Waxhouse Whisky Release 2

Waxhouse Whisky Release 2
First up, a bit about Waxhouse...actually you can read it all here: About Waxhouse. Personally I like that story, the decision to bottle casks came purely from the passion for the stuff. No colouring is used or chill filtering carried out, so its a good start.
To add to that, I was previously a member of...a whisky society but gave it up for various reasons so I have turned to these smaller companies for independent bottles. You will often find a better quality of cask and this one is no exception.
Waxhouse very kindly sent me a sample of this to try so, onto the whisky. This was distilled at Glenrothes, filled into a first fill sherry butt, left for thirteen years (filled 05/06, bottled 02/20) and comes in it at 50.7%. There are 170 bottles and it is priced at £85 which I think is quite a good price.

Colour
I am not a fan of describing colour as whisky is brown, just different shades. But for the sake of doing things right and all that I am saying this is dark polished oak.

Nose
Its big on the Christmas cake. Raisin, cinnamon, orange, strawberry, brown sugar, marzipan, almond, nutty, dunnage warehouse.

Palate
Its giving what I would associate with Oloroso cask flavours. Stewed dark fruit, raisin, cherry, a bit of menthol, black treacle, nutty marzipan, dark chocolate. It follows the nose quite well actually.

Finish
Its quite oily this, so its quite long. Treacle gives way to brown sugar and chocolate. Purple grapes and grapefruit.

Overall
Its very tasty indeed. Is it a sherry bomb? It has all the flavours you would expect from a good sherried whisky. I think I would call it a sherry bomb, but its not quite the bombiest of bombs I have tried.

Score
Its well priced, so I (as always) urge you to find out for yourself, but id say... A- out of 9.5. I do like a good sherry cask!

Conclusions
I like this company, (which is important to me, when I choose where to spend money) their process for choosing casks is good. How they present their whisky, cask strength, no colour, no chill filtering and their pricing is fair. It is all things I look for when buying independent bottles. They don't shout as loudly as they maybe could (on Twitter anyway), but I will be keeping an eye on them as you know their stuff will be good...and you just can't beat wonky labels!

waxhousewhisky.com

Picture courtesy of Waxhouse

:)

Edit (From Waxhouse): "For clarity this one isn't quite cask strength. We found that flavour wise 50.7 hit the best mark"

#WaterScience

Myself and Scott (@ScotchB78) have decided to test Larkfires Wild Water for Whisky which they very kindly sent to us. With the hashtag #WaterScience we got to work!

Larkfires water is taken from the Isle of Lewis. Instead of me writing loads of stuff here, go to their website if you would like to learn more about it.

So, the test:
We have both selected a high abv whisky, mine is a seven year old Aultmore from The SMWS (73.113), matured in a 2nd fill butt with a sherry finish at 67.5% abv. Scotts is an eight year old Craigellachie from The SMWS (44.117) at 68.5%, matured in a 2nd fill butt and finished in px.

We will pour three drams.
1. The dram how we would normally drink it, with a touch of water (using what ever water we would normally use).
2. 10ml of whisky and 3ml of tap water.
3. 10ml of whisky and 3ml of Larkfire.

I think we are using quite a lot of water here to an exaggerate what the water might do to the whisky.
All science will be done at room temperature.

My normal water of choice is Asdas finest Highland Spring and Scott uses some sort of magic filter which takes out all the impurities. So for his first dram he will be using the filtered stuff.
Our test is slightly limited, as Larkfire point out we live up in the North where the water is quite soft (not many minerals) so this doesn't effect the whisky as badly as water in for example London would.

                                                 









Tasting notes for dram 1:
Scott - Nose: Very meaty, bit of sulphur, thick dense sherry
Scott - Palate: Thick and oily, lots of brown sugar, raisins, dates, sultanas. Spicy. A bit dry and woody on the finish.

Paul - Nose: Nutty, almonds, caramel, crunchy bars. Brown sugar. A bit of dunnage-ness.
Paul - Palate: Sweet, marzipan, spicy, white grape, fruity. Caramel and dark chocolate on the finish.


Dram 2, differences with tap water:
Scott - Nose: Nothing discernible
Scott - Palate: Leaves a much more sour finish

Paul - Nose: Sweeter, raw alcohol seems more apparent
Paul - Palate: Spicier, raw alcohol


Dram 3, differences with Larkfire
Scott - Nose: A bit fresher, not as thick and meaty.
Scott - Palate: Clean, it has freshened up the meatyness and made it much lighter.

Paul - Nose: Cleaner and crisper flavours.
Paul - Palate: Crisper, freshens the flavours up and brings them out more.

Overall opinions.
I think we agreed on overall opinions, we both noticed the tap water dram had gone quite murky but the Larkfire still looked bright.
There was a definite difference between the Larkfire and the tap water although it was very close with the bottled/filtered water, I think the Larkfire just won it.
As Scott pointed out, I think it would be very interesting to re-do our science with some high mineral content water.

Larkfire did also add a few comments:
Highland Spring is lightly mineralised so the hard nature will affect the flavour. But at least its not Evian!
Soft tap water affects the nose more as it really is just the chemicals that affect things. We find the initial ethanol bloom with the nose is followed by a chemical tinge that halts out enjoyment.


My understanding is Larkfire are aiming this at the "bar" market. (The packaging certainly looks suited to it) If you order a dram at a bar and want to put a few drops in it this is a far better option that tap water. Having said that I wouldn't rule it out for home use, it is perfectly capable at calming down a dram.

Big thanks to Larkfire for the cans!

