Review #51: Michter's Small Batch Bourbon Whiskey, 45.7% abv, Batch #13-42

more post-X-mas blogging

This is a "small batch" of a little while back, not the "sour mash" or the "unblended American whiskey". According to the label -- apart from all the crap about pre-Revolutionary War quality standards -- "it is further mellowed by our signature filtration." That seems like a bad idea, although, come to think of it, it does come without an age statement. The label also says it's bottled in Bardstown. So I guess that means it's from KBD, maybe with juice from Heaven Hill.

nose: honey, toffee, cloves, citrus -- very nice light and fragrant profile. some corn syrup, vanilla, and charred oak come in eventually, and if you have a lot of patience, some fruit. indeed, after 15 minutes or so, I get yoghurt, smoke, and dried apricots -- I think I had a Tomatin like that once.

palate: light and syrupy, but with a surprising amount of peppery heat. it's strangely sweet -- it would be cloying without the youthful heat.

finish: all sweet notes -- honey, vanilla, orange candy esp. -- except for just of bit of bitter, smoky oak.

I like this. It's an interesting, fragrant bourbon, but it becomes a little cloying and dull on the palate. The wood notes save it, but it can seem too young and too old (the wood) at the same time -- I can't decide if this is good or bad. It's (slightly) overpriced in any case.

score: 82

Review #50: Yamazaki Single Malt Whisky Aged 12 Years, 43% abv

post-Christmas blogging

Still away from my usual glassware, but I think I can manage to get by. This is the 12yr from Yamazaki, which had been a huge bargain in the States for the past few years. The price here seems to have converged with the prices in the rest of the world, though, so I better review this while I still can.

Nose is engaging -- linseed oil then citrus (candied orange peel), sweet and minerally sherry notes, and just a hint of smoke. Starts off like furniture varnish but ends very sweet and fruity, almost floral (orange blossom).

Malty, fruity, woody, smoky on the palate. Lightweight but nicely oily, persistent flavors. Apples join the citrus and dried fruit flavors, along with some spiciness.

Finish strangely turns back to the minerality of the nose, along with a mouthful of wood and some sweetness to balance it out. Still drying in the end.

I don't think I conveyed it well, but this really has a lot of complexity for a standard bottling. It develops nicely and has an interesting flavor profile. It seems older than 12 yrs, both for good (orange blossom) and bad (mouthful of wood). In the end it's a little too weak (43%) and drying, however.

score: 86

Review #49: Wild Turkey 101 Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 50.5% abv

I wonder how old this is

I could probably look it up somewhere. Wait, here it is: "a marriage of primarily 6-, 7-, and 8- year old bourbons." There's also the issue of the mashbill. The high proof is self-explanatory.

Nose: spices on top, corn underneath. Lean profile, that is, with rye, orange blossom, dried fruit (raisins, plums), cinnamon, honey, and vanilla -- it's a spice blend with a little bit of creamed corn in the background.

Palate: Like sucking on the spice blend. It's hotter than I expected. Some anise I hadn't noticed before, and the oak tannins are pretty strong. But mostly this is about the rye spices.

Finish: very long, with candied sweetness, dry oak, and the rye really coming through.

The spiciness is powerful, but this is maybe a little hotter and drier than I'd like. Still, I don't think there's anywhere else to go for this much flavor at this price point. Outstanding stuff.

score: 83

Review #48: Elijah Craig 18yr, 45% abv, Barrel #3416

Man, this stuff disappeared fast. It was in stores last year, I think, and now it's gone. I hear it's coming back eventually (in <18yrs) but if it costs 6/7th as much as the 21yr old does/did, then it won't be joyously welcome.

If we imagine this, for a moment, as the 12yr with a bit more age on it, then it's become a little less expressive, on one hand, and somehow richer on the other: the butterscotch seems denser, and swirled with toffee and (good) caramel. The oak spices have become woodier, and corn has become roasted. Some sweet floral notes are starting to take off, too -- lilac cotton candy.

Nose: butterscotch corn pudding with cinnamon bark and lilacs. Some demerara rum notes, too.
Palate: more butterscotch and vanilla toffee. Custard. Very heavy and astringent oak
Finish: long -- sweet and very drying at the same time. It's not bitter at all, but really very astringent -- like a stemmy young Barolo if Barolo were made of corn.

I like this a lot, but it's not a huge advantage over the 12yr. There are some new flavors, but I don't think the drying oak suits them that well.

score: 84

Review #47: Elijah Craig 12yr "Small Batch" Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 47% abv

I remember this dessert

This is the standard Elijah Craig, one of infinitely many labels produced by Heaven Hill. I'm sure I'll get around to writing up Evan Williams and Rittenhouse one of these days, too. Maybe even Larceny. I don't have much else to say except: ever since a big fire, they distill and bottle in different locations, I think, and everything they produce is a huge bargain. This is about $24 for a 12 year old ...

nose: polenta, and some spicy candy -- like those Brach's hard candies (cinnamon, butterscotch). huge amounts of butterscotch

palate: I'm not sure how I didn't notice this before, but this is a coconut rice pudding I once had. I sort of remember it: coconut, rice, maybe condensed milk, vanilla, some cinnamon and cardamom. This is that. Well, maybe this one has some corn to it, a bit of dried fruit, and woodiness, and well, it's a bourbon and not a rice pudding, but otherwise it's the same.

finish: long, on coconut rice pudding and oak.

I like this a lot, but I'm not sure how often I want to drink that pudding. (My almost certainly faulty sense-memory is probably getting in the way here.) I'll drink it often enough.

score: 83

update: with the bottle having been open a while now, there's less coconut cream up front and more rye on the finish. same score.

Review #46: Four Roses Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 50% abv, Warehouse HE, Barrel 51-5H

I have a plan

My wife thinks, correctly, that I have too many bottles of Scotch open. Fortunately, I've developed a two-step action plan.

1. Finish more bottles of Scotch.
2. Open more bottles of Bourbon.

Step 1 has been going so well that I thought I'd make a start on Step 2.

This is Four Roses Single Barrel. According to the bottle tag, Jim Rutledge has "carefully selected one of the 10 recipes for Four Roses Single Barrel." I believe he has carefully selected OBSV for every single barrel. "B" is the higher rye mashbill (35%) and "V" is the "delicate fruity"yeast. I'm glad to know all this -- I find it a little strange that such things aren't usually disclosed, and even weirder that Scotch producers (more or less) all dump bags of commercial yeast in their wort. (of course, I find it a little weird that this is NAS.)

Nose: buckets of fruit, slightly sour wood, and then a rich creaminess that sits somewhere between vanilla toffee, yoghurt, and creme brulee. The sweet wood aromas are really interesting -- not just vanilla but I'd swear there's birch and maple in there. It's like wood candy.

Palate: lots and lots of black cherries, spiced with cinnamon and sassafras, and the woodiness becomes fairly astringent.

Finish: the wood candy again, and then spicy rye bread lingers for a while.

This is really delicious -- very fun to drink. At the same time, I can see why a blend would be appealing: this is cherry + creamy + wood, about as clearly and finely expressed as possible. I might get tired of it if it were the only whiskey I had opened, but that's not my action plan. As things are, I like it quite a bit.

score: 86

Review #45: Equipo Navazos/Palazzi Single Oloroso Cask Jerez Brandy, 2005/2012, 44.2% abv, 720 bottles (@375ml)

I'm nervous about this one.

I expect to like it a lot, but then again, I might not. I intended to buy an amontillado from Equipo Navazos, but it's a little hard to justify that for a single bottle of wine that neither my wife nor my friends have any interest in. That is my sherry obstacle. But maybe it doesn't apply to a half-bottle of spirits, so when I saw this I bought it instead. I'll drink it by myself if I have to.

Why not team up with a Scottish distillery? Navazos/Benriach? Navazos/Aberlour? And age it a little longer? Anyway, this is the same stuff as in this post, which is quite informative. Brandy from Alvisa Distillery in La Mancha*, aged for 6.5yrs, the last 4.5 of which were in an oloroso cask. So I guess it's sherry-finished Brandy de Jerez. Don't know much more about it.

(*Also don't know: how Brandy de Jerez can come from La Mancha)

Nose: I don't know too much about sherry, but I'm surprised it's oloroso -- I'd have guessed amontillado. There's a bunch of rich stewed fruit, but it also smells saline and chalky, with a lot of fresh apples and varnish. Juicy grapes and shoes polish and oak spices. Tiny hints of honey and peonies.

