Heads up: a very different sort of content. Quite technical. Anyway, now that I’ve got a reasonable set of reviews to work with I thought it might be interesting to do a bit of statistical analysis. I’ve been meaning to try out the new pipe and lambda syntax in R 4.1 too.
Linkwood, this time in virgin oak. Usually I leave this sort of cask for our friends in America…
Sixth and final of the 2021 Feis Ile masterclass drams from Bruichladdich. Triple distilled – the first time Bruichladdich did it, so told. If I had to sum up the masterclass: terroir is absolutely a thing, from geography to barley varietal.
Fifth of the 2021 Feis Ile masterclass drams from Bruichladdich. Barley grown on the Black Isle near Inverness, part of the “Regional Trials” experiments. It’s all about terroir for this one (well, perhaps moreso than the others).
Fourth of the 2021 Feis Ile masterclass drams from Bruichladdich. Biodynamic barley. I didn’t know what biodynamic farming was, so I googled it… turns out it’s mostly mysticism. Disappointing, but is the whisky?
Third of the 2021 Feis Ile masterclass drams from Bruichladdich. Not the oldest harvest of Bere, but the oldest in the warehouses. Grown on Orkney.
Second of the 2021 Feis Ile masterclass drams from Bruichladdich. The first harvest of barley on Islay.
First of the 2021 Feis Ile masterclass drams from Bruichladdich. Cask 1660, organic Chalice barley from Mid Coul farm in Inverness. The theme of the masterclass is origins – all the samples are (single casks of) Bruichladdich firsts, centring around terroir and different forms of barley.
As usual, suspect Caol Ila. Bottled for the Dutch Whisky Association in 2016. Sansibar have slapped a Geisha on it for some reason.
From the Discovery series, bottled 2018. Can we discover higher ABVs please…
Sort of a lame label, but I suppose they didn’t care much back in the day. That’s 2006, for the record. Closed distillery.
Finished (for 28 months, I think) in a ex-Bolesna red wine cask (that’s Italy, folks). On that account, I’ll put away my Hawaiian shirts. Cask AU619.
Can Madiera redeem itself after that shocker Bruichladdich? Spoiler: yes. Batch 1, bottled 2018.
Peated to 3.5ppm. Finished in an IPA cask from Minami Shinshu Brewery. Apparently on the distillery’s grounds – do they make the wash, too?
Let’s wash our mouth out, shall we?
This one has a bit of a reputation.
Bottled for Shinanoya in Japan, cask DL10962.
Absolutely shocking price, and for something not even cask strength. Islay is getting ridiculous.
Batch 3, apparently. Named OB, not inspiring confidence, but there’s an age statement and it’s cask strength…
Teaspooned Glenmorangie.
Old Arran – one of their Explorer series (no relation to the Claxton’s). Scary colour.
One of those hype distilleries. Single cask, probably sold out within minutes and flipped for ten times the price. It’s good though. If I understand the cryptic code correctly, it’s from cask 335, distilled July 2015. And bottled 2020.
By my count, this is whisky review 100. Triple digits! Totally unintended, but let’s celebrate in the most appropriate way: with an ode to refill (casks).
A 2015 vintage, so I’m expecting peat and sherry. This one was bottled for that alliteration aficionado over at ralfy.com.
Just in case you (or your bespectacled great-grandmother) were wondering as to the vintage, a 1998 is printed on the bottle in size one billion. Oh, and something about an anniversary release?
What if we took a melon and turned it into a bomb?
Unrelated, but fake handwriting typefaces are lame.
Weird spherical bottle. Pretty tight lipped on the cask.
Refill butt 128.
Another Miltonduff, similar specs, although this one’s a vatting of four hogsheads.
Typo on the bottle, says 2006. Hogshead 700950.
Shame about that ABV, but Linkwood is Linkwood.
Relatively new distillery. 65 per cent STR and 35 per cent ex-bourbon, so told.
Magical label.
For the Whisky Festival 2019 in Tokyo. Hogshead 6028.
Raw cask, so mind the bits. Hogshead 5688.
For the record, milk stouts suck.
Alright… full term Madeira.
