Whisky Review – Black Bottle

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Whisky blends are somewhere between 92% to 96% (depends on your source) of the entire whisky market which is quite mind boggling – our love is to an almost aforementioned segment (quantity and economically wise) and most of it is taken up from brands like Ballantines, Bells and many others (cheaper and pricier).

So following my review of Ballantines Finest last Friday – how about we try some other blended whisky? It appears to me that Black Bottle is positioned as higher level blend than the It’s definitely produced in a lower quantity and the black color of the bottle does looks nicer. Let’s check how it tastes, shall we? Continue reading →

Whisky News – Official announcement of Gartbreck distillery in Islay, GlenGoyne 25yo, Glenglassaugh single cask bottlings

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While not as busy as last week, we still had some very nice new whisky announcements this week – the official announcement of Gartbreck Distillery (new Islay distillery, yay!), Glengoyne up the bar to 25yo from 21yo for their official bottlings and in the last minute, more news from Glenglassaugh – vintage releases from 1968 to 1986.

Gartbreck, the 9th Islay distillery aims to revive traditional methods of whisky making

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Whisky Review – Ballantines Finest

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A quick question for you, my loyal readers: Have you drink (for pleasure, not for blogging purpose) a simple whisky blend (supermarket blend) during the last week? two weeks? last month?

I expect that almost no hands were raised in affirmative answer to this question, but it’s not really surprising as we prefer to drink good blends and single malts and not the drink the standard (and usually cheap) supermarket blends.

But there is a good chance you’ve started your whisky journey with one (or more) of those cheap blends or at least had some of it early on your journey – I had such whiskies on my journey and Ballantines Finest was one I remember myself drinking a couple of times before I switched over to the right side 🙂

Recently I was in an event where Ballantines Finest was one of the whiskies to drink and I thought to myself – “Hey, I know this is a crazy idea but how about I taste it again, properly this time, with the experience I gained over the last few years?”

Well, I was weak and did fall for this thought. Wanna read what I thought of it? Continue reading →

Whisky Review – Glenmorangie 10 Year Old Original

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I’ve started single malt whiskies with a bang – going directly with peated Laphroaig Quarter Cask but immediately I wanted to have something from the other side of the scale to balance it out. As it happened, my sister in law traveled abroad and I quickly looked at our Duty Free shop selection and asked her to bring me a bottle of Glenmorangie 10.

So this one was my first Glenmorangie bottle and it served me faithfully until it was finished couple of weeks ago. Good thing I remembered to write down some tasting notes with the last dram 🙂 Continue reading →

Whisky Review – Suntory Hakushu 12

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During my brief dry period last month I did have some drams to celebrate Purim, a Jewish holiday which one is obliged to get drunk. Yeah, Judaism has some good holidays in it!

I’ve started the holiday by joining a charity whisky evening where some people donated whisky bottles and all proceeds from tickets were for charity.

In this event I’ve managed to write notes for only 2 bottles – well, I was getting a bit drunk after all… and this is the first one of them – Suntory Hakushu 12 yrs.

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Social Media Distilled – Carl Reavey

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A new week has started and most of you probably suffers from the Monday syndrome, so it’s time to reach that oh-so-needed-coffee (or tea) and recover from the shock with another interview in the “Social Media Distilled” series.

And this week – Carl Reavey of Bruichladdich distillery (which I had the honor to meet last October) and handle the Bruichladdich presence on Twitter & Facebook. Enjoy!

Please tell us a bit about yourself.  Continue reading →

Whisky Review – Glenrothes Robur Reserve

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Yeah, I know, I’ve been a bad boy – you probably noticed that the blog was a bit quiet in the last few weeks without new tasting notes and reviews. Well, in my defense I can tell you that after Whisky Live and Purim holiday, I needed to take some time off for detox and rekindle the passion.

But lets get out of this dry spell – let’s talk about Glenrothes Robur Reserve. This is one of the drams I tasted in our last local speyside tasting event couple of months ago. I did taste its younger sibling (the Select Reserve) before and it didn’t impress me at all. But this one is a higher level whisky and it contains a higher proportion of first fill European sherry casks.

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Whisky News – AnCnoc peated range, Ardbeg Auriverdes, J&B Urban Honey, Glenglassaugh Torfa, Arran 17yo

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It’s been a while since I posted some industry whisky news but there were some interesting new releases this week – AnCnoc venture into peated whisky, so does Glenglassaugh. The annual Ardbeg bottling is officially announced (although details were found via the TTB site a few months ago), new Arran 17yo and flavored whisky (well, a spirit, as you can’t call this whisky). Continue reading →

Storing and Preserving open whisky bottles

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Earlier this week there was a post in a Whisky related Facebook group asking what’s the best way to preserve open whisky bottles.

Now, this is not the first time this question arise in this group, nor in other forums and groups – people tend to care for their whisky bottles and want to preserve the original whisky flavours and prevent (or vastly reduce) oxidation that spoils the whisky taste.

So I thought to summarizing the popular options in a post as public service announcement, but my friend Michael Bendavid is quick and did summarize it in a comment on the post.

I asked him for permissions to re-publish it here and he agreed, so thanks a lot Michael for summarizing it up and to Chris Miles, Torben Ernlund, Matt Spinozzi and Shai Gilboa for their input and answers to this question.

Whisky preserving techniques

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Social Media Distilled – Jennifer Nicol

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Welcome to my first interview on The Whisky Gospel!

If you follow my blog, you probably know how much I love the online whisky community. It’s a great source of support for my kind-of-weird hobby and information on whiskies. The community is often called #whiskyfabric and the truth is that without them and the other persons sharing this same passion with me on the internet and the social networks, I wouldn’t be able to maintain the freshness and the enthusiasm of my hobby and be here on this blog.

But it’s not only amateurs and geeks/fanatics/enthusiasts that exists online – most of the distilleries and the independent bottlers have online presence interacting with their fans, customers and the whisky community. We tend to contact them asking questions, participating in their competitions, requesting information (and samples 😉 ) and we’re happy when they interact with us.

social networks

I was very curious to see how is life from the other side – who are they, what’s their perspective on social networks marketing and online community interactions. So curiosity killed the cat and it pushed me to open this new section on the blog – interviews, while starting a series of interviews with the people behind the distilleries and independent bottlers online presence. I hope you will enjoy it!

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