Palate: wow, interesting palate. I was expecting sherry at this point, but this, obviously, has a lot more weight, and it really develops. Starts on soft fruit, and then moves through a couple dozen other flavors. A bowl of mixed nuts and something grassy/tannic in addition to everything I noticed before. Some cocoa, some engine oil.

Finish: really, extraordinarily long. Maybe a little difficult: some of the mixed nuts are bitter, there's some astringent wood and engine oil in addition to the fruit and vanilla. But it's really good.

This is disappointing if you expect the best of oloroso and sherry-aged whisky all in one package. I was ready to go lower before I tasted it, too. But it turns out to be a good purchase on my part.

score: 90

Review #44: Ardbeg 'Corryvreckan', 57.1%, L11 157 11:31 6ML

it's cold outside!

for some reason, peat seems especially suited for this awful weather. it's not just an affinity of peat smoke and warm feelings, either. I had some Corryvreckan this summer and it was just flat: it tasted like sweet cream butter on burnt toast, with a maybe a little anchovy. now that the ambient temperature has collapsed, it's regained its form.

Corryvreckan is their best bottling right now. I guess its gimmick is: no age statement but 10yrs old, lots of new French oak, and high proof but consistently at 57.1%. It has, I think, the richest, tarriest peat -- it doesn't have Laphroaig's iodine or Bowmore's fruity/smokiness, but it's powerful stuff and it interacts in an interesting way with the sweet oak. (The sweetness in itself is a little odd, but seems to be engaged in combat with the peat.) Anyway, notes ...

Nose: tarry rope, camphor, herring, and laver. Dark sooty smoke. Some astringent notes and dried flowers. Wet clay, oyster liquor cotton candy, black pepper, bread baked with molasses. Develops well and very expressive for such a high proof.

Palate: toasty, briny, peppery, phenolic, sweet. seaweed candy, if there were such a thing. a smoldering wool sweater doused in seawater, but curiously rounded.

Finish: extremely long. Creamy vanilla ashy candy.

I sometimes forget how much I like this one, but then I drink some more.

score: 89

Review #43: Arran 2005/2011, OB for The Nectar, 55%, Peated, ex-Bourbon, Cask #124, 254 bottles

I need to sort my samples.

Unfortunately, I don't have quite enough samples lying around to make much organization worthwhile, but maybe things are getting a little messy. Anyway, this one was on top. And it's all good -- Arran is good! And consistently getting better. I'm a little worried at the youth of this one, but we'll see.

Nose: plenty of orchard fruit when I first picked up the glass, but now I can't pick up anything but peat (tarry smoke, licorice) and some granite. Ah, there's the fruit again: peaches and pears in syrup. Very nice, but it doesn't play well with the peat, I think -- I notice one or the other.

Palate: Sweet and creamy and then phenolic. Loads of vanilla. The fruit and peat mesh better here: it's like a mentholated compote rather than two separate things.

Finish: both ashy and candied, oddly enough. It works.

This is tasty and interesting -- I can see why they bottled this youngster.

score: 85

Review #41: Dalwhinnie Single Highland Malt 15yr, 43% abv

the Classic Malt with the dumpy bottle

I like the dumpy bottle. This is one of the original Diageo "Classic Malts," representing the not-Western Highlands, I guess. The new shelf talkers don't say "Highlands," though -- I think they have adjectives ("light and fruity"? "approachable and unscary"?). I have a completely vacuous attachment to this one because there was once a place where I ordered from the whisky list, but didn't know what I was doing; so on successive visits I went through more or less in alphabetical order. Made it as far as Dalwhinnie, about which I remember nothing.

The nose is nice -- like Clynelish, there's some honey and wax and a surprising amount of peat smoke. Apples and some sour yoghurt in the background. Ripe pears and wool.

Very creamy on the palate, and then the tart green fruit comes, and then bitterness. Oak, I guess. It all works well together. The finish holds up pretty well for 43% -- creamy and chewy.

This is pretty good! Nothing awe-inspiring -- and rather too light -- but it's flavorful for a standard bottling. Pleasant and non-boring.

score: 82

Review #40: Macallan 12yr Highland Single Malt

I thought they killed this.

I thought that this was being replaced by the color-words ('Ruby', 'Sienna', 'Cerulean'), but it seems to be living on, at least here in the States. (This is 'exclusively aged in sherry casks from Jerez', or something to that effect, and not the 'Fine Oak.') In fact, out shopping I saw someone loading up a (literal) shopping cart full of them not too long ago. Anyway, my impression is that it's been going downhill and simultaneously up in price for a long time now, so this is probably the only review of Macallan that I'll ever do.

But I have two open bottles, bought quite far apart both geographically and temporally. So I thought it might be interesting to compare them.

bottle #1 (I think this is older, bought on the east coast)

dried fruit and marshmallows quickly turn to vegetal and slightly rubbery sherry notes. a lot of aspirin and wet slate. a bit of smoke and some jammy/candied fruit comes in slowly. initially bitter and weak on the palate, but then becomes malty and sweet. there's a brief blast of sulfur, but then the finish is the best part: pralines, vanilla, wood glue, and chestnuts.

bottle #2 (I think I bought this ~2 yrs ago, on the west coast)

sweeter, more candied nose (Armagnac-type fruit), without any grassiness. Some bitter almonds and slate come through, but mostly it's just the sweet fruit. On the palate it's just cooked-fruit cotton candy plus bitterness. I want to say the bitterness is expressive (coffee grounds?), but I think it's just bitter. There's a little maltiness, but I get the impression that the malt is mostly just working as preservative for the sherry. Nothing special on the finish.

Bottle #2 is a completely undistinguished but unflawed sherried whisky. The first one is a little more interesting -- probably more interesting than a standard bottling deserves to be -- but not exceptional. They're certainly different, in any case. Let's average the two.

score: 81

Review #39: post-Thanksgiving roundup

Kanonkop Estate Pinotage 2000
really outstanding -- what 10 or so years ago was a simple, fruit-forward wine became something dark, deep, and profound: black fruit, tar, exotic spices, cured meat. Pinotage has a bad reputation, but this one became something amazing. maybe only a little thin on the palate.

score: 94


Cristom Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Marjorie Vineyard 1996
this one had plenty of life left in it -- I think the single-vineyards from Cristom (Marjorie and Louise) are as long-lived as anything from Oregon. Rich, plummy, and earthy, and all the tannins had gone to a velvety place.

score: 94


also:

Dios Baco "Baco de Elite" Amontillado
not super special, but really a nice wine for the price

Dolcetto d'Asti
is a nice wine with food -- the fruit-tart flavor holds up well

Review #38: Bowmore "Tempest", batch 4, 55.1%, OB

the turkey is brining; I need to be peated

This is "Tempest," the gimmick for which is first-fill bourbon, 10 years old, and cask strength. Those are fairly good gimmicks as far as gimmicks go. I believe this is the same stuff called "Dorus Mor" here in the States, where it costs about twice as much. (!!!) Of course, we get an extra 5cl in each bottle.

(It makes all the naming seem silly if the same thing could just as well be called something else. And I'm not sure how they figured out the U.S. pricing on this -- more than Laphroaig CS, Corryvreckan, even a bit more than Laga CS.)

Anyway, it smells good. Starts off with lots of peat, of course, moving between a creamy/earthy peat, a floral peat, and something a little mentholated. After a few minutes some candied sweetness, citrus, and then coastal notes come through. It takes a couple minutes to move past the wave of peat, but not too long. I find these fruit notes that I associate with Bowmore, too: rose hips and pickled plums. I'm fond of them. Some sweet floral notes, too -- I'd have guessed this was older if I didn't know better.

The palate seems too candied for me -- somewhere between toffee and fruit gummies. I suppose it helps balance out the peat -- and there are waves of peat -- but (I think) I'd be happy with something more austere. Some licorice and wood spices, too. Feels chewy.

I have to say I really like this profile. I feel like the sweetness is washing out some distinctness, but it's not cloying at all. I'd buy a bunch at the European price.

score: 88

Review #37: Redbreast 12yr Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey, 40% abv, OB

that's 'whiskey' with an 'e'

I never noticed that before: it's spelled "whiskey." Finally the orthographic payoff to writing these reviews.

So this is, I believe, a mix of malted and unmalted barley from the pot stills at Midleton -- i.e., Jameson without the grain whisk(e)y. Some of it is matured in sherry casks, some of it not. (I think most of it in old refill casks.) Even though it's a light-ish whiskey, my impression is that it goes all out of balance when the weather's warm -- it's a really a dead-of-winter whisky. We'll get started on it early anyway.

