Time for the one before last review on the Talisker appreciation week – their latest core range official bottling: Talisker Port Ruighe (pronounced Portree).
This one is also a NAS release finished in Port casks after it was matured in American, European Oak refill casks and extra-charred casks.
Maritime and sweet port, will they walk together? Continue reading
Talisker resides on the Isle of Skye, and is the only distillery on the island (for now). Not like distilleries needs excuses but it’s always a good reason to release new whisky expression. And so did Talisker, back in 2008 they released a NAS whisky (in 2008! way ahead of the curve!) and named it Talisker 57° North for the Isle of Skye that sits on the line of latitude 57 Degrees North.
Unlike most of their other core range bottlings available today and in the past, the 57 North is bottled in a high and special strength of 57% (and surely it’s no coincidence strength). It was matured exclusively in American oak refill casks and so we’d expect some extra fruity and vanilla flavours here. Does it deliver?
Talisker appreciation week is in full force and we’re now onto the third Talisker review. Third time’s a charm? No, third time’s a storm!
Talisker Storm is fairly recent addition, released in 2013 and followed by 2 more releases – Talisker Dark Storm and Talisker Port Ruigh. Seems like the market demand and the opportunity to earn more money ‘forced’ Diageo to produce additional expressions as part of the core range.
Three new whiskies in a short span but it doesn’t necessary means that the whiskies are were cobbled NAS whiskies to meet the demand. Or are they? Let’s check the Talisker Storm. Continue reading
We continue with our Talisker appreciation week and we move on to the next Talisker in line: The Talisker Distillers Edition. The latest edition (2014) was released only last week to stores (on offer for €45 only here) so we’ll review last year edition.
Talisker Distillers edition takes the Talisker spirit and adds 2nd cask finishing using Amoroso casks – sweet Italian fortified wine casks.
How does the smoky Talisker spirit handles the sweet wine finish? Continue reading
I briefly went through what I already reviewed on the blog and found one big and glaring omission – I didn’t review even a single whisky expression from Talisker. It’s not like I didn’t taste any Talisker whiskies in the past, on the contrary, I have a bottle of Talisker 10 right here and I did taste a few other Taliskers in the past.
So I need to make some amends here, so lets start a Talisker appreciation week where I review a couple of Talisker whiskies, and naturally we’ll start with the core and well known whisky – the Talisker 10 year old.
Time to cross off another distillery from the not-reviewed-yet-on-the-blog, and a silent distillery to boot: Brora.
So much was written on Brora, its history, Diageo decision to close it in the ’80s and the ultra-premium branding and pricing so I’ll spare you that part.
Instead I will just say that the whisky community is awesome! with those high prices for Brora whisky, my only way to sample Broras was via samples and donations from friends and with the help of two friends I got to sample and review those so big thanks to you guys!
I was told yesterday that I don’t have enough Highland park reviews on the site. I took a look and found out that’s correct – except the recently released Dark Origins there are no reviews of the Highland Park core range (unless you call Einer a core range expression…)
There are also other distilleries which are under-reviewed on the blog (and I hope to fix that sooner than later) but first thing first, lets have another Highland Park official bottling review and we’ll aim high with Highland Park 30.
Highland Park 30 was at the top of HP core range until the 40yo was released and there are at least two batches released: the latest one was released in 2013 and is bottled at 45.7% (you can get it at The Whisky Exchange for £385) and the earlier batches who were bottled at 48.1% (still available at the distillery online shop) which I review here thanks to a sample sent to me from Johnnie Stumbler of The Nosing Arse blog.
It’s been a while since I reviewed a whisky from The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, so why not do that and review a dram of my favorite distillery?
There’s not much to add here, only that I’m a bit sorry I didn’t grab a bottle of it back then.
Glenglassaugh is the latest baby project of Billy Walker. The Benriach group purchased the distillery in 2013 from the previous owners (who restarted the distillery in 2008 after it was mothballed for 20 years) and if we have learned anything from past experience, Billy Walker knows his stuff.
BenRiach and Glendronach both excels with billy at the helm as evidenced by the growing list of awards, medals and positive reviews for the whiskies they released in the last few years. Can we expect the same from Glenglassaugh?
In the last few years, we had a few releases of bottlings from the old stock before it was mothballed in 1986, among them the 40 yo and a series of single cask releases (a-la Benriach/Glendronach), but there were also new releases with whisky distilled post 2008 when it started production again.
Torfa is the first peated whisky from Glenglassaugh with 20ppm and it was matured in ex-bourbon barrels. Can we expect more magic from Billy Walker here? Continue reading
October is the hot season for new whisky releases and reviews. In fact, many new whisky announcements starts during September, but taking into account a distribution period of a month or so for the whisky to arrive to shops, October is main stage.
Following their success last year, Wemyss Malts again released 12 single casks last month geared toward holiday shoppers. One of them is a Clynelish 1997 vintage (so it’s either 16yo or 17yo, probably 16yo) named “Bench with a Sea View” which yielded 373 bottles (ex-bourbon cask/barrel).
I loved those Wemyess single casks I happened to taste and review, therefor I hoped this one won’t disappoint. Continue reading
Whisky Gospel 