Today, the Sanaig! A bottle that in all honesty passed me by for a while. I’m never normally one to buy a whisky based on its colour, but this one swung me. Some particularly active sherry casks have given this batch a wonderfully dark colour, something on-par with Glendronach and Macallan, whilst still maintaining that decadently savoury and sweet smoke. A true must for all peated whisky fans and sherry fans alike. Cheers!

https://youtu.be/idLNeNvvhyI 

(Link goes live at 7am UK time)

ralfy review 812 – Loch Lomond 18yo @ 46%vol:

ralfy’s at the bonnie, bonnie banks with –

https://youtu.be/_3p62sNfM2c

Welcome to this weeks episode of the show in which I’ll be looking at the newly repackaged Arran range. There maybe quite a bit of waffling, but it will all make sense!

https://youtu.be/img7t5lZSiE

https://youtu.be/6yyBRWrYa9Y

A love letter from me to the far flung Orkney legends, Highland Park!

(Reviews goes live 7AM UK time)

Mark’s Whisky Ramblings 296: Spey Fumare

Mark Dermul, Belgian whisky blogger, tries a lesser known malt. The Speyside Distillery is something of an unknown. Most of the production goes into blends in Asia. Apart from that they also produced Beinn Dhu, Black Burn, Cu Dubh, Drumguish and Glentromie whisky as well as the Speyside single malt. That was recently rechristened to simply Spey and appears to be very popular in Taiwan. Today Mark will try the Spey Fumare, which means smoky. As far as I am aware, this is the first and only official release of the peated version of this light Speysider.

https://youtu.be/I3j3WQYpXVo

Mark’s Whisky Ramblings 295: Mortlach 15 Year Old Six Kingdoms

Mark Dermul, Belgian whisky vlogger, tries the final Game of Thrones malt. The Mortlach Six Kingdoms is the final release in the (in)famous Game of Thrones series, that consists of 9 single malts and three Johnnie Walker blends. The so-called whisky aficionados give this one much grief and spit it out as yet another marketing stunt to promote the second batch of the GOT malts (the first was scooped up by collectors and thus Diageo’s strategy to reach a new and younger drinking audience failed). It was finished on ex-bourbon casks, meaning they ‘softened it up’ a bit for a broader audience. I am pleasantly surprised by both price tag and ABV, but the real question of course is: is it any good?

https://youtu.be/RL88kX2TdW4

Welcome to this weeks episode of the show. This week I’ll be taking a look at the results of A. D Rattray’s experimentation with octave casks. How much influence do they have in a relatively short period of time?

https://youtu.be/m83FfBCiOoA

ralfy review 810 – Ben Nevis 10yo @ 46%vol: (2020)

ralfy.com climbs Ben Nevis !

https://youtu.be/A99RHmpKLJY

Cheaper by the Dram have hit another historical ball out of the park. 1950’s White Horse, the heart malt being Lagavulin; assisted by a sprinkling of Maltmill! One of the rarest and definition of ‘unicorn’ whiskies that have ever existed! Cheers! (This video goes live 7AM UK time).

Mark’s Whisky Ramblings 294: Auchroisk 16 Year Old 2002 First Editions for Whisky Festival Gent

Mark Dermul, Belgian whisky blogger, tries another independently bottled Auchroisk. The International Malt Whisky Festival Gent offers visitors a unique festival bottling. This year it was a single cask of Auchroisk 2002, of which 246 bottles were released. It was bottled by Edition Spirits, a company that has been usurped by Hunter Laing (it was the company of the sons who tried to go it alone, but daddy stepped in).

https://youtu.be/1UAr38l_lGI