@WhiskyNStuff
@ScotchB78

For more info go to:

www.larkfire.com

Glendronach 15 #14

Glenronach 15 Revival 46%abv (The new one)
We have all read what age of whisky may be in this bottle and seen the graph thingy. What we know for sure is, it is a least fifteen years old. It is un-chill filtered and a natural colour. It has been matured in px and oloroso casks.
There have been a few releases of this, this is the eagerly awaited most recent one. I have not tried the earlier ones so can not comment if this one is worse, better or the same.

Colour
Dark polished oak

Nose
Glazed cherry, chocolate orange, touch of menthol, barely sugar. You can smell the spirit but it's not rough - it's a nice sweet smell. Everything on the nose seems to have a sprinkling of icing sugar! Little bit of dusty leather going on to.

Palate
Ripe fruits, orange, strawberries, strawberry jam, cherry, lots of brown sugar, milk chocolate

Finish
Medium length. Brown sugar, slight chili chocolate turning to dark, turning to milk chocolate - lots of chocolate going on!

Overall
This is fairly easy to find now and for around the £65 mark it is worth that 100%. However I will not be replacing it with another age stated Glendronach for two reasons, 1st: I already have the port wood finish. 2nd and main reason: In my hunt for higher abv, I think my next step into Glendronach will be one of the cask strength batches.
Having just finished off a nineteen year old px single cask (which was brilliant!), I have tasted how powerful their whisky can be. This is definitely the toned down diluted version but I can taste the similarities.
One thing I would add here is, I don't think oxidisation has really had much effect on this bottle.

Score
A- out of 9.25
(Only marked down slightly, cause I always want more abv)

Conclusions
It's a good one! - If you want to experience everything Glendronach can offer, this is a great bottle. It shows you all of their aspects and combines them well. Pick which aspect you liked the most, go and find one of their bottles that concentrates on that - that seems to be how it is has gone for me anyway.

:)

Buying a cask

Buying a cask of whisky

First up a disclaimer:

This is not a complete guide to buying a cask of whisky, you should do your own research. I have put together the information I learned, a lot of which I could not find online. What was online, I found from reading small print, distillery websites and the UK government website! The rest I got from phoning people. I am not going to go into great detail about the money matters, if you are just reading this out of interest it doesn't matter, if you are genuinely looking into cask purchase you should look them up yourself and not trust any blog on that matter.

The cask:

The casks are from £1k up to £300k and anything in between. The "popular" brands and the matured stuff (casks which are ready to bottle imminently) are expensive! Far to expensive for what I wanted and I'd imagine the latter, not really what an investor wants as they are already at a very high value. I wanted something young where I could get samples every year and enjoy comparing them to one another. The investor process looked to me to be put it in any old cask, leave it a few years and sell it on. I actually wanted to end up with a good whisky at the end of the process. So are you an investor or someone who is interested in whisky and the whole process? I am not an investor so I was on the hunt for new make or something that maybe wasn't even whisky yet. I was told new make carried an extra slight risk with possible leakages (although it apparently is not very common at all) so maybe something a few years old would be best for me.

Where to buy:

Basically it looked like there were two choices, from a distillery or from a broker. The distilleries which offer it, often have big downloadable files giving you all the information you need including the money maters. Buying from a distillery looked like a really nice process, you will get to pick which cask you want and they should be first fill. They will tell you when its being filled so you can go along, have a dram or two and sometimes a meal. However, you do pay for this, from the prices I saw the distilleries who do it were asking at least £1k more than you would pay through a broker - is it worth it? Well that is up to you. To me is wasn't worth it, especially since I was on my own and not in a consortium. So going through a broker it was. 

Which broker to use:

The first thing you realise when looking at brokers is most of them are there to facilitate the investment market and know very little about whisky. (One of them quoted me £8k for new make!!!) All the ones I spoke to were quite clearly sales people, which can be slightly off putting but I had to ignore the sales flannel and get the information out of them that I wanted and find out what they knew. I wanted to deal with someone who understood what I wanted to do - which was not just to make a few quid at the end of it. I wanted someone who knew their whisky - so a few test question were devised to see what they knew. This process got me down to about three brokers. Two one man bands and Whisky Broker. Whisky Broker are the biggest on this side of the whisky industry and I had no problem with them at all but I wanted something smaller, more personal. The owner of a company rang me on a Saturday afternoon and talked to me for an hour and asked me to save his number in case I wanted to speak to him again - this was a good sign in my opinion. So after speaking to him for over two hours over the next ten days or so, numerous emails going back and forward, I had decided who I wanted to use.  

Storage and Insurance:

This is a much bigger subject than you might think. Storage is normally between 30p and £1 per week and this covers "basic warehouse insurance" which basically covers you for fire and theft. It does not cover leakage or the value of your whisky going up, so its not particularly thorough. The other things can be added on but I was told by all the people I spoke to it was not worth doing if you only had one cask. Since leakages are rare and it was only one cask, basic insurance was OK for me. 

It is also interesting to know, most of these independently owned casks are stored at Whisky Broker and some at Tomatin Distillery. 

Now the important stuff - If you buy a cask of whisky you do not technically own it. The only people who can own/trade alcohol under bond must have a wowgr certificate. (Wowgr stands for Warehouse keepers and owners of warehoused goods regulations. The certificate allows businesses to move goods without paying duty from one bonded warehouse to another) So what this means is, anything you do with your cask must be done through your broker. (e.g. If you want to buy more, sell it etc) This really worried me at first - however I was told by two brokers they have an understanding with the warehouse owners that if they cease trading for any reason their customers will show their cask certificates and be able to transfer the ownership to another broker. After thinking about this for a bit, I thought...it is the established way of doing things and it has been done this way for many years. So, find a company you think you can trust and someone you can deal with as you will most likely be dealing with them for the life of the cask.

If you buy from a distillery, your price will most likely have ten years storage included in your price. I would spend about £250 for ten years storage for the cask I wanted. 

