UK vlogger Joe Ellis a.k.a Whisky Wednesday reviews Glencadam 14 Year Old Oloroso Finish
Glenfarclas 1953 Queen’s Coronation Decanter
It’s difficult to believe that Her Maj has been sixty years on the throne. But on 2nd June 1953, Elizabeth Windsor was crowned Sovereign of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth territories in Westminster Abbey. A little later the same year, … Continue reading >>
Islay is going to have a 9th distillery.
It is named Gartbreck, being situated in an outstanding situation right by the sea on Loch Indaal near Bowmore. This will be a distillery of limited capacity, perhaps the smallest on Islay.
It is planned that the distillery will be running by spring 2015.
Watch this space for further details…
Whisky Ramblings Via Video #60
Mark Dermul, Belgian whisky blogger, thinks whiskey is not the first thing that comes to mind when seeing XXX on the label, but there you have it. A white dog from Philadelphia, triple distilled in copper pot stills. He found out, however, that it serves best as a mixer. Check out Mark’s XXX Sunshine! He shot the video in the medieval village of Saint Suzanne in France.
A note from Stewart Buchanan of BenRiach & GlenDronach
One year down…
So that’s over a year in my new role and I still love every minute!
2013 started straight away with a tasting on the 11th of January and until now I have only really been in the office for a few weeks and, on a rough count as the crow flies, I have travelled approximately 32,119 miles! At the start of the year I thought I would keep track of the number of drams I was tasting while I was on tour but as the drams moved into litres and litres moved into gallons, I’m sure you can understand I started to lose track?!
It has been a year of many firsts again and we have continued to break new ground armed with a breadth of fantastic drams from BenRiach and GlenDronach. From the 15 degrees below zero in the north of Denmark to the 36 degrees plus in the south of Taiwan, the blues bars of Chicago to the historic old town of Quebec city, the beautiful fjords of Norway to the rugged Scottish sandy beaches of St Andrews, AND LONDON!! No…London was great; I had a few fantastic nights with some cracking folk in Milroy’s of Soho, the Whisky Shop Guildford, and the Whisky Shop right behind St Paul’s cathedral. It’s exciting for me to see that the passion and enthusiasm for BenRiach and GlenDronach here in the UK is as strong as it is in the rest of the world.
There is always something that happens to me along the way! If you expose yourself to the world (and I don’t mean by wearing a kilt), the world will give you a wee nudge to remind you who is the boss. It was my last day in Taiwan and after a very late night finish in the south of the country (with the obligatory multiple gan bei’s over dinner); we had to meet the next morning in the hotel lobby at 10am. Waking bleary-eyed at 9.40 on the 20th floor I jumped in a cold shower, threw on the kilt, zipped up my case and made it to the elevator 9.55. That was good timing I thought to myself. The next minute my head spun and my feet nearly went from under me…Ooo ya!! That was a hefty spin!! Or maybe not…the lamp shades are starting to sway?? As I stood there wondering what to do and thinking others would appear from their rooms so I could follow their lead, a voice over the tannoy system informed me that we were experiencing an earthquake. Funnily enough I had gathered that! The next voice says ‘please do not use the elevator’. So I just stand there 20 floors up waiting till it stops? Yes, a full 3 minutes with a 6.3 earthquake swaying the building under my feet. Luckily I was still a bit, let’s say, fuzzy and didn’t have the energy or capacity to panic. When I saw my chance after around 30 seconds of stability, I jumped in the elevator down to the lobby, only to find an orderly queue of suited businessmen at reception casually chatting and others sipping coffee waiting to check out. All I could think at that point was; thank god I didn’t run from the elevator screaming like a banshee with my arms and kilt flailing around my head diving for the safety of the open air.
Apart from a slight delay on the high-speed train to Taipei, I flew home that night without a hitch. It was as ever a brilliant tasting tour of Taiwan and I can’t wait to get back.
Tasting single malt isn’t always as easy as it might seem, for example the GlenDronach batch 7 tasting tour of Belgium. That was some sherry marathon; 5 tastings of 8 big sherry cask strength drams with years ranging from 2002 all the way back to 1972 and strengths from high sixties to low forties. Not only taking into consideration the change of character in the whisky as it opens in the glass, you also get a tremendous change as you play with your palate going back and forth between the drams, young to old, old to young, Pedro Ximenez to Oloroso, high strength to low and back again. Due to this onslaught on your palate you need to drink around 3 litres of water to keep it clean and refreshed for the next dram, which also adds other implications I might add. As I can nose a whisky for over an hour before it passes my lips, this line up could have quite easily filled an 8 hour shift. But by letting everyone take a journey through the drams at their own pace and me filling in the details on the way, we managed to get through them in around 2.5 hours. It was a totally unique style of tasting for the attendees to experience and everyone was blown away by each and every one of the drams. Not that I’m in any way complaining but it was probably one of the hardest weeks for my palate so far…life’s hard?!
In mid-January, after the amazing response to the GlenDronach cask strength batch 1, work commenced on bringing together batch 2. Over 250 casks were sampled and the selection was narrowed down to 10 final casks that would be used to bring the perfect balance of the classic GlenDronach to the bottle; ‘A perfectly balanced sherry character. An explosion of chocolate covered raisins and zest of orange, mellowed with sweet warm oak spices. A hint of soft toffee and gentle sugared almonds’. Billy has truly worked its magic once again.
BenRiach was certainly the hit of my Chicago trip: from the crisp apple freshness of the Heart of Speyside to the earthy barley and honest peat balance of the 17 year old Septendecim, it was loved by all in every tasting I conducted. The drinker’s heaven of Binny’s store, Whisky Fest in the plush ballroom surroundings of Hyatt Hotel and my favourite: the upstairs bar of the world renowned Delilah’s on Lincoln Ave. If you ever find yourself at a loose end in Chicago, a visit to see Mike in his bar is a must. Many folk have probably tried to describe this fantastic whisky and whiskey bar but to be honest, it wouldn’t do it justice – you will just have to take a look!
