10 Things You Should Know About Chivas Regal

Posted On May 6, 2020 By admin With Comments Off

Aberdeen

Sure, in high school terms, “single malt” is the transfer theater kid who also shapes the varsity football team — crusty, incubating, and unapproachable at first, he’ll win you over and make your lunch coin. But that doesn’t impel merged Scotch whisky a hyper-approachable, insipidly friendly, “sign-my-yearbook-or-I’ll-scream” airhead.

Witness: Chivas Regal, which debuted Stateside in 1909 as a 25 year-old self-described “luxury” merged Scotch whisky( in a pretty lustrou bottle , no less ). For over a century in the U.S. grocery, Chivas has sketched on a better quality and artistry and finesse of coalesced whiskies( its springs tracing back to 1801, but more on that later ). Chivas was so successful in proclaim the message of blended whisky, it’s now acknowledged to be the apex coalesced whisky by the brand professionals( one even wrote a work about it ).

Granted, sales of single malt tided( 9.4 percent since 2002 ), and sales of merged Scotch whisky ever-so-slowly lessened( 0.6 percent in the same reporting period ). But the market follows trends , not excellence. And devoted possibly lower rate stations , now might be the time to invest attention — and maybe 30 bucks — in the first coalesced Scotch that held itself as a admirable shelfmate to single-malt Scotch.

Here are 10 things you should know about Chivas Regal.

Yes, it’s melded. That’s not bad.

Let’s get this out of the room: Chivas is a merged Scotch whisky. That’s not bad, or verboten, or icky. Some clarification on Scotch terminology: “Single malt” means malted barley whisky from one distillery, so any Scotch that isn’t labeled “single malt” is melded, implication induced with a mixture of single malt( s) with cheaper grain-based whiskies.

Heresy? Not actually. Even as merged auctions have dipped since 2002, blended Scotch still attains up 75 percent of the market in the U.S . We desire it, principally because it’s lush and reliably consistent.

The Chivas friends started as grocers. That contents.

John and James Chivas were grocers first, then distillers last-minute, with James as the driving force in the whisky back of the business. This isn’t merely a piece of bio autobiography to blink at a cocktail party. The detail that the Chivases( Chivasae ?) began as grocers suggestions at exactly why they became the specify behind the world’s first indulgence merged( not single-malt) whisky. Think of it from a grocer’s viewpoint: Serving customers daily, chasing after the simultaneous demand for consistency and quality, a blended Scotch clears more sense.

As opposed to finicky, pricier single malteds, mixed Scotch can be a reliable high-end product, if conceptually down a peg from single-malt snobbery. Think of it like getting a Nitro Cold Brew at Starbucks versus waiting 45 times for a coffee yogi to bless your pour-over at Blue Bottle. Both have their selling points.

It’s 100 years younger( or older) than it says.

The Chivas Regal bottle cervix says “Established 1801 Aberdeen.” This is true. But Chivas Regal( so announced) didn’t launch until 1909. That’s also true-life. The ingredients that go into what Chivas Regal is today came at different times: The grocery that became the foundation for the distillery business began in Aberdeen in 1801. The first-ever-christened “Chivas Regal” 25 -year-old coalesced Scotch whisky that launched the label debuted in 1909. Meaning, yes, the brand can lie about its age( and haven’t we all added or reduced off a century at some moment ?).

Chivas Regal comes from the most prolific situate Scotch is concluded.

Chivas Regal is produced at Strathisla Distillery in Speyside, the most prolific Scotch-producing region in the country. And while Scotland has been producing Scotch for half a millennium, give or make, Strathisla is still the oldest running distillery in the Highlands, trimming its first quantity all the way back in 1786. FYI, Chivas didn’t purchase Strathisla until 1950 — it had been mixing with Strathisla’s single malt — but Scotch tourists should be happy they eventually did.

Its distillery is one of the most beautiful in the world.

Any working distillery is beautiful( it grows Scotch whisky,’ nuf said ). And Ron Swanson does his whisky tourism single-mindedly. But Strathisla Distillery repeatedly shows up on “Most Beautiful Distillery” rosters, and with good reason. There’s something about the squatting, cottage-like stone structure with its sloping cupola ceilings that draws it look like a Hogwarts-meets-Hobbiton dreamland( plus Scotch ).

Chivas Regal is like Benjamin Button.

The Chivas brothers got their start in the mid-1 9th century, but “Chivas Regal, ” the first-ever luxury whisky brand, was born in 1909 as the brainchild of Chivas master blenders Charles Howard and Alexander Smith. Its American debut was a smash, but Prohibition put an end to all our whisky-fueled Charleston-ing until 1938, when Chivas Regal came back, half as old-time, the 12 -year baseline formulation available today.

Chivas 18 -Year is likely the better investment.

Chivas 12 -year is reliably smooth and delicately sweet, laced with Speyside constituents like chewy fruit and even hints of papery nutshell, but two-note grain whisky can blacken a bit too hot. Things tend to get more interesting, and closer to Chivas’s O.G. luxury vibe, with the 18 -year expression, the personal creation of Chivas modern-era master blender Colin Scott.

Granted, expenditures just about double for this bottle, from the $30 array to the $ 70 assortment, but if you’re looking to convince anyone of the seductive prowess of a well-curated blend, it’s worth the splurge( gues outcome, feathery spice, toffee, dried citrus peel, etc .).

Chivas Regal turned its blends into art. 3D DNA biographies, to be precise.

Another reason to sip and suffice the 18 -Year is that you can chuck out this intel: Looking to create harmony or only muddle everyone, in 2016 Chivas debuted Chivas ULTIS, a “Blended Malt” — a mixture, yes, but a merge of single malteds from five different distilleries( though technically it’s genuinely a vatting and not a blending when it’s combining single malts merely ).

To honor the accomplishment, Chivas partnered with a company that specializes, among other things, in turning DNA molecules into — what else? — 3D prowes, making five different digital DNA “portraits” for the five master blenders from the five distilleries that contributed to ULTIS. The make is this, which is uniquely fascinating and emphatically attains us are intended to suck more.( If you want to try to make sense of it, then hand out, here “theres going” .)

It exhausted the first mizunara oak-aged Scotch in the States.

Chivas doesn’t shy away from the prized or persnickety( appreciate aforementioned DNA 3D artistry ). Case in object: In 2019, Chivas released the first mizunara-aged coalesced Scotch in the Government, meaning a portion of what’s in the bottle has aged in mizunara oak, the combined effects of two Asian oak trees that’s highly porous and prone to more barrel interaction. Reviews are generally positive , noting flavors like sweetness and soft flora, wood, vanilla, spiciness, toffee, tropical outcome records, and “delicious complexity.” Yum. Likewise stealing that for Tinder profile.

Hunter S. Thompson drank it for breakfast.

According to this Associated Press article reprint of a Thompson biography, our very own( and much-mourned) frenetic scribe started his period with Chivas at 3 p. m ., did some, er, other trash, then hit up Chivas again at 3:50. Bear in psyche, this is Hunter S. Thompson, so “breakfast” is a relative word. In any case, Thompson proved even a “luxury” whisky could be responsibly incorporated into a operating journalist’s daily routine.

Those who don’t read the unspeakable — perhaps apocryphal — daily uptake diary carefully might miss the “three or four jiggers of Chivas” lashed over shredded ice as the finale to Thompson’s bacchanalian lunch, for digestion and/ or final damnation. P.S .: Do not try this at home. He wasn’t an exclusively joyful guy.

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