Nose: an almost estery fruitiness, which I can't help associating with Juicy Fruit gum. I used to really like Juicy Fruit, but I don't want it here ... then some fresh cereals, dried fruits, and some kind of oil. I've seen "linseed" in reviews before, but to me it's more of a machine oil, like the stuff that goes in a chain saw. Some oakiness, too.

Palate is soft and sweet, with the fruits really coming to the fore: some sherried fruits (raisins and prunes and so on), but then a blast of apples/apricots/Juicy Fruit. Ends on oak spices and lots of creamy vanilla.

What I like about it most is the cereal flavors that mix with the sweet vanilla. The oiliness gives it a little weight -- the whole would be cloying without it -- and generally it's pleasant without being particularly interesting.

score: 81

Review #36: Highland Park 21yr, OB, 47.5%

smokier!

This is the 21yr old, which doesn't appear on the great ladder of sherryvats from other day. It wouldn't fit -- it's less sherried than the 18yr, I think. This was, I believe, originally intended as a duty-free special, but it proved to be so popular that it became permanent. It got even got watered down to 40% briefly, but now we're back at 47.5%

Smoke is much more prominent even than in the 12yr, and then a wave of fruits and white chocolate. Not the fresh apple of the 12yr, but sweet cherries and peaches. (well, some apple, too.) Something floral, too: yes, heather, but also sweeter spring flowers. A nice minerality, but it's overwhelmed by the sweeter notes. The sherry flavors -- figs and dried fruits -- are here, and mix with the peat and the oak to make a dusty, greasy, oily (as in machine), meaty whole.

A little weak on the palate initially, but the smoke holds its together. Then wave after wave of sweetness -- orchard fruits, dried fruits, toffees -- balanced by some oaky bitterness. Very long.

Crazy good for a regularly-produced official bottling!

score: 90

Review #35: Highland Park 12yr, OB, 43%

this is the 12yr.

here is a picture that I found really helpful:

it is from The Malt Desk, here. (That whole post is good.) As you can see, the 12yr has only 15-20% of first fill sherry casks in the mix. I believe it is also 3 yrs younger than the 15yr and 4 yrs younger than the 16yy (which doesn't even exist, but if it did, it would be 4yrs older, more or less.)



really nice, room-filling nose: apples, typical heathery peat, minerals, and sweet sherry fruit (prunes and baked pears). a little rubberiness, but no big deal.

sweet but a little watery on the palate, and the rubber comes to the front. it holds up pretty well, but there's not a whole lot going on.

the finish is better, with candied fruit and nice heathery smoke. not super long.

really well-made dram that knows what it is and does it well. at a higher strength and without the recent price increases, it would be quite lovable.

score: 82

Review #34: Glen Scotia 1992/2010, Malts of Scotland, 53.3%, sherry butt, cask #429, 199 bottles

the other Campbeltown. no, not that one, the other one.

The new packaging is hilarious. It's supposed to be, right? But this isn't an official bottling; it's an MoS
from a sherry butt. Could be good!

Nose is grassy first, leaning toward hay, then some dried fruit and a lot of soot come in. There are a lot of medicinal notes -- cough syrup and antiseptic and aspirin -- which are mostly pleasant. It opens up after a while with some meaty/gamy notes, albeit faint ones. There's a strange sweet note -- like a combination of molasses and rubber tires. Slightest hint of cherries. I find this all interesting and promising, but I'm not sure it'll pay off.

Sweet smoldering rubber tires. Very weird. It's interesting, but not particularly pleasant. The rubber really lingers, too. I'm surprised at how dirty/sooty it is, and it doesn't really have the fruit (or much else) to stand up to all that. Some maltiness and a little generic sherry nutty sweetness comes in at the end, but it's hard to figure out how to score this. I'll have to make something up.

score: 79

edit: score lowered. the more I drank it, the less I liked it.

Review #33: Caperdonich 1992/2012, Berry Bros., 55.9%, Cask #121122

the cask number looks fake to me

Anyway, this is Caperdonich, the ugly stepchild of Glen Grant that had its brief moment of glory around 1972 and then became a housing block or something. Cool name, though -- it's the water source.

Nose: not much at all. Some unripe pears and apples, and a surprising amount of smoke. Maybe some crushed leaves and a bit of pepper. Mostly smells light and young, but after a while some cranberries and then some riper, more tropical fruit emerges, but faintly.

Palate is sweet and salty. Odd. Starts off on a mouthful of pear (as in: one big one, soaked in alcohol and then stuffed in your mouth), then moves to an interestingly spicy vanilla custard. The smoke and some oak tannins pop back in occasionally, but it's spicy vanilla on the finish.

This isn't bad, but it's a strange mix of young (pear, smoke, alcohol burn) and old (the riper fruit and the oak). Sort of Decades-like in that way, but it doesn't quite work for me.

score: 82


update: the finish is actually really, really good, in a rich fruit pastry kind of way. but how many points can you give to a whisky that you like best once it's gone?

Review #32: Chehalem Oregon Pinot Noir Rion Reserve 1995, 13.9%abv

so-much for an off-year

just opened a bottle of 1995 Chehalem Rion Reserve, and it's great. 1995 was reputed as tough vintage in the Willamette Valley, but the quality producers with more aromatic, more Burgundian, less Parkerized wines did fine. (Bethel Heights comes to mind.) I used to have a half-case of this -- not so much anymore -- and it's showing way better than anytime that I can remember. It's really started to open up, and still has enough fruity acidity for a few more years. So clearly the lessons are: the 95's can be great, and it's ok to start opening them now. (admittedly, I'm probably the only one with bottles left. but it was worth it! it's much more aromatic than it's ever been before.)

notes: loads of every kind of red and black fruit, brambles and herbs, exotic woods, and touches of steel wool and bacon

score: 95

Review #31: Imperial 17yrs 1995/2013, 52.7%, Signatory, C# 50135, selected for K&L, 168 bottles.

Imperial was of course the official distillery of the Death Star


I seem to have a lot of good stuff to drink right now, but duty calls ... here's another cask strength Signatory bottling from K&L, this time an Imperial. As with the Jura, there seem to be a lot of casks of roughly the same vintage floating around Europe -- such as this one, this one, and (with almost the same cask #) this one. They seem generally well regarded -- Imperial appears to be one of those things that is thought of more fondly once it's gone. In any case, I'm looking forward to this one.

Nose is buckets of juicy red apples, grassiness, and then a wave of sweet: cotton candy turning into white chocolate and jonquils. There's just a little bit of malt sugar seed oil (grapeseed?) just to keep things interesting.

The palate is powerfully oily, sweet, and then spicy. A sharp cinnamon really takes over and balances out the soft sweetness nicely. Finish is very long on spicy vanilla, with some apples creeping back in.

Compared to this one, the flavor profile is very similar but a bit simpler. On the other hand, this one is an easy pleasure -- even at 52.7%, I've just gone through a bunch of it. In fact, I'm drinking it right now and typing with my left hand. It's hard to imagine not liking this.

score: 86


an aside: out of all these Imperial casks, I hope against hope that someone saved some for another decade or so of aging. this one isn't dried out in the slightest, and is just starting to develop some floral goodness on top of the sweet apple ...

Review #30: Calvados Coeur de Lion Selection, 40% abv, NAS, and Calvados Adrien Camut 6yr, Pays d'Auge, 40%.

I want it to taste like apples

Here is the cheap stuff that I usually buy, and the opposite end of the spectrum, more or less.

Coeur de Lion costs almost nothing, is available everywhere, and is delicious. Adrien Camut is the prestige producer in Calvados, but this is, I think, the bottom of the line for him/them: the 6yr old. I prefer younger Calvados, in part because older Calvados often turns out to be a waste of money, but mostly because I prefer the taste of fresh apples. (One possible explanation: I'm allergic to raw apples, so this is my big chance.) Older Calvados is sometimes sublime, but more often tastes like generic spirit that's been in a barrel for a long time.

So, given that I prefer the young stuff, the question is whether it could be worth it (about 2.5x) to go for the fancier, estate-grown and estate-distilled bottling from the Pays d'Auge.

Coeur de Lion Selection (I doubt it's much more than 2yr old)(I think it's double distilled even though it doesn't have to be)

Spicy, winey apples on the nose, with a little lemon and gravel. (These are tart, green apples.) Mouthfeel is a little watery, but held up by some oaky bitterness and vanilla. Some barrel spices -- cinnamon, esp. -- on the finish, but mostly more winey green apples. Apples are good!

score: 81

(but what have I been drinking recently that 40% seems so watery?)


