Mouth Vatting

Vatting your own malts is an activity that many enthusiasts often experiment with during whisky tastings.  The now defunct MASS group created some very tasty drams including Macalsiker and Ardfarclas.    Loco Barley has hosted vatting parties and here is a link to his infamous "Vatting in the Vat Cave with Slur Dave of the Local Barley" party held in 2005 (I created some foul oily vattings that party for sure - stilll have some samples if anyone is interested in experiencing an example of my "special talent" of being able to unerringly create a whole that's consistently less than the sum of its parts.)

PLOWED is always looking for the edge and S'tan found it at Whisky Hill Dram Jam in 2003 when he demonstrated the now infamous mouth vatting technique.  No guessing here, you simply jack directly into the drams (think The Matrix here) and adjust the components on the fly.  Here are a series of photos "demon"strating another of S'tan's unholy talents.

Don't try this without a spotter the first few times, it's trickier than it looks!

Proud to be PLOWED!

  S'tan announces he's about to debut a new PLOWED dramming technique

He raises the glasses with an obviously evil glee...  I think he's been practicing!

   S'tan carefully begins to mouthvat and delicately tweaks the component proportions

You notice the glass in his right hand is now providing a larger proportion.

The mouth vatting complete - he carefully disengages.

Success!  Another PLOWED legend is born.

I need to check my tasting notes from this event to document what WAS in those glasses, but as you can see in this photo he had plenty of raw material to choose from that day on Whisky Hill (and any other day for that matter).

Well done S'tan - you ARE de'mon!

last update on 01/11/2009