Mark’s Whisky Ramblings 312: Islay 8 Year Old Ypres Whisky Friends / The Magnificent Five

Mark Dermul, Belgian whisky vlogger, tries an Islay whisky. The guys of the Ypres Whisky Friends have realized their first club bottling. It’s an Islay Blended Malt, although that is to be taken with a grain of salt. The cask number leaves no doubt that this is a Laphroaig, according to insiders teaspooned with a bit of Caol Ila, so that it can no longer be termed single malt. They share the cask with the Magnificent Five – also from Belgium – who took the rest of the cask, but selected a totally different packaging.

https://youtu.be/1Sn0vy1XG1E

Not this week folks,  his samples didn’t arrive!

ralfy.com gets blended malt-momented.

https://youtu.be/eFLWoWEjkh4

Mark’s Whisky Ramblings 311: Vital Spark 5 Year Old 2013

Mark Dermul, Belgian whisky vlogger, tries an undisclosed Ileach. Vital Spark is a release from the Meadowside Blending Co, which we are familiar with because of their releases of The Maltman and The Grainman. While it is not mentioned as such on the label, it is a public secret that this third batch is a single oloroso sherry cask of my beloved Caol Ila (which is not necessarily true for batch 1 and 2!). Oh, will you look at that color…

https://youtu.be/RB4ap-AZyfc

A short lived history: 1957-1992, the latter was a good year for me but not for Lochside.  Buried in the eastern Highlands close to Montrose, Lochside was one of the few distilleries in its life that could produce a Single Blended Whisky. Shutting its door twenty-eight years ago, it is rarely seen and pretty hard to come across a sub-thirty year old expression now.

https://youtu.be/ZB8h3UFQ5mA

Welcome to this weeks episode of the show. It’s been some time, 5 months to be precise since my last Springbank review, so it’s about time I did another!

https://youtu.be/c30aZYaOlu4

Mark’s Whisky Ramblings 310: Ardbeg Corryvreckan

Mark Dermul, Belgian whisky vlogger, tries and older Ardbeg. The Ardbeg Corryvreckan is named after the world’s second largest whirlpool, just north of Islay in the North Sea. It’s a standard release from Ardbeg, always available. And while some batch variation does occur, they are always very good. I will try a release from 2009. The Ardbeg Corryvreckan is always bottled at 57.1% ABV and contains some whisky that matured on French wine casks.

https://youtu.be/5ZTbfew38u4

Welcome to this weeks episode in which I’ll be looking at some new and auld releases from the independent bottling company Duncan Taylor.

https://youtu.be/TI5Y8snWp6M

825th whisky review from ralfy.com

https://youtu.be/5-eIcWi9AE4

Port Ellen! The one, the only, the infamous Islay. I’ve tried two in the past, three now; as to be expected, they’re all very good. Not life-changing but still extremely good whisky that shouldn’t be allowed to disappear before you get to try it. Samples are expensive, as indeed are measures at a bar, but I’d say its worth doing to tick off that box and be able to make up your own mind as well.

https://youtu.be/b860A1ft3J4