Glenfiddich 15 Solera

Glenfiddich_15_solera

Well first off, it may seem odd that the picture does not show the front of the bottle. Well I can explain. The bottle with it’s lovely case was given to me by AliceInWhiskyland for Christmas. At the time Glenfiddich had a promotion where you could send in a postcard with a message to make a personalized label. So there is a very personal label on this particular bottle which I was not inclined to share. The plus side for you is that you get a good view of the actual whisky.

Glenfiddich was the first distillery to really produce and market single malt whiskies. Some people view it as the distillery that started the whole single malt trend and for that many a whisky drinker are grateful. The Glenfiddich 15 year solera is a special one amongst the core Glenfiddich range. Solera is a method of producing liquors where a continuous vatting is used. In the case of the Glenfiddich 15 Solera, there is a large oak vat that has continuously held whisky since the start of this expression. They add whisky in and take whisky out but never fully drain the vat, so theoretically drops of the original spirit are still swirling around in the vat and your glass. It’s a neat idea for maintaining consistency and in this case I believe it has done very well.

Distillery: Glenfiddich

Expression: Glenfiddich 15 Solera

Age: 15

ABV: 40%

Price: ~£36 (£35.83 at Master of Malt)

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Adelphi Private Stock Blended Scotch Whisky

Adelphi_blend

Adelphi Distillery has a bit of a misleading name. As it exists now it is an independent bottler, although they recently built a distillery called Ardnamurchan Distillery in Glenbeg (Est. 2014). The company is named after an actual distillery in Glasgow that started in 1825 and closed in 1902. The great grandson, Jamie Walker, of the last owner of the distillery revived the name for a bottling company.  The company was sold to two lairds and is now managed by Alex Bruce.

Adelphi is mostly known for their single cask, cask strength bottlings which have been highly praised. Apparently only 50 casks are bottle a year for their single cask range.

The Adelphi Private Stock blend is interesting in it’s contrast to their single cask bottlings. Amongst the sea of their ever changing range this seems to have a bit more permanence.

Bottler: Adelphi Distillery

Age: NAS

Type: Blend

ABV: 40%

Price: ~£21 (£20.95 at Master of Malt)

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SMWS 70.10 Balblair Teenage Shenanigans

smws_70.10

Well this is exciting. You don’t see too many independent bottlings of Balblair. Add on to that a single cask and cask strength and you’ve got yourself a special treat, not to mention the young age which is actually very refreshing.

Distillery: Balblair

SMWS Name: Teenage Shenanigans

Age: 9 years

Distilled: 2005/5/11

Cask: Refill Barrel

ABV: 58.5%

Price: £44.00 from SMWS

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SMWS 127.42 Port Charlotte Peat Freak Heaven

smws_127.42_port_charlotte

This is the second newest bottling of Port Charlotte by SMWS (127.43 is currently the newest) and one of the oldest bottlings of Port Charlotte at the moment. Port Charlotte is the heavily peated whisky produced by the Bruichladdich Distillery. This particular bottling was released just after SMWS started restricting sales of certain whiskies to phone orders at specific times of day. I suspect SMWS has implemented this new sales strategy to prevent people from hoarding whiskies with potential collectors value. Since the Port Charlotte distilling began in 2001, you won’t find much older than this right now.

Bottler: SMWS

Distillery: Bruichladdich (Port Charlotte)

SMWS Name: Peat Freak Heaven

Age: 12 years

Distilled: 2002/6/21

Number of Bottles: 127

Cask: Refill Bourbon

ABV: 63%

Price: £61.30 from SMWS

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Longrow Red Port Cask (3rd Edition) 11 Year Old

Longrow_red_port

Longrow comes from the Springbank distillery in Campbeltown. It was Cambeltown’s answer to the heavily peated whiskies produced on Islay. For a part of the year Springbrank distills wort from heavily peated malt to make the Longrow series. Longrow Red is a special series of Longrow where the spirit has been matured in red wine casks for some or all of it’s life. Hence the “Red” part of its name. While port might not necessarily be thought of as a red wine, it is red and a fortified wine. So in my book it’s A OK. The Port version is the 3rd in the series and I do not know if they plan to continue releasing Longrow Red’s after this. The 1st in the series was aged in Cabernet Sauvignon casks for the last 4 years of its maturation. The 2nd one was aged in Australian Shiraz casks for the last 5 years of it’s maturation. Only 9,000 bottles of the Port Cask were produced.

Distillery: Springbank (Longrow)

Age: 11 Years

Cask: Port

ABV: 51.8%

Price: ~£60

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Hakushu 12 Years Old

Hakushu_12

Hakushu, the lesser known brother of Yamazaki. Both Yamazaki and Hakushu have many different still shapes to be able to produce a wide range of spirit. While Scottish blenders are able to use whiskies from virtually any of the distilleries in Scotland, Japanese blenders are typically limited to the whiskies produced by their company. Hence, many stills at each distillery for many different kinds of whisky. The big difference between Hakushu and Yamazaki whisky is that Hakushu is peated. It’s not that mega in your face Islay kind of peat but a more reasonable level of smokiness. In general peaty whiskies have not done well in Japan. Some of the earliest Japanese whisky had trouble selling due to the peat levels that were designed to emulate the highland whiskies of the time. But Hakushu brings a bit of smoke to the equation which adds to the complexity of their blends and provides a nice contrast to Yamazaki.

The Hakushu lineup has the same ages as the Yamazaki lineup: NAS, 12,18, and 25. It seems like whatever Yamazaki bottles, Hakushu gets a similar bottling. Although Hakushu may not be as famous as Yamazaki, it is certainly not in any way inferior. It has its own distinct style which I think complements Yamazaki quite well. I guess that was Suntory’s whole point of building the distillery.

It is a bit harder to find Hakushu, but I definitely recommend giving it a try.

Type: Single Malt

Distillery: Hakushu

Age: 12

ABV: 43%

Price: ~£75 (£73.81 from Master of Malt)

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Yamazaki 18 Years Old

Yamazaki_18

Well this is one of the big boys of Japanese whiskies. Highly rated and award winning. There is a reason it’s in Ian Buxton’s “101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die” book. It’s not cheap and at this present moment in time (May 2nd 2015 as I write this) the 18 is hard to find and the prices at retailers are typically grossly inflated. Last time I checked, you would be lucky to find one for £200. Considering that 2-3 years ago you could get a bottle for $160 in the US, it’s hard to swallow.

Recent price hikes for Suntory products will insure that retail prices never go back to the good ole days and diminishing stocks of older whiskies may mean that this expression will jump even further or perhaps even be retired.

Well if you have a bottle, consider yourself fortunate and if you get a chance to try this for a reasonable price, do.

Type: Single Malt

Distillery: Yamazaki

Age: 18

ABV: 43%

Price: ~£200 (£169.95 from Master of Malt)

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