“Ultimately you only learn by doing it,” Julieann Fernandez says brightly. Along with master distiller Brendan McCarron, we’ve rendezvoused at Highland single malt Scotch distillery Deanston, and we’re chatting matchmaking. However, this isn’t about a quest for human connection. More edifyingly, this is about spirit – specifically, matching distillate with cask types. Which, it turns out, can be just as unpredictable as pairing up people.
On the surface, it’s fairly straightforward. To be called Scotch whisky, new-make spirit must be aged in oak casks no larger than 700 litres for at least three years. In Scotland, of course. But with more than 140 distilleries and myriad approaches across the country, there is more to maturation than meets the eye.
Luckily for Distell – the parent company for, among others, Deanston, Islay distillery Bunnahabhain, and island site Tobermory, which also produces peated malt Ledaig – it has the McCarron-Fernandez duo looking after the cask matchmaking. Fernandez is the master blender. She joined the business in April 2017 from Chivas Brothers
