Ten days has passed by in the BTC 2015 competition and finally we got to taste the ‘special’ Scotch Maltwhisky Society bottling, which seems to be an annual occurrence. Last year we had a 8 yo Balmenach and last night we got to taste this special Glen Moray that was matured in a First-fill Toasted Oak Hogshead. Take this cask with the extra toasting, add a whisky that was matured in it for twenty years, brought us a whisky imparted with flavors that imitate a wine/sherry cask. In short: a perfect candidate to confuse us at the competition.

I couldn’t...

After a very embarrassing day 8 guess, when I went for Kilchoman while it was Laphroaig Cairdeas 2015 which I tasted, reviewed and liked , which yielded me only 20 points, I tried to focus harder on number 9 in the hope something good will get out of it. But it didn’t help. I was debating between Highlands and Speyside, going for the latter. I felt it has some strength in it, at first thinking 55% but eventually downgrading to 52%. The most embarrassing part of my guess (and seems like all my recent guesses were embarrasing…) was the age as I...

Captain Log Day 7: After two consecutive zero points days, the team here is in awe from the organizers and they ability to find us some real weird whiskies to taste. What will today bring us?

The Answer was simple: A young sherry bomb. But once again we were led astray by the organizers and the entire collective failed guessing this one. Since it was a young sherry bomb, I didn’t want to guess a young Glenrothes (like last year) so instead I went for Aultmore 8yo 58%. Oh how wrong I was… This is the first bottling from Alisa Bay, the new workhorse Grants &...

I failed miserably with Day 5 and didn’t score any points so I hoped to reverse the course with this lightly peated dram. It was a confusing experience tasting it as at first it’s very subdued and then opens up to reveal a very gentle peated expression with a touch of sherry notes. I thought it’s probably some older Islay whisky and I went for 22 yo Caol Ila 43% and as expected, it was totally wrong. Who would have thought that a decent whisky can come out from Loch Lomond and at that infant age.

Inchfad 2001 6 Year Old (Loch Lomond)...

Captain Log, Day 5: After I managed to scrape off 20 points yesterday for correct region, I hope to build upon it and majbe even have a successful day with a high score. This dram felt like a high proof young dram, but the region and distillery alluded me. I was torn between three optoins: a SMWS bottling from a Speyside distillery, a young Bladnoch from The whisky broker or majbe some weird Islands bottling (Arran or HP). Eventually I went for the Lowlands route. Not sure if it was the smart decision.

Update : Ugh :-( I was so far...

Day 4 of the Blind Tasting Competition 2015 and following the zero points day yesterday, I hope to get back on the horse back today and get some points. I was confused by the greenery on the palate and wondered if it maj be a lowlander (Bladnoch or Littlemill), but other than that it felt like a highlander which led me towards Balblair distillery. I went for Balblair 2003 vintage and 46%.

Update : At least I got the region correctly… It’s Ben Nevis 18 bottled by The Whisky Agency back in 2013. The Hogshead yielded 242 and I’m sure...

After two days with some points, comes the dread of a dead day where you try your best and ends up with nothing to show for it, getting zero points. Day 3 sample was weird. It started nicely with a springbank funky note so I initially went with this guess. But when I came back and re-tasted it, the picture changed dramatically. Based on the sum of the notes I was left in the dark – Campbeltown? Isle of Jura? majbe some laddie? I went with 12yo Jura at 50%. I know there’s no such bottling but majbe it will net me some...

Second day of the Blind Tasting Competition 2015 with another hard to guess whisky. I sniffed and tasted my sample before day 1 dram was announced and I was banking it to be a speysider but now we know it cannot be one after Glenfarclas 25 was day 1 dram. Tough life of BTC’ers!

Upon initial tasting I thought it’s a 17-18 year old whisky and with lower ABV than #1 and estimated it at 46-50. I re-tasted it and it feels like a low ABV one, but since #1 was 43% I’m going for 43% here as well because...

It’s december, that time of the year with holidays in the western world, and the annual blind tasting competition of the Dutch Usquebaugh Society club. Last year I participated for the 1st time and managed to finish at the very respectable 21st place and I hope to retain that place or improve upon it a bit but I’m afraid it will be harder this year :-)

Today’s the first dram of the competition, so we know zlich about it. We can’t even eliminate a whisky zone like in the other days, supposedly making it the hardest guess. But as you can see from the notes...

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...

It was only last week when the members of Laphroaig maling list received a letter from John Campbell, the distillery manager, with a full summary of what happened in Laphroaig during 2015, the 200th anniversary year. In addition, in the letter John wrote we can expect a new expression to hit the shelves in Spring 2016, and and a few details were already revealed.

