Most of this week was dominated by the news about the first Diageo Special Releases 2016 and really thin press releases for Father’s Day.

Glenlivet Cipher is a new “mystery malt” much like the Glenlivet Alpha . With its production wrapped in secrecy, you’ll have to try this single malt scotch whisky yourself to break the code. It’s made from a unique cask combination that has never before been used by The Glenlivet and not only is it a whisky without age, vintage or cask disclosure, they are also making a secret of the tasting notes – you’ll have to decipher them with the...

Compass Box Eleuthera, NAS, 46 % The Compass Box Eleuthera is something of a classic, already. It is a vatted malt that was released by Compass Box between 2002 and 2005. I recently opened a new bottle, and found I had not reviewed it before, so here we go. This is the description given by […]...

The arrival of juni means that summer is finally here, and we have another trio of great offers celebrating the best whiskies, spirits and Champagne: a rich, fruity whisky from Glenfiddich ; a stylish gin from the isle of Islay; and a classic Champagne from the iconic house of Bollinger .

MALT OF THE MONTH

Our Malt of the Month for juni is from Speyside distillery Glenfiddich, one of the biggest names in Scotch whisky. The bottle we’ve chosen has been aged for 19 years and finished in Madeira casks, which adds rich fruitiness and spicy notes. We’ve reduced the...

Even after almost eight years, I can count the number of Glenesk reviews on one hand, yet Cooper’s Choice had a 31 year-old distilled in 1984 as this year’s bottling to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Limburg Whisky Fair . In fact this bottler released multiple 1984 casks in the last few months, some bourbon, some sherry.

Glen Esk 31 yo 1984 (49,5%, Cooper’s Choice for Limburg Whisky Fair 2016, bourbon cask #4677, 240 btl.)

Nose: starting on a basket of discrete orchard fruits. Yellow apples, peaches and greengages. Hints of honey and barley sugar. Light vanilla,...

Benrinnes 1992 (21 year old) 56.9%

European Sherry

2014 Special Release/ Tasted: Apr 2016

Big, spicy and slightly sulphured Oloroso sherry on the nose. Green nuts, peanuts, dates, malt and treacle follow.

The palate is awash with herbal sherry, green nuts and again a touch of sulphur. Slightly bitter, dry tannins on the middle with malt and treacle. Seriously bitter and alcoholic finish with lingering green nuts.

Water unfortunately emphasises the sulphur and bitter, coffee’d tannins. The palate is still nutty but softer. Still quite bitter but there’s a little more balancing fruit. Still rather dry on the finish and...

Bimber London Dry Gin 42%...

Masons Vodka 42%...

Upstairs in The Whisky Exchange shop – vermouth and more

Vermouth is a drink that’s definitely on the rise. For years it’s been relegated to the sorry state of being ‘just’ a cocktail ingredient, but more recently there’s been a resurgence in vermouth being appreciated for itself. However, the most common question we get asked by people wanting to try vermouth is a seemingly simple one – how do I drink it?

At our maj end-of-month tasting in our Covent Garden shop, we focused on vermouth – I asked each of the producers how they’d recommend drinking theirs.

My first stop...

I’ve been following Wolfburn distillery for a while. I tasted a few spirits and whiskies-to-be and even visited them last summer . But it was all 2015 and now we’re deep into 2016 and Wolfburn whisky turned 3 year old, with the first commercial release already on shelves in many shops.

Let’s dig into the young whisky and see it can delivers us despite its youth.

Wolfburn 2016 Release (46%, £45.45 / €44,95 )

Nose : Smells nice and despite the youth notes in it, it smells older. Quite solid and dense nose with a lot of dust, citrus fragrance with lemon and...

On the heels of Feis Ile 2016, some labels of the forthcoming 2016 edition of Diageo Special Releases has shown up at the federal TTB database (labels are at the bottom of the post) earlier today.