Governments Cut:

Since whisky is considered wasting chattel (has a life expectancy of less than fifty years) you do not pay capital gains tax on any profit (if you make any) unless it is over £6k per trade. There is no vat on whisky unless it comes out of the bonded warehouse - e.g. it is bottled.  I have kept this section brief as I'm not qualified to advise on the matter, this is what I understood from the HMRC website. 

Samples:

Obviously you'll want to taste the whisky you have bought. Samples will cost you £50 - £70 plus the governments cut. Of course, you are not paying for the whisky itself, cause its yours. Still sounds expensive though doesn't it! But if you bare in mind these people have to go find your cask, dig it out, take your sample, put it in a bottle, package it up, do all the paperwork and send it off, its not that bad really is it. And this is something I would only be doing once a year (and that is quite a lot apparently), so its not a huge cost in the grand scheme of things. Its also the main reason I am doing all this. You can get any size sample you want but it is a minimum of 200ml. I'm thinking I will get a full bottle if I can so I have enough to share and compare with each other in the years to come. 

Finishing: 

There are not many whiskies these days spend their whole life in the same cask and more importantly, if you have bought from a broker that cask is potentially coming from Chivas, Diageo etc Although you might be lucky, there is a good chance the cask wont be up to much. So you want to change things, well there are options! 

1st up - Do nothing. Obviously you will be getting your samples without colouring and apparently a good rule of thumb to see how much affect the cask is having - just look at the colour of your whisky. Simple.

Split it: Split the whisky in half and finish it in different casks. Leaving half in the original cask and half in a sherry quarter cask sounded interesting. Having two bottles that originated from the same cask and finished in different casks sounds great! Obviously if you did do this, it would double your storage costs.

Finish it: Or double maturation if you will, move the whole lot into a fresh cask.

Most places will move your whisky from cask to cask for £70 - £80 plus vat plus the cost of the cask. Your broker will be able to find most types of casks for you. I got prices for the ones I was interested in. Fresh ex-bourbon casks will set you back around £220. Sherry casks range from £500 up to £1200 depending on the size you want. You own all the casks you buy. You can go an collect them, re-use them or even in some cases sell them on. If you buy through a distillery, they will often keep the cask you use.

Exit:

At some point you are going to have to do something with your whisky, It cant stay in there forever, so what can you do?

Sell the cask the way it is: You have had your samples and you might make a profit. If this was purely an investment this is what you would do when the time is right. If you sell to a broker and they choose to bottle it, some of them give you a free bottle, which is nice. If not, you send your certificate in, they send you money, job done. 

You bottle the whole thing yourself: You should be budgeting around £5.5k for this. It does look fun, you pick your bottles, your labels, abv - everything. But the obvious downside - around two hundred bottles of whisky are about to turn up on your door step, what are you going to do with them all? You can give them away to friends, family etc but even if you are that generous and you know that many people its still a lot of work! To sell them, you need licenced premises. If you have commercial premises its not actually that difficult to get a licence. But its still a faff.
Auction: There are a few cask auctions coming through now and id guess that side of things is going to grow as people have casks which they can not afford to bottle. While it might be a novelty at the moment and possibly a way of getting a decent price for your cask. I think this will become the last resort for some people who have no where else to turn with their cask. (Maybe it is bad quality, maybe it is about to drop below 40%abv etc)

Bottle some, sell some: You could bottle x amount for yourself and sell the rest on to a independent bottler, this seems to be the best of both worlds. Although your cost per bottle will be high due to the low quantities. In my opinion this option could change if the whisky industry did take a down turn so be prepared to use any of the above options....or wait.

All of these things must be done through your broker. 

Buying through a distillery really limits what you can do at the end. Most will make you sign a contract so your only exit is to bottle it for yourself. No option to sell the cask, no option to sell the bottles! 

Is it a terrible idea?

Many "experts" on social media will tell you it is a terrible idea - two hundred bottles sitting in your garage, hidden costs - all that type of stuff. However, if you understand all those things, they are not huge problems as long as you keep your options open. Iv had the odd terrible idea which has dropped me in "hot water" but hey why not.....just make sure you have done your research. Understand what you are doing at every step and It will be an enjoyable experience. You only live once and all that type of stuff!

What did I do and what do I plan to do:

I signed up to cask broker email thingys where they send you a list of the casks they have and the prices. I watched these emails for a few months, read everything I could then decided what I wanted. I found the person I wanted to buy with and bought one.

I bought through Jake - The Whisky Baron, he is a nice bloke, honest and knowledgeable. He understood what I wanted to do.

To minimise the risk of leakage I bought something that was three years old. I would like to think If it was going to leak it would of by now. It was my first time at all this so I wanted to keep costs low - I spent less than £1.5k on my cask. It came from Dalmunach Distillery, a new-ish Chivas distillery in Speyside. Chivas know what they are doing so I was OK with that and there is not a huge amount of choice in young whisky anyway. It is currently sitting in Tomatins warehouse where I'm paying less than fifty pence per week to store it. It is about to turn four years old, when I will order a sample and I will be able to tell properly if the cask is doing it much good or not. If it seems to be going well it will be left alone. If not, it will either be put into a fresh ex-bourbon cask or split, half stays in the original cask and half in a sherry quarter cask. I haven't totally decided what I will do just yet. But doing something should hopefully make my cask/casks stand out from the people who have simply invested and left their whisky in tired out casks. I hope It will make it more appealing to a bottler. At the end, I hope I will be able to bottle x amount and sell x amount to Jake who is also an independent bottler. If this is not possible for any reason, I have kept my options open. Once empty, I plan to go up and get the original cask, which I think will be passed its best anyway. Any other casks I use will be sold or re-used by me as they will of only had five or so years use. Of course this is all subject to change but they are my plans at the moment. 

www.thewhiskybaron.co.uk

So there you have it, I have enjoyed the process so far and I will enjoy the whisky when I get it. 