The end of March brought a new distillery into the fold – Glenglassaugh! One of Scotland’s oldest distilleries, and arguably one of the most picturesque, perched on the hillside looking over the stunning Sandend beach. It’s a distillery I’ve thought of fondly over the years and have spent many an hour looking up at it as I bobbed around the bay at Sandend waiting to catch a wave and it is with great excitement I look forward to taking the whiskies out on the road.
Glenglassaugh sits perfectly in the family with its oldest casks going back to 1963 and also fantastic younger whisky in the Revival and Evolution releases. Traditional in style the whisky holds beautiful oak spices and luscious sweet apple and pear notes. There is also what I can only call a fantastic coastal note which I think defines Glenglassaugh’s unique style. In scale, it is a 5 tonne mash with 6 wash backs, one wash still and one spirit still. With everything being done in a traditional manual style it fits perfectly with Billy’s ethos in keeping our distilleries as artisan as they can possibly be. So watch this space for more developments.
My task for the summer was to sample hundreds of casks at all the distilleries so that has kept me busy! I’ve started hitting the road again so I’ll be back in a couple of months with some more stories. It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it!
Slainte
Stewart Buchanan
Brand ambassador
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is the world’s leading authority on single cask, single malt whisky. To date The Society has bottled whiskies from 129 distilleries in Scotland and elsewhere.
The Society only bottles from individual casks or barrels. This means that there are never more than a few hundred bottles of each whisky. Each release is unique and rare because it is limited to the contents (the “outturn”) of a single cask or barrel. All are bottled at cask-strength and are non chill-filtered.
Only Society members can purchase Society whiskies, thus maintaining their exclusivity.
Members receive the award-winning Society magazine “Unfiltered” on a quarterly basis. Unfiltered is an informative and quirky look at what’s happening in the world of whisky.
New bottlings are released every month in “Outturn,” The Society’s bottling list.
Tastings of new releases are generally held on the first Friday of each month (“First Fridays”). Members receive advance notice and discounted rates.
How to join:
Initial membership is $230 plus applicable taxes, and includes the new member’s kit (pictured below). Membership is renewable on an annual basis for $120 plus tax. To join, or to purchase a membership for a lucky recipient as a gift, please contact the exclusive retail home of the Society on Vancouver Island:
The Strath Ale, Wine & Spirit Merchants
919 Douglas Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 2C2
Phone: (250) 370-9463 Email: whisky@strathconahotel.com
Only single cask, single malt whiskies that promise to intrigue, entertain and delight our members are selected.
Learn more at www.smws.ca
LAPHROAIG QA CASK 1 LITRE
Distillery LAPHROAIG
Strength 40%%
Bottle Size 1 Litre
World of Whiskies Price: £46.99
Tasting Notes
The colour of sparkling gold with a nose of burning peat fire with warm vanilla and hints of orange rose petals. Light bodies but with a palate of intense peat followed by ash from the fireplace with liquorice root and fresh black pepper leaving a clean palate with a hint of lingering peat smoke.
Charles
MacLean’s Tasting notes: Summer gold in colour. A spicy nose, with vanilla and seaweed, planed oak, iodine and tarred hessian rope – backed by peat smoke. The taste is very sweet to start, with traces of salt and vinegar, and tarry smoke in the finish.
Something old, something new
It’s rare for Scottish distilleries to use new rather than re-fill casks. So with Laphroaig QA Cask – a bottling exclusive to Duty Free stores – you’re in for an uncommonly fine treat. With ‘QA’ signifying for Quercus alba (white oak), the name acknowledges that this whisky has been re-racked from ex-Bourbon into fresh American oak casks for the final months of its maturation. As the active tannins and compounds in new wood can quickly dominate, the duration of this final part of the process is critical. But it’s one Laphroiag has perfected; adding an extra flavour dimension of vanilla and spice to their famously robust spirit.
Read Charles MacLean’s full article
www.ralfy.com discovers something wonderful in Whisky Review 392 – Elmer T Lee single barrel sour mash bourbon
BenRiach 1966 Vestige
BenRiach “Vestige” is a 46 year-old single malt Scotch whisky, distilled and filled to cask on the 21st of September, 1966.
When BenRiach became independent in 2004, we inherited a handful of casks from 1966 – the oldest stock in the distillery’s warehouses. By the end of 2012, just two of those casks remained, and Billy Walker has selected one of those casks, BenRiach 1966 cask # 2381, to be bottled as “Vestige”.
This whisky is ‘classic Speyside’ in style, and was matured in a traditional hogshead. It is bottled at cask strength (44.1% vol). After 46 years of maturation, the cask generated just 62 bottles, which will be sold worldwide. The UK retail price is £3999.99.
“Vestige” has been so named because it represents a moment in time, a small trace of something very special that, once lost, can never be replaced. The BenRiach 1966 cask # 2381 truly is a piece of the distillery’s history.
BenRiach 1966 Vestige
Wednesday18th September 2013, 6.30pm Start
Auchentoshan (Aw-khen-tosh-an) is Gaelic for “corner of the field”: it is located at the foot of the Kilpatrick hills in West Dunbartonshire. Auchentoshan is unusual for a Scottish distillery in that it employs triple distillation, lending it exceptional purity and lightness, so that it is sometimes called ‘the Breakfast whisky’. Join us as we peruse a delicious range of expressions of this most elegant whisky.
£20.00
All tastings take place at our tasting cellar:
Milroys of Soho,
3 Greek Street
London
W1D 4NX
