Happy International Whisky Day!

The International whisky day event in which you are compelled to raise a dram (or two), was created in honor of British writer  Michael Jackson , born on  27 mars 1942, who wrote a few prominent whisky books and was a very influential whisky writer for newspapers until he died in 2007.

In honor of his memory and this day, I’ve decided to review Glengoyne 25 year old. It was released to market back in 2014 and it carries a 25 years old age statement. I like the facts it was bottled in 48% and without...

This review is the sequel to yesterday’s post. Yesterday we covered the 2 unpeated wood finishes from Glenglassaugh distillery and today we’ll check out the two peated expressions in the Glenglassaugh wood finishes series.

There’s a virgin oak finish and a Port wood finish which piqued my interest as I reviewed the Glendronach (sibling distillery) Peated Port finish only last week and as far as I could see, they have the same color too, so I was interested to see what difference there is between the two.

Glenglassaugh Peated Virgin Oak Wood Finish (46%, £59.95 / €44.49 )

Nose :...

Glenglassaugh distillery is the quiet little sibling in the Glendronach/BenRiach/Glenglassaugh group which was bought by Forman Brown back in 2016.

Billy Walker and BenRiach Distillery bought Glenglassaugh back in 2013 and except for a small burst of releases in the first 2 years after the acquisition (Revival, Evolution and Torfa), we didn’t any new releases from the spirit distilled after the distillery was revived until the new wood finishes releases late 2017.

There were four releases in total, two unpeated expressions and two peated expressions, all finished in different casks, all bottled at 46%.

Today we’ll check the tow unpeated expressions...

It’s been a while since I reviewed something from Tomatin Distillery so let’s check out their latest peated whisky, Cu Bocan 2006 which was released last fall.

Cu Bocan 2006 is vatting of sherry and bourbon casks from 2006, so the whisky is 10 or 11 year old. It was bottled at 50% and 12,000 bottles were made available around the world.

Tomatin Cù Bòcan 2006 (50%,  £49.45 / €56.50 )

Nose : Malty, subtle honey and then sweet peat. Feels light and fresh and after a few minutes, bread and cookies dough, a bit of vanilla, weak pears and...

Whisky Live Tel-Aviv 2018 is happening right now and along the new Milk and Honey release  there’s another new release – a new single cask offering from Golan Heights Distillery. It’s a new cask (number #24) of Golani Black (distilled mash of malted barley and wheat), matured for 37 months in a virgin American oak cask.

This time, there’s a real nice touch to the release – it’s a “bottle your own” offering as you actually fill the bottle from the cask during the show. Real cool thing!

Like with previous Golan Heights Distillery releases, it’s a non chill filtered...

Whisky Live Tel-Aviv 2018 is starting tomorrow. I already reviewed  the special show bottling (a 37 yo Port Ellen) , but there are a few more interesting new releases for the Whisky Live show and the first one is the second single Maltwhisky from Milk and Honey Distillery.

The Milk and Honey distillery released their first single Maltwhisky in 2017 and now the distillery releases it’s second one for Whisky Live 2018, both whiskies bottled by the distillery under the Experimental casks series brand.

What are those experimental casks? It’s quite simple. A few casks were distilled back...

The Glendronach Peated Port Wood that was released last november is the second Peated release from the distillery. The first one, which was young and is a straightforward bourbon maturation whisky  raised my brows because it wasn’t a proper Dronach for me.

But this second release, which had a second maturation in port pipes from the Douro Valley in Portugal, could fit the Glendronach image because we’ve seen port finishes from the distillery albeit at a far more aged whisky.

Glendronach Peated Port Wood Finish (46%, £59.95 / €56,95 )

Nose : Clean peat, young malt notes, strawberries and lots of cranberries,...

It’s time to make a dent in the back log of samples and notes waiting to be published. For today I’ve picked the BenRiach 21 Years Old Matured in four different casks since such a high count of different casks seems to be getting a tad more popular lately (Yes, Laphroaig Four Oak and Jura Seven Oak, I’m looking at you).

This whisky was aged in four different casks: Bourbon, Virgin Oak, PX and Red Wine Casks and then was blended together by BenRiach master blender, Rachel Barrie and bottled at 46%.

The BenRiach 21 Years Old is one of...

Following yesterday’s review of BenRiach 21 Four Oak  let’s have another BenRiach review for the road for those who goes back to work today after the beautiful spring weekend.

Since it was a great weekend, full of greenery and flowers, let’s review something special, a very old peated BenRiach, the BenRiach Authenticus 30 Years Old.

The 30 Year Old is the logical successor after BenRiach has released following the 21 Year Old and 25 Year Old in the past,  it’s a non chill filtered, au naturale colour and bottled at 46%.

BenRiach Authenticus 30 Years Old (46%,  £300 / €498 )

Nose : Great mellow...

In exactly one week, Whisky Love Tel-Aviv 2018 will be in full swing. I’ll be there and I hope my Israeli readers will visit this great exhibition too. But what is an exhibition without a commemorative bottle? Of course there’s one but Tomer Goren, the man behind the event decided to bottle a special whisky for Whisky Live and what a special whisky it is: a 37 Years Old Port Ellen.

