Midleton Dair Ghaelach – Irish Virgin Oak

Back in April, I wrote about Midleton Dair Ghaelach, a new Irish pot still whiskey finished in Irish virgin oak. That post concentrated more on the sourcing and treatment of the wood; this post is all about the whiskey, which has just arrived at TWE HQ.

Kevin O’Gorman and Billy Leighton

 Midleton’s master of maturation Kevin O’Gorman (left) shares a toast with master blender Billy Leighton

Dair Ghaelach (‘Irish oak’) is a blend of whiskeys aged between 15 and 22 years in refill bourbon casks, before a 10-month spell in Irish virgin oak. Midleton began experimenting with Irish oak several years ago, and were delighted with the results. They’re even trialling whiskey aged entirely in Irish oak. We’ll have to wait and see whether they come to fruition, but in the meantime, this is what we thought of Dair Ghaelach:

Midleton Dair Ghaelach

MIDLETON DAIR GHAELACH, 58.2%
Nose: Very rich, with enticing aromas of sultanas and raisins, crème brûlée, and Caramac bars. Tobacco and leather are in there, too, along with honeyed fruit.

Palate: Good weight, with generous helpings of dried fruit, cinnamon and nutmeg. More evolved flavours of leather and old bookshops appear, helped along by green fruits, toffee and vanilla. Full flavoured and complex.

Finish: Good level of spice – pepper, cinnamon, touch of waxy fruits.

Comment: There is a lot going on with this whiskey, but every element finds its own place. The sweet spice from the oak really shines through, but not so much that it takes over. Just a fine example of Irish pot still, with the classic notes of tropical fruit, green apple and spice.

The first batch of Midleton Dair Ghaelach is limited to 12,000 bottles, and is available from The Whisky Exchange priced at £166.

Originally published on The Whisky Exchange Blog – Midleton Dair Ghaelach – Irish Virgin Oak

www.ralfy.com grabs an age-stated bottle off the Supermarket shelf and shares the experience with Whisky Review #555 – Glenlivet 15yo French Oak Reserve

Bowmore 25 Year Old 1990 vintage Islay single malt Scotch whisky. Single refill boubon barrel #1163 bottled June 2015 for our exclusive Burns Malt® series.

Bowmore

Bowmore Distillery was established on the Isle of Islay off the west coast of Scotland by John Simpson in 1779. Situated in Bowmore by the shore of Loch Indaal it is the oldest working distillery on Islay and one of the oldest malt whisky distilleries in Scotland. Bowmore Distillery continues to produce a proportion of its malted barley on its own traditional malting floors and malt kilns. Visitors are welcomed in the Bowmore visitor centre where distillery tours are available in addition to Bowmore Distillery cottages to rent. Bowmore Distillery is a participant in Feis Isle, the Islay Festival of Malt and Music.

BUY $189.33

Laphroaig Live 2015 now ‘On Demand’ on YouTube. We had a record worldwide audience at our special 200th broadcast from the distillery so may I thank each and every one of you who tuned in on the night. But of course I realise that for many of you the time difference meant that you could not watch it live, so we have now put it on YouTube here so you can all enjoy it at your leisure! There were some great and funny moments in the show so it’s really worth a watch! I was so pleased that Sam Heughan came to be our special guest on this auspicious occasion. As you will see he thoroughly enjoyed himself on the night.

The Worldwide premiere of our special 200th Opinions Welcome film At the show we aired the latest film in our Opinions Welcome series. In our anniversary year we asked the locals at home on the Isle of Islay to share their candid opinions on what Laphroaig tastes like to them personally. We have now put this on You Tube as well. You can watch it here. I think it’s fantastic – and so do my friends on Islay, I hope you do too. Don’t forget to let us know your opinions at www.laphroaig.com/opinions

Our 200th special edition book. The last pages of the book have now been complete as they were the show itself. It has now gone off to the printers. We will start sending them out at the beginning of December well in time for Christmas. But you can pre order it now if you want to be certain to get a copy of this complete history of Laphroaig. You can order it HERE at your shop.

Our Worldwide Laphroaig toast. Many of you have written in to find out just how many people toasted with us on the night. Well the answer is over 31,500. Whether this makes the record books I do not know but it certainly was the biggest toast I have ever been involved in. So thank you to all who toasted along with me – slàinte!

