My friend Nigel collects high end single malt scotch whisky.  Recently he was considering purchasing an expensive bottle, during his research he came across this review:

Nose: Rhubarb and custard, stewed red fruits, blackberries and ginger. Strawberry & cream boiled sweets and notes of barley sugar.

Palate: Barley water, summer berries and red apples. Peat embers, goat’s cheese and black tea.

Finish: Becomes fairly dry with coastal notes and billowing peat. Rosemary and thyme focaccia, leather and tobacco leaves. 

There are only two ingredients in Scotch Whisky- Barley and Water.

How is it possible to get so many flavors from just these two ingredients?

Malt whisky is matured in casks previously used for port or sherry.  Here is my theory how all these flavors got inside the finished bottle:

Rhubarb and custard– The brewer was eating leftovers for his lunch and spilled some rhubarb and custard into the mash.

Stewed red fruits– This was secretly added to the port wine barrel to improve the flavor of the very mediocre port. It got soaked into the oak barrel only to come out again when the barrel was used for maturing the whisky.

Blackberries- These were growing in the field next to the barley. According to the distillery, the farmer was eating lunch and he accidentally dropped a few berries into the barley hopper. Well that was all a cover story, he was actually paid huge sums of money by the distillery to sneak blackberries into the harvested barley.  He kept his secret to his deathbed where he whispered it to his son. He carried on his father’s tradition but decided to sell his story to the newspapers. The distillery had a catch and kill deal with the owner of the newspaper so the story was never published. 

Ginger– Nobody added ginger to the process.  The taster did not wash his glass properly and the previous drink in it was a whisky and ginger.

Strawberry and Cream boiled sweets–  The master whisky distiller brought his 9 year old son to work one day.  He got bored and started throwing his boiled sweets around. One landed inside the still.

Barley sugar– A naturally occurring element of barley. Kind of obvious don’t you think?

Barley water– You get this incredible reaction when adding water to barley. How amazing is that?

Summer berries– the taster is repeating himself, we already covered blackberries earlier.

Peat embers– They used burning peat to dry the barley and somebody forgot to put the fire out resulting in the barley being overcooked.

Red apples– The oak tree used for the barrel grew next to an apple tree. Their roots got entangled in a passionate embrace and the spilled juice of an apple soaked into the oak wood.

Goat’s cheese– There was a wedding at a port vineyard and they served goat’s cheese. Somebody dropped a piece of cheese onto a port cask. Over time the cheese wriggled its way through the cracks in the oak and snuggled inside the barrel. The cheese decided to retire inside the barrel and he sipped port every night. The used barrel was sold to a Scottish distillery. The cheese escaped all the quality control inspections and got terribly drunk when the malt whisky was put inside. The couple in the wedding got divorced. 

Black tea– This was never in the whisky, the taster was late for work and he drank black tea in his car while rushing to the tasting job.

Coastal notes and billowing peat– The distillery was on the coast near where a musician lived and he played lots of notes while digging peat in high winds. The musician never became famous and his music died with him.  Many years later tomb robbers discovered his music and sold it to a young musician called Paul McCartney. 

Rosemary and thyme focaccia– This was being served in a Scottish restaurant and some crumbs were picked up by a mouse. On his way home he found a huge pile of barley in the distillery warehouse. The barley looked ever so tempting so he dropped the rosemary and thyme focaccia crumbs and became very fat eating barley.  He lived a long and happy life in the distillery and got drunk every night while swimming in the still. The taster forgot to mention the distinctive flavor of drunk overfed mouse droppings. 

Leather–  The master distiller was a secret BDSM fetishist. He would work alone late at night and secretly dress up in leather bondage gear while drinking enormous quantities of scotch. One night while listening to bagpipe rock and roll music, his ever so sweaty leather jock strap accidentally fell into the still as he was doing the highland fling.

Tobacco Leaves– During tours of the distillery, visitors were allowed to smoke cigars in the tasting room. One visitor gave the tour guide some tobacco leaves instead of leaving a tip. The disgruntled guide put them in a drawer and totally forgot about them but then there was a rare Scottish earthquake which shook the leaves from the drawer followed by an even rarer Scottish hurricane which blew the leaves into the whisky bottling machine. The leaves got stuck in the pipework and soaked their flavor into the flowing whisky. 

There is always a simple explanation for everything.