Do your own research...and lots of it!

@WhiskynStuff

:)

Fettercairn 12 & 28 #13

A little about Fettercairn, well its a distillery - we all know them don't we? Nice place, nice views, dunnage warehouses, quite quiet - it doesn't look like you get the bus loads of people like you do at some distilleries, the car park only has about ten spaces! (when I was there anyway) however! this distillery wears a jacket!

 

Its a water jacket! As you can see these are quite short stills but using this water jacket to cool the stills gives the effect of a tall still. Giving a light and fruity spirit. Interesting? Well I have never seen one before and im not aware of anyone else using one. I am of the understanding the jacket is used nearly all the time during production, it would be interesting to try a whisky where the jacket had not been used and compare it to one where it had.

Onto the whisky, well Fettercairn for the most part is reasonably new to the single malt market, previously most of their stuff was going into blends. The presentation of the brand looks good to me, bottles look nice, packaging is simple but bright. There is no mention of colouring or chill-filtering which unfortunately normally means these things have been used but Fettercairn have been kind enough to send me (and many others) these samples so lets try the whisky before we judge it.

Fettercairn 12 40%
Matured in ex-bourbon casks.

Colour
Polished gold

Nose
Honey, green fruits - apple, juicy ripe pear, buttery vanilla, green grape, barley sugar, fresh cut grass

Palate
Similar to the nose - honey, apples and pears comes together it give a nice sweet barley sugar. Vanilla, light citrus, straw, a touch of toffee, dark chocolate with a hint of coffee

Finish
Medium length, chocolate, wood spices, sour grapefruit stays with you for a little while

Overall
This really is a light, fresh and fruity whisky, that water jacket has worked well. At £40 its there or there abouts. An easy drinker, you can sit and enjoy it without thinking about it to much, yet it maintains a decent complexity. I do not find it watery, however the mouth feel is a little thin.
I think the 10 - 15 year old, £30 - £50 is a tough market for a distillery to be in and they need to make sure they stand out. If they are aiming this at the supermarkets, I think it could do well although I will admit I am not clever enough to know how you get someone to take your product off the supermarket shelf and not one of your competitors. If its for the whisky enthusiast, there are some tweaks which could help it.


Score

C out of 7.35

Fettercairn 28 42%
Matured in ex-bourbon casks

Colour
Highly polished oak

Nose
White grape, tropical fruits, raisin, milk chocolate, toffee, menthol, chalky sweets. Hay and warm dough, some citrus

Palate
Liquorice, juicy green fruits, quite a bit of wood spice, honey, vanilla, fruit cake, dark chocolate with a touch of coffee, fudge, under cooked dough

Finish
Medium - Touch of the wood spice and lots of that dough and some raisin milk chocolate

Overall
Its more complex than the 12, quite a bit more going on but it certainly has its similarities to - the fruityness comes through on this one to. I think this one edges it for me but only just. At £450ish this seems to be aimed at the top end of the market. This would benefit greatly! from more abv and at that price it really does deserve it.


Score
B- out of 7.75

          

Conclusions

I must admit to being slightly confused by these bottles, with the probability that colouring and chill-filtering has been used and the low abv, why send it to whisky "nerds" (not that I am complaining here!) knowing that we normally disapprove of these things. Maybe I am not the target market which is fine but if they are going for the supermarket market - its difficult and the prices may be on the high side for that. Or maybe they just want to gather opinions, which is a good thing!

If they are going for the whisky nerd: I am in no position to tell a distillery what they should or should not be doing, they are making good whisky and these bottles show that but maybe it could do with being shown off a bit better. In my opinion, lose the E150a the chill-filtering and up the abv. And the distillery is a lovely place, its an interesting distillery with a great story, which could be "pushed" a bit more. There is good information on their website (www.fettercairnwhisky.com) but maybe more use of social media, which isn't bad to start with but there is space to improve there. 

I will admit, off the back of trying Fettercairn I have bought a independently bottled single cask, 10 year old, cask strength, no colouring and iv kept 15ish ml back from each of these samples to do a little comparison. While I did edge towards the 28, given the price, if you are in the market for one of these - go with the 12. 

Its always nice when folk send you things and are interested in your opinion so thank you to Fettercairn for the samples and I commend them for asking for feedback.

Its good stuff, it could be great stuff.

:)

Balblair 04 Sherry Cask #12

Balblair 04 Sherry Cask 46%abv
Im going to keep this one a bit brief as no one needs to be told how good this whisky is, and its not available anymore anyway.
Non chill-filtered, natural colour. This bottle is from travel retail, there was a bourbon cask available aswell, but I went for this one.

Colour
Polished Oak

Nose
You do get a hint of the spirit but its mostly dunnage warehouse, old leather, cinnamon, nut meg, oak.

Palate
Brown sugar, piles of stewed red fruits, icing sugar, bitter toffee, creamy fudge, big on the coffee and milk choclate.

Finish
Medium-ish in length. Coffee flavourd chocolate

Overall
This is wonderful whisky, and what you get on the nose actually does smell like their warehouses! I write this, slightly disappointed that the powers that be have decided to change things, now this whisky is not available. Biggest cork in the industry? What more can you say, its good but its gone!

Score
9 out of A-

You can not buy it anymore, auction prices are now to expensive. A new core range is not always a good thing!

Glen Moray Cider Cask Project #11

Glen Moray Cider Cask Project 46.3%abv
This whisky has an interesting history before you have even opened the bottle - "Using finishing casks that have matured whisky, then Scottish craft cider and finally our precious Glen Moray" Sounds interesting doesn't it!
No age statement given, but it hasn't struck me as being a particularly young whisky and its non chill-filtered.
I am sure most folk know, but this one was created by the famous (in the world of whisky anyway) Graham Coull who has now moved on but we will be enjoying his creations and Glen Morays new ones for many years to come.

