Today is Caol Ila open day, so let’s review their Feis Ile 2014 bottling. It was the first Special/Feis Ile bottling done by the new distillery manager David Wood who try to carry on and stand up to Billy Stitchell’s work.

So the Feis Ile 2014 bottling? Not much to tell about it. It was matured in refill American oak hogsheads without any fancy finishes or tricks.

Caol Ila 2002 (Feis Ile 2014 bottling) (55.5%, 1500 bottles)

Nose : Sweetness and peat with sweetness at first dominating the nose. Lemon and coconuts, a bit oily. With time there are ashes on...

Feis Ile has started yesterday with Lagavulin day and now onward to Bruichladdich. Last years festival bottling was Octomore Discovery, quadruple distilled and aged for 7 years in sherry casks.

Bruichladdich Octomore Discovery 7 Year Old (69.5%)

Nose : Very restrained, showing lots of fruitiness on the front seat and some peat smoke in the background. I doesn’t smell like a very peated whisky (like Octomore) but I guess we can attribute it to the quadruple distillation (and casks selection). Citrus (oranges and lemon), creamy cereals, vanilla. on the back there’s the smoke, wood smoke and damp peat.

Palate :...

So it’s that week again, Feis Ile Festival has started and just like last year I’m going to review a whisky from each Islay (and Jura) distillery on their open day.

Last year it was a wide assortment of drams but this year we’ll review the series of Feis Ile 2014 bottles. Yes, you read it right, for Feis Ile 2015 we’ll review the 2014 bottlings :)

But for every rule there are exceptions, and this year we actually starts with the exception. I already reviewed the Lagavulin 1995 19 yo that was bottled for Feis Ile 2014 following a blind...

Feis Ile is knocking on our doors but let’s say one last goodbye to Springbank appreciation week and Campbeltown festival with the review of the 18 Year old duo from Springbank: the unpeated Springbank 18 and the peated Longrow 18.

Springbank 18 Year old (46%,  €111.66 )

Nose : sherry impact of berries, a bit dry, sweet honeyed vanilla and caramel, raisins, fruity. Rich and oily and just classic.

Palate : Oh, lots of spices, aniseed and lots of sherry spices, raisins and red fruits, quite dry.

Finish : Long, dried fruits, salt, bit of oak and chocolate, sweet yet dry.

 ...

Moving on with our Springbank appreciation week. Today is the open day at Springbank distillery and I’m very jealous of my three friends who visits the distillery today (on their way to Feis) and in their honor let’s review a trio (one for each friend) of official Springbank finishes.

The first one is the Gaja Barolo wood finish that spent four years in refill bourbon barrels, followed by another five further years in Gaja Barolo wine casks.

Springbank 9 Year old Gaja Barolo wood finish ( 54.7%, 11,000 bottles,  £57.95 / €69,95 )

Nose : The wine impact is very strong...

Monkey Shoulder, NAS, 40 % Monkey Shoulder is a blended malt (previously known as a vatted malt). It is a mix of three different single malts all owned by William Grant & Sons; Glenfiddich, Balvenie and Kininvie. Here’s the explanation for the rather unusual name gracing this whisky: The term ‘whisky shoulder’ harks back to […]...

Vintage Rye 23 YO, 47 % Here’s an odd one. The company Kentucky Bourbon Distillers rarely releases any product with their own name on the label. They usually release their whiskeys under labels such as Willett, Rowan’s Creek, Corner Creek, Noah’s Mill, Old Bardstown, and Johnny Drum. The Vintage Rye 23 YO has a retail […]...

Clynelish 1997 17 YO, 53,3 % There seems to be something slightly magical about Clynelish from the mid 1990s. Or majbe it’s just that Clynelish at cask strength and an age in the mid to late teens hits a sweet spot? It could also be that there seems to have been a lot of casks […]...

Bowmore Enigma 12 YO, 40 % Bowmore is the only distillery on Islay that has given me very mixed experiences. A couple of weeks ago I shared my tasting notes on Bowmore 100 Degrees Proof which I really like. Todays whisky is a limited release from Bowmore exclusively for Travel Retail. My husband and I have […]...

Aultmore 1991 “Sweet Mint Infusion”, 21 YO, 46 % It is not very often we get to try a whisky from the Speyside distillery Aultmore. This Aultmore 1991 “Sweet Mint Infusion” was distilled in 1991, matured in a hogshead, and bottled in 2013. The total outturn was 354 bottles. Independent bottler Wemyss Malts launched this whisky in […]...

When Ray Schuhmann, president of Louisville’s Kinetic Corp., bought the National Distillers maturation and bottling plant now known as Distillery Commons about 35 years ago, one of his first acts was to remove all of the fixtures associated with its former use. He intended to convert the buildings into photography studios, laboratories, offices, and other uses. He told me that every time he removed a fixture or opened a wall, he discovered dozens, sometimes hundreds , of empty Old Grand-Dad pints.

All businesses have to contend with employee theft. At distilleries, it’s usually limited to individual bottles of whiskey, a...

We have an article in the latest issue, Summer 2015, titled “Big Beer, Whiskey Chaser,” about the popular practice of aging beers in bourbon barrels. We talked to a number of the foremost brewers of such beers, like Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing, Todd Ashman of Fifty/Fifty and Eclipse, Matthew Brynildsson of Firestone Walker, and Chris Wilson of Weyerbacher.

I decided it would be cool to get some video to go with the piece, and Weyerbacher is just over the hill from our offices — okay, over about  five hills, but who’s counting! — so one morning I went up there...

Like anCnoc 22 Years , this brand-new anCnoc 24 Year Old is a combination of ex-bourbon casks and sherry-seasoned casks.

anCnoc 24 yo (46%, OB 2015)

Nose: aromatic, with a nice interplay of fruits (baked apple, grapefruit, orange marmalade) and honey with a bit of sherry influence (toffee and a Christmas cake kind of spiciness). After a while mint sets in and keeps growing. Dried flowers. Mouth: vanilla custard, raisins and toffee. Malty notes and candied orange. A light hint of popcorn. Quite some citrus again, as well as a hint of toasted, almost smoky oak. A nice...

To be honest I lost track of all these Highland Park expressions named after Norse gods, so I had to look up the specific details of Highland Park Sigurd .

Below is a diagram of the Warrior series . While the first three releases (Svein, Einar, Harald) revolved around American oak casks, the most recent offerings (Sigurd, Ragnvald and Thorfinn) use an increased quantity of European oak sherry seasoned casks.

Highland Park Sigurd (43%, OB 2013)

Nose: a complex, very refined nose, with plenty of layers and no dominating aromas. Moss, dried grasses and eucalyptus oils. Ginger...