Adrien Camut Pays d'Auge 6yr

really, really annoying wax seal. darker color.

more intense on the nose, but not as winey. instead, it's more grassy and oaky -- almost maltlike, except for the intense apple smell. a little yoghurt, candle wax, and some minerals. a strange oiliness: linseed? and then a little bit of soot, I'd swear, and back to a complex apple-ness.

a lot more substance on the palate: it's rich and oily. the fresh apple notes are there, but mixed in with barrel spices and old, wet hay, buttermilk and pepper. the finish is all over the place: oat cookies and cheese, vanilla, oak tannins, sweet and tangy apples, even some plums. and it keeps going. and going.

this is a lot more interesting than my simple but beloved apple brandy. I'm not sure that I wanted interesting, but maybe I do. it's going to take some getting used to, but this is awfully good stuff.

score: 85, maybe more

in the news

I like this b/c it makes clear (to me, anyway) that the point of opening a new distillery is to swap barrels so that indy bottling can go on:
"It would also allow „swapping spirits“ with other distilleries to secure further single cask bottlings of the Cárn Mór series." 
http://www.whiskyintelligence.com/2013/11/scotlands-distillery-boom-scotch-whisky-news/


and this -- oh, come on now:

http://www.whiskyintelligence.com/2013/11/glenmorangie-ealanta-tops-the-2014-whisky-bible-scotch-whisky-news/

Review #29: George T. Stagg Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 2013 release, distilled 1997,128.2 proof, OB

oh no, a lower proof.

Let's open the Stagg first.

I wish I understood how the barrel proof gets higher than the entry proof. That water evaporates faster than alcohol at high temperatures doesn't make sense to me. I thought about coaching my kid to write into the local paper's 'Ask a Scientist' column, but that might end up being more trouble than it's worth.

I thought last year's was a little disappointing. Good, no doubt. It had so many flavors -- the rye spices seemed unusually prominent to me -- and they were all very powerful. It was impressive, but I didn't want to drink it all that often.

This one is delicious. I want to drink it all the time, and it's not going to last long. It doesn't have quite the same power, but c'mon, it's still 64.1%. And it has depth -- it has that old whisk(e)y nose of overripe fruit, spring blossoms, and mellow wood, and everything intermingles. And it still has power: at first I thought it seemed like barrel proof Eagle Rare, but it does have some intense fruit.

nose: butterscotch, corn roasted on a grill, milk chocolate, pipe tobacco, sawn oak and cloves, maple sugar, dulce de leche, lilac and poached orchard fruit, even a little bit of a nutty rancio note -- noses well even neat

palate: corn pudding, tiramisu', cinnamon red hots, leather, red Lifesavers, rye, caraway, orange zest

finish: spicy vanilla pudding, lasts forever

score: 93

much better than last year's! indeed, stunning by any measure.

Review #28: Eagle Rare 17yr, OB, 2012 release, 45% abv

just in time

I've been nursing this bottle for 13 months now, which is longer than I had planned. Just when panic was setting in, I found a bottle of the 2013 release, though. And panic was setting in! This is/was my most irreplaceable bottle -- I don't have and can't get anything else quite like it, which isn't true even of bottles that I in some ways like better.

Nose: every kind of tannic flavor (leather, oak staves, assam tea, tobacco leaves) plus every kind of corn flavor (corn freshly cut from the cob, roasted corn, corn pudding, popcorn) plus creamy vanilla. The first striking thing for me was how fresh the corn notes were in comparison with the mellow old wood.  And after the first impressions, there's a beautiful old-whisky perfume: cherries, honeysuckle, peaches poached in syrup, vanilla custard, and a little cinnamon stick and barrel char -- I have an old Glen Grant a little like that but oakier.

Anyway, it holds up well on the palate -- it's a dry flavor profile but the vanilla and spices keep it all together -- and the finish lasts forever, starting with the vanilla and ending with that ethereal old-whisky flavor. When I first tried this, I thought the proof should be higher, but I think any higher might cover up some of the flavors. It's pretty close to perfect just as it is.

score: 92

Review #27: Isle of Jura 23yr 1989/2013 Heavily Peated, Signatory CS for K&L, ex-bourbon, cask #30707, 58.7% abv

should I open this? I think I should.

I might already have a few bottles open, but this came a few days ago. I think it needs to be opened. (Well, I don't have anything from Jura that's open ...)

Last time I had a Jura it looked like tartan kitsch and didn't taste like anything. But there have been a bunch of single casks from the 80's (albeit mostly '88s and not so heavily peated) around Europe, so I've been looking forward to this. K&L was good enough to ship it quickly even though my mixed-up order contained something from every location that they could have imagined.

The nose is brilliant. Intense and yet restrained, somehow. (That is, it doesn't smell like a wet tarry dog on fire in a bog, but the flavors are distinct and powerful.) Very coastal: iodine, wet briny rocks, kelp, tobacco juice and olive brine, a bit of oily smoked salmon. (There's a kind of pervasive smokiness over everything.) There's just a bit of dry grassiness and some underripe fruit: gooseberries (actually, how do you tell if those are ripe?), apple peelings, maybe plums. Some leather and a touch of creamy ex-bourbon sweetness. Plus lemon taffy.

Palate is oily and salty. So sardines and bitter herbs cooked in salty brown butter over a driftwood fire. Or maybe put the flaming driftwood and some rock salt in your mouth while you hold the sardine and squeeze some lemon over it. Something like that. Very long finish with lots more peat and salty licorice.

I've had this for a couple days now and feel confident in saying that it's good. I'll be devoting myself to further tests, but fuck, I should have bought another bottle. I think the score could go lower, but it's powerful yet mature, approachable at 57.8%, and intense while being a lot more than just a peat bomb.

score: 91

update: has a somewhat overlapping profile with this Bowmore, but that empty glass smells like farmy peat, whereas this one smells like smoky fishy candy corn. weird.

wild turkey has a high-rye mashbill

I don't think I knew that. Makes sense. I guess RR does, too.

http://spiritsjournal.klwines.com/klwinescom-spirits-blog/2013/10/25/kentucky-day-4-wild-turkey-and-more-barrels.html


update:

this says it's 75% corn, 13% rye, 12% malted barley. so not so high rye.
http://thecasks.com/2013/11/18/russells-reserve-small-batch-10-year-old-review/


World Atlas says (in a direct quote!) low 70's in corn, so close to 30% in small grains. That's almost like both, but not quite.

wtf

I guess those private barrels are going to stay private a little longer. To me, anyway. Damn.

Review #26: Namring Estate (Darjeeling) FTGFOP1 and Imperial 1995/2013, 46%, Berry Bros. Cask #50348

I have a lot of work to do but I don't want to do it.

Namring FTGFOP1.

This is an older harvest -- I lost track of it but it was in a sealed bag, and it still seems fresh. In fact, it's very aromatic, even before steeping it. (This is a very tippy batch.) All sorts of sweet and spicy potpourri notes plus some orchard fruit (esp. peaches). On the palate it's medium-bodied. It has a nice tannic structure, with dried herbs and peaches against crushed autumn leaves. It doesn't have the extravagant fruit that some first flush darjeelings have, but it does have a nice weight and a very rich fruit profile. I wish I could pick out some individual components of the potpourri nose. Maybe if I go spend some time sniffing around the spice rack -- but I'll leave that for a day when I'm really power-procrastinating.

very good stuff! and not so pricey. highly recommended.


Imperial 1995/2013 BBR C#50348

This is Imperial, which is a dead and gone Speyside distillery, but like many dead things (e.g., the Cleveland Browns) it has the possibility of being reborn. (Of course, only the name, which is the worst part, would continue.) In any case, there have been a lot of indy bottlings of late, as if to mock us over its nonexistence.

Very nice combination of a youthful and powerful Granny Smith apple nose with some older creme fraiche, white chocolate and floral notes. Lanolin, some sharp grassiness, sawn oak, and just a bit of canned pineapple. Apple vs. creamy/floral is really an intriguing contrast.

It's softer and oilier on the palate than I expected, with some (good) yeasty bread flavors joining the party. The oak speaks up a little, but softly. It's all good. I can't decide about the finish -- it's long but the sweet flavors don't fare well against some sourness from the apples and oak. But I do like this -- it's youthful and profound at the same time.

score: 86

Glen Aldi

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2379101/Aldis-Highland-Black-8-Year-Old-Scotch-Whisky-wins-gold-medal-industry-awards.html

the Daily Mail really likes this kind of story

the glass half empty

more reasons for despair

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/heritage/glasgow-s-first-whisky-distillery-in-100-years-1-3141110

when an indy bottler spends GBP 10mil on a new distillery, that's a pretty good sign that there's not much life left in the indy bottling business. it's nice to have new (or newly revived) distilleries (thanks G&M, Adelphi, Ian McCleod, Signatory, BBR)*, but I'd trade away a whole bunch of official bottlings for unusual and exceptional single casks.**


* we'll know we're really in trouble when Whisky-Doris opens a distillery

** actually, I'll keep Benromach. I'll trade the rest of them away, however. I'll throw in Glenglassaugh, too.

Review #25: Tormore 1984/2013, Archives, 51.0%, Cask #3669

Fishes of Samoa!

