This is the 2nd post with the tasting notes of The Hanyo SMWS 131.2 Magic Carpet in a Sweetie Shop. I’ve tasted it online in Tweet Tasting event with a group of friends who bought and shared a duo of excellent Japanese whiskies from The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. The story behind this one is detailed in the previous post on the SMWS 132.2 dram right here.
It’s good to have friends who shares with you the same whisky passion as you do. A while ago, November 2013, the SMWS released a duo of rare Japanese whiskies from closed distilleries just in time for Christmas shopping rush:
132.2 (Karuizawa) – Stunning Panorama of Exotic Fruits. 22yo refill sherry, 335 bottles, 62.4% (!)
131.2 (Hanyu) – Magic Carpet in a Sweetie Shop. 13yo first fill sherry, 646 bottles, 55.1%
Yesterday I posted my recollection of the world fastest distillery tour (™) at Bruichladdich and since it was the last tour on Islay, instead of the customary tasting notes of one dram, we’ll go for the double – two Bruichladdich tasting notes!
The first one is Bruichladdich Black Art 4th edition – I have a bottle of the Black Art 3 and love it a lot – the mix of wood with different and rich wine notes is very good (see my review of BA3 here)
The second one is a Bruichladdich Valnich expression, filled at the visitors center in the Distillery by visitors and this one is from a cask that previously held Rum.
This post was in the writing for a long time and I hesitated completing it as Bruichladdich was our last stop on Islay and writing it brings a bucketful of sadness. But life go on so I finally sat down and completed it, doing it was kind of a relief and it’s way better then going to a shrink 🙂
Bruichladdich, well, as I said above – it was our last stop on the island. We were in a hurry as we had to return our rented car and make it on time for our flight back to Glasgow, but we were passing near Bruichladdich, a mere 500 meters away. How could we NOT stop there, even if not for a tour then just see it and have a dram in the visitors center.
Time for my first Glen Garioch and first Cadenhead notes on the blog. This one also came through samples swap I did with friends who likes this one very much.
This Glen Garioch is an ex-bourbon cask and like all Cadenhead bottlings, it’s been color-free and non-chilled filtered.
Cadenhead Glen Garioch 21yo 1991 (53.7%, ex-Bourbon cask, 216 bottles, buy here for €77.5)
This is another one dram I tasted for the first time in the last Speyside session I was at. This time it’s Tamdhu 26yo bottled exclusively to the whiskywhiskywhisky.com forum members by the Creative Whisky Company, and somehow Gal of the Whisky Israel blog got a bottle and brought to that session.
It’s Monday and a new week started, so let’s start it big with a new Glenturret whisky. I almost visited Glenturret last October, but due to time constraints, it didn’t materialized. Too bad, as I love to see small scale distilleries in action – getting the cozy and personal touch.
As a relatively small distillery, which is considered as the spiritual home of The Famous Grouse, and I assume most of their production goes toward this blend, they do not provide many official single malt bottlings, with only 10 yo Glenturret as official bottling.
But now, a new semi-official older bottling is here – Glenturret worked together with Hunter Laing to create a (much) older “licensed botling” – a 26 years old whisky, distilled at 1986, aged entirely in bourbon casks, selected and bottled by their Master Distiller Gordon Motion.
So how is this “licensed bottling”?
As whisky geek, I tend to send and receive whisky samples all the time and this is the major source I have to enrich my whisky knowledge (and gives me materials to write here on the blog). Despite all that, there are so many distilleries (and whiskies) out there I never had to chance to familiarize myself with and taste, so whenever I get the chance to try a new distillery, I give it a top priority. So when In a recent samples swap, I got the chance to get my first Royal Lochnagar whisky, I couldn’t say no 🙂
Before I continue with my Scotland tour posts (and the last Islay stop), time for a quick detour to review a bourbon. Yes! a bourbon! and why? Because I found one which I actually liked and got a sample from my good buddy Shai. (He was born in New York and bourbon is flowing in his veins).
So what do we have here? Before we go into the tasting notes here is what I know about it – Widow Jane is produced at Cacao Prieto artisan distillery (in Brooklyn of all places!) and is made with Pure Limestone Mineral Water from the Widow Jane Mine, Rosendale New York and is aged for 7 years in casks.
Yesterday I posted an entry on my visit at Kilchoman distillery and the Distillery Manager tour I took. I tasted Machir Bay and the 100% Islay drams during the visit but unfortunately couldn’t take any notes. So instead, here are my tasting notes on the original Kilchoman Sherry Cask release.
Whisky Gospel 