Time to resume detailing our Scotland trip and this time – the 2nd Day in Scotland and after a full night sleep and hearty breakfast, we drove over to our first destination of the day:
Welcome to The Balvenie
So after visiting Deanston Distillery, we resumed our way up north to the Speyside region. At first it was a bit scary as we felt like we’re driving on the wrong lane…
Feels so wrong…
But we soon got used to it and enjoyed the pastoral view around us. we even caught a rainbow while driving!
After 2 stops for caffeine injection and 3 more hours we’ve arrived to Craigellachie where we lodged in the Speybank B&B (highly recommended!). Although it was dark, cold, late and we were very tired, we braved ourselves and went to hunt the Highlander Inn for a couple of drams.
So after 2+ years of dreaming, 6 months planning, October 2013 arrived and I finally embarked and went on my first ever whisky trip. I wasn’t alone and took with my my good friend Rotem and together we went on a 8 days tour of whisky and some music.
So after 2 flights with lengthy night layover in Istanbul we arrived to Edinburgh, rented a car and went up north to Speyside.
Welcome to Edinburgh! Home of the whisky (sort of)
After a 2 weeks hiatus due to my Scotland trip it’s time to get back to ‘real’ life and start posting again some tasting notes. I have some in the writing blog posts which I didn’t complete before I left for Scotland and I also have lots to tell you about the trip, but let’s start with some new and sweet whisky review – to sweeten the the comeback.
During the trip I visited Douglas Laing HQ in Glasgow and I’ll write a separate post on that visit but this time – Scallywag! I was fortunate to schedule the visit for the day that Scallywag, their new blended malt, was released, so this one post is all Scallywag.
I happened to go over my tasting notes and seems like I forgot to post tasting notes for one of the whiskies from Dramming.com Freestyle Blind Tasting competition.
I guessed it to be some american whisky (got the right continent!) and 40% (spot on!). Ranked it as 4th out of 5 in the competition. Here are the tasting notes: Continue reading
Two weeks ago I had my first taste of Glengoyne whisky. I’ve heard mostly good things on a few of their whiskies like the 21yo, CS and the Teapot Dram, but I also heard more lukewarm opinions on some of their whiskies. So I was quite happy to try this one and decide for myself what I think of their products. Yes, I’m aware this is only a single whisky from their range but it’s a starting point and I’ll taste more of their whiskies while visiting them in about 2 weeks 🙂
Glengoyne 17 is a discontinued product, replaced by Glengoyne 18, but is still widely available in europe (and in some places in UK). it contains a high portion of 1st fill Sherry casks which strengthen the sherry impact over the younger siblings from this distillery.
So get one or not? Continue reading
Last week I had the honor to participate in a special tweeter tasting of French Whisky blind tasting organized by my French friend Franck (from the lacavedecobalt.com blog) for the 3rd birthday of his blog (Happy BlogDay Franck!). If you have followed my reviews in the blog, you’ll know I’m very keen to try world whiskies and this event was a very important addition to my knowledge – In this tasting we explored 5 different Whisky expressions from 4 different distilleries and I must tell you – it was very educational experience!
Today I’ll review the 2 whiskies which I loved the best from the event and, lo and behold, they both come from the same distillery – Armorik Distillery from the Brittany region.
It’s a day to dig into the tasting notes archive, and this time – Dalmore 15.
It’s a very popular Dalmore expression (along with the younger sibling Dalmore 12) and I had the chance to taste it for the first time few months ago.
The Dalmore 15 year is aged for 13 years in American oak ex-bourbon casks. It is then matured additional 2 years in different sherry casks. although matured for only 2 years in sherry casks, it does uses 3 different sherry casks (Amoroso, Matusalem and Apostoles).
Dalmore 15 (OB, 40%, buy here for £48.45) Continue reading
I’m a Laphroaig fan boy. I admit that. I purchased this bottle long time ago and last June also the Portwood bottle (Feis Ile 2013) but didn’t open them yet. But 2 weeks ago I’ve been to a great whisky evening with 4 local whisky lovers and that bottle was present. The liquid level wasn’t too high so we did it a favor and finished it off #evilgrin (Thanks Yori for sharing this one!)
Since 2008 Laphroaig has been releasing Càirdeas expressions. Càirdeas means friendship in Gaelic and this series is in honor of their Friends of Laphroaig group. Each year the new expression is being released during the Feis Ile festival.
This is the 2nd part of the Bruichladdich #LaddieTT2 Tweeter tasting that was held last week. (first part covering the 1st 2 unpeated whiskies is here)
This time 2 peated whiskies. Or to be accurate, 2 heavy peat whiskies, which is a blessing for peat heads (like your truly). Both the Port Charlotte and the Octomore whiskies are ‘sequels’ that this time uses the local Scottish grown barley (which was the tasting theme). Let’s see if and how does the local barley usage impacts those whiskies profile?
Whisky Gospel 