I really don't have any associations with Tormore. I guess it's in Speyside (roughly in the middle), I guess it mostly goes into blends. It's a big, fairly modern distillery, but not known for a particularly distinctive spirit. Some age and a nice label should help, though.

Very nice nose -- at first it seems indistinctly fruit plus grass, but it opens up in a more particular way -- I get salty canned peaches, lilac, a tiny bit of smoke and charred wood, lychee, apricots, honey, and some sweet herbs. Maybe a little apple mixed in there. Some white chocolate, too. Has that nice old nose where fruit and flowers and creaminess sort of merge. I could smell this all day. [time passes, sun sets]

If I drink it, I won't have it any more, and yet ... sharper and oakier than I expected, but it's nice to have some weight after that ethereal nose. Same flavors, but the creamy/chocolate/vanilla ones come to the front on the finish.

That nose is worth a million, and I'm a sucker for anything old that doesn't taste like a mouthful of wood.

score: 90

Somehow still available at whiskybase.

Review #24: Vinedos de El Seque Alicante 2008, 14%

I'm pretty sure I'm missing some diacritical marks here and there.

Monastrell can be really good. I think it's the same as Mourvedre, but I don't know. This one is (a) amazing and (b) less than $10 (what I paid, anyway).

Absolutely stunning nose: brambly berries and strawberries and happy berries (not a real thing, admittedly), with some violets and gravel and stems and cherries and spices. Nice medium-body fruit-forward palate, but the nose is just stunning, if you like that sort of thing.

Monastrell, I think, usually disappears in blends with "rhone" varietals, where it's supposed to offer a little strawberry perfume to balance out the mix. But here it's fantastic on it's own -- or maybe with just a little cab and syrah -- I've read different things. I expected something heavy, rustic, and licoricey from a warm climate wine, but this was just perfect.

really good stuff.

score: 91

Review #23: Del Maguey Santo Domingo Albarradas Mezcal, 40% abv

weird to have a clear spirit with so much flavor

this is a single-village Mezcal. (I would guess it's single-estate, single-still, etc., too.) I don't know much more than that.

Very nice nose, with roasted winter squash (or maybe pattipan -- but I guess that's probably just agave), rose hips, parsley, and citrus notes before the wispy smoke takes over. Some other grassy and fruity smells, too -- cotton? dragonfruit? I can't really pick them out.

Palate is sweet and smoky, with a long, tongue-coating, smoky and squashy finish. Nice low-proof softness with intense higher-proof flavor.

very nice! not sure this is the best choice in the Del Maguey range, but it'll do.

score: 82

Review #22: Craigellachie 9yr 2002/2012, Exclusive Malts, 59.5%, PX cask, cask #80

time to ease back into things

had some nice stuff on my just-completed trip: Laphroaig 10, Old Overholt, Bulleit, and the two Jim Beam "Signature Craft" bourbons. Didn't quite manage to review anything, though.

so here's a Craigellachie. not sure when the last time I had one was -- there seem to be a lot of casks out and about, but no regular bottling and no compelling reason to find one. I assume this one will be sweet and spirity and completely dominated by the sherry, but let's see.

weird stuff. it's dark and there's some burnt sugar on the nose, but it's not obviously a sherry bomb. instead lots of alcohol, and then a weird range that moves from green and grassy (sharp, almost minty) to dry and grassy (old ropes, dry hay) and flinty rocks. after a couple minutes fair amount of sulfur comes out -- spent matches -- so I guess that's a sign this is a sherry cask. there's some jammy fruit in there, too, but it's pretty well buried.

on the palate it's bitter, which is almost but not quite made up for by the sweet.

finish is unpleasant but long. well, it ends in sweet toffee, but I'd rather have just skipped the experience. there are some merits here, but this one isn't for me.

score: 70

Review #21: Port Charlotte 2001/2013, 57.5%, Malts of Scotland, Rioja Hogshead, C# MoS13027, 358 bottles

yet another indication that I'm getting old

This is an almost 12 year old Port Charlotte -- hard to believe that there is such a thing. "Rioja hogshead" seems like a bad idea, but they probably know better than I do.

Very nice salty, greasy, and tarry nose, with some fruit in the background. I really don't know how a nose can be salty, but it's somewhere between seawater and pickled something -- plums, I think. The grease seemed a little mechanical at first, but then veers into pork belly territory. Some bicycle tire and ashes. Plus some cherries -- sour cherries smoked over the flames of a pig riding a bicycle. Some other fruit trying to poke through, but the tarry flaming bicycle pig stops them. Palate is rich and oily, with some green fruit, wet rocks, and interesting barrel spices coming in on top of everything else. Super ashy finish, balanced by sweet and salty red fruit. Very very long.

It's hard to imagine a young whisky being much better than this. I'll have to start drinking some crap so that my scores don't seem so high. (Or not.) Maybe these flavors got me in just the right mood, but they're awfully good right now.

score: 90

Review #20: Kavalan Solist Sherry, bottled 2012, OB, 58.6%, C# S060710004, 570 bottles

this still isn't imported to the States yet. oh well.

If it ends up costing as much as it does at TWE, I doubt it'll be worth it. Still, it's intriguing -- maybe they've been buying up all the best sherry casks. It's not very old, of course -- there's a bottling date but no fill date -- that and the hot weather in Taiwan makes me think it's pretty young.

It's very dark, and has a nose to match: thick, rich, sweet, with soy sauce and chocolate and some green tobacco and ripe red berries and marzipan and cotton candy and fruit gummies -- lychee above all. It's the berries on top of everything that get to me -- it's like a jar of Bonne Maman thrown into a bottle of brandy de jerez. Really appealing. There's a hint of burnt matchsticks, but not unpleasant at all.

The matchsticks scorch the palate a little bit, but then it's back to candied sweetness mixed with soy and coffee. The finish is long and sweet on vanilla mocha, red fruit, coconut, and, well, matchsticks.

So the nose is just fabulous, the palate is ok, and the finish holds up well. I thought this would be more of a pricey novelty -- sometimes things get buzz because they're new rather than because they're good, but this is definitely good.

score: 89

Review #19: Talisker Distiller's Edition 1991/2005, 45.8%, amoroso cask finish

this is the least consistent whisky I have

"Amoroso" is oloroso that's been sweetened, I think. I don't think I've ever had any. Also in the category of things that I don't feel like looking up: I think this is from back when Diageo used to give the DE's a year or two extra time in the finishing casks, not just a few weeks.

I swear the taste of this changes day by day. (Or at least season by season -- this is a liter bottle, but I've had it a while.)

On a bad day: it's generic sherry prune and cooked banana sweetness on top of peppery peat, with a slightly watery finish. Pleasant, but not exciting.

On a good day: the peat really evolves from ashes to barnyardiness -- it really opens into all kind of organic flavors -- before turning to pepper and bacon. The fruit seems spicy, with armagnac-like raisins and cloves, a bit of oak shavings, and some chalky minerality. It still seems a little light on the palate, but a dry, smoky peat lingers on the finish, occasionally interrupted by candied fruit.

So I've hesitated to drink it all, since I'm never sure what I'm going to get. It's definitely going to stop evolving soon, though, since the bottle's almost empty.

score: between 80 and 89

Review #18: Singtom Estate BPS "In-Between" and Singbulli Estate SFTGFOP1

maybe I'll get some work done tonight

or maybe not. either way, two Darjeelings bought from Upton. These are teas, not whiskies, by the way.

Singtom BPS In-Between, Organic

well, if "In-Between" is for people who can't decide between first flush and second flush, then that's for me. it costs less than either, too, although it's a lower grade. (I guess "BPS" is just the Darjeeling way of saying Broken Pekoe -- strange I had to look that up when SFTGFOP1 makes perfect sense to me.)

dry vegetal nose with some floral fruit -- like quince or apricots, very faintly. palate is much lighter than I expected -- somehow it imparts the taste of green tannins without the bite. so overall it is a little bit of first flush and a little bit of second flush, but not exactly the best of both worlds. still nice for the price.