At the moment we can quite safely assume (like 99.999%) those five release will be out coming oktober:

• Lagavulin 12 Year Old 2016 – 57.7%
• Caol Ila 15 Year Old Unpeated – 61.5%
• Port Ellen 1978 37 Year Old – 55.2%, 2940 bottles
• Brora 38 Year Old – 48.6%, 2984 bottles
• Auchroisk 25 Year Old – 51.2%, 3954 bottles

We can see that the...

Vingården Lille Gadegård Bornholmsk Whisky Nr. 4, 7 YO, 51,4 % Here is release number four from the small Danish distillery, Vingården Lille Gadegård. This whisky was distilled in december 2008, and bottled in 2015. Now, since the distillery state that the whisky is 7 years old, that would imply that it was bottled in december […]...

Breaking news: five of the upcoming Diageo Special Releases 2016 have appeared in the TTB database (very early compared to previous years). Here they are:

• Auchroisk 25 yo (51,2%, OB 2016, American + European oak casks, 3954 btl.)  
• Brora 38 yo (48,6%, OB 2016, 2984 btl.)
• Caol Ila 15 yo ‘Unpeated style’ (61,5%, OB 2016, refill American + European oak casks)
• Lagavulin 12 yo ‘Cask Strength’ (57,7%, OB 2016)
• Port Ellen 37 yo 1978 ‘16th release’ (55,2%, OB 2016, 2940 btl.)

With the exception of the Auchroisk, those are pretty much the usual suspects. Can we also...

This Highland Park 1999 was recently bottled as a Whisky Exchange exclusive. TWE already selected this same vintage from the Signatory stocks in 2014, but now they’ve worked with Gordon & MacPhail.

Highland Park rarely bottles ex-bourbon whisky, usually adding sherry-matured whisky to the mix to get their usual, richer character.

Highland Park 16 yo 1999 (56,6%, Gordon & MacPhail for The Whisky Exchange 2016, first-fill bourbon barrel #4260)

Nose: quite natural, showing subtle smoky notes, hints of vanilla and honey, and a big mentholated side. Lots of apples and citrus notes. Yellow candy. Quite oily with faint...

BenRiach 1998 16 YO Triple Distilled / PX Finish, 57,9 % This release is from single cask Batch 11 from BenRiach Distillery. It was distilled in 1998 and bottled in 2014. It has been triple distilled, and finished in a PX Sherry Puncheon (cask #5171). The total outturn was 707 bottles. You can still buy the BenRiach 1998 16 YO […]...

Weird fact of the day: there aren’t too many official bottlings from Strathisla distillery. In fact, despite Strathisla being owned by Chivas Bros. for over 50 years, it was only in 2004 where the official Strathisla 12 Year Old was introduced to the market. Until then it was all indie bottlings or the semi official Gordon & Macphail bottlings as G&M were licensed to release malt from Strathisla, Ardmore and other distilleries through many decades in the 20th century.

Today we’re reviewing Strathisla 1967 vintage that was bottled in januari 2015 after maturing in a first fill sherry butts for 47+ years. Yes,...

This is the 2016 ‘distillery edition’ of Gouden Carolus whisky , presented at the Molenberg festival last week-end.

After the 2015 Pure Taste Bourbon Cask , which spent the whole 36 months in ex-bourbon casks, we now have the counterpart Pure Taste Anker Cask , matured for 36 months in Het Anker casks (Het Anker is the name of the parent brewery).

The original Gouden Carolus whisky is matured in ex-bourbon casks for 30 months and then finished in Anker casks for 6 months. It remains a bit of a secret what an Anker cask is exactly, but the...

So many words were written on Ardbeg and the annual Arbeg day releases. Seems like not all is OK in Ardbeg-land as there are dubious marketing failures , continued barrage of NAS releases when it’s mostly relatively young spirit in it and last years’ disappointing release of Perpetuum which for me was the low point of a too quiet 200th anniversary celebrations.

This year release is Ardeg Dark Cove and from the beginning we see marketing failure: Darkest Ardbeg ever? Seriously? All those 70’s releases aren’t counted in the list?

I felt that Ardbeg invincibility got cracked last year and hoped that Dark...