Cask 354551 (is that the oloroso?).
The rebels won, so Imperial closed.
Silent distillery. Weirdo bottling name. Apologies for the length.
Vatting of first fill and refill ex-bourbon. Casks 718018, 718019, 721587.
Apparently a vatting of bourbon, sherry, wine, and Mizunara casks. This is the 2020 bottling, titled “cold drops of dew”. Prepare to feel a few cold drops of dew in the morning on account of the cost of this bottle.
My bet is Clynelish.
Sherried Linkwood. Maltbarn 161.
Shh… more secrets.
Flight Maltbarn 158. Destination: Aultmore. Sit back, relax, and our in-flight service will begin shortly…
Haha, there’s a dog with a pirate sword on the label.
More old Ardmore please. This time with the funky SMWS name. Only one place to get that…
I really, really like Ardmore. And I really, really like Hidden Spirits. And I really, really like refill hoggies. What could go wrong? Cask AM219.
French oak barrique this time. More porous, I think?
Another Starward single cask.
Australia doesn’t really have a cask picking culture, so this one’s from the US. If the 750ml didn’t give that away… anyway, 225L American oak ex-Barossa red wine barrique.
Heading Starward. Collaboration with Myer or David Jones or something if I recall correctly. Create your own label sort of thing. A vatting of a bunch of fresh casks and charred casks.
A limited edition from 2013 if the internet is to be believed. Organic. One for the terroir fans.
How mysterious… meet cask no. 811647. They fill a lot of casks at Dailuaine, don’t they?
Alright, back to something a little more conventional and less controversial after those Juras.
Alright, take two.
Provenance series. Presumably a refill sherry butt. Are we ready to find a hidden underrated gem?
Series 10. No surprises, but the line of stellar Bowmores continues. In the case of North Star, I think they call that nominative determinism? Anyway…
One of Bladnoch’s many bottlings… can’t keep my head around it all.
An older Linkwood. One of Signatory’s cask strength bottlings.
Deaston, but not really an Adelphi… young and bourbon cask.
Have I mentioned how much I like Bowmore?
An OB Loch Lomond bottled for dramtime.nl.
Old Rhosdu – an oldschool malt, unfortunately lost, from everyone’s favourite chameleon distillery. Loch Lomond! Will there be melons…?
Gregor’s back at it, this time with a Laddie.
Final dram of World Whisky Day 2021. Shared the first dram (of my first bottle) of this one back with Simon Coughlin. Anyway, Bruichladdich’s undisclosed vatting. Witches and wizardry, black magic, alchemy, major and minor arcana, thirteen black cats, so on and so forth… A rather good vintage.
Big age statement here. High ABV for the age, too.
Another Glenlossie! Big fan of the Chorlton. This one’s a little younger.
More World Whisky Day! Fettercairn. Not a great OB rep…
Third for World Whisky Day! A 1996 Arran (a few out there…).
Second for World Whisky Day! A Society bottling of Caol Ila. Titillated by ten tickles..?
First up for World Whisky Day! Labelled as Benriach-Glenlivet. Cadenhead’s certainly loves that old (auld?) school naming…
The next Old Particular – Tamdhu! The Can-dhu spirit (TM)! Love that little marketing line. Reference DL12577. Anyway, this one’s bare: not a hint of sherry…
Refill hoggy Bunnahabhain from Douglas Laing’s Old Particular series. Cask reference DL13777.
Linkwood! How could I say no? Eight years in a hogshead followed by two in a Marsala barrique from Vino Marsala in Sicily. Blackcurrants are mentioned on the bottle, and I must agree…
First fill exbourbon! Full term. I’m expecting something sweet…
One of Bruichladdich’s uber-provenance/terroir bottlings. Distilled from Optic and Oxbridge barley grown on the following farms: Coull, Cruach, Dunlossit, Island, Mulindry, Rockside, Starchmill, and Sunderland.
Nice bottle. Part of Signatory’s “Decanter Collection”. A lot of what I assume to be floccing in the bottle, so unlikely to be chill filtered, even at 43 per cent ABV. Bottled in 2016, before Clynelish got weird about people using their name.
