GlenDronach released three new bottlings earlier this week. The most unusual expression of the trio is the new GlenDronach Peated which has been distilled using peated malted barley and matured in Oloroso and PX sherry casks.

The GlenDronach 19 Years Old Madeira Cask Finish was initially matured in European oak casks and thereafter finished in a very small batch of Madeira hogsheads, giving the final whisky its own range of flavours and aromas.

The trio was completed with the GlenDronach Cask Strength Batch 5. See our reviews of Batch 1 , Batch 2 and Batch 4 to get an idea...

This week we’ll have a direct comparison each day: two or three bottlings from the same distillery and age / vintage, recently released by different independent bottlers.

As you know, casks are often sold in large lots and they are then shared / distributed among related bottlers. My Malt Maniacs article from 2011 is still relevant, I guess. majbe even more so: as (older) whisky becomes ever more rare and expensive, smaller bottlers are struggling to find available (decent) casks, so they are increasingly forced to jump on the same wagons.

We’ll start with BenRiach 1990 , bottled by Sansibar and...

This whisky was distilled at the Bunnahabhain distillery in 1976 and bottled in Jim McEwan’s Celtic Heartlands range in 2010. Matured for almost all of its 33 years in Fino sherry casks, it was ACE’d or finished in Château d’Yquem casks.

Bunnahabhain 33 yo 1976 (49%, Murray McDavid ‘Celtic Heartlands’ 2010, Fino casks & Château d’Yquem finish, 465 btl.)

Nose: slightly austere but beautiful nose, with leafy notes, walnuts and hints of shoe polish. Mint and thyme. Some banana, apricot and gooseberry, but the fruitiness is on a second level here. Some leather and sweet mossy notes. Elegant...

The very new Port Askaig 16 Year Old is a combination of bourbon- and sherry-cask-aged whisky. Replacing the popular 15 year old, this should be big, bold and peaty Caol Ila. Remember there are multiple distilleries in the current Port Askaig line-up, so you never know.

Port Askaig 16 yo (45,8%, Speciality Drinks 2015)

Nose: rather excellent. The peat seems more mature and subtle than the age suggests. Herbal honey, hints of tobacco and leafy / mossy notes. Sweet, fruity notes (dried figs) and almonds from the sherry casks. Hints of barbecue embers and sweet olives. Excellent indeed....

Part of the Last Great Malts series, the Royal Brackla 16 Years is finished in first-fill Oloroso sherry casks. It sits in between the Royal Brackla 12 Years and Royal Brackla 21 Years .

Royal Brackla 16 yo (40%, OB 2015)

Nose: a nicely subdued waxy / fruity style, with plenty of apricots, mashed bananas and golden apples. Slowly becoming grassier (warm hay and dried flowers actually). Hints of cinnamon and vanilla. Seems older than it is. Mouth: quite soft but oily, with dusty grains and almonds. Orange oil and cinnamon. Showing soft herbal notes without the dryness that...

At the top of the Teeling range we have the Vintage Reserve Collection . It includes this Teeling 26 Year Old Gold Reserve and the Teeling 30 Year Old Platinum Reserve which is believed to be the oldest bottling of Irish single malt whiskey recently released.

The 26 year-old was double distilled in 1987 (at Cooley then? or a Bushmills experiment?), matured in ex-bourbon barrels and then married / finished for 12 months in white Burgundy wine casks .

Teeling 26 yo 1987 ‘Vintage Reserve – Gold Bottling’ (46%, OB 2014, Batch 1, 1000 btl.)

Nose: bingo. Bang-on...

There’s the wonderful 1960s character of course, the problematic 1980s and the reaffirming 1990s, but I have to say I’m not very familiar with 1970s Bowmore . In my glass is a vintage version of the Bowmore 21 Year Old , bottled from two casks filled in 1973 .

