What’s most impressive here is the concentration of sweet desserty flavors without even a touch of bitterness on the finish. Sure, it’s good whisky, but I’d rather spend the money on some malts that are at least as good (quality-wise), even if they aren’t as masterfully assembled.
Mild and inoffensive. No smoke, no fruit, just a soft cereal character and light accents of florals and nuts. Somewhat meaty, although the flavor profile is mostly balanced around the nuts. Certainly worth the money, and a contender for the “midrange Speyside” spot in your cabinet.
So I’ve heard before that Costco has good deals on single-malt Scotch. I also discovered that you don’t need a membership to shop for liquor there. Just tell the gorilla at the door that you are only purchasing liquor and you can go right in. (Note: You actually have to stick to that – they …
Dalwhinnie is not one of my favorite whiskies. I’ve always felt it was trying to do the same thing that The Balvenie does but with less success. That’s a totally unfair characterization, so let’s forget I said it and proceed with tasting the whisky. An an ex-bourbon matured single malt without an age statement, and at the now-fairly-standard 43% ABV…
The port wine in question is a finish, but unusually the whisky is first aged in GlenDronach’s typical combination of Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez (PX) sherry casks. That makes this bottling kind of a “Double Fruit”, if you will. The whisky is bottled at 46% ABV, without chill filtration or added color, which is standard practice for GlenDronach, and always a laudable choice.
This Game of Thrones “Six Kingdoms” edition is Mortlach single malt that has been aged for 15 years in sherry casks and then ex-bourbon barrels. Oddly, the label and tin say it was “Finished in ex-bourbon casks” which is a silly way to convey that the whisky started in first-fill sherry (seasoned) casks and then was finished in ex-bourbon. You’d think they’d focus on the sherry. In fact, before I looked it up online I thought…
The Distillers Editions from Diageo typically take the big-budget action heroes of the Diageo lineup and then proceed to drown them in sweet wine. Sometimes this works. Sometimes not so much. Here, they take the standard Talisker (aged in ex-bourbon barrels) and finish it in amoroso sherry casks for somewhere around a year. My bottle was distilled in 2002 and bottled in 2013…
This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the Whiskies of the World 2016 show in San Francisco on the beautiful Hornblower Yacht: The San Fransisco Belle. While it remained docked throughout the show, the motion of the waves definitely seemed to… uhh, intensify as the night’s tastings went on. Read some highlights from the show…
Giving your Dad whisky for father’s day is a time-honored tradition. Getting him to share it with you is even more time-honored! Unless you already know what he likes (in which case, why are you reading this?), you have to determine what kind of drinker he is, and what is likely to be appreciated.
Before you can taste it, though, you’ve got to know how to pick a whisky to try! This post will focus on single-malt scotch, which I think is the best possible place to get your bearings in the wider world of whisky.