Craigellachie 1997 Connoisseurs Choice (Bottled 2014) Review

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I’m very fond of Craigellachie distillery due to the seemingly irrelevant fact that I slept at a B&B in the Craigellachie village on my first Scotland pilgrimage. Since then I tasted a few Craigellachie bottles, indie and official and it’s time to review another one, a 1997 vintage from the Connoisseurs Choice lineup of Gordon & Macphail.

It was bottled in 2014 (making it about 17 year old) and it was aged in refill ex-bourbon casks, unlike the 1997 vintage that was bottled in 2013 that was aged in first fill sherry casks. I do know that Craigellachie works well with sherry but how about bourbon?

Craigellachie 1997 Connoisseurs Choice (46%, Bottled 2014, £64.45/€88,90)

connoisseurs choice craigellachie 1997 bottled 2014Nose: Fruity with apples, red apples peels, a touch of peaches, it very much reminds me some of official Craigellachie lineup traits with those apples, roasted/burnt matches and the oily and smooth feeling. bakery full of fruit cakes, some nuttiness, cream, ginger and spices. Continue reading →

Blair Athol 1988 27 Year Old Signatory Vintage for TWE Review

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Blair Athol distillery is a distillery which most whisky drinkers never heard of. It’s acting as a workhorse for Diageo, producing 2,500,000 liter of alchol a year with most of its’ output going into blends (and a very minor portion goes towards the Blair Athol 12 in the Flora and Fauna series).

But a few years a go a big batch of 1988 vintage casks found itself in independent bottlers hands with Signatory leading the way here and one of those Signatory casks popped up lately as an exclusive release for The Whisky Exchange. Let’s check it out!

Blair Athol 1988 27 Year Old Signatory Vintage for TWE (55.7%, £120 ,Cask #6845)

blair athol 1988 27yo signatory for tweNose: Sherried and a bit dirty nose with struck matches, weak sulphur, sour berries, cinnamon and nutmeg, espresso, dark chocolate and wax. After a while more coffee and dark chocolate shows up and it becomes less sulphury. With water it’s fruitier with cherries and raspberries, some malt and chocolate with lower percentage of cacao. Continue reading →

Dalmore 2001 Connoisseurs Choice (Bottled 2015) Review

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There are some distilleries you play love/hate games with and in my case one of them would be Dalmore. I usually just can’t stand the caramel and the chill filtration they do with their official line up, hence the sparseness of Dalmore reviews here. Of course when you go to special aged editions the situation is a tad bitter (like the 1981 Amaroso I reviewed) but the global picture is pretty gloom.

That’s why I was happy to receive a sample of an indie Dalmore from Gordon & Macphail. There aren’t too many of those in the market, and I instantly grabbed the chance to try this Dalmore 2001 – it’s au natural without additions or damaging filtering!

Dalmore 2001 Connoisseurs Choice (46%, Bottled 2015, £32.08/€54,90)

connoisseurs choice dalmore 2001Nose: It’s a very fruity nose with a lot of pears and pineapple notes. Also some creamy malt, liqorice, bitter grapefruit and gentle oak wood spices. After it sat down in the glass for a few minutes there were red apples, lemon, herbal eucalyptus and light spearmint perfume. Continue reading →

Douglas Laing Scallywag Cask Strength Batch #2 Review

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Better late than never but it’s about time I’ll check out the latest batch of Scallywag Cask Strength. I had the magical opportunity to be at Douglas Laing HQ when the original Scallyway was released and I loved it so lets check it out and see if this batch of the Cask Strength (4800 bottles) manages to keep up to the high standard of the original.

Douglas Laing Scallywag Cask Strength Batch #2 (54.1%, £45.98/€54,90)

douglas laing scallywag cask strength batch #2Nose: Malty which isn’t surprising as I assume it will be young, and energetic (thanks to those extra %), strong sherry impact, dried berries, sultanas, white pepper, demerara sugar, vanilla pods are scatter through, quite lively and punchy. Continue reading →

Caol Ila 2007 8 Year Old Signatory Vintage for Whisky Exchange

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Going back to Scotland after a short detour to SA, let’s check another one from the latest batch of The Whisky Exchange exclusives, a peated young Caol Ila.

It’s a 2007 vintage that was bottled in May 2016 making it a 8 Year Old whisky. 320 bottles were bottled from this 200L barrel thanks to a non cask strength ABV of 46%.

Caol Ila 2007 8 Year Old Signatory Vintage for TWE (46%, £55.95, Cask #315325)

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Three Ships 10 Year Old PX Cask Finish Review

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Today we do a small detour from Scotland to the southern hemisphere, all the way down to South Africa. It’s only in recent years that the Three Ships brand name got recognized outside SA, thanks to the internet, bloggers and whisky aficionados who hunted and carried in their luggage SA whisky to Europe. I got introduced to Three Ships a couple of years ago thanks to Mark and with his help I managed to secure a bottle of the 10 Year Old limited edition (see my review here).

But it’s been quiet on the Three Ships front for a while until Distill (the owners of James Sedgwick Distillery and the Three Ships brand) finally listened to the public calls, saw the rise of single malts around the world and let Andy Watts go on with new releases: An annual release of the 10 Year Old (Starting next month!) along with a few special bottlings and the first one was a 10 Year Old that was was aged in bourbon casks for almost 11 years and finished in a PX cask for 14 months. And once again, thanks to Mark (and the couriers) I got a bottle to drink from.