Slàinte,

John Campbell Distillery Manager, Laphroaig

Glendronach 20 Year Old Octaves Scotch Whisky

Glendronach 20 Year Old 1994 vintage Octaves Highland single malt Scotch whiskey. This is a one-off bottling created by combining five PX Sherry Octaves.

Limited release of 371 bottles.

Nose: An intense concentration of chocolate fondant, candied ginger and glace cherries; all perfectly balanced with a warming grind of black pepper, rich oak spices and a slight touch of liquorice.

Palate: Full-bodied sherry characteristics give dark molasses enriched Christmas cake. Sour plum syrup and delightful cigar box spices. A subtle combination of dark espresso and nutty dryness gives the finish tremendous depth.

Finish: A rare combination of heavyweight sherry Octave maturation and robust, rich Highland whisky characteristics, capturing the darkest depths to the most delicate spice.

Buy – $671.22

Glendronach malt whisky distillery was established north east of Huntley in Scotland’s Highland whisky region by James Allardice in 1826. The malting floors at Glendronach Distillery closed in 1996 and it was the last distillery in Scotland to heat its stills directly with flames from a coal-fired furnace, until it had to comply with new regulations in 2005. Glendronach Distillery is resplendent with a traditional cask iron mash tun, wooden washbacks, four stills matures its malt whisky in top quality sherry casks. Glendronach Distillery has a distillery visitor centre offering a range of distillery tours and the distillery participates is the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival.

I bring you some exciting news this afternoon….the new Society bottling is officially READY FOR PURCHASE!!

Unfortunately I have some bad news to begin with however. Some of you will be aware that during the Campbeltown Malts Festival 2015, we held a special tasting for Society Members to decide what whisky should be chosen for the Autumn Society release. Heartbreakingly, when we regauged the cask to find out how many bottles we were going to get from it, we noticed there had been a bad leak meaning we were not going to get a sufficient number of bottles to satisfy demand. I was so, so disappointed when told about this, as I know many of our members will be too. For members who were at the tasting, I will be sending you a separate, additional email to this so please keep an eye out for it arriving in the next hour or so.

The good news is that we have found an equally as impressive and tasty replacement which I’m sure you will all love. I’m pleased to announce that the new Society bottling is a Springbank 18 year old, matured in a Re-charred Sherry Butt. It was distilled in July 1997 and bottled in September 2015 (Friday 25th September to be precise!) It has been bottled at a cask strength of 58.9% abv and is limited to 502 bottles.  

The cost of this bottling is £90.00 and because this is a bigger cask than our recent Society releases, members will be able to purchase two bottles per person, if you wish.

The tasting notes for our new Society release are:

Nose:  Aromas of dark chocolate, cocoa powder and brandy butter underlined by a soft caramelization. 

Palate:  An oily and mouth coating dram with rich chocolate, liquorice and sherbet notes coming to the fore followed by wood char and nutmeg.  

Finish:  A long, dry finish with notes of fennel and espresso with tobacco smoke in the background. 

For those of you who have tasted the Springbank 1997 Vintage – this whisky is very reminiscent of that….delicious!

If you would like to reserve a bottle then please email me ASAP as it will be based on a first come first served basis. As you will be aware, my inbox gets extremely busy after a new release is announced and it can take me a couple of weeks to get through all the emails so please don’t panic if you don’t get an immediate reply. Please be assured I will be working through them as quickly as I can.

As we have welcomed a lot of new members to the Society over the past few months, here is some information on how the Society bottles work:

We release two special Society bottlings each year which are only available to members of the Society. In the past, the releases have been at different times of the year but to make it more uniform, we will now release one each Spring (March/April) and one each Autumn (September/October).

When we release a new bottling, I will email you with all the details and if you would like to order a bottle (there is no obligation to do so) then you should email me back with your request, including where you would like the bottle to be delivered to and how you would like to pay. 

There are a couple of different options for delivery. You can either have the bottle sent to your home address or have it sent to one of our Cadenhead Shops for collection.

Excluding the USA (due to strict import laws), we are able to ship bottles worldwide so if you would like to know the shipping costs for 1-6 bottles to your country then please email me and I will send you over the details. Our prices include all taxes and costs on our side but does not cover any entry fees or taxes which may incur when the whisky reaches it’s destination country.

