Cold filtered Whisky. Was Iain Banks making it up?!
I know that Iain Banks is knowledgeable about whisky. Is this complaint by a fictional character based on a truth in reality?
Answers: In Iain Banks' book "Complicity", the central character complains about Scottish whisky distillers bowing to pressure from American customers and cold filtering their product so that it won't go cloudy when ice is added. He (the character that is) says that this process destroys the complexity of taste in the drink.
I know that Iain Banks is knowledgeable about whisky. Is this complaint by a fictional character based on a truth in reality?
Cloudy versus Clear
A whiskey is distilled at below 160 Proof to retain more of the flavor from the grains it was made from. Those flavors are transferred through the distilling process as fatty molecules (flavor oils). Some distillers will sacrifice a certain amount of flavor for clarity at this point, and chill filter their whiskies to remove some of these fatty molecules. They get a very clear whiskey, but in the process remove some of the flavor. Stranahan’s does not chill filter our whiskey, so sometimes under ice or cold Colorado outdoor conditions, our whiskey may show some “cloudiness”. This does not mean the whiskey is defective. On the contrary, it is proof we have imparted as much flavor to the whiskey as our art will allow.