Q. Dear Rabbi Bartfeld, Can you please ask Rav Miller if it is best to refrain from scotch in sherry casks due to the isur hanaah of stam yayin. Thank you.

A. Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a opinion that the hetter he gave for scotch in sherry casks stands. However, he qualified it as an issue of “hoiro bo chochom,” or that had a shayla and a subsequent permissible ruling. See Chulin 37b where the Talmud explains the praise given on Yechezkel Hanovi as: “He never ate from (the meat) of questionable animal that a Sage ruled (permissibly) on it,” (known as not Glatt).

Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit”a