Category Archives: Review

Review: Highland Park Ice Edition

Posted on by
Reply

Highland Park Ice BottleHighland Park Ice Edition – 17 Year Old – 53.9% abv

Info: Highland Park have matured Ice Edition for 17 years predominantly in ex-bourbon casks and limited globally to 30,000 bottles. Ice will be followed by Fire in 2017.
Colour: Light gold and clear. There’s no colouring here.
Nose: Sweet puffs of dry summery peat, think the sort of peat that might be produced on moors covered in flowering heather. Lots of gentle tropical fruits, think bananas which are just getting to the ripe stage, not totally black, but getting there. Boiled sweets (candies).
Palate: Fairly thick and oily, covering your mouth with warming but gentle spices (think root ginger) which only slowly build. There’s plenty of sweet fruits up front, those tropical notes on the nose coming through nicely on the palate, ripe mango maybe.
Continue reading →

Review: Laphroaig Lore

Posted on by
Reply

https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/laphroaig/laphroaig-lore-whisky/Laphroaig Lore – 48% abv

Info: Crafted by Laphroaig Distillery Manager John Campbell, Lore combines a number of casks including first-fill Bourbon barrels, quarter casks and Oloroso Sherry hogsheads. Campbell has said that Laphroaig Lore is a mixture of 7 to 21 year old liquids with 3 more ages in between them.

Colour: Full gold with orange tints. Great oily legs.

Nose: A very relaxing and familiar Islay peat nose meets you, it’s not totally in your face, it’s relaxed and restrained, but very much there at the front. There’s hints of the TCP iodine notes that you might expect, those sticking plaster smells you might be looking for, but there’s also plenty more going on which, for me, is so much more interesting… there’s smoked bbq’d bacon notes, young virgin oak notes and a milky creaminess, along with sweet caramels. There’s also old costal notes, think sea breeze through a harbour full of boats with old salt encrusted ropes. I really really like the nose on this, you can keep smelling it for ages. There’s definitely a well balanced meeting of young and old whiskies here. Hints of coal.
Continue reading →

News & Review: Exile Casks’ The Trojan (& an unnamed extra)

Posted on by
Reply

exilelogo

Exile Casks release “The Trojan” & more!

Exile Casks is a project from well known drinks writers Joel Harrison-Grier and Neil Ridley of Caskstrength Creative who have scoured many a whisky distiller’s warehouse to find rare “lost” casks which they have bottled and made available directly to the public at very reasonable prices. They kindly invited me to a Twitter tasting event, sending me ‘The Trojan’ (their first release) and an as-yet-to-be-named second dram. Let’s take a look…
Continue reading →

Review: Deanston Goodies (15yo Organic, 18yo, 20yo, 2008 Sherry Oak & 11yo Hand Fill)

Posted on by
Reply

Deanston-Logo

I was in Scotland on holiday during February 2016 and the good folks of Deanston distillery spotted my tweets about it and kindly suggested I swung by on my way home (as I was going to be driving close by), because they had some goodies for me.

Deanston Casks
Sure enough I eagerly stopped by and goodies were indeed waiting, thanks guys! Whilst there we stopped for a fantastic lunch at their Coffee Bothy, followed by a 5 minute flying tour to refresh my memory of the distillery and to get a couple of quick pictures. As always when visiting, you’re faced with a warming welcome plus plenty of goodies in the distillery shop to make your trip really worth it; exclusive distillery bottlings and hand-fills galore.

 

So let’s take a look at the variety of Deanston’s newest goodies that I was furnished with… We’ll take a look at their new 15yo Organic, 18yo Batch 2, 20yo Oloroso, 2008 Sherry Oak, and Fill Your Own 11yo… The first thing to note is the nice variation on colours, Deanston don’t chillfilter, and don’t colour their whisky, always a good start…

Continue reading →

Review: Adnams No 1 Whisky

Posted on by
Reply

Adnams No 1 BottleAdnams No 1 Whisky – 43% abv

Info: Adnams made this with 100% East Anglian barley and aged it for 3+  years in new French oak.
Colour: Rich evening summer’s gold.
Nose: Not a nose you’d readily identify with a Scotch whisky, but then again this isn’t Scotch, it’s English! It’s young, it’s been in virgin French oak, and you get a set of interesting smells. Toasted vanilla pods, damp nut shells, some milk chocolate and white PVA glue.
Palate: It’s got a bit of a bite, there’s some peppery spices which are quickly there upfront on the palate, then followed by the younger oak wood notes. Otherwise it’s a little one dimensional. Medium sweet.
Continue reading →