Singbulli Estate SFTGFOP1

this one was pricey -- almost 10x as much, I think.

ah, the Benriach 1976 of Darjeeling. Not the finest nose ever, but filled with tropical fruit (pineapple, lychee) and the herbaceousness is less stemmy and more herbal (as in fines herbes). it's all very delicate, of course, and on the palate it's already a memory, but some new flavors -- almond paste, buttercups -- come in with the aftertaste.

very nice, but you could miss it all if you weren't paying close attention.

Review #17: Kilchoman 2007/2013 "Loch Gorm", OB, 46%, 10000 bottles

let's do one more

The smoke seems even drier, ashier than in #16, but it has the sherry notes to fall back on. The sherry seems like the tobacco/flinty/mossy kind, with only a little stewed fruit, but maybe that's the smoke influence. Some bacon and wood glue, too. The peat still dominates.

On the palate I get a mouthful of ash, like all that stuff (esp. moss, wool) has been left on a barbecue for a few weeks. Some vanilla fruit sweetness comes in at the finish, but then the cinders take over again. I didn't realize that ash could persist like this.

I like the other one better.

score: 82

Review #16: Kilchoman 4yr 2006/2011, OB for WIN, 60.0%, bourbon hogshead, C#252/2006, 261 bottles

not the oldest release ever

Because this is the oldest release ever -- 6 (or maybe) 5 years old. It makes me wonder about buying Kilchoman now -- since there are plenty of other things to buy -- and the longer you wait, the older the whisky that becomes available. From what I can gather, quality is going up, too ...

I wonder if at some point they'll take bigger heart cuts, too. Apparently if you want something palatable at 3yrs old, you take a tiny cut from the middle of the run. But I imagine (on the basis of pure guessing) that that takes out flavor components that would be nice to have around 10 yrs later, too.

Anyway, Serge says that very young malts are always better as single casks (he might think), because individuality > balance in those cases -- with Kilchoman in particular. So here's one.

It's sweeter and more floral than I expected. I mean, sure, it smells like an incinerator, but on top of all the soot there's a nice floral sweetness -- vanilla toffee, honeysuckle, rose water. Lots of brine and camphor, too. The peat is mostly ashy, but at least it was something medicinal and something earthy that's been smoldering for a while now. A wet and thoroughly bandaged stablehand.

On the palate it's a fistfight between malty sweetness and ashiness, with some lemon trying to break it up. The ashiness wins, taunts everyone, lingers around for while, and says a few earthy things as the others depart.

This one is a lot of fun, though I wish I heard more from the earthy side of the peat.

score: 88

Review #15: Christiana Ultra Premium Vodka, Ketel One Vodka, TIto's Handmade Vodka, Grey Goose Vodka

I'm not sure there's any point to this.

I'm curious about all this, but the whole thing seems a little bit stupid -- who can purify and filter their ethanol the best so that it doesn't taste like anything. But maybe I'm wrong about all that. I guess I'll see.

Day 1 - fridge cool, sipped neat, lowball glass. all 40% abv.

Christiana ($33): pleasantly sweet, not at all hot. palate: nothing. velvety a little heat going down. ethanol sweetness with a bit of oily texture. like a soft vodka-flavored vodka (?)
packaging: Scandinavian modern, plastic stopper

need to find a palate cleanser, I guess. should have planned better. or do I need to bother? here's some bread and almonds, anyway. but who bought dill pickle flavored chips?

Tito's ($19): nose is a little feinty (?), but faintly. palate is both a little sweet and a little rough, but sort of trivially so. somehow rounder than the Christiania. finish is more nothing, but leaves an aftertaste of not much.
packaging: crudely crude -- generic bottle with a coarse paper label with copper foil stamping

Ketel One ($22): "inspired by small batch craftsmanship," ha ha ha. nose is even fainter than the Christiana -- the smell of almost nothing. maybe a little graininess, less sweetness. a little hotter on the palate, but not much. otherwise not much hint of any flavor or texture. maybe a very mildly acidic note, like cucumber water. finish: pronouncedly nothing.
packaging: faux gothic minimalist. 2-color label with some metallic ink.

Grey Goose ($28): nothing on the nose. faintly vodka-like. a little bit of graininess and heat, maybe. sort of pleasant. palate is sweet-ish, soft-ish, hot-ish. squishy that way. it somehow manages not to come together for me. (how?) finish seems somehow empty.
packaging: graphic designer pretty. if you look past the geese, and through the transparent goose, then you can see more geese. none of them are grey, but the bottle is mostly frosted.

Should I explain to my wife what I was doing with all these glasses, or just wash them and put them away before she notices?

Day 2 - 1:1 OJ and vodka.

Ketel One: a little vodka-y. the roughness even stands out more against the OJ.

Tito's: this tasting is stupid. I should have bought a bag of limes.

Christiania: vodka slightly less noticeable until finish. velvety finish again.

Grey Goose: most noticeable on palate of the bunch. otherwise about the same.

**

So this was pretty pointless for me: I like my alcohol with flavor. I'm impressed that the Christiania managed to stand out, but the whole thing still seemed pointless. I can imagine someone being excited by it, and even managing to appreciate the subtle distinctions between the vodka -- for there are differences! -- but I can't: I just don't drink enough vodka, or find enough occasions to drink vodka, to care at all. (I do care about water, oddly enough, but I drink a lot of that!)

bonus analogies: Christiania: Acqua Panna, Tito's: Apollinaris, Ketel One: Vittel, Grey Goose: Evian

Review #14: Dalmore NAS, 49.1%, Asta Morris for The Bonding Dram, Cask #AM 005, 2013

a Dalmore in an attractive bottle -- it must cost a million dollars ...

or maybe EUR 45, VAT inclusive. I've never had an indy Dalmore before -- I think this must the benefits of the Kingfisher Air troubles. I might be totally wrong about this, but Suntory bought the old stocks for the Whyte & Mackay brands, and then Diageo came in and bought a controlling interest in the brands. But whatever -- as often with indy whisky, someone else's misfortune (in this case, Vijay Mallya's) is what makes things available to us. Or maybe this cask just fell off a truck, who knows.

I wish there were a little info on the cask, I guess. Oh well, it's probably young, and let's speculate it's a refill hoggie. (I saw "aged in an oak cask" on a bottle the other day -- thanks for that information, bottle.)

So, the drink:

Nice, unexpected nose. Young grassiness with apples, pears, and parsley mixed with creamy barrel richness (vanilla, toffee, white chocolate and the like). Not really sure how to sort it all out. Citrus, chamomile, and something sweet -- somewhere between Bit o'Honey and Werther's, too, but all with a peppery edge. Did I mention fruit? Is creamsicle a fruit?

Oily and tart on the palate -- underripe orchard fruit and burnt rocks until the sweet fruit and the barrel spices come back. It's a really interesting vanilla -- more like madagascar beans in a custard than like a generic flavoring. Finishes, eventually, with the grassiness and pears.

good stuff for (relatively) cheap! very enjoyable.

score: 86

Review #13: GlenDronach 19yr 1993/2012, 54.7%, OB for K&L, Oloroso Sherry Butt, Cask #490, 614 bottles

I used to smell this every day

When I first got the bottle I was doing something at night -- teaching a night class or coaching or volunteering for something -- for which drinking would have been socially not-so-acceptable, at the least. But I really wanted to drink this! So instead I'd open the bottle and sniff it a while ...

I like this profile. Some very-sherried whiskies are like malty christmas cake, with all those spices and fruit; some are like barrel char and sweet syrup; some are like old leather, tobacco boxes, marzipan, sour wood, cold espresso, and roasted nuts. This one is a sweet, viscous version of the last kind, and I am happy to have it. I like it better than the other 1990's single casks I've tried.

It does have a bit of sulphur -- bitter gunpowder on the finish. It balances out the oloroso sweetness, but it's a bit too much. It seems like it's gotten a bit more prominent with time, too. It really didn't make for a great summer dram, but now that it's getting chilly again ...

I could still smell this all day -- dark chocolate, roast pork, cranberries, balsamico ...

These give me some confidence that I'm getting decent stuff from K&L. The pre-release price ($100) was reasonable, then it went up to $140 which seems unreasonable, but is about the going GlenDronach single-barrel rate now. (Did the Cask Strength ever make it to the US?) Oh well. Still available.

score: 89

Review #12: Caol Ila 15yr 1996/2012, Hunter Hamilton/Sovereign, 56.5%, cask #HH8687. 240 bottles

getting ready for the new ones

The new batches of K&L exclusives are arriving soon, so it seems worthwhile to look at the ones from last year. This is something I worry about (b/c apparently I don't have enough problems): there aren't a lot of good casks to go around anymore, so getting the pick of them would have to require (a) controlling a huge batch of them, (b) overpaying for them, or (c) both. And it's such a pain to import into the U.S., I'm not sure how we end up with anything but everyone else's leftovers.