Bowmore 21 yo 1973 (43%, OB +/- 1994, sherry butts #5173 + 5174)

Nose: very elegant, light peat, accompanied by a fresh mintiness / eucalyptus, resinous notes and soft coastal notes. Beautiful fruity notes (blood oranges, mango) and a pouch of cigarette tobacco. Polished leather. Hints of thyme. A...

Kavalan Podium is an expression matured in a mix of virgin American oak + refill Kavalan casks.

Kavalan Podium (46%, OB 2015)

Nose: a fairly light but fresh nose, with vanilla cream, banana and papaya. Floral honey and hints of coconut which was to be expected from the virgin oak. Candied ginger, soft pepper. Also light leafy notes and a faint whiff of incense. Mouth: bright barley, bananas and honey again. Vanilla. Green fruits and a slightly tangy grape skin note. Ginger and pepper. Lemon peel. Dried coconut and leather. Rather modern and oak-driven but the balance between...

Another Invergordon , this time much older. It was distilled in 1972 and bottled in 2011 in Duncan Taylor’s Rare Auld series.

Invergordon 38 yo 1972 (45,5%, Duncan Taylor Rare Auld 2011, cask #85255, 163 btl.)

Nose: vanilla cream and grated coconut. Mashed bananas and majbe ripe apricot. Hints of buttered popcorn. Other than the fact that this is fairly dry on the nose (due to more oak shavings aromas), the notes are similar to other grain whisky from different ages. Invergordon 1988 is practically the same for instance. Mouth: very sweet, very liqueur-like. Orange syrup, vanilla syrup,...

The other day I was selecting bottles for a whisky tasting I hosted, with all kinds of different styles. The tasting included anCnoc , GlenDronach , Lagavulin, Elijah Craig and a really old Glen Grant 1972 , but I also felt the Springbank style was a must-have.

A good chance to open a recent batch of the classic Springbank 10 Years , it had been a while since I tried it.

Springbank 10 yo (46%, OB 2015, 15/103)

Nose: still the mineral classic indeed. Earthy / rooty notes, hints of chalk and a certain ‘green’ fruitiness, some lemon...

Nose Art is a recent series from Whisky-Doris in Germany. It has, well… original labels. We’re trying a 1988 grain whisky from Invergordon, with a yearly production of 40 millions litres of alcohol one of the biggest distilleries in Scotland.

Invergordon 27 yo 1988 (47,4%, Whisky-Doris ‘Nose Art’ 2015, bourbon hogshead #8096, 141 btl.)

Nose: very creamy and coconutty, with plenty of vanilla and some very ripe yellow plums and apricots. Bananas flambéed with clotted cream. White chocolate notes and butter croissants. Hints of varnish and popcorn. Mouth: quite an oily, rummy style, really sweet and simple. Malibu...

We continue our reviews of some Whisky Exchange exclusives from The Whisky Show. Today Caol Ila 1983 selected from the Signatory stocks.

Caol Ila 31 yo 1983 (48,1%, Signatory Vintage for The Whisky Exchange 2015, hogshead #5294, 255 btl.)

Nose: gentle and rather fruity with some subtle baked banana up front. majbe mango, then some mint and vanilla cream. Hints of cod oil and salted butter. Wet gravel. Lots of leathery notes and library dust as well. Very refined and sophisticated, by no means a huge Islay whisky even by Coal Ila standards. Mouth: sweet onset, but quickly...

This was one of the drams we tried at the latest Fulldram tasting. It is the previous version of Highland Park 25 Year Old , released early 2000s. It didn’t live long because it was replace by the current oval bottles around 2006 . It contains 50% first-fill sherry casks.

Highland Park 25 yo (50,7%, OB 2004)

Nose: starts a little musty and meaty, with damp leaves and a floral kind of peat. Hints of caramel. I expected bolder sherry notes from its colour. Herbal notes (eucalyptus, heather) and coastal touches. Hints of red berries and a little...

The Whiskyman just released two new bottlings in its Hard Rock series: this Ledaig 2006 “Drink with your boots on” and an Auchentoshan 1990 “Cold hearted stillman”.