Review: Angels’ Nectar – Rich Peat Edition

Posted on by
Reply

Angels' Nectar Blended Malt - Rich Peat EditionAngels’ Nectar – Blended Malt Scotch Whisky – Rich Peat Edition – 46% abv

Info: Blend of Highland malts, heavy on the peat.
Colour: Light straw, nice and clear.
Nose: Instant mossy peat loveliness, slightly creamy and sweet.
Palate: A fairly thick palate, gently introduced to your tongue but soon followed up by those mossy peaty notes and then behind them a caramelly toffee richness.
Finish: A fairly gentle transition from mouth to chest, a little warming. It fades reasonably quickly, but the mossy sweet peat notes last much longer, a hint of TCP showing up at the end.
Thoughts: A very capable and enjoyable peaty blended malt whisky to enjoy on a cold evening.
Available: Master of Malt – £42.08.

Continue reading →

Review: Ailsa Bay

Posted on by
Reply

Ailsa Bay BottleAilsa Bay – 48.9% abv

Info: Ailsa Bay Batch 1 is a peated lowland whisky. Different styles can be produced by the distillery, so batch 2 may be different (but probably not as they seem quite focussed on peated malt). Peated runs are 2 weeks per year. Matured in a combination of four different casks: refill American oak, first fill Bourbon, new oak and Baby Bourbon casks from the Hudson Distillery. No age statement, but no older than 8yo.
Colour: Clear and straw like. Seemingly quite natural.
Nose: If you didn’t know better you’d think this was an Islay dram; it’s not medicinal, but it’s very peaty. There’s sweet, mossy peat with hints of some tropical back notes. It’s creamy, rounded and full; really rather fabulous with a barley background.
Continue reading →

Review: Biersky

Posted on by
2

Biersky BottleBiersky – 44.4% abv

Info: It doesn’t seem to have been done before, but it has now! Biersky is a mix of 60% strong beer spirit*, and 40% single malt whisky, developed by Jean Metzger from the Bertrand distillery in Alsace, France. It’s unfiltered.
Colour: Golden, quite light, a little cloudy.
Nose: Fantastically full of flavours for your nose to enjoy, a real depth that you might find with many a good malt. Underneath it all there’s a good malty spirit, along with the sort of smells you might imagine from a rural, stone built warehouse. There’s a handful of sour berries & sweetness.
Continue reading →

Review: Elements of Islay Peat

Posted on by
Reply

Elements of Islay Peat BottleElements of Islay Peat – 59.3% abv

Info: ‘Peat’ is Speciality Drinks / Elements of Islay’s first ongoing release. It’s a blend of non age statemented single malts from around the island.
Colour: Light straw, lovely pale Islay natured dram.
Nose: An instant peaty goodness; a nose to dive into, and one that feels immediately soothing. That’s if you like peat, of course. There’s a mixture of earthy, mossy peat, but also a more coastal, coal smoke type of thing. Behind all that there’s a gentle redcurrent sweetness and a gentle oak tone.
Continue reading →

Review: Octomore 7.4

Posted on by
Reply

bruichladdich-octomore-7.1-virgin-oak-islay-whisky-webOctomore 7.4 – 61.2% abv

Info: Matured in virgin oak casks. Distilled 21/04/2008, making this 7 years old. 167 PPM.
Colour: Dark, rusty gold, red tints.
Nose: Bosh! Insanely good, really exciting stuff you can smell for ages. For those that have been lucky enough to have ever had Balcones goodies, there’s a definite parallel… rich virgin oak, smokiness, streaky fried bacon, bonfires and barley notes amongst many other smells.
Palate: Very thick oils which are really easy on your tongue considering the 61.2% volume of alcohol. Packed full of those virgin oak notes of smoked brushwood, barley and hints of tannin. After a while held on the tongue there’s kind of a cola cube sweet type of a note. It’s sweet, rich and moreish.
Continue reading →