I have something to tell you. And you're not gonna like it.

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For most of you, I’m sure the idea of colouring whisky seems somewhat absurd. Colour comes from age. Whisky’s are usually pretty well aged. Why would you need to colour it. Well just like boot-cuts, handle bar moustaches, and corduroy’s we can blame the 1970’s.

If you were even brave enough to broach the subject of artificial colouring with whisky aficionados, your best bet is to run for the door. But as I’m protected via the internet and the fact that I can’t run means I’ll continue.

Distillers caramel, or E150a as its also known, is used widely to keep the colour of whiskies consistent and to assist with grading colour according to the age statement of different expressions. This may not seem important to all of us, but to a lot of consumers there is still an association between colour, age, and quality.

It’s a difficult association to overcome. And I think that many of us will find it off if a 30-year-old single malt is paler in colour than a 25 year old expression. Given the fickle nature of wood, this sort of thing is not only possible, but actually happens a lot.

E150a sounds a lot worse than it is. Its more a controlled caramel. They make it by heating and caramelising sugar. So when I say its a controlled caramel, it is just caramel. Although it has no sweetness to it. The the process is carefully controlled so as to caramelise all of the available sugars, hence no sweetness, resulting in a very thick black syrup. By itself the flavouring its bitter. And pin-pricks of caramel is enough to colour about ten litres.

There have been a good number of tests conducted to see if it affects the flavour. Where E150a has been added to water, and only in higher concentrations could it be detected. So it shouldn’t really effect your whisky.

I’m personally not against the use of caramel, but I like the honesty. I visited Lagavulin, we wrote about it in The Denim Man, and they were very open about the fact they dye their product. And might have chatted some shit about certain distilleries which weren’t as honest. (they never said the name but she looked right at Laphroaig)

What would be interesting to test is if dying the whisky has an effect on your flavour perception. In other words, do darker whiskies taste more malty? Does it make peated whisky seem more smoky? In the past, some blenders revealed caramel as the secret to ‘bringing together’ a blend. Making it uniform simply by making it uniform.

Oh, and by the way, no ‘coloring’ is permissible in American whiskey. It’s usually only the Scots that do it. And for the hipsters out there it’s gluten-free, and vegan.