Silent distillery. Bottling apparently for the Italian market. Parafilmed and everything!
OB Bowmore gets a bit of a bad rep. Luckily this is not OB. Bottled for Shinanoya in Japan under Hunter Laing’s “Old Malt Cask” label.
One of Alistair Walker’s Infrequent Flyers – a relatively recent independent bottler. Now, picture a sunny day, a swim-in bar…
A recent non-secret Orkney.
Bottled 24 February 2015.
NAS Ardbeg. Core range. Hype casks.
The second Octomore concept release: Octomore X4+10 Concept 0.2. Let me draw attention to the ABV: 70 per cent. Let me draw attention to why that is: quadruple distilled. Let me draw attention to the age statement: 10 years.
First of the Octomore Concept releases: Octomore OBA Concept 0.1. Bruichladdich will not disclose anything about this except the ABV. Basically: Octomore Black Art.
Early Port Charlotte – the spirit profile was not even a year old as of this run (25 April 2002). Bottled 2016 from cask 7. From the same outturn as the 2002 Bruichladdich, but couldn’t be more different…
A couple of early neo-Laddie bottles today, both from Rest & Be Thankful. Distilled in 2002, just after the distillery’s reopening in 2001. Bottled 2016 from cask 454.
Ben Nevis again! This time another youngster. A vatting of two casks, presumably both sherry hogsheads. Weirdly high outturn of bottles though, 900 bottles. Aren’t hogsheads around 250 litres? Even assuming zero angel’s share…
Tobermory… tick… Hidden Spirits… tick. Wait. “Ledaig Unpeated”? Shouldn’t Ledaig be “Tobermory Peated” if anything? According to Andrea (London Whisky Club) of Hidden Spirits, this might have been a cleaning run through the stills after a run of peated spirit. Apparently Ledaig was less peated back then, this this could easily be confused with the cleaning run. Anyway, Ledaigamory.
Ever wonder what happens to the sherry used to season your cask? Usually it’s poured down a drain, but North Star bottled this one. Although it’s not technically sherry because it was made in Montilla. Anyway: from what I gather, used to season a barrel that once held whisky. So think of it as Scotch finished oloroso, not oloroso finished Scotch.
Final dram of the Chorlton night. Ledaig, of Tobermory fame. Or should that be Tobermory, of Ledaig fame? Anyway, absolute heavyweight. Tasted virtually with David Bennett (Chorlton) and the Whisky and Alement team.
Lochindaal was a peated spirit made by Bruichladdich shortly after they opened. More heavily peated than Port Charlotte. David says that it’s more like a peated Laddie spirit – it’s got that clarity we’d associate with it. I agree with him. Unfortunately, Bruichladdich is no longer making Lochindaal. Perhaps not a lost distillery, but a lost malt! Tasted virtually with David Bennett (Chorlton) and the Whisky and Alement team.
A lot of secret Orkney casks lately. No surprises: Highland Park! Are they having a sale or something? And what’s with this cask? Tasted virtually with David Bennett (Chorlton) and the Whisky and Alement team.
A Christmas release for Chorlton. Apt. Sherry, but the complete opposite of a sherry bomb. Tasted virtually with David Bennett (Chorlton) and the Whisky and Alement team.
Early 90s Glenlossie. Reportedly (from David) amazing, underrated, the golden years. Also, I’m told, needs this kind of age. Tasted virtually with David Bennett (Chorlton) and the Whisky and Alement team.
Croftengea is one of Loch Lomond’s many spirit profiles. Heavily peated. This one, not so much. Tasted virtually with David Bennett (Chorlton) and the Whisky and Alement team. First cab off the rank.
Apparently bottled by Signatory Vintage for La Maison du Whisky as part of “The Ten” series. Label reads: “A distinctive range of 10 young Scotch Whiskies profiling classic characteristics”. Intro range? Anyway, this is Profile #4, “Medium Speyside”. Not sure if Medium is apt…
Fifteen years in a hogshead, finished in a Rivesaltes cask and then charged into a rather attractive bottle. Rivesaltes is a French sweet fortified. And that cask did a number on this one.
