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