As mentioned above, we can also ship your Society bottles to the following Cadenhead Shops for collection:

• Edinburgh (UK)
• London (UK)
• Cologne (Germany)
• Berlin (Germany)
• Salzburg (Austria)
• Odense (Denmark)

If you would like your bottle delivered to any of the Cadenhead shops mentioned then PLEASE state this when ordering your bottle.

If you order your bottle to be delivered to any of our UK Cadenhead stores then payment for the bottle will be organised through me plus a £2.00 packaging fee and we will send it out with their next order (orders are usually sent weekly).

If you order your bottle to be delivered to any of our European stores then you will pay for the bottle when you collect it from the stated shop. The European shops usually get orders every 2-3 months so if you would like it sent there then please let me know and I can arrange it with the next shipment. Please allow a bit of time for the delivery and as soon as I have a shipping date then I will let you know. Can I kindly ask that you wait until you have heard from me before phoning the shops to ask if they have arrived.

In addition to the two options above and for any of our members living in Canada, one of our stockists in Calgary, Kensington Wine Market, are able to import Society bottles so if you would like to have your bottle sent to them for collection then please let me know this and we can get it arranged.

Sláinte,

Mairi

Mairi Paterson 

For the Springbank Society

To join the Springbank Society contact Mairi at society@springbankwhisky.com

OCTOBER OUTTURN: THE GREAT DRAM BAKE-OFF

Maybe it’s because the ‘Great British Bake Off’ finale is just around the corner, or we’re in the mood for comfort as the nights draw-in, but this First Friday our thoughts have turned to sweet, delicious desserts. October’s Outturn whispers sweet nothings with 14 new single casks with a penchant for puddings.

We’ve hand picked our favourite half-dozen dessert drams – look out for bunting below. Taste and explore and vote for your sweet little winner. #greatdrambakeoff

Young & spritely

48.64 Clean as a whistle £42.80

Sweet, fruity & mellow

64.67 Pleasing, teasing and comforting £96.00

121.83 A passion for puddings £49.20

46.34 Honey in a sunny garden £74.00

55.33 Dancing, tickling and charming.  Exclusive to October offers.  More >

Spicy & sweet

1.189 High on the hills with a lonely goatherd… £81.50

Spicy & dry

2.92 Coconut panna cotta £55.40

Juicy, oak & vanilla

50.69 A celebration of life!  Limited to one per member and available in our members’ rooms or by phone order only  More >

£110.00

54.33 Holidays and honeymoons £51.20

Oily & coastal

 7.121 Salt water taffy £50.70

53.226 Teddy Boys at the beach £56.80

Lightly peated

4.212 A dram from Treasure Island £79.80

Peated

3.248 Like a hot coal in the mouth £68.00

29.169 Beach bonfires, creels and boats £84.50

Browse New Outturn >
Browse All Bottlings >

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, The Vaults, 87 Giles Street, Leith EH6 6BZ Contact: sales@smws.com or call 0131 555 2929 (Mon-Fri 9am-4.45pm). Visit the Society at here for membership information

This is your chance to join and to take advantage of their great offers!

Spot the SMWS bottles in this amusing You Tube video

Macallan Speymalt 1981 Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky

Macallan Speymalt 1981 vintage Speyside single malt Scotch whiskey. Selected and bottled 2015 by Gordon & MacPhail.

Buy – $423.05

Macallan

The Macallan Distillery was established by Alexander Reid in 1824 near Easter Elchies House on the Easter Elchies estate. Easter Elchies House dates back to 1700. Macallan Distillery is a malt whisky distillery situated in Scotland’s Speyside whisky region. The old still house was re-commissioned in 2008 and now Macallan Distillery operates with two still houses sheltering twenty-one copper stills. On-site maturation is carried out in traditional dunnage warehouses and by racking in large new warehouses on the estate. The Macallan visitor centre welcomes visitors throughout the year and offers distillery tours. The Macallan Distillery also participates in the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival.

This week Joe Ellis reviews the AnCnoc 2000 Vintage.

https://youtu.be/G8bPnqfwJc8

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Vote For Us…

The team at Glenturret Distillery are delighted to be shortlisted in this year’s Whisky Magazine “Icons of Whisky” Scotland Awards. We have been nominated in 2 categories, Distillery of the Year and Distillery Manager of the Year.

The Famous Grouse Experience at Glenturret Distillery has also been shortlisted for 2 awards, Visitor Attraction of the Year and Visitor Attraction Manger of the Year.

The voting is open to the public and closes on Friday 9th October. Click here to register your vote.