Which whisky goes with a cigar?

A whisky with a firm structure remains recognisable alongside a powerful, smoky flavour: sherry maturation for volume and a bottling strength from 46 percent for carrying power.

A cigar brings a powerful, smoky flavor. A whisky that is also bottled at the legal minimum of 40 percent has less to hold its own with. That is not a matter of quality, but of proportion.

Two technical features determine that ratio: the cask in which the whisky has matured, and the percentage at which it was bottled. Both are on the label, so you can select on them in the shop.

Sherry maturation means the whisky has lain in an oak cask that previously held fortified wine.

The rules expressly allow this. Scotch may mature in new oak or in oak that has only held still or fortified wine, beer or spirits. The cask may be no larger than 700 litres and maturation lasts at least three years, in Scotland. The Scotch Whisky Association cites a cask that previously held sherry or port as an example of a cask that adds complexity.

Excluded are, among others, casks of wine, beer or spirits made from stone fruit, and casks of beer or spirits to which fruit, flavouring or sweetener was added after fermentation or distillation. Whatever comes out of the cask, the end product must keep the colour, taste and smell of Scotch.

Forty percent is the legal minimum for whisky; anything above that is the bottler's choice, and with cask strength the strength is not adjusted after maturation.

After maturation, only water and ordinary caramel coloring may be added to whisky. Water lowers the strength and so dilutes everything the whisky has taken up in the cask. A bottling at 46 percent or higher has therefore been reduced less than a bottling at the minimum.

That is why the lower limit of this selection is 46 percent. The bottles range from 46 to 67.8 percent, and 180 of the 233 sherry-matured bottles reach that limit.

The ppm figure refers to the malted barley that enters the distillery, not to the whisky in the bottle.

The content is measured on the malt, with UV spectroscopy or with HPLC. After that a lot disappears along the way: part stays behind in the spent grains after mashing, part is lost during fermentation, and most disappears at the second distillation, where the distiller's cut points determine how much phenol ends up in the heart. During maturation in the cask the content also keeps declining.

In measured examples the new make keeps about 30 to 50 percent of the level in the barley. For the bands: below 15 ppm in the barley is lightly peated, around 20 ppm medium, above 30 ppm heavily peated. A high ppm figure on the box is therefore a clue about the raw material and not a measure of what is in the glass.

In Bathmen there are 714 bottles of peated whisky, from 158 brands in 18 countries, plus 233 bottles with sherry maturation.

Of those peated bottles, 635 come from Scotland. The biggest brands on the shelf are Kilchoman with 58 bottles, Caol Ila with 47, Bowmore with 38, Ardbeg with 30, Laphroaig with 28, Ardmore with 26, Talisker with 25 and Benromach with 21.

The selection that goes with this question, sherry maturation with a bottling strength of 46 percent or more, comprises 180 bottles from 88 brands from 12 countries: 114 from Scotland, 23 from the Netherlands, 10 from Ireland, 10 from Taiwan and 9 from France. The entire whisky shelf at Brink 2 has 4,020 bottles.

Whisky is 18-plus. Wij verkopen geen alcohol aan personen onder de 18 jaar: NIX18.