Kind of obscure Diageo malt, which means they’ve got a Flora and Fauna bottle. Instead of a cute animal this one is from Douglas Laing’s Provenance lineup and was aged in a sherry butt.
Berry Bros. & Rudd’s blended malt whisky. Unknown to me before I tasted: apparently 8 casks in this blend, 4 hoggies, 3 sherry butts. Peated and unpeated Bunnahabhain. Glad to know I wasn’t going insane tasting peat and dried fruits.
Official bottling from Tobermory. From what I gather, spent ten years in exbourbon casks and two in manzanilla casks. For those playing at home, manzanilla is a dry sherry similar to a fino, known for its freshness and salinity. Unusual, as most sherry casks used for whisky are oloroso or PX.
Here’s a recent bottle from Rest & Be Thankful (great story behind that name). I’m personally enjoying what Deanston has to offer these days. Read on if you like oranges.
Picture this: Caol Ila. Now remove the peat. Hard, no? Let’s see. This one was bottled in 2017 for Diageo’s special releases.
Back to back Ben Nevis. This time from The Whisky Agency. Presumably a sherry hogshead, but not specified beyond cask size.
From cult indie bottler comes a cult distillery in a cult cask. At a cult price too!
Another Hidden Spirit, this time from Teaninich. Not quite as obscure as Balmenach, but not exactly hyped… hope you like salad.
The 2020 release of Springbank’s cask strength 12 year old. From what I gather, it’s 35 per cent sherry and 65 per cent exbourbon.
A vatting of three casks. First fill sherry butts.
Presumably an exbourbon refill hoggy. One of Diageo’s blend focused distilleries.
Adelphi! I got the email for this outturn at ten in the morning, I believe. Three minutes later, this was sold out (alongside most of the other bottles in this outturn). Oh well, c’est la vie. The people love the colour. Judging by the number of bottles (622), probably a sherry butt.
An honest little exbourbon malt from Hidden Spirits, one of my favourite bottlers. From a rather obscure distillery.
Another Claxton’s Exploration bottling. This time a secret highland. Coordinates are 58.02N, 3.87W.
The final Claxton’s Exploration I’ll be looking at for now. We’ve got another blended malt – presumably teaspooned. Coordinates are 55.63N, 6.15W. This one leads to a quite legendary south coast Islay distillery. Thoughts on the bottling series itself also after the fold.
Continuing on our Claxton’s Exploration. We’ve got an Ardmore – single malt, very much disclosed distillery. There’s no mystery this time, but the coordinates are 57.35N, 2.74W.
Part of the inaugural outturn of Claxton’s Exploration series comes a blended malt from Campbeltown. As I understand it, this is a teaspooned malt. It spent only five years in a PX hogshead.
Bruichladdich’s March (April, really) ballot bottle, capping off the Valinch ballots due to the distillery’s COVID closure. The pricing on this one caused quite a stir round the whisky groups. I think price expectations were much lower for the ballot and Bruichladdich might have been better served with this as a Fèis Ìle bottle. That said, if you’re willing to buy Black Art, you should probably be willing to buy this. And wow – does it deliver.
Part of North Star’s recent Springbank lineup. Labelled as Springbank, peated and double distilled. Both Springbank and North Star are highly respected and popular, so as expected, it flew off the shelves…
Bottled by a triumvirate of Australian whisky institutions: Whisky and Alement, the Oak Barrel, and Casa de Vinos. Titled “Bees & Fruit Trees” with a cheeky wax-on-wax-off reference label by Blake Wilson. Thoughts jump (like a cat) to mind of a distillery associated with wax…
A cask you don’t see every day. Distilled by Arran and put into a Viognier cask from Yalumba (South Australia). Bottled by the Fisherman’s Retreat as part of their limited edition series. I do have the cask strength bottling, but today I’m looking at the 50%.
Another Linkwood. From Elixir Distillers.
Linkwood is a distillery you don’t see often bottled by Diageo themselves. Fortunately it is a relatively common malt among independent bottlers. Here we’ve got one from Hidden Spirits, a small Italian independent bottler.