Anyway, I can taste this one for myself.

This one is bottled by "Sovereign" which is Hunter Hamilton which is Douglas Laing. This all seems unnecessarily complicated, but I'm sure it means something to someone. It has the geocities label of whisky labels. (I'm not fond of the metal ink or the curlicues, but I rather like the vintage date printed over the text.) It was $120, I think, as a pre-release, and then ended up down to $100. It's still available.

This one is nice.

Pale liquid but rich nose, with lemon, lots of ashy peat, coastal notes, and some surprising floral sweetness -- honeysuckle. Maltiness, too. Almonds, shortbread, and engine oil. Some camphor and bicycle tire if you wait for it. Nothing astonishing, but everything's here and it all works together. (and this is neat)

Palate is surprising sweet and very very peaty. It's a dark flavor that starts off as tar and then finishes off ashy a very long time later. It's nicely balanced by the sweetness, though: something somewhere between candied lemon, honey, and marzipan. Some brine and oil comes in late, but you can chew on that peat for a long time.

Caol Ila bottlings seem to be consistently very good. The dangers, I suppose, are that they are too ashy ("Coal Ila") or too bland; but this one is just right. The upside is limited, I guess, with these teenage CI's -- they're never transcendent, the best you can do is get everything in perfect balance. But that's pretty good. Other than the Whiskyman bottling, I can't think of a better teenage one.

score: 89

Review #11: Braeval 1991/2013, 53.1%, Brachadair, ex-bourbon, barrel #95120, 230 bottles

this is new to me

I had never heard of Braeval/Braes of Glenlivet until it started getting good reviews a few months ago. Now it seems everywhere. I saw an overpriced Douglas of Drumlamrig bottling at the corner store the other week. This one is from an indy Belgian bottler I had never heard of, however.

Nose is intense on orchard fruit (esp. pears), vanilla yogurt, and barrel spices -- nutmeg, ginger, coconut. And is that smoke? It's a little more aggressively grassy and beery than I would like, but the creamy pears and peaches more than stand up to it. Honey and white chocolate sweetness balanced by menthol/mint/licorice.

I found the palate a little acrid -- burnt hay.  The orchard fruit stick around through the bitterness and then the finish brings back vanilla, white chocolate, and more red fruit than pears. Nice long finish.

I really liked the nose a lot, but the palate seemed harsh to me. I usually don't mind bitterness so much, but, today I do.

score: 83

Review #10: Benriach Heredotus Fumosis 12yr, 46%, OB 2009, Peated PX finish

time to catch up

after a mini heat wave and a project that needed to get (almost finished), I fell behind on my drinking, but now it's time to catch back up.

this is an older bottling of Heredotus Fumosis, but I think there are still some newer bottles in stores even though it's a 'limited edition'. I guess it's supposed to mean 'smoky sherry' but it is (a) a misnomer since it's whisky (b) I can't find "Heredotus" in any latin dictionary and it looks like Jerez was either "Ceret" or "Asta Regia", (c) why Latin? I do like Latin, however, and I'm glad for a moment that a silly and unpronounceable Gaelic name isn't being used for this one instance.

anyway ...

Nose is delightful -- the peat is intensely phenolic and biscuity, with some motor oil. A little (pleasant) boot rubber, too. The sherry comes through well -- it's sweet (caramel cubes) and winey with a lot of old cigar box and a little balsamico. Leather and malt. If you wait long enough, then some lesser flavors come through: yoghurt, sour apples, moss. The tannic notes become almost savory.

It's pretty light on the palate, with barbecue ashes as the main component, but it's balanced with some creamy vanilla sweetness. The ashes stick around for a long time.

So this worked pretty well, esp. for something with a low ABV, youngish, and cheap. It smells good and it's tasty and it's distinctive.

score: 84

Islay to get ninth distillery

"Gartbreck"

http://www.whiskyadvocateblog.com/2013/09/14/islay-to-get-ninth-distillery/

Macallan 'struggles' in travel retail after age removal

from Ralfy's Whisky Stuff:

“Consumers in travel retail tend to be looking for a little bit of luxury, something that they wouldn’t normally buy in their local shop.

“They tend to look for age statements above anything else as a mark of quality, and as such The Macallan is missing out massively, in my opinion.

duh, they should just look at the price tags.

Review #9: Lagavulin 16 yr, 43%, OB

it's probably just me.

My general impression is that Lagavulin has been on a steady downward trajectory for a couple decades now -- as long as I can remember. (I remember being amazed -- just amazed -- the first time I tried it. It seemed to me, after having managed to buy bottles of Laphroaig and Macallan, to be the whisky that had everything.)  Anyway, perceptions of decline might say more about me than about it (even though I know I'm right), and Lagavulin on a bad day isn't so bad.

Nose is still good: medicinal (mercurochrome) peat and wisps of ashy smoke, pain grille', salt spray -- fishy salt spray, orange zest, and something floral and sweet at the end. Is it marzipan or fringe tree? I don't think the glencairn is treating me right on this one -- I should have grabbed a different glass. There's something like barbecue smoke, but sour -- so sauerbraten, I guess -- if you sneak up on it. I don't remember that one from the past. My overall impression, compared to the imaginary Laga of my memory, is that this one is more austere and less intense.

Palate is nicely balanced between ashy, sweet, and oily, and it finishes nicely on more ashes -- charcoaol, cigarette, whatever -- and orange candy. It's pleasant, but it really doesn't leave a strong impression. Ashes and orange candy, with some phenolic prickle. It almost reminds me of Ardbeg and Caol Ila as much as it seems to be something itself. Maybe everything else has just caught up, but I wish it were a little more distinctive or aggressive or something.

So still very nice for a standard bottling, but I'd rather have the paradigmatic Laga of my memory, if only I could drink that.

score: 84

Review #8: Glen Garioch 1990/2012, Archives, 54.0%, ex-hogshead (#252), 267 bottles

so how is this pronounced?

The general consensus is GEERY, I think. But in this Tim Morrison interview, he says it like it's spelled, and since he owned the place, you'd think he'd know. Maybe it's an Oldmeldrum thing.

Anyway, my impression of GG is that it's hard to say why it's good when it's good, but that that's usually besides the point anyway. Still, it holds out hope ...

The nose is interesting: it's orchard fruit, but in a curiously dry way, with lots of wet stones, malty/beeriness, hay, and even some pencil shavings and I'd swear even a fair amount of smoke. Grassiness takes over, but then the fruit comes back -- underripe peaches and apples. And faintly something else more tropical -- like cheremoya.

I get a lot of dark peatsmoke on the palate. I thought they stopped using peated malt before 1990, but I guess I'm wrong. (This page says 1994 they stopped.) It has a nice oily texture, maybe a little too minty/menthol, but I have to wait for the peat to clear before tasting anything else.

Finish is peaty, peppery, grassy, and then it becomes salty at the end. There's a little vanilla and apple sweetness, and some herbs, but to me it's very salty.

good whisky, but it never quite comes together for me.

score: 85

Review #7: Longmorn 19yr 1992/2011, CWC, 52.7%, cask # 71734, 298 bottles, ex-bourbon hoggie

did they take the bourbon out first?

well, they must have, since it's a hogshead and thus, I assume, a re-built cask. but you wouldn't know by tasting it.

it's very good -- that's the first thing to say. but the nose is toffee (or TOFFEE!) with some creaminess and a little whiff of, yes, corn. some soapiness appears initially, but blows off.

when I first opened the bottle, the toffee was so intense that I couldn't taste anything else. since then it's settled down a bit and more flavors have come out: flambe' banana, green banana, raw grain, butterscotch, apple peelings, lanolin, some grassiness. the corn is faint but still there. (I'm not sure which I like better -- toffee, vanilla toffee, and more toffee, or the fruitier and grassier version.) The toffee is cut by fairly sharp pepper and oak spices (cinnamon) and bitter tannin at the end. Vanilla, toffee, and juicy apples on the finish.

the other thing to say about this is that it's from the 1992 vintage (or whatever one calls the year of distillation), which, like the older 15yr bottling (or the 30), is universally beloved. but one never hears about more recent vintages (or the newer 16yr bottling) -- one might worry whether this has something to do with switching to indirect heating in '94, in which case we won't hear much from Longmorn any more. Either that, or there was just a really big batch of '92 lying around to pick through.

score: 85


update: people seem to like this 1996, so never mind. there must be some other reason why the 16yr seems to suck.

review #6: Tomintoul 43yr, 1968/2011, TWA Private Stock, 43.2%, ex-bourbon, 78 bottles

I think I missed the boat on this.