Colour
Pale straw - I am guessing this is a natural colour.

Nose
Toffee, fudge, fresh apple, honey and white sugar.

Palate
Fresh sweet apple, nuts, creamy vanilla, popping candy.

Finish
Medium-ish in length. Apple flavoured fudge, slightly bitter toffee, little bit of brown sugar then leaves a nice creamy vanilla.

Overall
Sweet with plenty of other things going on. This is a lovely whisky, I have enjoyed it from start to finish. The abv is good if you are having a dram on a "school night" but it also gives enough complexity if you want to pick out flavours and write notes on it.
It really does not seem to have changed much while being in the bottle like some whisky does.
I have put a picture below of their tasting notes, which I wouldn't normally do but I found them very similar to my own notes. Its not often I agree with tasting notes on a bottle.

Score
9 out of A-

It is limited to 2000 bottles and unfortunately, after a little google around doesn't seem to be available anymore. If you can find it for £50 - £60 its well worth getting.

:)

Cadenheads Blended Scotch 20 #10

Cadenheads Blended Scotch 20 46%abv
This whisky is made up using a sherry cask solera system and is made up of 65% malt and 35% grain. This is batch 2, which contains some of batch 1 (whats in batch 1?.....No idea, google it), some Benrinnes and some Strathclyde grain whisky.

Colour
Dark....really dark!

Nose
Leather, old dusty book shop, dunnage warehouse, red fruits, stewed strawberry, figs, lots of polished oak, wood spice, brown sugar, molasses

Palate
Ginger is first up, cola cubes, strawberry jam, brown sugar, chili milk chocolate, coffee and a bit of cask char.

Finish
slight chili milk chocolate digestives

Overall
This is one of the best blends I had tried! The colour is one of the darkest iv seen (I would have loved to have even just seen it at cask strength) I have really enjoyed this bottle and have gave samples out, all with positive reports back. But I still cannot help but think how much better it could have been at cask strength.

Score
9.25 out of -A

I don't think this is available anymore but with the system they use I am sure another will not be far away. Grab it!

:)

Glen Breton 12 Ice Wine Cask #9

Glen Breton 12 Ice Wine Cask 40%abv
This whisky is from a distillery in Canada, is bottled at 40% and matured in Ice Wine Casks. What more is there to say really?

Nose
Quite fresh, green fruits, some white grape, icing sugar, sweet grain.

Palate
A bit of citrus, lots of vanilla, white chocolate, white grapes again and lots of sweet grain - digestives.

Finish
A bit spicy, grapefruit, bitter vanilla

Overall
Its really not bad at all, quite simple but tasty. It is very sweet and you do get the wine influence. Given other things matured in ice wine casks, this is a lot cheaper. If only it was a higher abv...

Score
8 out of B

Not much to say on this one really, a nice simple whisky, If you like the sound of it, go for it, its not to expensive.

:)

Batels Whisky 17 Year Old Malt Blend #8

Bartels Whisky 17 Year Old Malt Blend 45%abv
Bartels kindly sent all of the #MiniTasting crew including myself a sample of this whisky.
I am of the understanding this malt blend is made up of three Edrington malts, think back seventeen years to what they owned and you may get a rough idea of what may be in there. It is from a single cask, natural colour, non-chill filtered and cask strength. But there are only fifty bottles available!
So when all is said and done, its quite an interesting cask of whisky...

Colour
Dark polished copper

Nose
Orange, dunnage warehouse, honeyed malt, little bit of chocolate, ginger and polished oak, toffee. This is not a "sherry bomb" though, its still quite fresh - with green fruits. It does indicate there is some older stuff in there though.

Palate
Quite spicy, citrus - sweet lemon, malty biscuits, bitter chocolate, coffee. Quite creamy, nutty, stewed fruits - orange, apple, pear. Getting notes from both ex sherry and ex bourbon casks on this.

Finish
Medium - ish in length. Milk chocolate turning to dark chocolate, a little bit of citrus again, grapefruit.

Overall
As blends go its really quite nice. I could sit and enjoy this with out thinking about it too much. There is some complexity to it and the flavours blend together nicely. I don't think it will blow your socks off but if you like a nice blend, go for it.
Then the thing that wins this over - the price, £36 for this! You really can not go wrong at that price.

Score
I am scoring this whisky and taking the price into consideration here:
8.5 out of B
But on this one given the price, 100% ignore my opinion and find out for yourself!


If you are in the market for a bottle, have a look on Bartels website, where (at the time of writing) there are 23 bottles left.
https://www.bartelswhisky.com/shop/blended-scotch-whisky-17yo/

:)

Clan Denny - Glengoyne 10 #7

Clan Denny - Glengoyne 10 48%abv
I bought this a little while ago, it was one of the last on the Douglas Laing website. Distilled at Glengoyne in 2007, straight into a refill hogshead and bottled in 2017. It is a single cask, non chill filtered, no colouring added and one of only 450 bottles.
The main purpose of this whisky was to find a bottle which had very little cask influence, but still had a decent age, to try and learn more about distillery character. This was just something I was curious about at the time but this bottle was put to great use with the #MiniTasting crew when it went up against the distillery core range 10 - The write is up here and well worth a read: https://malt-musings.blogspot.com/2019/05/minitasting-ssmcd.html
The extra abv of this one gave it a bit of an advantage but they both came off quite well. But personally, I think this edged it.

Colour
Colour? there isn't any! This is almost clear, there is a very slight hint it has been near oak.

Nose
Malty digestive biscuits, fresh fruits, apples, pears, lemon, citrus.

