Blair Athol distillery is a distillery which most whisky drinkers never heard of. It’s acting as a workhorse for Diageo, producing 2,500,000 liter of alchol a year with most of its’ output going into blends (and a very minor portion goes towards the Blair Athol 12 in the Flora and Fauna series).

But a few years a go a big batch of 1988 vintage casks found itself in independent bottlers hands with Signatory leading the way here and one of those Signatory casks popped up lately as an exclusive release for The Whisky Exchange. Let’s check it out!

Blair Athol 1988 27 Year Old Signatory Vintage...

botIn the recent batch of Signatory Vintage bottlings for The Whisky Exchange , there is this Imperial 1995 . One of the future classics, perhaps: a closed distillery and the quality is usually very high.

Imperial 20yo 1995 (50,8%, Signatory Vintage ‘Un-Chillfiltered’ for The Whisky Exchange 2016, hogshead #50252, 232 btl.)

Nose: starts on Fino -like aromas (limestone, hay, apples) before moving towards zesty citrus. Lemon, grapefruit. Then also banana skin and hints of tangerine. Slightly candied notes in the background, as well as some honeysuckle and vanilla biscuits. Nice development, though majbe a bit polite. Mouth: spicy and fruity....

There are some distilleries you play love/hate games with and in my case one of them would be Dalmore. I usually just can’t stand the caramel and the chill filtration they do with their official line up, hence the sparseness of Dalmore reviews here. Of course when you go to special aged editions the situation is a tad bitter (like the 1981 Amaroso I reviewed ) but the global picture is pretty gloom.

That’s why I was happy to receive a sample of an indie Dalmore from Gordon & Macphail. There aren’t too many of those in the market, and I...

Hunter Laing Old Malt Cask Aultmore 1991 (21 year old) 50%

Bourbon/ Code: OMC2270/ HL9869

Dist: Sept 1991 Btl: juli 2013/ Tasted: Aug 2013

A real oak and honey fest of a nose! There’s plenty of wonderfully mature, sawdusty oak, honey, lightly tropical fruit, malt and castor sugar. Deliciously aromatic and pleasantly balanced.

The palate is crisper and displays a lot less oak than the nose would lead you to believe. There’s more citrus, apricot, apple and crumbly spices with a liberal dollop of honey. Tart and tangy on the middle with a lovely cleansing piquancy. The honey counters and...

Secret Casks Islay 2009 6 YO (whiskysite.nl), 58,9 % This is a secret cask, at least that is what we are told. This is an Islay whisky from an undisclosed distillery, bottled by independent bottler whiskysite.nl. The Secret Casks Islay 6 yo 2009, has been matured in a refill sherry cask (cask #7065), and the outturn […]...

Whisky Advocate reports that Evan Cattanach, prolific distiller and industry legend, has died at the age of 80. His long and illustrious career in Scotch whisky is made even more impressive by the fact that he got a relatively late start—at the age of 25, when he began his employment at Scottish Malt Distillers. Across his career in Scotland, Cattanach worked at fifteen Scotch distilleries, in four of the six Scottish whisky areas, including managing operations at Oban, Cardhu, Lagavulin, Caol Ila, Dalwhinnie, and Cragganmore. His name is also closely associated with the Classic Malts series, as he was involved...

If you’ve ever drunk a refreshing Caipirinha cocktail on a warm summer’s day then you’ve probably tried cachaça without even realising. This light, grassy, aromatic spirit comes from Brazil and it’s just the thing for sipping and mixing while the sun is out. With the sporting extravaganza in Rio just days away, here’s The Whisky Exchange guide to cachaça, Brazil’s national spirit.

What is cachaca?

Cachaça is a Brazilian rum, but it’s much lighter and fresher than most as it’s made with pure sugar-cane juice, as opposed to the more-common molasses. The only rum that comes close in terms of...

Another undisclosed Speyside malt 1975 , bottled by Sansibar . I’m not sure this is available from their regular resellers yet, but I’ve seen it on the Sansibar website – and majbe they have good reasons to hold this back a little…

Speyside Region Malt 40 yo 1975 (50,6%, Sansibar 2016, 435 btl.)

Nose: actually its profile is very similar to that of the Speyside Finest, but everything is more clear and more aromatic due to the higher strength. Wonderful apricots, mirabelles, guava, whitecurrant and banana. Beautiful waxy notes, moving towards honey and beehive. Very subtle leafy notes....

In oktober 2007, Bruichladdich started filling casks of peated spirit named Lochindaal , after the distillery that was located in the village of Port Charlotte until 1929. The difference with their other peated whiskies lies in the peating level: Lochindaal spirit is peated to around 50 ppm, whereas Port Charlotte has 40 ppm and Octomore 80-200 ppm and more.

The Elements of Islay series now has a first Lochindaal Ln1 bottling.

Lochindaal Ln1 (62,5,6%, Elements of Islay 2016, 50 cl)

Nose: medium peat / soot with a nicely sweet, vanilla-syrup layer on top. Classic antiseptics. Just a very...

Braunstein E:7, NAS, 60,2 % This is the fourth and last review from me on whiskies from Danish distillery Braunstein for a little while. Here is the Braunstein E:7. Again matured in a bourbon cask, just like the E:6. This expression was bottled in november 2015, with a total outturn of 300 bottles (500 ml each). This is again a peated expression. I have […]...

Invergordon 1972 43 YO 5th Anniversary Dram, 48,9 % Swedish independent bottler Svenska Eldvatten (Swedish Fire Water) celebrate their 5th anniversary these days, and they will shortly release a few special whiskies to celebrate the occasion. One of these whiskies is the Invergordon 1972 43 YO 5th Anniversary Dram. This grain whisky was distilled in december 1972, […]...

“You would be surprised if you knew what was in the glass” is what Exile Casks says about its newest (second) release called The Wanderer . We know that it was distilled in april 1992 at an undisclosed Speyside distillery and was then swapped around and travelled to different warehouses.

‘The Wanderer’ 24 yo 1992 (54,6%, Exile Casks 2016, cask #1602, 50cl, 170 btl.)

Nose: a less sherried style compared to The Trojan. Quite a bit of varnish and glue at first, which I like. When this fades, a nice fruitiness appears. Orchard fruits, lime, majbe a hint...

Being a dedicated Scotch whisky drinker, I normally don’t do that well in summer. Traditionally, Scotch whisky is associated with cooler weather, and the past month here in London has not provided me with a suitable environment to sit around in a comfortable armchair with a dram, unless I’ve had a large fan pointed at my face. However, Scotch whisky is much more versatile than it’s given credit for – here’s how I’ve been surviving the summer in three easy steps:

1) Long Drinks

It maj be blasphemy to some, but whisky is a great ingredient in long drinks. When...

The new batch from Maltbarn includes an Invergordon 1972, a Clynelish 1995 and this Tullibardine 1989 . I decided to start with the one I have the least experience with.

Tullibardine 27 yo 1989 (51,1%, Maltbarn 2016, bourbon cask, 134 btl.)

Nose: a fairly neutral profile. White gummi bears, aromatic peaches, a little vanilla custard and something of a scented wax candle. Green apples, majbe a hint of kiwi. Nicely fruity, subtle floral touches – rather classic. Mouth: again a good dose of fruitiness, with a bit more minerality now. Honey, sweet lemon, yellow grapefruit, with some pepper...

Malts of Scotland Images of Dufftown ‘St Michael’s Episcopal Church’ 53.2%...