Next stop on Islay – Lagavulin. Quite early during our trip planning it was clear that we won’t have time for tour Lagavulin. So we checked what other events can we attend and found out we can attend the Premium Tasting event that is scheduled for 13:30 – just in time after one lengthy tour and before another tour, so we booked places in it. and boy, what a smart decision it was!
Yeah, It was sunny, really!
This is a companion blog post to the post reviewing my visit at Bowmore Distillery on Islay on Octoboer 2013.
Bowmore The Devil’s Casks is the latest small batch whisky from Bowmore, It’s 10 year old and was matured in first fill sherry casks. Limited edition of 6,000 bottles, each bottled at Cask Strength of 56.9%.
Since this one is fully matutred in first fill sherry casks, it’s color is even darker then the 15yo Darkest (it’s not so Darkest ah?)
The initial shipment to UK went out so fast that if you blinked when it arrived to web stores, you were out of luck.
Recently I swapped some whisky samples with a friend and by mistake (a good mistake I must say!) I came unexpectedly by a sample of this. Thanks a lot Ben!
So is it any good? Here’s my tasting notes:
Nose: Lovely nose – earthy and oily peat notes, concentrated sherry notes almost like a jam but not as sweet.
Palate: Ohh, strong and oily peat, strong burning coals and smoky BBQ notes followed by a kicking heat sensation, almost brutally but tethering on the good side of it. After the UN negotiated end of hostilities with it, dried dark berries and sherry jam notes follows in.
Finish: Long dry finish, sherried balsamic vinegar, leather, some coal ashes, red fruits and some weak notes of wood lurk behind it.
Conclusion: what a cracker! Intense, peated and sweet dram. If I could grab a bottle (or 2) in the RRP price I’d do instantly, but I ain’t gonna pay the crazy silly money sums required to get on on auctions. Highly recommended if you find one for reasonable price.
After visiting the Speyside region, throwing in some lowlands whisky distillery, visiting awesome whisky places, we’ve finally got to the most exciting leg of our Oct 2013 tour – visiting my favorite Island, Islay!
We took the morning flight from Glasgow to Islay, picked up the rented car we ordered and drove to our first Islay Distillery tour – Bowmore.
So 2013 is coming to an end so it’s time for the last post of 2013 and wrap it up and summarize all the good Whisky things happened in it.
Earlier this year, The original Douglas Laing company shocked the whisky world announcing it was breaking down to 2 companies: Douglas Laing (which retained the original name and HQ) headed by Fred Laing, joined by his daughter Cara and the new Hunter Laing company headed by Stewart Laing with his 2 sons Scot and Andrew.
I was very curious to hear and see how the new company has setup and what are their plans so I reached out to them and setup a visit at their new HQ.
If you followed my blog in the last year, you probably know that I received a few Japanese Whisky bottles from Japan. One of those bottles was the Japan-only Yamazaki Single Malt. 
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Following yesterday’s superb Glendronach 1993 (see review here), here’s another one, although this time it’s a NAS expression, made in small batch, bottled in cask strength.
This is of course, the Glendronach Cask Strength expression, now reaching it’s 3rd batch.
So barely 5 months passed since Glendronach released batch 8 of single casks bottlings which featured some very good and interesting whiskies, and here we have batch 9, just in time for the holidays season.
Today we’ll taste the 1993 Vintage – Single Oloroso Sherry Butt #5, distilled on 15/1/1993 and bottled October 2013, which delivered 645 bottles with cask strength of 53%.
“It was a cold, rainy day” – that’s how most stories begin, right? No, you say? Oh well, even if it’s not the truth most of the time (especially here in Israel), it was true for the day we visited Auchentoshan Distillery.
Before I continue with more Scotland trip posts and more recent whiskies reviews, we shouldn’t forget those ‘archived’ tasting notes in the my notebook. It’s still weekend in Europe, it’s winter weather here (at least), so we’ll go for some treat of peat and sweet – the Lagavulin Distiller’s edition.
Whisky Gospel 