Welcome to this week’s episode of the show, in which I’ll be taking a look at the new Holyrood distillery based in Edinburgh. Episode 584 It Would Be Rood Not To Do This Episode..! Filmed in The Study Nottingham.
Glenalllachie 17yo Oloroso & Mizunara
Quite the spot of decadence this week. A Glenallachie matured in ex-Oloroso and ex-Mizunara barrels. Bottled at 50% ABV with all of the other good natural stuff that comes with it.
Billy Walker dominates the world of sherry in a way that no other person or brand can really even touch. Macallan get close, don’t get me wrong. But when it comes to a positive element of cult of personality. Billy Walker is your go to man!
Billy never distilled this liquid so I’m unsure of it was in ex-bourbon prior to this and re-recked into sherry and Japanese oak, but that’s bye the bye when it comes to flavour. The dominance of the sherry on this liquid is so big bit also so subtle at the same time. You get all of these cocoa nib, orange oil, gentle tobacco notes from all of these huge sherry casks. However, the Mizunara element of this whisky takes a while to come through on the nose. You feel it significantly more on the taste.
Mizunara for me is always dominant with white and black pepper notes. It still has some natural sweetness to it with candied apple, but given the power of these sherry barrels the Mizunara is playing second fiddle to when it comes to aroma. The pepper notes contrast the massive sweetness of the liquid, also providing some wonderfully contrasting dryness that rounds off the taste.
All in all this is a very impressive whisky with loads of appeal. The only real downside is the price that comes along with it. Around that £250+ mark for a seventeen year old liquid is quite a push. A few years ago you would never see a limited edition Glenallachie sat n shelves, how ties are changing.
If you see this in a bar or if you’re in a whisky club with a few friends, this would make an incredible bottle to focus on. I also think the Mizunara could become more dominant the longer it’s open, but that will have to be tested another time.
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Bruichladdich 19YO End OF Message Wine Cask
Part two, and the final release in this weird and wonderful collection of single barrels from Bruichladdich. Bottled as a duo in a private cask purchase, just like the previous bottling, this was fully matured in an ex-Chateau d’Yquem barrel for nearly two decades! Bottled at cask strength with all of the fun things that accompany that, this is one of the reasons Bruichladdich have built such an incredible reputation for themselves. However, not every single barrel can be perfect on everyone’s palate.
This bottle sings of honeycomb, gingerbread, Bakewell tarts, glacier cherries and sweet almonds for as long as you could want. However, in a twist I wasn’t expecting we do get quite a dominant note of sulphur on this bottle. I’m unsure if this is from so long in a sweet wine cask, or if it’s Laddie’s spirit still being dominant in the mix after all of that time. Bruichladdich is known for having a very divisive new-make spirit. Some folks I’ve met in the whisky industry can barely spend more than a few minutes within the distillery as the aromas of their new make can be very butyric. It has a very acidic and almost blue cheese funkiness to it, that’s without being peated, too.
You get both cask and spirit within this and as much as it is a privilege to be able to try something as old and fun as this, it’s memorable but won’t be for everyone.
Welcome to this week’s episode of the show in which I’ll be taking a look at the range of spirits produced at the Clonakilty distillery in Ireland. The Good Dram Show with Chris Goodrum Episode 583 Say Hello And Whey’ve Goodbye..!
Filmed in The Study Nottingham
Featuring
Clonakilty Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey (Batch 2) 46%
Clonakilty Double Oak Blended Irish Whiskey 43.6%
Clonakilty Galley Head Rhum Cask Blended Irish Whiskey 40%
Clonakilty Galley Head Single Malt Irish Whiskey 40%
Clonakilty Port Cask Blended Irish Whiskey 43.6%
Uncle Nearest 84 Proof, 42%
Uncle Nearest has become such a fantastic modern brand with so much history to dive into. It was founded by Victoria Eady-Butler, a descendant of Nathan Green, the man who taught a young Jack Daniel’s how to distil.
This newer release has been bottled at a lower strength to welcome people into the fold of American whiskey. It is a gentle, sweet, lime driven style of Tennessee whiskey, which is a flavour profile that I’ve never really experienced within American spirits before. As it’s a lower proof, this is an incredible pour and play style of whisky that doesn’t offer a complex flavour but does offer a sweet, easy drinking,
different style of American whiskey to what big brands tend to offer.
If this was available in the UK, I honestly believe that it would fly off the shelves for all of the right reasons. Whether you’re drinking this neat, mixing, or cocktails, it just works.
Mark’s Whisky Ramblings 553: Johnnie Walker Blue Label The Casks Edition
Mark Dermul, Belgian whisky blogger, tries a special Johnnie Walker Blue Label. “This is a bottle I had been looking for for a long time, and then suddenly my friend Johan showed up at the door and said I should just open it and taste it”, Mark says. That didn’t need to be said twice. This is the Blue Label at cask strength (well, at 55.8%, it’s more like batch strength, as several versions have been launched over the years). Now, Mark is curious whether this will be the ‘regular’ Blue Label on steroids, or if it will bring a completely different experience.
