Young Whisky

How about a peated malt whisky from Oregon, which is not a town in Scotland, but is actually a state on the west coast, near the Pacific Ocean? And how about a malted whisky that’s only three years old, but is still remarkably tasty? The whisky I’m referring to is McCarthy’s, distilled at the Clear Creek distillery in Oregon. I really know nothing about this whisky, other than the fact that Ben at White House recommended it to me, and then what little I’ve learned about it from drinking it, and reading its label, along with the Clear Creek web site.

So here’s what I can tell you. It tastes pretty darn good. It’s not Macallan or Highland Park, but I’ve had several malts that don’t have the flavor of this upstart. I recall tasting Deanston, for example, or some of the much-too-mild Glenlivets, which don’t begin to match up to the malty character of this whisky. The Clear Creek folks say they are making a peated whisky, in the style of Islay malts, but McCarthy’s has more of a hint of peat, than any overpowering peaty flavor. In other words, it’s not Lagavulin or Laphroaig either. But to say that a whisky is not Macallan or Lagavulin isn’t necessarily to criticize the whisky. In fact, that McCarthy’s even aspires to be compared to these malts speaks well of the care and effort that the distiller has taken in introducing this malt to the market. According to the label, it spends some time in Oregon wood barrels, and who knows what that’s supposed to taste like, or why anyone even cares about that, but there is a bit of a woody character to the whisky. More importantly, after it’s been in the barrel longer, once they have enough product to be selling ten or twelve or fifteen year old McCarthy’s, it ought to be a hell of a whisky.

Here’s the big thing, as far as I’m concerned. It wasn’t that long ago, during my lifetime in fact, that American beer was lousy – bland, homogenized, uninteresting. Today, while it might not be as good as what one can find on tap in Prague, domestic brews are often better than the European product that gets imported into this country. Same for wines. I recall when domestic wines couldn’t hold a candle to their European counterparts, but no longer. So maybe before too long, we’ll have small distilleries in this country making whisky that matches up to the storied Highland malts. After all, our better bourbons are among the world’s best spirits. So try to find a bottle of McCarthy’s, because for the foreseeable future, I don’t think it will show up behind the bar at, say, P.F. Changs.