Category Archives: Whisky Reviews

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February 4, 2016

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Dalmore 15 Year Old

Dalmore_15

 

If you’ve been to a duty free shop, I am willing to bet you’ve seen a bottle of Dalmore. The grandiose stag on their label always seems to stick out at the shop. Fantastic branding! The Dalmore distillery is in the highlands a bit north of Inverness but I feel like a lot of people think it is a Speyside whisky. Technically it is not. It’s owned by Whyte and Mackay and often championed by their master blender Richard Pattinson. The common expressions that you will see around are the 12, 15, 18, and Cigar Malt. I seem to see these in most shops. Well let’s get to the whisky!

Distillery: Dalmore Distillery

Age: 15 Years Old

Cask: Matusalem, apostoles and amoroso sherry casks

ABV: 40%

Price: £51.37

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January 25, 2016

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Tamdhu 10 Year Old

Tamdhu_10yr

 

You may not recognize this particular distillery but it’s definitely worth a closer look. Tamdhu Distillery (not to be confused with Tamnavulin) sits right on the banks of the Rivery Spey just a bit south of Cardhu Distillery. Until fairly recently (a couple years ago), Tamdhu was not doing too well. The distillery was mothballed in 2009 by then owner Edrington Group and then sold to Ian MacLeod in 2011. In 2013 the brand was relaunched and so far it’s been getting some good attention from whisky drinkers. The Tamdhu 10 year old represents excellent value if you are looking for a good sherried whisky.

Distillery: Tamdhu Distillery

Age: 10 Years Old

Cask: Exclusively Sherry Casks

ABV: 40%

Price: £34.00

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December 21, 2015

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SMWS 33.132 Ardbeg (Beauty and the Beast)

SMWS_33.132_Ardbeg

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, SMWS released their previous Ardbeg bottling. It was the 33.131 “A Mad Scientist on the Dockside”, and it was released for the 2013 Christmas outturn. As seems appropriate for current affairs this new bottling is a bit of a sequel to that 2013 one. It’s also from a 2nd fill ex-sherry butt and about the same age (8 years as opposed to 7). I didn’t get to try that last one but I jumped on the opportunity to try this one!

I’ll just get into a bit of background on Ardbeg and why this bottling is so exciting. Currently Ardbeg has only 3 official core expressions: Ardbeg 10, Uigeadail, Corryvrecken. They also release limited edition expressions a couple times a year. However, they have not released a new age statement bottling for a few years and independent bottlings of Ardbeg are scarce. As Ardbeg has quite the following among whisky drinkers, any new Ardbeg usually causes quite a stir in the community.  The official limited edition NAS expressions usually command quite a price, ranging from £85-125 and independent bottlings seem to start around £150 these days. The independent bottlings also tend to be from bourbon casks. Thus the 33.132 presents a new and exciting treat for Ardbeg enthusiasts. All this is just to provide some context for the price tag. £120 for an 8 year old whisky certainly seems steep but in the current world of whisky this is sadly no longer shocking. Well as Ardbeg knows, the whisky market is a rollercoaster and we’ll just have to see where it goes.

Bottler: SMWS

Distillery: Ardbeg Distillery

SMWS Code: 33.132

SMWS Name: Beauty and the Beast

Age: 8 Years Old

Cask: Ex-Sherry Butt 2nd Fill

ABV: 60.9%

Distill Date: 24 May 2007

Outturn: December 2015

Bottle Numbers: 624

Price: £120.00

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December 11, 2015

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Macallan Rare Cask Black Review

Macallan Rare Cask Black

 

Looks familiar right? You might have seen this guy’s cousin the Macallan Rare Cask which comes in a red box. However, this is quite different from that other bottling. Not sure why they decided to make it look like just another version of the Macallan Rare Cask as it is its own sort of animal.

This is the Macallan Rare Cask Black, a truly rare peated Macallan whisky. The newest addition to their 1824 range which is a lineup of premium NAS whiskies. According to Macallan this bottling came from less than 100 casks. They also stated that there will not be another peated Macallan bottling. Some other sources seem to indicate that they are either only from first fill sherry casks (European and American oak) or at least predominantly from those. As you might have noticed from the picture, the bottle is completely black which means it’s impossible to the see the whisky without opening it. Mysterious. These will only be available at travel retail (duty free). If you are traveling this winter you’ll probably spot it. I haven’t seen any independent tastings notes/reviews for this expression yet but I look forward to seeing what other people thought of this peculiar dram.

Distillery: The Macallan Distillery

Age: NAS

Cask: Mostly First Fill Sherry Casks (American and European Oak)

ABV: 48%

Price: £300 or $450 Travel Retail Only

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December 11, 2015

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AnCnoc 12 Year Old

ancnoc-12-year-old-whisky

Don’t bother looking for AnCnoc distillery on google maps. The distillery from which AnCnoc is produced is called Knockdhu. If the name sounds familiar, it is possible that you are confusing it with the nearby Knockando distillery. If so, then you have proven the merits of Knockdhu’s decision to market their single malt as AnCnoc. Indeed they were concerned that people would confuse their whisky with that of Knockando.