Ledaig 2006 (53,3%, The Whiskyman 2015, 154 btl.)

Nose: quite some organic notes at first. Not just farmy, there’s also a little cabbage and sulphur involved. It clears up after a while. Soot and tar. Anchovies and sea air. Soft menthol. In the background there are hints of toffee, Demerara sugar and a touch of pineapple sweetness. These become more apparent and much nicer after a while, be sure to give...

I reviewed the GlenDronach 15 Years back in 2009 when it had just been relaunched by its new owners. I wasn’t entirely convinced because of some sulphury notes so now I’m keen to see what the recent batches are like, five years later.

As you maj know, GlenDronach was mothballed from 1996 until maj 2002. This production gap forces the distillery to use much older casks for certain expressions. My bottle of 15 Year Old was bottled in 2014, which means the whisky inside must be at least 18-19 years old.

This is also why this bottling has become more...

I must admit I hadn’t heard of Lockett Bros when they contacted me. They have a wine & whisky shop in North Berwick (not far from Edinburgh) and they have a selection of exclusive shop bottlings.

We’ll try a couple of their selections. We’ll start with this 21 year-old Springbank 1993 .

Springbank 21 yo 1993 (49,4%, Lockett Bros ‘Bros Reserve’ 2015, bourbon hogshead #470, 235 btl.)

Nose: a very pure version of the typical Springbank character. Chalk, candle wax, a few metallic notes… Aspirin as well. Underneath there are some oranges, lychees, mint and ginger. Some floral...

A recent Glenlossie 1993 in the Cadenhead Small Batch series. This sort of Glenlossie is popping up from different bottlers these days and they all seem to offer pretty good quality.

Glenlossie 21 yo 1993 (56,1%, Cadenhead Small Batch 2015, bourbon hogsheads, 492 btl.)

Nose: a green fruitiness, lemons, gooseberries, with grassy notes and some paraffin. Underneath this is a relatively neutral, malty body. Hints of honeycomb. There’s a slightly dusty side as well. Mouth: punchy, pleasantly tart and citrusy. Oranges and apples. Gets more body after a while, with some almond paste and whitecurrant. Picks up some...

Maltbarn release n°38: Glen Garioch 1993 .

Glen Garioch 21yo 1993 (52,5%, Maltbarn 2015, bourbon hogshead, 142 btl.)

Nose: very mineral, but just enough fruitiness to keep it away from absolute austerity. Lemons and oranges. Hints of wet gravel and wax candles, mint and cut grasses. Make that lemon grass. Almost as lemony as freshly washed laundry (add water to make this worse). A wee hint of soot in the background too. Mouth: sharp and zesty, lemon, lemon and lemon. And grapefruit. Green tea with just a hint of honey. Lemongrass again. Gooseberries. Soft hints of pepper and aspirin...

This is the latest version of Port Askaig 30 Year Old . The first release in 2009 adopted the classic (Talisker) 45.8% strength, followed by a cask strength edition in 2012.

The 2015 release returns to the Talisker strength and now comes in a wooden box, the same as its brand-new sister Port Askaig 45 Year Old . It is matured in American oak casks.

While the first Port Askaig releases where always firmly hinting towards Caol Ila , this is now questioned, especially for the oldest expression. The profile seems to have changed a little and it is indeed...

One of the Dream Drams at The Whisky Show 2015 was a new, yet to be released Karuizawa 1980 Vintage . I suppose it’s called ‘Vintage’ because it contains multiple casks? Update: it’s a single cask alright. No cask reference or anything though.

It wasn’t sold at The Whisky Show to avoid the stress that normally goes with Karuizawa sales, but I’ve heard visitors will be contacted to take part in a ballot.

Karuizawa 1980 (61,6%, OB for Speciality Drinks 2015)

Nose: starts quite musty and medicinal. Lots of incense and wet pipe tobacco. Cedar oak, old wardrobes...