I don't know anything at all about Tomintoul, except that fair number of old casks -- all from '68 or '69, I think -- came on the market in the past couple of years, and they're probably all gone now. I never hear much about younger casks, but they're still around, even if most go into blends.

The nose is amazing in a way that only an old whisky can be. My first thought was that it's a sherry cask, with all the dried fruit and nuttiness, but I guess that's only malt, wood, and lots of time. It would take a long time to unpack all of this -- apricots, peach pie, tapioca, cinnamon, cloves, exotic wood, sawn oak, raisins, black pepper, marzipan, cashews, creme fraiche, honey, and so on and so on. It's fruit (mostly dried, maybe a little citrus) + perfume (amber) + spice + wood + some creaminess + a little grassiness.

So of course I expect the palate to suck (dry, bitter wood tannins). It's all right, but it just sort of disappears. It's tannic and oily for a moment, and then it's gone. Maybe some peaches, but then it's dearly departed.

The finish lingers: peach pie, vanilla, and tobacco. faint but very long.

score: 90

(higher for the nose, lower for the palate)

update: they have a current bottling called "Peaty Tang." they win.

update update: apparently the local bodega actually sells the OB 10yr old. It comes in a nice tube, but I didn't buy it.

review #5: Burnside Bourbon ("Eastside Distilling"), 4yr barrel aged straight bourbon whiskey, 48% abv

there's one thing I wonder about

This is just a curiosity. But it's not outrageously priced (msrp $27.95) and not awful.

My first impression was second-rate Buffalo Trace: a lot of creamy corn and sweet oak flavors -- vanilla, coconut. So not a big revelation, since BT costs about the same. But still, they managed to age it in new oak and put it in a bottle with a gratuitous age statement and it's not terrible.

It did turn on me though. But the pleasant flavors thinned out, some feinty edges came out, and there were some strange vegetal notes -- like overcooked vegetables or kitchen scraps that have sat around too long. Then on the finish, an odd, chalky/woolly/slatey taste that I associate (maybe falsely) with charcoal filtering.

So it's probably just remaindered LDI juice (where else could it be from? KBD, I guess.), but it would be interesting if someone is labeling Tennessee whiskey as bourbon. Or maybe they just did something weird to it. Oddly, it tastes like an even younger whisky trying to seem older.

And what's with 96 proof? I guess they rectified it themselves, at least.

score: 72

more:

here's an interesting write-up and comment thread on what "procured by" amounts to

also:

the picture on the bottle seems to be Ambrose Burnside, who has nothing to do with Burnside St and Bridge in Portland, but he did seem to have invented sideburns.

ha ha ha

suddenly the Brora looks reasonable ... well, no.

it's interesting to see a special bottling of Oban, though.

via: here

review #4: Aniversario Ron Anejo ('riserva exclusiva') , 40% abv

it's just too hot today.

It's September, but it's just too hot, especially for anything peated or sherried. But all the flavors go out of whack -- sweetness and graininess (and suplhur) come forward, and everything else wisps away, so subtleties are gone and nothing is in balance. (though Irish whiskey, oddly, fares the worst of all.) Anyway, the one thing that gets better is rum. So here's one -- nothing special.

(This is from a Venezuelan distillery. I bought it a long time ago, right after Diageo or someone took it over. Of course, they released one brilliant, much heralded batch that sold out immediately, and followed it up with other, nearly indistinguishable batches that were so-so. So goes the way of later batches. Like subsequent children. Not really.)

nose: BROWN SUGAR. also, brown sugar. some pencil shavings and sawn wood, grape stems, and some cocoa and dried fruit. it's mostly just lots of brown sugar, but with some armagnac-like fruit (it's almost grapey) and tannin on top of that. some mustiness, too.

palate: brown sugar, brown sugar, brown sugar. things that remind you of brown sugar, confections you make with brown sugar, things you put brown sugar on top of (but you put too much). and then it turns bitter with too much wood. yet somehow, in summer, it seems like a pleasant tempering of the candied sweetness.

finish: the dried fruit (raisins, prunes) come back and stay a while, still against the background of a lot of bitterness. oh, and brown sugar. but the dried fruit really stick around.

not sure how to score this, but I do enjoy it (in summer, right now), so let's say:

score: 80

Review #3: Tomatin 1991/2013, C&S Dram Collection, 55.7%

hoping for 1976-lite

I think that one tries Tomatin hoping for some approximation of the fruitiness of the older ones, and usually ends up disappointed, finding something without even a family resemblance. But maybe this time ...

nose: briny and winey, with some green fruit peelings and wood. I think this is Manzanilla I'm nosing.
[checks: "Sherry Butt", cask #12488. I didn't realize that. It's pretty light colored, and I guess I was expecting a bourbon cask. Anyway, it could be from a manzanilla cask. Why don't they say that? I'd find that desirable, but not if I were expecting a PX cask ... "Sherry butt" really isn't that informative ...] After a few minutes, still briny, and aggressively grassy, but with some faint floral notes (meadow flowers) and just a bit of candied fruit. A tiny bit of maltiness. And is that smoke? Barrel char?

palate: soft for a split second, but then the sharp grassiness takes over. very green fruit.

finish: very long and strange. it starts off oily, becomes weirdly vegetal at some point (like a strange mix of herbs and peppery greens -- might be a tiny bit of meaty sulphur there, too), finds some vanilla along the way, and ends up salty. the faintest hint of fruit after all that has faded.


this is not at all what I expected. I expected either fruity or boring, but got weird instead. it's an interesting weird, and I'm happy to find a flor-sherry cask, if that's what this is, but it's not quite what I was looking for.


score: 82

review #2: Bladnoch 1990/2011, Edition Spirits, 58.3%, cask #ES 005/01

I think this is pre-Armstrong and pre-Hunter Laing indy Bladnoch ...

Why did they ever close it? And in the 90's, too -- wasn't the whisky crisis over by then? Did the place come with two or three stills? With whisky in the warehouse?

Nose: very sweet, perfumed apples as soon as I open it -- not like the newmakey apple, or the generic Glenfiddich green apples -- more like a winey heirloom apple, or something Snow White would bite into (without the poison). Then cherries and other orchard fruit, maybe some berries and macarons, and a rich graininess. It settles into a sharp grassiness with a bit of engine oil.

Palate: strangely like the nose but backwards. it starts off sharp, grassy, peppery, and ends up on rich, sweet orchard fruit. pretty powerful at this strength (duh).

Long, peppery, oily (motor and cooking) finish.

For me the best part was the nose, however: the rich red fruit was powerful but balanced by the grain and grass. It did hold up on the palate, too.

score: 86

review: Bowmore 16yo 1993/2010 Perfect Dram 59.9%, bourbon hogshead, 209 bottles

let's get this started

according to whiskysamples, "Bowmore Distillery was running very slowly in 1993, with long fermentation times and slow distillation resulting in a distinctive fruitier spirit." So let's see.

(You'd think that if it worked, and if it's under their control, they'd keep doing that ... ex-bourbon Bowmore becomes almost perfect when there's something good on top of the oily smoke and bitter grapefruit ... but I guess running slowly means less spirit ...)

Nose is open, even at this strength, not going to bother with water. Fruitiness yes, but it's a little strange: somewhere between rosehips and nettles. Ok, so nettles aren't fruit, but it's a weirdly dry citric fruitiness that almost veers off into grassiness. I get smoked grapefruit peels -- as if such a thing existed. The peat is almost farmy -- hay that's gone bad -- but ends up being an ashy smoke.

Palate: wow, I should have added water. I took a step back for this one: a mouthful of peat. Concentrated, sun-dried, oven-roasted peat. (I must be getting soft in my old age.) There's a fair amount of citrus and floral sweetness, but the peat kind of kicks its ass.

Finish: my mouth is still smoking. Ashes (campfire, cigarette, whatever), with some citrus and a little bit of faint vanilla softens it up. If you wait a while, the ashiness settles down into something more earthy, and dried plums (ume) and sour cherries come into the picture. Very, very long mouth-coating finish in any case.

I found this strangely forbidding and completely, completely engaging. Not the most enjoyable beverage in the world, but still very good.

score: 87

edit/update: empty glass: rich, creamy, earthy, oily peat. I think there were a lot of flavors that were concealed by the intensity -- I wish I had more than a sample to taste of this one. Also, I think I'm sweating peat smoke now.