The new expression will be called Laphroaig Lore , and will it be bottled at 48%.

On the label it says: “Liquid drawn from a selection of aged casks has crafted a rich and deep malt with distinctive smoke, peat...

Longrow RED 12 is the 4th installment in the Longrow RED series. I had reviewed the first one on the blog (right here ) and liked it a lot. I also happened to taste the 3rd one (full maturation in port casks) and here comes the new one which deviate from the 11 years formula with additional one year as it’s 12 Year old.

But it’s not the only noteworthy change. Previous editions were fully matured (port cask) or finished for a couple of years (4 years for Cabernet Sauvignon and 5 years for the Australian Shiraz) and this 2015 edition is finished...

After two peated whiskies that were matured in sherry casks, the third whisky from Gordon and Macphail “The Wood Makes the Whisky” campaign is a straightforward ex-bourbon matured whisky from Speyburn distillery.

We’re not used to see many Speyburn indie bottlings out there. In fact, there aren’t many official bottlings, but G&M have longtime relationships and connections with various distilleries and whisky producers and so they stocked a few casks from Speyburn, released under the “Connoisseurs Choice” brand. The latest one, which was part of the package is a 1991 vintage but we don’t know when was it bottled so...

As I promised earlier this month in the Laphroaig 32 year old review , here’s the Laphroaig 21 Year Old review. The Laphroaig 21 is a Friends of Laphroaig (FoL) exclusive, that was distilled during 1993 and bottled earlier this year after spending all this time in 1st Fill Ex-Bourbon Barrels.

This combination means we can expect a matured (and perhaps a bit muted) peat profile with huge fruity side.

Laphroaig 21 (48.4%, 350 ml,  £99  for FoL members)

Nose : Oh it’s indeed very sweet. whiff of vanilla and honey at first with some lemon. There’s sweet peat smoke with hints of medical notes. Slowly the...

I’ve been contemplating writing a post on holidays whisky purchases and to be precise, a festive yet striking gold on the value for money scale whisky. When I started looking around for options I encountered the list of the new offers from Glendronach Batch 12 and the rising prices of said offers from a batch to a batch. So I thought to myself: if only the Glendronach 15yo was still available as it’s a perfect fit to my criteria – sherried, festive, complex for its age, rocking VFM.

Why did I think it’s not available? Because last summer it was announced...

The next sample from Gordon & Macphail ‘The wood makes the whisky’ is Ardmore 1996. The sample didn’t have bottling date so we do not know the exact age, but if we go by the assumption it’s the latest release, then it was most likely bottled in 2013 so the age statement is 16yo, just double the age of the Bunna I reviewed on Thursday.

The companion book of the campaign

The Ardmore was matured in Sherry Refill Hogsheads while the Bunnahabhain was matured in Refill Sherry Butts, so we have much more wood contact with the spirit and it spent double...

Earlier this month, Gordon and Macphail, the Elgin based independent bottlers launched a campaign named ‘The wood makes the whisky’. The campaign focuses on the cask’s contribution to whisky flavor. It’s worth repeating here what I wrote numerous times in the past, that the whisky industry estimates cask’s impact on whisky flavor at 55-80% of the final result, making it the single largest factor (Yeah, I know my math ;-) )

The campaign launches with a a dedicated book and few selected whiskies to demonstrate and showcase G&M experience in matching spirit and cask. The book, written by Neil Ridley & Joel Harrison...

Today we’re going to Ireland. A new distillery is being set up in county Cork , Southern Ireland by Hibernia distillers. To celebrate the occasion, they sourced Irish single malt from an undisclosed source (Although I’d bet it’s from Cooly distillery), named it Hyde No 1 Presidents Cask to honor Douglas Hyde who was the first president of Ireland.

Hyde 10 yo is a proper Single Maltwhisky that was matured in ex-bourbon casks before being finished in a different spirit cask and there are two variants: one finished in a first-fill Oloroso sherry casks which is the reason for the post...

Following Craigellachie and Aultmore, Royal Brackla disitllery are the next distillery being introduced into the market as part of the Last Great Malts series from Bacardi. Royal Brackla is one of two distilleries with the “Royal” word in their name (following a Royal warrant of course) but unlike the other Royal distillery (Lochnagar), Royal Brackla is not a small distillery. With a yearly production of 4,000,000 liter of alcohol, it’s a serious cog in Bacardi portfolio for blenders.

Royal Brackla aims for fruitiness and lightness by having a long fermenting stage of 80 hours comparing to the usual 60-65 hours...