Benromach rose to fame in the last few years with the re-release of the Benromach 10 and the addition of the 10 yo 100 proof and 15 year old expressions to their line up. But in addition to those releases, there were also some young releases like the 5 yo and different wood finishes (all below the 10 year old barrier). The latest of those releases is the Benromach Sassicaia 2007 which follows the Sassicaia 2006 that was released a year ago, making it an annual release of some kind.

The Sassicaia 2007 was initially matured in First Fill bourbon barrels before a two years finish...

Today the Campbeltown festival starts and with it a hectic and busy two weeks full of distilleries activities highlighted by Feis Ile 2016 on Islay. It all starts with Glen Scotia open day in Campbeltown and I have a Glen Scotia review for the occasion.

Glen Scotia 15 Year Old is a recent release that was released in 2015 as part of the brand re-launch, matured in ex-bourbon casks and bottled at 46%.

Glen Scotia 15 Year Old (46%,  £55.45 / €57.50 )

Nose :  Concentrated sweet fruit, very jammy. Red apples, oranges, vanilla, nuts, ginger spice and cinnamon, After a while...

Official bottlings from Highland Park usually carry a trademarked profile of heather peat, spice and sherry notes to some degree, depends on the exact mix of casks in the release. But when you go the indie and single cask route it’s a different game.

Take for example the new Highland Park 16 that G&M has bottled exclusively for The Whisky Exchange. A single cask bottling from a first fill American oak barrel with a lot of sweetness and not a single trace of sherry, delivering a whisky with a twist on the familiar Highland Park profile.

Highland Park 1999 16 Year Old Cask #4260...

Aberlour distillery doesn’t have a wide range of official releases. There’s the 12 year old entry level and the 15 year old playing the role of the older sibling. But there’s also the uber successful a’bunadh release, there’s no age statement but it’s punchy at cask strength and is a full blown sherry bomb.

Unfortunately there’s no matured sherry bomb in their line up, but The Whisky Exchange came to the rescue with a new and exclusive 16yo Aberlour from a first-fill sherry cask bottled at cask strength of 53.5%.

Aberlour 16 Year Old Single Cask #4738 TWE Exclusive (53.5%,  £99.95...

Along with the surprising Laddie Eight, Bruichladdich has released a new Port Charlotte edition to the Travel Retail market to replace the PC12. The new release, Port Charlotte 2007 CC:01 was matured for 8 years, yes, both releases boast the 8, and in French casks that were previously used to mature Cognac, hence the CC in the release name (Cognac Cask).

2.5 years ago, Octomore 6.2 which was matured in Cognac casks was released and I think it’s one of the best Octomores every released. Due to timing, I have a hunch that both Octomore 6.2 and the new Port Charlotte shares the...

Following the very successful line of a No Age Statement Cask Strength releases from the sister distillery Glendronach, BenRiach distillery have seen fit to join the foray and release a similar release of their own and release the first batch of BenRiach Cask Strength expression.

The only question was why did they wait till now to release it, while Glendronach has already released 5 batches. I’d guess it’s related to the fact that sherry matured casks can be used in younger age relatively to ex-bourbon casks and BenRiach didn’t have comparable casks on hands due to the slumber between 2002 and 2005. They...

Following the Octomore 7.4 review, let’s keep the Bruichladdich theme for a little more while. Recently Bruichladdich released two new expressions, exclusively to the Travel Retail market and it was an interesting choice to release a young unpeated Laddie with a single digit age statement: the Bruichladdich Laddie Eight.

It it an interesting release for two reasons. The first one is that we have an age statement for young whisky instead of going the more familiar and used route of a NAS release. In fact, it’s the second major release this year to boast such an age after the Lagavulin 8 and both distilleries got praised...

I quite adore the Octomore line up from Bruichladdich. As one who considers himself as a peathead, having a unique extremely highly peated whisky line is nothing less than a blessing. I tasted and reviewed a few Octomores and I always look forward for new expressions to see what else do they have in their tricks bag.

The latest Octomore release was in late 2015; the Octomore 7.4. It’s the first time that Bruichladdich has reached the x.4 number for an Octomore release. Here’s a quick primer for you: the x.1 represents the ‘natural’ (bourbon casks) release, x.2 represents the wine finish, x.3...

Glen Garioch 15 Year Old Sherry Cask Matured Travel Retail (53.7%, €99,99 )

Nose : Cereals and sherry, lots of vanilla, also sherry spices of cinnamon and nutmeg. Dusty and limestone notes like in many other Glen Garioch whiskies, rubber, ginger, a touch of perfume but...

I was preoccupied with other things, so today we have a quick post with tasting notes of a bit weird (in a good way I promise you) Glen Garioch. It’s a 1991 distillate, bottled in 2015 as part of the Small Batch series of WM Cadenhead.

There were 444 bottles produced of this Glen Garioch and it was bottled at 54.4%.

Glen Garioch 23 Year Old Cadenhead Small Batch 54.4%,  £81.79 / €129,99 )

Nose : Spicy, very dusty as many other Glen Garioch whiskies, crisp ex-bourbon, honey, pickles (!) and after it opens up a bit, peat smoke which...