Three Ships 10 Year Old PX Cask Finish (46.2%, 800 bottles, $60)

three ships 10yo px cask finishNose: For a 10 year old it’s very mellow and very mature. Good sherry influence here with mellow dried fruits and lots of nuttiness, definitely not overpowering. Wood spices and gentle peat smoke. I really like it.

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Mortlach 1998 18 Year Old Signatory Vintage for Whisky Exchange

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Yes, I know it’s been a while since my last post and it’s even a longer period since my last review. As this blog is just a hobby I try maintain alongside with family and work, sometimes they take precedence over it causing some periods of hibernation. But I hope to resume regular reviewing and posting on the blog from now on, at least until the next work related crisis 🙂

Few weeks ago I got a few samples from The Whisky Exchange. To be exact there were four samples of new whiskies bottled exclusively for the Whisky Exchange by Signatory. The one that I was really keen to taste was the sherried Mortlach 18 because I love sherried Mortlachs since I tasted the Flora and Fauna Mortlach 16 and indie sherried Mortlachs are practically nonexistent in the last few years since the official Mortlach line up was launched.

And even this sherried Mortlach didn’t spend its entire life in a sherry butt. It started in Hogsheads (bourbon I supposed) and then it spent 54 months (4.5 years if you really want to calculate) in a sherry cask, yielding 681 bottles at 55.8%.

1998 18 Year Old Signatory Vintage for TWE (55.8%, £120, Cask #5)

Mortlach1988Nose: I thought (and hoped) it will be a classic meaty Mortlach nose but it’s not. Not that it’s a bad nose mind you. There are raisins and sweet dried red berries on the top with some cloves and cinnamon, overall feels a bit jammy. One time Lemon pie note, big brown sugar sweetness, A bit floral and polished furniture library. After a while finally some stronger meaty notes shows up here and there. Continue reading →

Glenmorangie Bacalta is the Eighth Private Edition Release

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Glenmorangie Private Edition collection has seven releases so far with Milsean being the latest one. The bottles are usually releases in January so it’s surprising to see that information on the eight release in the series was revealed on the Federal TTB database, six months ahead of the release. According to the label it will be: Glenmorangie Bacalta, finished in Malmsey Madeira casks:

glenmorangie bacalta

 

Is it me or do we see more Madeira finishes/maturations lately?

Compass Box Enlightenment Review

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The new Compass Box Enlightenment whisky is another step in their campaign for Scotch Whisky transparency which follows the uproar that accompanied their previous releases.

In case you forgot, when Compass Box released Flaming Heart 5th edition and This is Not a Luxury Whisky in late 2015, they also included the full recipe for the whiskies including the whiskies ages. However, seems like it was breaking UK and EU regulations and therefor, following a request/pep-talk from SWA, the ages we removed from the website and the marketing materials and the new Soctch Whisky transparency campaign was launched with other distilleries backing it up (like Bruichladdich).

This is what John Glaser and Compass Box has to say on Enlightenment:

Inspired by the writers, philosophers and scientists of the A ge of
Enlightenment it sets out to encourage the industry to consider the
absurdity of a system that prevents producers from telling consumers
exactly what has gone into the whiskies they are drinking.

A worthy cause if you ask me! Yes, I’m an avid supporter of this campaign and totally for full information transparency. Here’s the ingredients list of the whisky, albeit without the ages (but I hope Mr. Glaser would tell you if you meet him):

compass box enlightenment ingredients

So what do we have here? Clynelish making up the bulk of this whisky, 59% Highlands whisky and 41% Speyside whisky. As usual with Compass Box whiskies, it’s not chill-filtered and with natural colour and 5,922 bottles were made.

Compass Box Enlightenment (46%, £59.45/€64,95)

compass box enlightenmentNose: Strong waxy note at first (from the Clynelish), vanilla, some muted oak spices that smells like they stop the sweetness in its track, floral edge and then it’s mostly soft oak spices. After a while the sweetness is back along with some green bark. Continue reading →

Linkwood 37, Glenkinchie 24, Cambus 40 and Mannochmore 25 added to Diageo Special Releases 2016

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We’ve already posted information on the forthcoming Diageo Special Releases 2016 with Port Ellen 37 and Brora 38 in the limelight. In the last few years, we came to expect those releases (along with the Caol Ila and Lagavulin) but we always have a supporting cast from other distilleries in Diageo Portfolio and it seems like we have four new addition to the Special Releases 2016 and the current list is as the following:

  • Lagavulin 12 Year Old 2016 – 57.7%
  • Caol Ila 15 Year Old Unpeated – 61.5%
  • Port Ellen 1978 37 Year Old – 55.2%, 2940 bottles
  • Brora 38 Year Old – 48.6%, 2984 bottles
  • Auchroisk 25 Year Old – 51.2%, 3954 bottles
  • Linkwood 37 Year Old – 50.3%, 6114 bottles
  • Cambus 40 Year Old – 52.7%, 1812 bottles
  • Glenkinchie 24 Year Old – 57.2%, 5928 bottles
  • Mannochmore 25 Year Old – 53.4%, 3954 bottles

Here are the labels:

cambus sp 2016 linkwood 37 SP 2016

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading →