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paxarette -Reply

WOOD, PETER CP.Wood at GNS.CRI.NZ Tue Dec 3 03:02:12 CET 1996 Previous message: paxarette Next message: Distillery tours Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

Looks like some explanation and repetition is necessary...

Paxarete/paxarette is named after the town of Paxarete (or Pajarete) in Jerez in Spain. It is said to be a boiled down mixture of grape juice and fortified wine. It is defined in the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (and you need to be familiar with English humour and the art of understatement to realise that "Shorter" is true only in comparison with the size of the ancient New English Dictionary).

I have never drunk or even seen paxarette, but I believe the nearest readily available comparison would be Pedro J/Ximenez sherry, which itself is hugely sweet and dark. Paxarete is virtually opaque, and also has a very high ester/aldehyde content. I can quote some analyses if needs be.

And just to prove that paxarete/ette DOES/DID have relevance to the subject of this list, I will repeat my post of 22 November as follows.....


From: WOOD, PETER (WOODP) To: EX:RZ.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE:MALTS-L Date: Friday 22 November, 1996 1:52pm Subject: Paxarette

Following up on my suggestion about Paxarette treated casks...

I read some more about Paxarette, and came across the following description from Philp (1989):-

"..a typical current cooperage procedure in the Scotch whisky industry is to add 500ml of Paxarette per hogshead, or 1 litre per butt, pressurise at 48 kPa (7psig) for 10 min and then disgorge any unabsorbed Paxarette."

He also goes on to say that "... the true 'sherry shipping cask' flavour...has never been reproduced by this treatment."

Another book I have (Smith, 1993) states that the practice has been banned by the Scotch whisky industry. However, that is a fairly recent statement, so there could still be a lot of Paxarette treated whisky lying in casks, if not unvatted in bottles.

Peter Wood

References

Smith, Gavin D. (1993) Whisky: a book of words. Carcanet Press Ltd. Manchester.

Philp, J.M. (1989) Cask quality and warehouse conditions. In "J.R.Piggott, R.Sharp and R.E.B.Duncan (Eds.) The Science and technology of whiskies." Longman Scientific and Technical, Harlow: 264-294.

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