Following the sad and tragic events this weekend I thought of reviewing some good whisky to boost my mood. The choice fell on a bit sweet whisky to fight the sour and bitter taste in my mouth – a 14 year old single cask Arran, that was bottled for The Whisky Exchange.

Arran 2000 Private Cask #1106 (55.5%, 197 bottles , £70.95 )

Nose : Quite a bold and aggressive nose,  chalky, fruity, vanilla and honey, pears, peaches, pear drops, dark and deep hue fruit juice, whiffs of pineapple. Concentrated red apples juice, soursweet candies. A very rich and fabulous nose. My money here is on a 1st...

Something to start the weekend with – a review of a young and punchy single cask Kilchoman that was bottled for The Whisky Exchange to start whiskying on a high octane note.

So today we have a young Kilchoman from cask 679/2010 which was bottled at 4 year old comparing to the 5 and 6 year old we tend to see. It spent some time in a PX cask to tame down the peat and bring on some sweetness.

Kilchoman 2010 4 Year Old PX Finish (58.3%, 262 bottles , £89.95 )

Nose : There’s no doubt it’s a Kilchoman. That ashy,...

You know the story of BenRiach whiskies – there are so many official bottlings and so many single casks and not all of them works out to be a good (and above) drams. But following yesterday’s review , I recalled another good BenRiach single cask I tasted recently and I thought: why not string them out together on a consecutive days?

Today is a peated 1994 BenRiach Vintage that was bottled in 2014 as part of their 11th batch of single cask bottlings. Distilled in 1994 and bottled in juli 2014 after being finished in Madeira cask. Total of 334 bottles were produced.

BenRiach 1994 20 Year Old Peated...

It’s a kinda busy day here so take a quick review of a great Benriach single cask that was bottled exclusively for TWE this summer. It’s a 1998 vintage (17 year old), triple distilled and finished in a PX cask #7758.

Benriach 1998 17 Year Old Triple Distilled PX Finish (48.9%, 704 bottles,  £99.95 )

Nose : This is quite a  malty and soft nose. Full of sweet apricots and fresh (and a tad rich) perfume fruit orchard, zesty citrus peels, ginger and cacao, A lovely nose!

Palate : Spicy with white pepper, oak wood spices, ginger, citrus, vanilla, cacao...

Following Yesterdays review of the single cask Glendronach, I thought it will be a good idea to bring you an example of a true sherry bomb. If you recall from that review, I said that it felt a bit lighter than a true sherry bomb so today I bring you a review of 100% sherry bomb.

I was debating between two possible reviews but this morning on twitter there was a small discussion on awful sherried Benrinnes whiskies and just like that the die was cast for me as one of the options is an explosive sherried Benrinnes and that should mend...

A quick review without a lengthy introduction or musings: A Glendronch single cask bottling from 1995. An exclusive bottling for The Whisky Exchange, aged 19yo and packing a 55.4% punch. Gotta be a good sherry bomb, right?

Glendronach 1995 19 yo PX Puncheon TWE Exclusive (55.4%,  £110 )

Nose : Yummy! Starts with a heavy PX influence but after a minute you realize it’s not your ordinary sherry bomb. It’s lighter on the red dark fruit front. Instead there are lots of fresh and sweet fruit, sultanas, soaked raisins and dates. There’s a good punch of sherry spices, cinnamon, cloves and some sweet...

What do whisky geeks look for in a whisky? There are a few possible answers to this question but I think there’s one answer that will resonate true with most: Deeper understanding and new Information on what impacts and builds whisky taste.

Think about it for a moment: What impacts taste and flavor in whisky? We know that barley variant, yeast type, fermentation time (and vessels), still shape, heart cut and casks – all those impact flavor so it’s no wonder that we geeks love masterclasses, special whisky releases and aids that help us deconstruct whisky – to gain a better understanding of how it works and...

Anyone who knows me, personally or follow me via the blog, know that Laphroaig is my favorite distillery. With Laphroaig celebrating 200 years this year I was very excited and keen to try anything new they throw at us: the re-invented 15 Year Old (which I already reviewed here ), the 21 Year old (soon to be reviewed) and the ultra premium 32 Year Old.

When the 32 Year Old expression was announced, I knew it will be expensive and well beyond me and my poor wallet. After all, it’s not too common to find old age Laphroaig in sherry casks and...

Another day in oktober, another review of a whisky release for the holidays. This time, the latest annual edition of one of the few bottlings that actually admit it’s targeted at Xmas shoppers: Big Peat Xmas Edition and today it’s a review of their new 2015 edition.

Just like the normal Big Peat, it contains malts from various Islay distilleries, and like the previous annual Xmas editions, is bottled at cask strength and this year it’s 53.8%.

Big peat Xmas Edition 2015 (53.8%, £49.95 / €48.90  )

Nose : First sniff screams YOUNG! But not all young whiskies are equal so let’s paddle on. Sweet peat...

Remember Compass Box “This is Not a Luxury Whisky” I reviewed last week? When it was released, to celebrate Compass Box 15th anniversary, there was another whisky release: the 5th edition of Flaming Heart.

Once again, we do get to see what are the ingredients and it and I wish we could see such a list for every whisky. is very interesting composition: old Caol Ila, younger Caol Ila, Large dose of Clynelish and a dash of spicy young highland malt.