Yup, this is no mistake. We have a Port Ellen bottling for the Whisky Live show. It was distilled in 1979 and bottled in 2017 after it spent 37...

When 2018 has started, I had a few new resolutions for the new year and one of those was related to the blog: To review in 2018 some of those beginners and entry level whiskies I tasted and had in the early stages of my whisky journey (and surely before I started this blog). Now we’re in early mars and it’s time to gear up and do something about this.

So today I’ll be reviewing Dalmore 12 Year Old, a whisky I had many times in the past but not in the last few years, so I sourced a sample...

Two weeks ago I reviewed a 10 Years Old Kilchoman bottled for the Whisky Exchange which disappointed me . In hindsight, I now understand that another 10 years old Kilchoman I tasted a few weeks before the TWE one, The fifth Kilchoman Club Edition, the first official 10 Year Old whisky from the distillery was a major reason for that disappointment.

Back in november 2016, Anthony Wills the managing director of Kilchoman, picked two casks from their first full year of production in 2006: one first fill oloroso sherry butt and one fresh bourbon barrel. Those 10 year old casks were vatted...

© The Islay Festival of Music and Malt

Yeah, it’s this time of the year, the time for the annual post of the Feis Ile Festival bottles, especially when we finally see some information out there.

This year, the festival will run from late maj into juni 2018 (25th maj to 2nd juni 2018).

This post will detail all the available information on the festival bottles and I’ll update it each time more details will be revealed.

If you look for the full festival information, go to the Festival site at islayfestival.com and you can find the full Islay Festival...

And from one Local Barley release to another Local Barley release but from a different region and heritage – Cotswolds first single malt. Cotswolds uses barley grown in the area, so the Local Barley moniker can be used here freely.

The Cotswolds region is a lovely one. I passed the area on my way from Birmingham to Stratford-Upon-Avon (Shakespeare’s birthplace), which in case you don’t know, means it’s English whisky and not Scottish whisky. But the region never had a whisky distillery, until the Cotswolds Distillery opened in 2014 that is.

Three years passed by with a few young single malts...

Yesterday’s post on the 1815 got me in a Laphroaig mood, so here’s another Laphroaig review but this time it’s a special post recapping a special Laphroaig tasting that was held by my friend Yori, a certified Laphroaig geek.

Theme of the tasting: Vertical tasting of the official Laphroaig 10 Year Old Cask Strength releases. Over the last few years he collected samples and bottles of all Laphroaig 10 Year Old Cask Strength variants – from the Green Stripe to Batch 009 that was released in 2017 for a total of eleven variants of 10 Year Old Laphroaig Cask Strength....

From a bunch of 10 year old whiskies from one Islay distillery to a single 10 Year Old whisky but from another Islay distillery – Kilchoman.

In the last year we’ve seen a couple of single casks from Kilchoman, all boasting the 10 Year Old statement, and as time keeps passing by it will be less and less of a special occurrence (and we’ll soon see 11 year old releases). This time I’m checking out a 2007 10 Year Old Sherry Cask bottled for The Whisky Exchange. Cask 401/2007 was distilled in 14.11.2007, almost two years after distillery was opened, and was...

It’s about time I’ll review the third (and latest) Springbank Local Barley release, the 10 Year Old distilled from Belgravia barley, following the 16 Year Old Prisma Barley and 11 Year Old Bere Barley releases of previous 2 years.

This time it’s a 10 year old, the youngster in the series so far, distilled in juni 2007 and bottled november 2017. Also of notice is that this time, there are 30% sherry casks in the mix (70% Bourbon) unlike the first two releases who were matured exclusively in Bourbon casks.

As in the previous Local Barley releases, 9000 bottles were...

Last week Glenmorangie has launched the ninth edition in their Private Edition, The Glenmorangie Spios. Unlike previous years, this edition isn’t a wood finish but a full maturation release.

Glenmorangie Spìos (‘spice’ in Gaelic), was fully matured in casks that held rye whisky for 6 years. According to Dr. Bill Lumsden (Also known as Glenmorangie whisky boss), that whisky contained 95% rye so an educated guess would say those casks were sources from MGP Distillery (Indiana, USA), The casks were toasted, and following a lightly charred were filled with Glenmorangie new make that matured in the casks for 7-9 years.

Glenmorangie...

Last night we had our monthly local whisky club meeting which focused on Laphroaig whiskies. But in truth it was a tasting night centered around a bottle of Laphroaig 30 Year Old bottle we managed to get. But tasting only the 30 yo somewhat felt wrong and so we brought along some young and cheaper siblings as appetizers, among them the 1815 Legacy Edition which I didn’t get to review here yet and so it will be the subject of our review today.

Laphroaig The 1815 Legacy Edition was released in april 2017 to Travel Retail market but like many...

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed the 2nd single malt (and single cask) release from Golan Heights Distillery, the brainchild of David Zibell. However, the bread and butter of the distillery is Golani, the two grain (wheat and malted barley) sour mash whisky offering. Golani releases were used to be a one year whisky offering but recently the line up was revamped and now consists of three different Golani products, all carrying a 3 year old age tag:

• Golani Black – matured for three years in new charred American
• Golani Vino – matured in European oak Cabernet cask (from Golan...