Pairing Cigars & Alcohol – Stalla Dhu Fettercairn 15 Year Old
Cigars and alcohol. Two luxury products that go hand in hand, and sometimes even meet on business level. Aging tobacco in whisky, rum, or cognac barrels is a practice several brands do to achieve extra flavour to the wrapper for certain lines. The famous bourbon brand Maker’s Mark has their own cigar, sold in tubes with the signature wax coating. Drew Estate works with Pappy van Winkle and used to make Kahlua cigars. Mombacho used to have the Diplomatico series but Mombacho no longer exists. General Cigars works with Sazerac, which resulted in Fireball cigars, Weller by Cohiba and collaborations with Buffalo Trace. And there is the Diesel Whisky Row, a collaboration with Rabbit Hole Distilleries. Fratello Cigars also sells craft beer. Most famous are probably the Cuban collaboration between Martell Cognac and Cohiba. Dominique London, the European retailer with more than 20 shops in the UK, Belgium, Switzerland and the Canary Islands takes it one step further. They bought a distillery in Wales and produce whisky, gin, rum, vodka and liquors.
Stalla Dhu Fettercairn 15 Year Old
Fettercairn Distillery was founded in 1824 by Alexander Ramsay, owner of the Fasque estate, who converted a corn mill at Nethermill into a distillery. After losing his fortune, Alexander was forced to sell the estate to the Gladstone family in 1829. The distillery is operated by Whyte & Mackay, which Philippines-based Alliance Global owns. Fettercairn is a pure spirit which is crafted by its unique stills and forged through temperate maturation. Within its process, the distillery uses a unique irrigator ring that surrounds the stills which drenches the still to deliver only the purest spirit.
The Stalla Dhu Fettercairn 15 Year Old is a single cask bottling. The spirit was distilled in 2006 and bottled in 2022. The ABV of this whisky is 46% and it’s been aged in a barrel cask type with number 206/107720.
Neat
In a Glencairn glass, this whisky has a nose of fruit. Bananas, tropical fruit, and some dark spices like nutmeg. There isn’t much ethanol on the nose. The whisky itself has spice and heat, with fruity flavours like apricot. There is also some oak and some citrus. The long finish has nutty and spicy characteristics. This will go well with an Oliva series V or another strong cigar with an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper.
In a rocks glass, the nose is milder and the banana now has a bit of an sour apple aroma with it. I get a bit more citrus on the nose. The whisky does pack a bit more power though, a bit more spicy without losing the apricot and oak. A warm whisky, with depth and full of flavour. A great whisky for colder days and paired with a stronger cigar, something like an Asylum or Casa Magna, and you’ll have a great day.
Old Fashioned
The nose is classic Old Fashioned, orange, orange, orange and orange. Warm winter cocktail, with ginger and spice, a hint of orange and bitterness. The sugar balances the cocktail, this is a great whisky for an old fashioned. A stronger cigar would be best. For Cubans I would try a Cohiba Robusto, for non-Cubans, maybe a Brick House by J.C. Newman or Flores y Rodriguez CVR.
And now for the Old-Fashioned recipe:
1 sugar cube
3 dashes of Angostura bitters
2 oz or 60 ml of whisky
orange peel
Put the sugar cube in a highball glass, add the dashes of bitters and a splash of water. Muddle the sugar cube. Add ice and the whisky. Stir for 10 seconds, then add an orange peel.
Brown Derby
The classic Brown Derby cocktail features bourbon, grapefruit juice and honey syrup. That trio of simple ingredients belies the complex taste of the drink, in which honey bridges the gap between tart citrus and spicy bourbon to produce an intricate combination that has stood the test of time. But since I am running low on recipes for Scotch cocktails, I decided to create the Brown Derby with this Stalla Dhu Fettercairn 15 Year Old
According to the 2002 book The Craft of the Cocktail by bartending legend Dale DeGroff, the Brown Derby was created in the 1930s at the Vendôme Club in Los Angeles, and named for the hat-shaped diner that was located nearby. However, the cocktail’s origin gets a bit murky from there. The Brown Derby appeared in the book Hollywood Cocktails, published in 1933. But it also appeared under a different name, the De Rigueur Cocktail, in British bartender Harry Craddock’s classic 1930 tome, The Savoy Cocktail Book. Did the former book steal the recipe from the latter and change its name? Were two similar drinks with the same recipe created independently by different people and given different names? (source: liquor.com)
Grapefruit dominates the nose with a bit of the honey from the honey syrup. The warmth of the whisky is still there, but it’s less of a winter cocktail than the old fashioned or the neat versions of the Stalla Dhu Fettercairn 15 Year Old. The honey syrup brings sweetness while the grapefruit adds a freshness and citrus flavour. This is a well-balanced and tasty cocktail that tastes better than the name sounds. Almost any medium to medium full bodied cigar will do, especially ones with creamy notes.
And now for the Brown Derby recipe:
1½ ounce or 45ml of whisky
1 ounce or 30ml of Grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed
½ ounce or 15 ml of honey syrup
Garnish: Grapefruit twist
Add the whisky, grapefruit juice and honey syrup in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until chilled. Double strain into a cocktail glass and express the oils of the grapefruit twist over the drink before dropping the twist in the glass.
Inspector X
