for it as a scotch. (Also, the S in scotch should not be capitalised anyway, jguk 21:11, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
-
-
- Given that single malt whisky clearly states that there are other single malts, obviously the move is a bad idea. Even if I was surprised to find that there are other single malts - WP is there to educate people, not pander to their prejudices and uninformedness. -- AlexR 23:12, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-
-
-
-
- Well, it shouldn't stay at a name which is hardly, if ever, used. What about "Scottish single malt whisky" (though really, I'd prefer just merging the bits on single malt whiskey into an article located at single malt whisky, jguk 23:19, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-
-
- There are many single malt whiskeys that are not scotch, so i believe the two articles need to be seperate, and at their current names. The ever-popular Google test agrees—there are 139,000 hits for "single malt scotch", and only 94,700 for "single malt whisky" and "single malt whiskey" combined.
Foobaz·o<23:32, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps it makes sense to move some of the general material about production, etc., to fill out the article on Single malt whisky. Single malt Scotch could remain to highlight the unique Scottish whisky characteristics, traditions, and individual distilleries. —Michael Z. 2005-03-20 23:44 Z
-
- I'm not really a fan of cutting up a featured article into several articles, but if it can be done well, maintaining the quality of this article, I'd be ok with that. Gentgeen 07:04, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
All scotch is whiskey but not all whiskey is scotch. The article is heavily influened on scotch and I think it should remain that way. If anything, move the non-scotch specifics to another article (single malt whiskey perhaps). Cburnett 07:53, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- What are you on about, no scotch is whiskey! jguk 21:16, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- No, what are you going on about? All scotch is whiskey. Scotch *IS* whiskey made in Scotland. The converse is not true; only some whiskey is made in Scotland so not all whiskey is scotch. Perhaps you've been drinking too much scotch today. Cburnett 22:36, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Oppose the requested move for the same reason as Cburnett. Single Malt Scotch and Single Malt Whiskey are two separate things (one a specific, one a category)...any drunk can tell you that...and I'm a drunk. —ExplorerCDT 14:33, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-
- Therein lies the rub, I'm a connoisseur, jguk 06:46, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Oppose Philip Baird Shearer 17:08, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. Not really a move candidate at the moment - perhaps a vote should be made as to whether it should be merged into single malt whisky (which I think it should). violet/riga (t) 22:09, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I would like to point out that the term Scotch is zealously guarded by the malt whisky producers of Scotland themselves. (And incidentally, also the term glen, judging by their recent lawsuit against Glenora distillery of Nova Scotia.) —Michael Z. 2005-03-27 04:17 Z
From the article:
- "When complete, the liquid has an alcohol content of 5 to 7 per cent by volume, and is now known as either wash or weak beer"
5-7% sounds like bloody strong beer to me. Is "weak beer" a technical term, and if so perhaps the wording can be explained? WikianJim 30 June 2005 17:44 (UTC)
[edit] Robert Stein link
The link to Robert Stein in "History" seems to go to a totally different character. Also Laphroiag is an incorrect spelling in the picture caption where the casks are shown.
[edit] History Update
Diageo (Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Smirnoff) has owned UD and others for at least a few years, bringing something over half the distilaries now under their control.
It's also interesting to note that new ownership of a distillery doesn't always include product.
Examples: What is now Diageo once owned, mothballed and retired Bladnoch. It was then purchased, and reopened with a provision of limited production - but as that was recent, nearly anything bottled is still from Diageo warehouses. Ardbeg (on Islay) which was mothballed by what is now Diageo, then purchased by Glenmorangie, revamped and was put back into production - but up until they started selling the Very Young Ardbeg (aged 4-5yrs) they had to buy stock from Diageo for sales. In both these cases the distilleries have changed enough to suggest a potential change in the future taste.
[edit] Failed GA
Inadequate references. An article like this would benefit from inline citations. Four generic sources in the references is far too little. Good work otherwise. savidan(talk) (e@) 04:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
