Glenfarclas 10 Year Old Gift Pack with Free Snood
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£
Glenfarclas 10 Year Old Gift Pack with Free Snood is a 10 year old single malt whisky from the Glenfarclas...
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Spirit Caramel (E150A)
If you’d rather the complete list you can find it here, be warned it takes a while to load though!
Glenlivet Blairgowrie 17 Year Old
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£199
Glenlivet Blairgowrie 17 Year Old is a 17 year old single malt whisky from the Glenlivet whisky distillery (located in...
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Lagavulin 1990 Distillers Edition
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£550
Lagavulin 1990 Distillers Edition is a 19 year old single malt whisky from the Lagavulin whisky distillery (located in the...
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Linlithgow 1982 25 Year Old Silver Seal
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£750
Linlithgow 1982 25 Year Old Silver Seal is a 25 year old single malt whisky from the St Magdalene whisky...
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Macduff 1997 21 Year Old Old Particular
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£95.25
Macduff 1997 21 Year Old Old Particular is a 21 year old single malt whisky from the Macduff whisky distillery...
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Mortlach 1991 27 Year Old Signatory 30th Anniversary
E150A Free
Our best price:
£525
Mortlach 1991 27 Year Old Signatory 30th Anniversary is a 42 year old single malt whisky from the Mortlach whisky...
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Something Special /1950s
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£399
Something Special /1950s is a blended whisky. The best price currently available is from The Whisky Exchange for only £399.0...
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Strathclyde 1990 28 Year Old Sovereign Single Grain Scotch Whisky
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£
Strathclyde 1990 28 Year Old Sovereign Single Grain Scotch Whisky is a 28 year old grain whisky from the Strathclyde...
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Mortlach 25 Year Old
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£599.99
Mortlach 25 Year Old is a whisky. The best price currently available is from Amazon for only £599.99 we...
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Beneagles Kestrel Whisky Decanter
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£120
Beneagles Kestrel Whisky Decanter is a 19 year old blended whisky. The best price currently available is from Master of...
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Brora 1982 20 Year Old Signatory
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£
Brora 1982 20 Year Old Signatory is a 20 year old single malt whisky from the Brora whisky distillery (located...
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Deanston 9 Year Old 2009 (cask 13199) – Old Particular (Douglas Laing)
E150A Unknown
Our best price:
£46.95
Deanston 9 Year Old 2009 (cask 13199) – Old Particular (Douglas Laing) is a 20 year old single malt whisky...
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| Whisky Bottle | Rating | Reviews | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cu Bocan Small Bottle | 0 | 0 | £ |
| Glenfarclas Springs – The Legend Of Speyside | 0 | 0 | £ |
| Old Potrero 18th Century Style Rye Spirit | 0 | 0 | £85.75 |
| Thomas H Handy Sazerac Rye /2014 Straight Rye Whisky | 0 | 0 | £650 |
| Cardhu 12 Year Old | 3.6 | 424 | £37.52 |
| Benrinnes 2009 10 Year Old Provenance | 0 | 0 | £ |
| Kamiki Blended Malt Whisky | 4 | 10 | £59.99 |
| Singleton of Dufftown Sunray | 3.4 | 44 | £32.33 |
| Bruichladdich 1991 Blackadder | 0 | 0 | £ |
| Darkness! Blended Malt 20 Year Old Moscatel Cask Finish Blended Malt Whisky | 0 | 0 | £82.95 |
| Big Peat Blended Malt Christmas Edition 2015 Blended Whisky | 0 | 0 | £ |
| Port Charlotte2001 13 Year Old The Bottlers | 0 | 0 | £250 |
What is E150A spirit caramel and why do I care?
E150A is a food colouring agent created by burning sugar, it’s permitted as a food colour world wide and can be used to colour whisky. It’s the same stuff that’s added to Coa Cola and Pepsi to give them their dark brown colour and it’s regularly added to a number of grain whiskies, blends and even single malts.
Why are whisky brands adding colour to their whisky?
Spirit caramel is added to whisky for two reasons; firstly to normalise the colour between different batches of whisky and in some cases to enhance the natural colour of the whisky. How much of each occurs is a rather complex question as no brand would readily admit to manipulation of their whisky to mislead consumers.
E150A use for normalisation:
Because blends, and even single malt whiskies, use a mix of different casks in order to try and replicate their signature whisky styles. As every cask is different blending purely to replicate flavour can lead to colour differences between batches. A Laphroaig 10 from 5 years ago might taste virtually identical to one produced today but may be much lighter, or much darker depending on the casks used. To avoid confusion among consumers distilleries many distilleries ‘normalise’ the difference through the addition of E150A.
E150A for enhancement:
At the other end of the spectrum is the role of enhancement and this is particularly prevelant among the lower priced supermarket blends. When whisky is first distilled it’s crystal clear and looks like water, or vodka. The golden or even brown colour is a result of interaction with the barrel it is stored in. For cheaper whiskies older barrels are used and these impart less colour, they often favour larger barrels as well which means less interaction with the liquid (as a smaller barrel offers more liquid to surface area). To avoid these bottles ending up on the shelf looking like off-colour vodka spirit caramelis added to ensure the anticipated golden brown is present. In other instances such as Dalmore
Does E150A change the flavour of whisky?
Yes, E150A does change the taste of a whisky. That is our decided opinion, while countless brand ambasadors will dispute this point, or denounce us and refuse to debate the point we’ve done the leg work and are firmly of the position that E150A does change the flavour of the whisky.
We’ve conducted blind and double blind taste tests using E150A from multiple suppliers, and even using minscule amounts the taste profile does shift slightly. Interestingly this change is not always detrimental and E150A seems on occasion to round out a whisky. In most cases the whiskies are identified as being different, in some the whisky with caramel is preferred, in others the whisky without. There’s no added sweetness (E150A is very bitter) but no obvious bitterness added to the whisky unless absurd amounts are used, so we’re not condemning anyone for the use of spirit caramel. That said in the interest of consumer fairness we feel that consumers should be able to find out what’s in their bottle.
How do we get our list of whiskies containing spirit caramel?
By law any whiskies containing E150A sold in Germany have to list it as an additive, on their websites this usually appears as ‘mit Farbstoff’ or ‘enthält Farbstoff’ both meaning the spirit contains dye. We’ve scraped a number of German whisky websites and matched their ‘EAN’ and bottles details against the bottles we pricecheck using multiple validations to confirm*.
*Ultimately this system is far from perfect, distilleries change their output and bottles that did contain spirit caramel may change their process. It’s also not completely inconceivable that a whisky could contain caramel for one market and not in another, however unlikely this might be. So until the distilleries are prepared to have a grown up conversation, we’ll do everything in our power to keep our DB up to date. Let us know via the contact form if you find any issues.