Bache-Gabrielsen 3 Kors Cognac 40%

Tasted: Dec 2014

Nose: Quite herbal and lightly astringent aromas with green apple and edgy pepper notes. Vibrant but very young with some oily spirit notes adding to the youthfulness.

Palate: Like the nose it is quite herbal. Very woody with not quite enough body to balance the biting tannins. Again very youthful, but not lacking in intensity.

Finish: Medium length with a dry spice finish.

Conclusion: Intense and youthful but lacking a bit of body.  

Bache-Gabrielsen Hors d’Age Grande Champagne 40%

Tasted: Dec 2014

Nose: Deep aromas of dark prune juice with hints...

Motorhead Vodka 40%...

Scallywag Cask Strength, NAS, 53,6 % Scallywag is the Speyside variant in Douglas Laings range of Remarkable Regional Malts, a series of blended malts. The original Scallywag was released in 2013, and in 2015 they released this limited cask strength version. The Scallywag Cask Strength has been maturd in a mix of sherry butts and bourbon […]...

Smögen Sherry Project 1:3, 4 YO, 53,7 % On oktober 1, 2015, the third installment in the sherry project from Swedish Smögen Distillery was released. The Smögen Sherry Project 1:3 is four years old. The first two years and 10 months it was matured in 120 litre virgin European oak Quarter casks (cask #36-38), then it received […]...

Pulteney 1990 24 YO Single Cask, 53,7 % It has been a while since last I reviewed a single cask release from independent bottler Cadenhead. Therefore I shall today present to you a very fine release, namely the Pulteney 1990 24 YO Single Cask. This whisky was distilled in 1990 and bottled in 2015. It has been […]...

Continuing our Laphroaig theme from yesterday, we’ve got a great TWE exclusive to share – Laphroaig 1997 bottled by Berry Brothers .

However, we also have an admission to make: we’ve been selling it at the wrong price.

Unfortunately, due to some bad calculator work, we’ve had the bottle on the website for £40 less than we should have, and now we’ve noticed we’ve had to put it up to its proper price of £150 – still a lot less than than the €259 one of its sister casks is going for elsewhere

We launched the Laphroaig in december, although there were a few...

Laphroaig’s birthday celebrations have drawn to a close. It was their 200th, so we don’t begrudge them a year of partying, especially as it has featured a few special releases. Things kicked off with the 15 Year Old back in april , and continued with an excellent Cairdeas bottling at the Islay Festival, a Friends-of-Laphroaig-only 21-year-old and a travel-retail-exclusive 16-year-old. They’ve even made one of the best whisky adverts we’ve seen:

But they did one final celebratory release, saving the best for last – Laphroaig 32 Year Old , as previewed at The Whisky Show’s sold-out 200 Years of Peat masterclass .

Like many...

You know the story: Tun 1401 was a hugely successful series for The Balvenie , so they moved to a bigger marrying tun 1509 in 2014. Each batch is now four times bigger than the batches of 1401.

See my review of Tun 1509 Batch #1 .

This second batch consists of 32 casks (23 American oak hogsheads and barrels + 7 European oak sherry butts + 2 sherry hogsheads) selected by David Stewart. It was launched at the end of the summer. The bottle comes with a geeky list of cask numbers and aromatic profiles. No mentions of the...

Balblair 1990 is one of the more sherried expressions in their current vintage collection. It spent around two years finishing in Oloroso sherry butts .

The same 1990 vintage had been released in 2009 (first release) but without the sherry finish.

Balblair 1990 (46%, OB 2014, 2nd release)

Nose: garden fruits (apples, stewed pears) with a good dose of sherry influence in the form of toffee, milk chocolate and spices like ginger and cinnamon. Also a peppery / oaky kick. Mouth: modern, slightly high-pressure sherry maturation again. Raisins, fruit cake, molasses and hints of cherries. Some tobacco notes...

No shortage of 2000s Caol Ila from independent bottlers these days. Maltbarn released a Caol 2001 a couple of weeks ago.

Caol Ila 14 yo 2001 (58,8%, Maltbarn 2015, sherry cask, 194 btl.)

Nose: slightly prickly, but nice. Clean and maritime. Grassy notes and limestone, alongside Matcha tea. Tar. A little fennel and just a hint of sweet apples. Mouth: very powerful an to-the-point. Lemon juice (with more lemony aromatics if you add water) and heavy peat, sweet barley and raw wool. Gets more medicinal after a while, with iodine. Linseed oil. A bit of mocha as well,...

I would like to state it’s been a while since I last posted a Laphroaig review but this is not the case after reviewing Laphroaig 16 earlier this week ;-) But as a Laphroaig fan I’m trying to taste and review as many Laphroaig whiskies, good and bad (or less good?) as I can, and I got one more for you this week.

Today the victim is the European Travel Exclusive Laphroaig, Brodir (Which means ‘Brother’ in old Norse language), Batch 002 which was bottled in 2015. Brodir is a NAS bottling, matured in Ex-bourbon casks and then is finished...

Kilkerran WIP 7 Bourbon Wood Cask Strength, NAS, 54,1 % Well, yesterday I reviewed my first ever Kilkerran whisky from Glengyle Distillery. Here we go with number two, the Kilkerran WIP 7 Bourbon Wood Cask Strength. WIP is an abbreviation for Work In Progress. The whisky was distilled in 2004 and bottled in 2015. The WIP […]...

At Café ArtScience in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this is what happens when you order the Mind Over Matter cocktail: The bartender sets a rocks glass in front of you; it appears to be filled with smoke. You remove the cork coaster that sits on top of the glass like a lid. You quickly inhale the vapor that escapes. You get a heavyweight wallop of orange and spice, a beeline up your nose, straight to the olfactory bulb of your gray matter.

It’s Compass Box Orangerie, a whisky infusion, in 3D. You take a sip and you find yourself kinda disoriented. There’s...

The new year is starting with a bang – three new drinks of the month each with a great money-saving deal.

I’ll start with the Malt of the Month , as it’s a whisky that I tried and enjoyed back when it arrived, shortly after I started at The Whisky Exchange – Talisker 25 Year Old, bottled in 2011. The 25 Year Old has been an occasional limited release in Talisker’s line-up, and the 2011 marked a change – the dropping of the ABV from cask strength to 45.8% ABV like the rest of the range. It was the first Talisker 25...

I mentioned GlenDronach Cask Strength as one of my ‘bang for your buck’ highlights of 2015 . More precisely Batch #4 . Today we’re trying its newest sister, Batch #5 .

GlenDronach Cask Strength (55,3%, OB 2015, Batch #5)

Nose: I really like this relatively subtle sherry on GlenDronach. It’s maltier and fruitier than the core range, mostly on honey and golden raisins. Baked apples, cinnamon rolls and fruit cake. Marzipan and orange syrup. Light oak shavings and a spirity touch as well. Mouth: a big malty core, with a heavily sweet and syrupy side but nicely balanced with nutty notes...