AnCnoc/Knockdhu is owned by Inver House which also owns Old Pulteney and Balblair. So they have quite the impressive collection of distilleries and seemed to have been very successful in managing them. Judging from the ascension of Balblair and Old Pulteney, I would say that AnCnoc is a single malt to watch! The AnCnoc 12 year old is of course their flagship whisky being the most commonly available around the world.

 

Distillery: Knockdhu Distillery

Age: 12 Years Old

Cask: Presumably Ex-bourbon (Non-sherried for sure as confirmed by several sources)

ABV: 40%

Price: £30.86

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December 9, 2015

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Royal Brackla 12 Year Old

Royal_Brackla_12

Royal Brackla, sounds fancy doesn’t it? In 1835 Royal Brackla became the first Scottish distillery to receive the Royal title. It was King William IV who granted the title as they supplied whisky to the royal court. Just so you know there are only 3 distilleries with “Royal” in their titles: Royal Brackla, Glenury Royal, and Royal Lochnagar.

Most of the whisky at Royal Brackla goes into blends presumably Dewar’s as they are owned by Dewar’s/Bacardi. However, just this year they launched a new single malt range with the 12, 16, and 21 year old. This coincides with single malt releases from Aultmore and Craigellachie (also owned by Dewar’s).

We tried a dram of the 12 year old at WOLS tasting.

Distillery: Royal Brackla

Age: 12 Years Old

Cask: Finished in First Filled Oloroso Sherry Casks

ABV: 40%

Price: £41.75

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December 6, 2015

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Ardbeg Supernova 2015

Ardbeg_Supernova_2015

Space the final frontier. Ardbeg Supernova 2015 the final release. Can’t help but think something like that was going on in the heads of the marketing department at Ardbeg. This is indeed the final release of the Supernova series. At least Ardbeg says so. In case you are unfamiliar, the idea behind the Supernova series is to experiment with unusually high peat levels (even for an Ardbeg). They were at one time touted to be the peatiest of whiskies but the Bruichladdich Octomore sort of muscled into that category. Regardless of the peat arms race, these are uncontested peat beasts. Not for the faint of heart or palate.

This release coincided with the publishing of the results from their famous space whisky experiment in which they sent vials of Ardbeg spirit into space with cask shavings to see how microgravity effects whisky maturation. Seem a little far fetched in concept? Well yeah. Basically the owner of NanoRacks, a company producing specialized space lab equipment, approached Ardbeg/ Dr. Bill Lumsden about sending some of their whisky into space. Presumably to attain a life time’s worth of free whisky or something like that. I’ll have to devise some scheme to do just the same.

 

Distillery: Ardbeg Distillery

Age: NAS

ABV: 54.3%

Price: £125

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December 6, 2015

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Kilchoman Sauternes 4th Club Release 2015

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Oh boy! I was excited when I saw the news about this one! A heavily peated sauternes cask whisky? Yes please! Kilchoman? Yes please! This is the 4th club release from Kilchoman, which may mean that we will see a larger general release much like the Madeira cask expression. Let’s hope!

Update! As of September 2016 Kilchoman haqve launched their first general release of the Kilchoman Sauternes Cask Matured.

This release came from 3 Sauternes casks which resulted in only 909 bottles. Distilled in January of 2011 and bottled in 2015, the whisky is 4 years old. Oh yeah full maturation! Not finished.

Distillery: Kilchoman Distillery

Age: NAS (but really 4 years)

Distill Date: January 2011

Bottle date: 2015

Cask: Sauternes Casks

ABV: 60%

Price: £75

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December 6, 2015

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Kilchoman Madeira Cask Matured

Kilchoman_Madeira

Woot woot!  Madeira and Kilchoman! The day has come! As some may know Kilchoman released a bit of a teaser of this release for the 3rd club release in 2014 which was also matured in Madeira casks. This particular batch is comprised of whisky fully matured in 17 first fill Madeira casks. Distilled in 2011 and bottled in 2015, these should be about 4 years old. Young by normal whisky standards but Kilchoman march to their own tune and have been doing it very well.

 

Distillery: Kilchoman Distillery

Age: NAS (But most likely 4 years)

Distill Date: 2011

Bottling Date: 2015

Cask: Madeira Casks

ABV: 50%

Price: £81

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December 5, 2015

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Tomatin Legacy

tomatin-legacy-whisky

 

I must say that I am a big fan of the Tomatin 30 year old. So it was nice to try the Legacy which sits on the opposite end of the Tomatin lineup being a NAS whisky. We tried this expression at the Allied Glass tweet tasting. It’s interesting to see that a lot of the new NAS whiskies are incorporating virgin oak maturations. It may be a way to get more cask influence from younger whiskies or perhaps it’s from a shortage of bourbon casks due to the increasing demand from the Scotch industry. Could be both really, but either way I feel it is shifting the average flavour profile of Scotch whisky. This is not necessarily a bad thing and has happened in the past. For instance the shift toward bourbon casks from sherry when UK laws changed so that sherry could no longer be shipped to the UK in casks. While there will be some who lament this change, I think it is opening up more variety in Scotch. Well that’s just my opinion.

Distillery: Tomatin Distillery

Age: NAS

Cask: Ex-Bourbon and Virgin Oak

ABV: 43%

Price: £25.84

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