Palate
Digestives, porridge, vanilla, little bit of milk chocolate, quite nutty - sweet almonds. Fruity - Apples and pears in there to.

Finish
Vanilla, nuts. The vanilla does tail off to leave slight chili and slightly savory note.

Overall
Quite disappointed to see this one go. Being at 48% I have drank this as a dram where you don't want to think about it to much - just enjoy it. Its not hugely complex but it can equally stand up in any in depth tasting. I got this bottle for a purpose and it served that purpose brilliantly.

Score
I would normally say ignore my score and please find out for yourself, but in this case I don't think it is available anymore....
B out of 8.75

Great bottle, if you get the chance to try one of these "lightly influenced" drams, do it!

:)

GlenAllachie 13 Port Pipe - Ralfy Bottle #6

GlenAllachie 13 Port Pipe 59.9%abv
This whisky was distilled in 2006 and popped straight into a port pipe until 2019 when it was bottled up and released to celebrate Ralfy.com 10th anniversary. The is of course non chill filtered and natural colour. 
After tasting this on a recent Tweet Tasting (Thank you to @TheWhiskyWire and @TheGlenAllachie for the sample!).....the hunt was on to find a bottle. £95 was the price and a fair price I thought especially when you consider some of your money is going to a charity local to the distillery. 

Colour
Light polished oak with a slightly pink/red hue to it. 

Nose
Strawberry and vanilla cream with a chocolate dip, citrus - lemon, little bit of mint, polished wood. A little bit of sawdust and some almonds.

Palate
With 2ml of water - Lots of orange, chocolate orange. Some ginger cake. Some fresh green fruits in there. Nice sweet malt.

Finish
Lemonade, chilli chocolate. Its the sweet malt that stays with you. 


Overall
Yes, you know the abv is high and in my opinion it does need a little water but I really can't fault this stuff at all, absolutely lovely. I would recommend it but I would think most people who want it will of already ordered it and those who still want it may find it hard to find, although at time of writing it is still available on Master of Malt. (Update: by the time I had finished writing this, it sold out)
Do not worry - If your unable to find this bottle, this distillery is releasing some excellent stuff right now, you wont go wrong with them. The core range is good and the single casks I have tried have all been great.

Score
Pointless score time:
A- out of 9.25

Roll on another 10 years Ralfy!

:)

Macallan 12 Triple Cask #5

Macallan 12 Triple Cask - 40%abv
This is apparently a "marriage of casks".....I think that just means its three cask types, vatted. European sherry, American sherry and ex-bourbon casks. I am guessing this is chill-filtered but it has no colouring in it. Most of the 12 year old range are fairly easy to find for around £70. I am sure I don't need to go into much detail about Macallan, everyone knows it already.

Colour
Slightly dark straw

Nose
Light fruityness, chewits, cut grass, straw, toffee, caramel, vanilla and a bit of citrus.

Palate
Milk chocolate is the main thing I get here - chocolate digestives, that citrus is in there - lemon, quite a bit of oak, wood spices, grapefruit.

Finish
Medium-ish in length, Slightly bitter, burnt caramel and dark chocolate.

Overall
There is no question for me, this is a well made whisky, beautifully balanced and very easy to drink. Having had a bottle of the double cask, I moved onto this thinking id enjoy it more but I don't. I preferred the double cask. I think the one for me is the lesser spotted sherry wood. When I saw it recently at the distillery for £60 I got a bottle.
Yes I would like more abv and non chill filtering but in my opinion they are producing it for a market which doesn't mind these things.
The elephant in the room - The price of Macallan - I am in no way clever enough to explain why they are expensive, nor would I even try. But for me the 12 sherry oak I have just bought is possibly where the Macallan story will end for me as given the quality of other things for a similar price I just can't justify the price to explore their range. Which is disappointing, but it is what it is. If you can, then this is good whisky and you should try it. If you can't, there are lots of things out there just as good and a lot cheaper....up to you really.

Score
Pointless score time people:
B- out of 7.5


:)

Mortlach 12 #4

Mortlach 12 - 43.4%abv
The first picture isn't mine, it is from Master of Malt where the bottle is available for £49.95. I haven't bought a bottle but have been quite intrigued by this whisky. This is my 3rd dram of it, I have had two in bars and this one was given to me by a fellow caravaner in Speyside.
The spirit at Morlach is distilled 2.81 times, confused? (Google it, there are clever people who can explain it better than me) and is known for its "rich, robust, meaty" character.
The twelve year old has been double cask matured in both ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks.
There is no mention of chill filtering or colour however this is the entry level core range bottle, which is not at 40% which is a good start.

Colour
Dark golden

Nose
Vanilla, bitter sweet citrus barley, stewed apples and pears, some strawberry and raspberry jams, slightly perfumed. Upon first inspection it seems quite nice and sweet, but this is where it starts to intrigue me - salted caramel and lots of savory herbs.

Palate
The savory herbs are there straight away, chili chocolate, light cask char, salty sweet and sour notes, there are plenty of wood spices hanging around in the background.

Finish
Bitter dark chocolate, a bit of tobacco leaf, burnt BBQ meats.

Overall
I think the notes explain it really, this is not a peated whisky but has lots of savory aspects to it. The sweet casks don't seem to "tame" the savory notes at all, you get a savory whisky with sweet flavours chucked in now and then. I can see it being a love or hate whisky, I haven't really decided myself, but i'm enjoying it enough to want to try more stuff from Mortlach. I think trying their new make would be very interesting!

Score
Pointless score time folks:
B++ out of 7.75

Would I recommend you buy it.....I wouldn't buy a bottle with out trying it first if I were you. But I would encourage you to try it, such a unique and interesting dram.