For seven year in a row with no end in sight, Glenmorangie presents us a new expression in the Private Edition series. 2016 brought us Glenmorangie Milsean (pronounced “mill-shun”) which means “Sweet Things” in Gaelic.

So it marks the returning to the previous theme of special cask finishes after the detour of Tùsail last year which focused on different barley. It was finished for 2.5 years in toasted ex-Portuguese red wine barriques (154 of those) and should bring out a candies shop feeling. If you want to learn more on this whisky, head up to the excellent and very detailed  blog post...

Haven’t tasted lately too many Mortlachs and it’s sad as most Mortlachs I tasted were very good and tasty (new official lineup notwithstanding), so it’s time for a new Mortlach review on the blog and today: a 1996 vintage Mortlach from a bottle share we did locally here. This bottle got me curious as I’m more used to ex-sherry Mortlachs, while this one was aged in an ex-bourbon cask.

It’s a 19 year old single cask Mortlach, bottled under the Cooper’s choice brand, a sibling to Finlaggan and Ileach brands from Vintage Maltwhisky Co. bottled at 53.5%, non chill filtered and not colored....

It’s no news that Diageo release 2 affordable whiskies each year with their Special Releases annual series, The Lagavulin 12 and an unpeated release from Caol Ila.

The Lagavulin 12 2015 was already reviewed here  (very favorable), so let’s check the other candidate this year: a 17 yo unpeated Caol Ila.

Interesting to see that it boast a jump of two years over last year’s release so it’s not coming from the same stock.

Caol Ila 17 Unpeated Style (Special Releases 2015) (55.9%,  £89.95 / €107 / $144.99 )

Nose : Dusty, oh so dusty, much more dusty than the 15 yo, that I had to...

Not all whisky releases were born equal as some of those releases are highly sought after for various reasons such as excellence, investment, collectability, distillery preference, etc. But setting price to such whiskies is a tricky job. Take the new Springbank Local Barley 16 YO as an example.

The Springbank Local Barley series has a great reputation, and Springbank has a large group of loyal followers and since the last LB bottling was in 2001, it’s understandable why it flew off the shelves in a matter of hours, even with quite a large batch size of 9000 bottles and a RRP of £95....

The inevitable has happened and it seems finally that an aged Ardbeg release, at least according to the new label that popped up on the TTB site, will be on shelves later this year.

It’s been like forever since we saw a new age statement Ardbeg (especially if you exclude ardbog, aged 10yo but not it wasn’t mentioned on the label) and it makes me giddy with excitement and also fills me with dread from the expected price tag (which I bet will be around the £250-£300 mark).

If you put aside the excitement and the fact that most of...

A while ago I reviewed  Macallan Rare Cask Black but it was not the first expression in the Rare Cask line up as before the Black there was the blank one ;-) (Or if you prefer, the one without an adjective). The Rare Cask whisky was released in the US late 2014 and it arrived to UK/Europe mid 2015.

In line with all their recent releases, this one is a NAS whisky and bottled at 43% so I assume it was chill filtered (the Rare Cask Black is bottled at 48% and non chill-filtered). So while the Rare Cask Black predecessor is lacking...

Another Deanston whisky review but this time it’s a limited edition cask strength Oloroso sherry whisky. Until now the widely available official releases have been ex-bourbon based, with special editions (such as Deanston Spanish Oak, wine casks and BYO) available at the distillery only, so it’s a good sign that Deanston embraces the sherry route for wider availability – we even got a few bottles of this in Israeli stores!

Deanston 20 Year Old (55.3%, 8400 bottles,  £100 / €129,50 )

Nose : The creamy note is apparent here, with sweet honey and butterscotch, but slowly the sherry influence sneaks onto...

Burns Stewart Distillers were busy last year with many new releases, from the 18yo for Deanston and Ledaig up to the 42yo Ledaig. I have found out (via Michael ) that BSD official importer in Israel managed to bring a few crates of those new releases so it’s a good excuse to review some of them.

The first one on the operation table is the Deanston 18 Year Old. It was aged in hogsheads and then finished in first fill ex-bourbon casks for extra sweetness. As usual with BSD, it was bottled at the customary ABV of 46.3%

Deanston 18 Year Old...

Feis Ile 2016 is not far off, so it’s time for the annual post (third year in a row!) of the Feis Ile Festival bottles.

This year, the festival will run from 21st to 28th maj 2016 with Lagavulin day as the probable highlight of the festival due to the distillery 200th anniversary celebrations (following last year’s events at Laphroaig and Ardbeg), so it will probably be a very interesting and exciting festival (I keep saying that in the annual post, but it’s the truth!).

This post will detail all the available information on the festival bottlings and I’ll update it each...

Arran whisky lovers – rejoice!

The Arran Banner weekly newspaper revealed this weekend (12 mars 2016) that a new distillery site is set to be built in south Arran by Isle of Arran Distillers Ltd.

The proposed new distillery will be located in Lagg and will have a separate visitors center and will produce peated whisky and maj also produce additional spirits.

If all goes according to the plans, work will start in september this year with the goal of completing it by end of 2018.

In addition, the original site in Lochrnza will also be expanded with the addition of...