12.1 this year was distilled in 2015 from the 2014 harvest of Scottish-grown (not on Islay) Concerto barley. The barley was malted by Bairds in Inverness to 130.8 ppm and was aged for 5 years in first-fill ex-bourbon American oak casks from a variety of bourbon distilleries. Although it is cask strength, Bruichladdich mixes in a “just a drop” of spring water from Octomore Farm’s natural spring, which does not…
So enter BenRiach’s newly repackaged 10-year called “Original”, which the label claims has been “three cask matured” using bourbon, sherry, and virgin oak casks. The website is devoid of useful information (Brands, take heed! Inform thy customers!) but suffice it to say these casks are then vatted together and bottled at 43% ABV without any added color…
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…
If you’ve been around the single malt scotch market for any length of time, you probably had the same reaction to this label that I did. “Uhh… basically every single malt is aged in bourbon barrels.” So what’s so special about this particular bottle that they felt the need to slap it in large type on the label? Let’s not forget that “Reserve” means absolutely nothing….
Inchmurrin is (confusingly) one of the brands of single malt produced by the Loch Lomond distillery near Glasgow. The brand is named after the largest island on Loch Lomond (the lake). … The custom stills at Loch Lomond are fascinating: By using a modified rectifying column instead of a traditional swan neck, the distillery is able to artificially “lengthen” the neck that condensing spirit vapor travels up before…
…I’ve enjoyed Cardhu in the past, a single malt that is oddly popular in Spain and which famously destroyed its reputation by marketing a blended malt containing Cardhu as “Cardhu Pure Malt”. Whoops. Still, it’s a sherried malt with good balance, even when bottled as an NAS at 40% ABV like this.
The Torabhaig Legacy Series represents the first batches of whisky from the young distillery, with this first “Inaugural” edition of 100 barrels of single malt which were distilled and casked in early 2017. It’s somewhere between 3 and 4 years old. The whisky in this first edition was mashed from heavily peated (55-60ppm) Concerto malt using Pinnacle MG+ yeast (nice to know, whatever that means)…
Glen Grant is one of those sleepy distilleries known for producing bulk malt for blends (Chivas, in this case) which has lately been dressed up in new packaging (in 2016) and pressed into service as a standalone single malt by its owners, the Campari Group. … This 12 year is aged in ex-bourbon for 12 years and bottled at 43% ABV, after being chill filtered. While Glen Grant does use sherry casks in some of its expressions, I can’t find anything online that indicates…
One always approaches the tasting of a new or unfamiliar distillery as a potential for opening new, exciting doors of previously undreamt flavor… and while sometimes that’s true, I’ve found that more often you realize that the “unknown” distilleries are largely unknown for a reason. They exist to provide malt for blended whiskies because they blend well. They blend well because…
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.