:)

Inchmurrin 12 #3

Inchmurrin 12 - 46%abv

This whisky was distilled using a pot still with rectifying heads. Sounds a bit different, doesn't it, well this should make a fruity light spirit. It was matured in mostly re-charred and re-fill casks to show off the fruityness. It is non-chill filtered. 

The distillery really is a "Jack-of-all-trades" with its ability to make many different styles of whisky using its Malt stills, Pot stills and Coffey stills. It even has its own cooperage. 

Colour

Slightly dark golden

Nose

Very fresh, grassy, apples, pear drops, hay, slightly malty-fruity malt, sweet, a touch of caramel and a huge pile of fruit salads. 

Palate

The caramel comes through a bit more, slightly chili milk chocolate. The sweet fruity malt is in there - the fruit salads, turns a bit and gives some savory herbs, Lovely, smooth and oily. A very well balanced mix of flavours. 

Finish

Some wood spices, the caramel stays with you and those slightly savory notes.

Overall

This is a great whisky at a reasonable price and is incredibly well balanced, it gives a great range of flavours. 

What I will add is, social media gives you the ability to find out a lot about your whisky. This distillery is one of the best e.g. their ambassador and master blender are only a message/tweet away. They are passionate and very knowledgeable about what they do.

Unfortunately its not a open distillery, but there is a few lucky people who have had a look round. Id love to go one day.

Score

Another one id encourage people to try - yes I bought a miniature....cause I saw it in a shop and it was cheap but I think a big bottle will not be far away.

Its time for the please ignore and find out for yourself score -

A out of 9.75

Im of the understanding this is one of the master distillers (The very clever one) favorite drams and I can see why - A great score for a great whisky.

:)

Glengoyne 10 #2

Glengoyne 10 - 40%abv
A mix of ex-sherry and ex-bourbon is used to mature this whisky, although I think the majority is from ex-bourbon. It is the "entry level" core range bottle, there is nothing stated on the bottle about chill-filtration but it is a natural colour.
So why go for this over the more heavily sherried whisky they are famous for?
When im new to a distillery I will often go for their younger (and cheaper) bottle. This in my opinion, (due to its age) shows off the distillery character and quality of what they produce.

Colour
Somewhere between golden and straw

Nose
Lots of fresh green fruits, apples, pears, slight citrus and some liquorice.

Palate
Very fruity (Which I think is their distillery character), lots of green fruits, nutty and quite malty. Its a fruity digestive biscuit! Little bit of toffee in there too.

Finish
Little bit of vanilla comes through. But mostly you are left with the fruity malt.

Overall
This is well priced and easy to drink. As entry level whisky goes its a good one. Going off this bottle, its of good quality with some nice flavours. Its abit of an all rounder, its complex enough to spend time exploring and easy enough to not think to hard about and just enjoy.
Like I said at the beginning, this was my first bottle of Glengoyne, so was it good quality stuff.....well not long after opening it, I went and bought their eighteen year old!

Score
Time for my (maybe meaningless) score - B+ out of 7.5

A good solid score, but again, at the price id encourage you to go out and try for yourself.

:)

Glenfiddich 12 #1

Glenfiddich 12 - 40%abv
Thats the end of my "half" bottle of Glenfiddich 12 so I thought id put my opinions here. Alot of peoples 1st whisky was Glenfiddich 12, Glenmorangie 10 etc....mine wasnt so I thought I should try these "starter" bottles to see what they are like.
A bit of background: This bottle is a mix of whisky matured in ex-bourbon and ex-oloroso sherry casks. Chill-filtered - yeh probably. Im of the understanding the colour is "tweeked" for parity, so to me that would mean a little E150 may have been added.

Colour
Id call it a nice bright straw.

Nose
Slight citrus, sweet, malty, green fruits and lots of honey - Not getting much from the sherry casks.

Palate
The honey is there, sweet, fruity. Citrus flavoured malt - they seem to come together. Slightly peppery, vanilla cream.

Finish
A bit of woodspice and vanilla cream. Very slight dried fruits and cinnamon. The sherry casks show them selves a touch there.

Overall
I have found Glenfiddich use some lightly sherried casks (very apparent in the Reserve Cask Bottling) which is quite nice, it makes for a fresh sherry flavour.
It is clearly a well made whisky and very well balanced - an easy drinker. I can see why for many, it was an easy place to start.
In an attempt to find those wonderful flavours from single casks etc I think its great that we are able to enjoy a nice simple whisky like this.
Can't fault it.

Score - My scoring system is...unique, if you work it out, well done. If not, dont worry, its not that important.
B out of 8
But to be honest this stuff is quite cheap, go buy a bottle and find out for yourself


:)

Scotland Trip - May 2019

I decided to write a blog, if people are interested, great, if not it gives me something so I can look back and remember my trip, so here goes:

Scotland Trip - May 2019
After enjoying whisky for a couple of years and making it a hobby (I guess), I made a short trip to Speyside into 2018 to see what the tours etc were all about. When I arrived home I started planning my 2019 trips, this covers the first of three trips I plan to make this year. I had a few things in mind I wanted to do, but the majority of the trip turned into abit of a shopping trip, trying to get as many distillery exclusives as I could find.

1st up was Glenturret:

This fairly small distillery is situated in a lovely place, among the trees with the stream running along side it.
One of the first things you notice is cat flaps! and little walk ways dotted around. This is for Glen and Turret, the distillery cats. Who, when I was there were popping in and out of the shop and keeping a watchful eye over the place by sitting on visitors cars. 😁
Unfortunately pictures wernt aloud on the tour, but we got to try the core range. While I wasnt to sure about the lightly peated one, they were nice enough.

Then to the shop for the "bottle your own" (The bit I really wanted) A 2nd fill sherry cask at 57.5% 14 years old, from cask number 92 and I got bottle 435. (Love the geeky information you get with these bottles)
My first BYO of the trip, I was off to a good start.







