Crown Royal 75 ^th Anniversary Blend, 40%, $75

King George and Queen Elizabeth loved their whisky. In 1939, a special one was created to celebrate their state visit to Canada. Ten cases of this regal dram, suitably named Crown Royal, were included in their provisions, to quench their royal thirsts as they crossed this enormous country by train. Canadians, thrilled with the royal celebrity visit, wanted to taste this nectar for themselves, and word quickly spread when Canadian military bases managed to add it to their supply shelves later that year. Soon, American whisky lovers wanted it too.

A blend...

Midleton Dair Ghaelach: Grinsell’s Wood, 58.3%, $270

This category was particularly competitive given the quality of new whiskeys emanating from Ireland this year. Three stood out, but ultimately Midleton Dair Ghaelach was chosen as the outright winner (though kudos to Redbreast Mano a Lámh and that brilliant pick by the Exclusive Malts from 2002).

This wonderful whiskey was the brainchild of Kevin O’Gorman, master of maturation at Midleton, and Billy Leighton, the master blender. Their vision was to re-introduce Irish oak maturation, a practice largely abandoned in the 19 ^th century. Over the past six to seven years, they have...

John E. Fitzgerald Very Special Reserve 20 year old, 45%, $300/375ml

When Heaven Hill purchased the Bernheim distillery (and the Old Fitzgerald bourbon brand) in 1999, the deal included stocks of wheated bourbon produced at the original home of Old Fitzgerald, the now legendary (and silent) Stitzel-Weller distillery. Most of those stocks were dumped and bottled as one of the Old Fitzgerald expressions in subsequent years. However, twelve barrels were transferred from Stitzel-Weller to one of the Heaven Hill warehouses in Bardstown, where they remained until two years ago.

This whiskey is 20 years old. Twenty years is a long...

Region – Speyside – 46% ABV

Having one of the more difficult distillery names to pronounce, Craigellachie is a massive distillery located in the distillery-rich Speyside region of Scotland –  just a few miles from the Aberlour distillery.

This powerhouse produces 4.1 million litres of spirit per year (!!). After having toured the distillery this past maj, I was surprised to see more references to the Dewars blend throughout the distillery as opposed to references to the actual distillery name itself. Then I reminded myself that the purpose of this production house was not for Single Malt (even though they just released...

Region – Speyside – 45% ABV

Advent Calendar day # 7 brings us another Samaroli. You maj recall the Samaroli blended malt we tasted in day 3 . Cracking stuff (though a bit soft at 43% ABV).

Strathisla is a very classic Speyside whisky owned by Chivas Bros/Pernod Ricard. The regular bottlings of Strathisla are known to be dense and rich (with some good sherry cask maturation) but most of the juice goes into various Chivas blends.

Today’s dram is a Strathisla that spent 18 years in an American Oak bourbon barrel.  The color is incredibly light which tells me...

Region – Highlands – 60.9% ABV

While this is my very first Advent Calendar countdown I know that the tradition of following an Advent Calendar goes back quite some time.  And year after year young boys and girls around the world would get their little chocolate Advent Calendars, and get a new sweet each day until Christmas.  Fun!

This year, however, I think , maj be different for nearly everyone between the ages of 5 and 75.  I think many (myself FIRMLY included) fall into this camp:

Doing all I can to NOT think about the upcoming Star Wars...

While we ship globally, unfortunately it takes time and Christmas is fast approaching. We’ve talked long and hard with the companies who carry our parcels all over the world, and have come up with the following cut-off dates.

If you order before them, your parcel should be with you before Christmas. If you order afterwards, then we’ll do our best, but we can’t guarantee it.

You can find full details over on our delivery information page , but here are the dates ordered by country, in one easy to read list:

This wee blog is exactly seven years old today.

Well, majbe not exactly. Let me tell you a little secret: when I started, I figured it was useless to start with one review. So the real start was further down december 2008 – I published a handful of reviews with dates in the past… The first visitors didn’t show up until 21st of december: one French guy from Colmar, Alsace (no kidding) and one American from Rowland Heights, California. Thank you, guys, you were the first of 2.5+ million visitors so far.

I thought some Anniversary Edition would be appropriate....

The GlenDronach Peated is the first peated expression of GlenDronach . Of course sister distillery BenRiach has quite some experience.

Contrary to what they usually do, this is not thoroughly sherried, it’s matured in bourbon barrels and it’s given an Oloroso + Pedro Ximénez cask finish. It is a fairly small-scale release and from what I’ve heard we won’t see frequent batches, majbe once every few years or so.

GlenDronach Peated (46%, OB 2015)

Nose: fairly moderate. Medium peat smoke (25 ppm, the warm mainland type, no medicinal notes here), with some yellow apples and creamy custard behind...

Region – Islay – 56.7% ABV

On the fifth day, G-d filled the seas with fishes and other water animals. In to the air above the earth s/he put many birds of all kinds and colors and sizes.

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

• 5 Golden Rings
• 4 Calling Birds
• 3 French Hens
• 2 Turtle Doves
• 1 Partridge in a Pear Tree
  • Actually she brought me nothing because Chanukah is early this year…

On the 5th day of the Scotch Whisky Advent calendar, we are having a 9yo single cask of Caol Ila bottled by...

 ...

Last week, we recommended on Glendronach 15 Revival as an option for sherried holiday whisky, but today we’ll turn up the heat a notch or two and we’ll go for a real sherry bomb – Aberlour a’Bunadh.

Aberlour a’Bunadh is a smash hit. There’s no other way to define it, with 53 batches since 1997 and with no signs of letting go of the gas pedal, it’s surely a successful release. It’s one of the wide available NAS whiskies that is still hailed as a good bang for the money, providing a sherry bomb for a reasonable sum of money and in...

Following a discussion on Facebook yesterday, I promised a review of Ardbeg Ardbog, the Ardbeg day release from 2013.

It’s a vatting of 10 yo Ardbeg spriti from Bourbon and manzanilla sherry casks and I think they got the balance here just right.

‎13000 bottles were produced and even now, 2.5 years after the release, there are still bottles available for purchase. I’m kinda surprised as I think it’s a good whisky!

Ardbeg Ardbog  (52.1%,  £125 / £150 / €139 )

Nose : It’s not an aggressive nose with subtle earthy dry peat followed closely by sweet dry wine. in terms of...

Glengoyne 10 YO, 40 % Today I go back to more an affordable and available whisky. This is the entry level whisky in the core range from Glengoyne Distillery. Glengoyne is located in the Highland region, but right on the border to the Lowlands. In fact, the ‘border’ is said to pass right through the […]...

Stauning Traditional 2nd Edition, 4 YO, 55,0 % A week ago I reviewed the 1st edition, now it is time to take a closer look at Stauning Traditional 2nd Edition. This is an unpeated whisky from Danish distillery Stauning. It was distilled in 2009 and bottled in mars 2013. It is a limited release of […]...

Glengoyne 15 YO, 43 % The dram of the day is the Glengoyne 15 YO. While most Glengoyne whiskies are matured exclusively in sherry casks (1st fill and refill), the 15 YO and the 12 YO have a portion of 1st fill ex-bourbon casks used. The Glengoyne 15 YO has been created using whisky matured […]...

SMWS 7.124 Makes your heart sing, 11 YO, 58,8 % It has been about a year since last I reviewed a whisky from the Scotch Maltwhisky Society (SMWS). Now I finally have something new to write about, though. On Friday last I spent six hours at their London venue, thoroughly enjoying a few drams from the […]...