Heh ok time for my Ralfy rant. Ralfy is ... odd. He'll argue about the price of whisky being too high one day then another that supermarkets are lowballing the price and ruining its prestige. He speaks very authoritatively on many subjects but occasionally you'll catch him talking about a topic you're familiar with and you realise he's just talking shite. An example being his review of Bulleit Bourbon where he waxed poetic about it being this little authentic Bourbon, or something along those lines, then obviously he got called out and followed it up with a rant about how he had been deceived by Bulleit when really he should've just known better (the issue is that Bulleit use a fairly common model of having a large distillery in Indiana called MGP to make their whiskey, which you then bottle + brand yourself. It's not dishonest or sinister, but it's certainly not some cosy family business).

At times it's quite painful to watch him glassy-eyed, half-drunk, sorta slurring and struggling for words. If you've spent any length of time in Scottish pubs you'll have met guys like Ralfy and they're tbh quite annoying :D

Sure he can be "odd", but I find him entertaining all the same. And as with all things "internet" don't rely on the word of one person.

I'll address your price of whisky comment in reverse:

> then another that supermarkets are lowballing the price and ruining its prestige.

From my interpretation, he's arguing that product dumped into the supermarkets, duty free etc is generic and unexciting (even if it is consistent). It's cheapo Scotch produced on an industrial scale that's heavily processed, and he's mostly right about that. Because this stuff is "cheap" it detracts from the attention that better whiskies should maybe get.

> He'll argue about the price of whisky being too high one day

I think he's talking about a couple of things here. One is industrial scale producers passing off certain whiskies as if they're smaller batch and playing to the myth and mystery of Scotch to the less well informed and charging a premium for what is just a higher strength version of their supermarket lines. We've seen this happen with the craft beer scene along with deceptive marketing.

Secondly a good chunk of decent whisky ends up in collections for investment purposes and pushes up the price of what is available to purchase and be able to actually drink.

To each his own, I probably like a bunch of stuff you don’t - nothing wrong with that. I just never met anyone to share my Ralfy thoughts on so these thoughts just bounce around in my head with no outlet - my friends are either not into whisky or are not interested in watching videos about it on YouTube :-)

Restated, the argument over price makes more sense. Perhaps he elaborates on the point over more videos (only watched 50 or so) so maybe I just caught small snippets of the point .

I'm maybe kinda lucky in that my dad worked in the business for ~40 years, from lowly warehouseman all the way up to distillery manager. I also worked as a warehouseman and in the filling store filling casks in my early twenties for a brief stint. I've seen how the sausage is made and have gotten to hear the skinny on "internal matters" that others maybe wouldn't, and get the jist of the points he makes about the industry.

But he's an acquired taste for sure :)

My understanding is that MGP makes rye whiskey for just about everyone because of the complexity of dealing with rye grain (not a distiller; can't offer more detail). Many distilleries make their own bourbon or other American-styles whiskies including Tennessee-style, etc.

Some brands of non-rye whiskey are, of course, contract-distilled just like most of the rye whiskey. I don't know whether Bulleit Bourbon is contract-distilled or made in-house. I do know it makes a pretty fine Manhattan. I would be surprised if Bulleit Rye is made in house.

You can still probably produce a unique and good "craft" product even using spirit from large scale spirit producers such as MGP.

In Scotland it's not uncommon to see "independent" bottlers. These are specialist companies that will take spirit from mainstream distilleries and then mature the whisky in their own casks. After maturation these independent bottlers will bottle under their own branding and possibly choose more traditional post processing. e.g. choosing not to add caramel colouring (E150A) or choosing not to use chilled filtration. You often end up with a much different product than that of the distillery you sourced your raw spirit from.

Maybe this is what Bulleit are doing?

> The bulk of Scotch whisky production, both single malt and blended, is aimed at filling supermarket shelves because that's where the highest volumes of sales and profit come from. These products are not aimed at enthusiasts.

Yes. The paper, however, implies that even enthusiasts dilute their whisky further below 40% ABV. For a nerdy article, that's missing most of the "enthusiast" market segment.

It is still common to add a couple of drops even if it's already at 40%

Many enthusiasts do, like myself. There are very few whiskies I don't prefer with a tiny drop of tap water. It really depends on the whisky.

This one is 50%, and quite tasty:

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/308475536