2nd Dalwhinnie:

This was an unplanned visit (and a very handy toilet stop when your heading up the endless A9). I decided to pop in just after seeing the sign for the distillery. It was closed that day for a private function, so just a shop visit.
Their distillery exclusive was "Lizzies's Dram". Elizabeth Stewart has been working at the distillery for over 31 years! and the casks for this bottle were picked by the staff. A no age statement, matured in re-fill American oak and designed to show off the distillery character. 48% and 1 of 7500 bottles.
Just off the A9 so easy to get to, will probably try to get a tour next time im passing. Apart from a rogue sheep in the middle of the road on the way out, all was good.







3rd Tomatin:

Tomatin is a huge distillery! And is working well under its capacity (the reasons why etc can be read about and you are are told them on the tour, so I wont go into detail about it). What it does mean is there is lots of space and machinery that isnt doing anything, so lots of photo opportunities.
I got two bottles from here, the Highland whisky festival bottle, an 11 year old, cabernet sauvignon finish at 60.2%. And a 18 year old, px cask at 55.5%.
While im not sure about £3 for Loch Ness water its well worth a visit, even just to see the size of it and its not to far off the route if your heading to Speyside.

4th Glenmorangie:
The visit to Glenmorangie, again abit un-planned. But we had time and managed to get booked onto the tour with 3 minutes to go before it left. Im sure everyone knows...tallest still in Scotland etc and what a sight they are! (No pictures aloud on the tour). However.....I felt there was something missing, it seemed abit sedate and lacking in character. And the distillery exclusive was well out of my price range at £650 for a 16 year old finish. Real shame I couldnt bring something abit special away with me. Very keen to see what comes from the (basically) new distillery on site. It was described as going to be used for new and interesting projects...? Very nice staff and well worth the visit just to see the stills.

5th Clynelish/Brora
Clynelish was really just to pop in for the distillery exclusive (NAS ex-bourbon at 48%) but when I realised you can see alot of the Brora distillery being rebuild, it was picture time. After speaking to a very knowledgeable builder, he told me the best places I could go to get some pictures.

6th Balblair
Interesting one this. As we had managed to get a hotel literally 2 minutes from the distillery. I popped down the night before just before it closed to get my distillery exclusive etc (an 11 year old, ex-bourbon at 58.1%, cask 449, bottle 142) Fortunately there was a very nice member of staff there who let me try the new core range and the £205 Highland Festival bottle, which was very nice. The distillery its self, (No pictures aloud again) is incredibly small, but working 24/7. There was water leaks and casks lay around, things looked like they needed abit of a clean. Maybe thats just the way its done, nothing wrong with it, just different to others. I was very surprised to learn they sell 90% of their new make to blenders. The only slightly bad point I saw was hardly any sherry casks in the warehouse or waiting to be filled! I think sherry casks show off Balblair very well. Maybe they were all in another warehouse we didnt go in? Lets hope so.

7th - 13th Various:
All of these were just for the exclusives. Really want to spend more time at all of them, and I plan to.
The Cragganmore - Nas ex-bourbon and extra charred casks 48%.
Glenlivet where I kind of had a personal shopper, very knowledgeable and convinced me to come back to do a tour when I go back up and to do their (soon to come) BYO. 12 year old sherry butt 58.8 %. I also bought a Glentauchers there, 11 year old sherry butt at 64.1%!
Glenfarclas, I got the Spirit of Speyside bottle, a 16 year old at 58% from cask 89. I got bottle 324 of 647, im not sure if they are sold in order, but if they are, they didnt sell many during Spirit of Speyside, did they. (Edit - They are not sold in order) I got to try a sample of it and loved it, but I love all things Glenfarclas! Glenallachie, was a Marsala wine cask, 11 year old, cask 592, bottle 164, at 58.2%, this is a distillery I definitely want to go back to as it was a very brief visit.
Glen Grant was a port finish, cask 0013156, bottle 34 of 300 at 57.2% Tried this, and liked it, so really looking forward to opening the bottle. However, only a 50cl bottle!
Glen Moray, what a place, really disappointed I coulnt spend more time here but will be going back soon. I got the (world famous?) 2010 peated px and a 18 year old 2nd fill sherry at 57.8%. bottle 125. Good choice of BYOs and a little cafe, definitely worth going in here.
Benromach, very friendly staff indeed. Got myself the 10 year old, ex-bourbon at 58.1% Cask number 810, one of only 233 bottles. By far and away the cheapest distillery exclusive I got at £60!

14th Dallas Dhu:
This was the (surprise) highlight of the trip. The best £6 you will spend if you enjoy tours. Its an audio tour which you do at your own speed, on your own, spend as much time there as you like and get a dram at the end! I was there about 2 hours, wondering around, climbing in stills etc, great fun and very interesting. Speaking to the lady in the gift shop at the end (the only other person there, while I was there) she did say there was "rumblings" of it re-opening. While I will admit to not being an expert...no stock in the warehouses and a huge amount of money to spend to get the place operational again, I carnt see it happening. Once my bank balance has recovered from this trip, I will be looking for a bottle of Dallas Dhu.

With my trip coming to an add, we went to The Mash Tun for a meal and a few drams. Tried the new Mortlachs, interesting savory and sweetness to them. Still not sure about them yet though.

The last day was spent in Edinburgh where I popped into Cadenheads for a Glenrothes 9 (65.3% - The highest abv bottle I bought on the trip) and into the The Scotch Whisky Experience bar, where I tried a Ben Nevis 10, which was excellent.

Thats it, that was quite alot of stuff. If you have read this far then.....maybe you need a hobby or something?
If you have scanned down and got to here, the short version is, it was a success, I had a good time and im looking forward to going back and spending more time at quite a few of the places.

:)