There are 12,060 bottles of this whisky, bottled at 48.9%, Not chilled-filtered and Natural color. Let’s dive into it....

It’s my birthday so I have an excellent excuse to post a review of a special whisky, one that comes from a closed lowlands distillery, a 32 Year old  St. Magdalene Distillery (also known as Linlithgow) whisky.

I had the opportunity to see the old distillery site when my friend Tom took me there two years ago (a few pictures are here ) but I didn’t taste any whisky made there until very recently when I finally tasted the 32 yo whisky bottled earlier this year by Cadenhead.

The whisky was distilled in 1982 and bottled in januari 2015 at cask strength of 58.1%...

Remember Ardbeg Dark Cove? A possible new Ardbeg whisky that we discovered last month thanks to the required filling in the American TTB database. There were a lot of speculations about it – is it a new core expression? a replacement for Uigeadail?

Since then the water calmed down and the Ardbeg fans went hibernating but guess what? There’s a new filling for Dark Cove at the TTB database with an updated label!

Two noticeable changes this time:

1. ABV is not a mere 46.5% but a cask strength of 55%
2. The label sports “special committee only edition” declaration.

Interesting ah? What does...

Today we’ll have a review of a new whisky release targeted at the x-mas/new year holidays shoppers. This time it’s another special edition from Wemyess Malts, Kiln Embers. Kiln Embers release follows Velvet Fig, its very successful predecessor, which I liked a lot and so I had high hopes for this one as well.

This time, Wemyss Malts took different approach and direction, almost 180 degrees of Velvet Fig, going west toward Islay and peat. Yes, it’s true they already have a peated whisky in their portfolio (Peat chimney), but this special edition boast double amount of smoky Islay malt. Let’s check what we have...

It’s this time of the year (Holidays, remember?) and here is another new whisky release we review and this time it’s a new release from John Glaser and Compass box. John Glaser is an artist, admit it. he creates unique blends, and Compass box do some special whisky labels (Hedonism Quindecimus as an evidence for both). This time he go farther and uses an external work of art as inspiration for this new whisky, Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the work of René Magritte – Le Trahison des images ( The Treachery of Images ) . This work from 1929 is far more familiar...

On the third day of the trip, we started our descent south from Thurso toward Inverness and the next logical stop was Old Pulteney Distillery as we took the coastal road. The distillery resides inside Wick so it’s one of the rare cases where a distillery resides inside an urban zone and it wasn’t easy to spot the entrance, especially when you’re in a hurry to get to the tour.

We hurried inside to start the tour and to play detective. I had an important mission to find out who’s the handsome guy who is a good virtual friend and also posing as a fellow blogger that...

Following yesterday’s review of the BenRiach Dunder , here’s a review of his close sibling BenRiach Albariza. Both are peated BenRiachs aged 18 year old, just that the Albariza is finished in PX sherry casks. Does it work better here than in the Dunder?

BenRiach 18 Year Old Albariza (46%, 3886 bottles, £98 / €107 )

Nose : Lots of peat yet it is weaker than it felt in Dunder. It’s probably mitigated by the PX cask as the sherry notes are quite prominent here. Dried fruits, sour berries, raisins, sweet, cloves, weak cooked cinnamon. With further exposure to air there are...

BenRiach distillery is well known for weird and innovative experiments with their whisky – myriad of distillations (double and triple), heavy peated, peated and unpeated releases, different wood finishes and that leads to a few duds but also some kick ass whiskies over the last decade, led by the famous annual batch releases.

This year we were treated to a trio of new releases – peated whisky finished in different spirit barrels: PX sherry, Dark rum and Madeira. Those expressions are quite a success from the business side as it’s not easy to get a bottle of those releases. They fly off the...

After my first experience with English Whisky Co. wares, it was time to be bold and push the boundaries even further, so I went ahead and tasted the peated version of English Whisky Co.

It’s another The Whisky Exchange exclusive, bottled at 55.2% with only 290 bottles produced. I had two questions in mind about it:

1. is the peat source a local one in Norfolk or is it sourced from Scotland or outside the UK? 2. How does it stand up to the classic (and unpeated) version?

English Whisky Co. Peated TWE Exclusive (55.2%, 290 bottles,  £61.95 )

Nose : First impression: creamy...

Let’s start the week with a new review from a new distillery on this site, the English Whisky Co. Distillery.

English Whisky Co., the brainchild of James Nelstrop (and his child Andrew), is the first distillery opened in England for over 100 years. They take pride for having pure water in an aquifer beneath them and access to local barley grown in the area (Norfolk).

So I thought that the best way to start the relationship between me and the distillery would be trying their classic whisky, but not their ordinary classic one. Instead, we’ll try the Whisky Exchange exclusive...

One third of oktober is already behind us. It means we’re closer to X-mas, the Whisky Exchange Show is behind us and a new a new Maltwhisky Yearbook was released. I got my signed copy of the 2016 edition (Thanks Micheal!) just in time to accompany me during the weekend.

This year, the book have a new layout, making it feels fresher but the content is mostly unchanged. Like every edition, the book is generally divided into four sections:

• The first section contains different articles – new ones every year, yeah? :-)
• The second and the largest one is  the distilleries information section which is divided into...