Yoichi 1988 single cask, 62%, $250

Yoichi is a distillery which has great resonance for those of us who have followed the remarkable arrival of Japanese whisky into the world. It was this distillery, after all, which did the equivalent of Stags Leap Cabernet at the famous Judgment of Paris, when the iconic Napa wine beat the great Bordeaux blends. Yoichi did the same in Edinburgh in a blind tasting, beating the greatest Scotch single malts. The world, as they say, would never quite be the same again. There have been plenty of good Yoichis since then, but none, in...

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Redbreast 21 year old, 46%, $180

I was going to say that the performance of Irish Distillers over the last couple of years marks the greatest comeback in modern times, but that honor has to go to the astonishing antics of the U.S. America’s Cup sailing team. Nevertheless, the owners of Jameson have well and truly snatched the initiative back from its competitors, and this year it pulled off a highly surprising double.

Shortly after our Irish whiskey edition, Irish Distillers held a “housewarming” and unveiled a new training center, new stills, and plans for twenty new pot still whiskeys...

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Wiser’s Legacy, 45%, C$50

Amidst a wealth of outstanding new releases it’s easy to forget old favorites. Forty Creek Heart of Gold, Highwood Ninety, Collingwood 21 year old, Wiser’s Red Letter, and Masterson’s Barley each fought to stay at the top of my 2013 whisky charts. Many head-to-head tastings and much thoughtful consideration later, the whisky to hold its own and emerge as Canadian whisky of the year is Wiser’s Legacy .

Legacy is the crowning achievement of Wiser’s former master blender, David Doyle. Looking back, it was also a harbinger of the new direction Wiser’s whiskies would take following...

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You will probably remember the Glenfarclas 1953 cask #1674 , the 58 years old cask that was bottled in februari 2012 for WealthSolutions , a Polish company that provides investment opportunities.

A year later they presented this Karuizawa 1964 cask #3603 , which was the oldest Karuizawa at that time (no trace of the 1960 back then). This 400-litre sherry cask was filled on september 1st 1964 and yielded 143 bottles (plus 200 miniatures), all pre-sold to WealthSolutions investors.

 

It comes in a box of dark black fossil oak – extremely old wood recovered from Polish swamps – quite...

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Four Roses 2013 Limited Edition Small Batch, 51.5%, $85

This is the second year in a row for Four Roses to receive this honor, and it’s well-deserved. To be honest, I didn’t think Four Roses could ever improve on last year’s limited edition small batch release—let alone the very next year—but they did.

With five different yeast strains and two different mashbills at their disposal, they certainly have the potential to make great bourbon with a variety of flavor profiles. And with the esteemed master distiller Jim Rutledge overseeing things, I’m never surprised when I taste a great Four Roses...

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Few Spirits Rye, 46.5%, $60

Reviewing craft-distilled American whiskeys is still a matter of degrees, especially when the craft distillers venture into the stylistic territory staked out so strongly by the established traditional distillers. The benchmarks of bourbon and rye are well-known, and to openly declare your competition with them is to invite direct comparison. I call it the “Evan Williams Test”: is this craft whiskey good enough that I’d buy a bottle of it instead of yet another $14 bottle of the reliably well-made Evan Williams Black? Only the very best craft whiskeys can stand up to that.

By...

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I opened this sample on a lazy Friday afternoon and I have to say I didn’t know what to expect, well… except for the fact that 1960s whisky is always interesting so it deserves quite some time to investigate. Oh boy what a surprise. It’s only afterwards that I found out this Lochside 1966 bottled by the Scotch Maltwhisky Society is said to be one of the best Lochsides ever.

 

Lochside 32 yo 1966
(61,2%, SMWS 1998, ref. 92.7)

Nose: perfect sherry goodness from Ye Olden Days. In order of appearance: mint, Ginjinha, warm sand, cedar oak, chocolate...

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Again an oldie, Glengoyne 1969 this time, one of these green bottles in Cadenhead’s Authentic Collection , topped with a golden seal. Although it has an excellent reputation among Belgian whisky enthusiasts, it seems to be much less appreciated in other circles. Always make up your own mind.

There is another version at 62,8% which is 27 years old. Both seem to have similar profiles.

 

Glengoyne 26 yo 1969 (63%, Cadenhead’s Authentic Collection 1996, Chairman Stock)

Nose: very jammy fruits: apricot jam, quince jelly, whitecurrants, mirabelles, gooseberry pie… Stewed fruits, but also fresh and fragrant apricots and strawberries. Hints...

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The Guardians of Glenlivet. An ancient order sworn to protect the legacy of Guardian General George Smith. Protecting the land and the stills from ruin since the signing of the Distillers License in 1824. Facing trials of sabotage, assassination and reputational ruin. They have now been asked to undertake their biggest challenge to date, the [...]...

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The Whisky Advocate Awards are less than two days away!

The 20th Annual Whisky Advocate Awards will be published, as usual, in the spring 2014 issue of Whisky Advocate magazine, due out in early mars. But we’re going to announce the award winners here on the Whisky Advocate blog beginning this Wednesday, december 11 ^th . As the awards are announced, they will also be published to the Whisky Advocate Facebook page and the Whisky Advocate Twitter feed (@whiskyadvocate).

These are the whiskies that we picked from the categories of our Buying Guide as the best, most interesting, most significant...

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Another review of a whiskey book for your holiday shopping, this time a cookbook for the American whiskey lover.

Pickles, Pigs, and Whiskey

by John Currence

2013, Andrews McMeel Publishing

John Currence, James Beard Award winning chef of the City Grocery Restaurant Group in Oxford, Mississippi, has a lot to say in this book about how you should cook and how you should eat: he’s disdainful of low-fat stuff, and adamant that you should not use pre-ground black pepper (“It is disgusting and in almost no way representative of the...

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Today’s review was brought to you by the letters SK and the number 8.

The tasting notes are brought to you by Shane Helmick of howtodrinkwhisky.com and myself but the idea of posting this as a Jew’s Your...

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Let’s have a few more legendary drams to celebrate the 5th anniversary of this little blog…

Bunnahabhain 1968 ‘Auld Acquaintance’ is probably the most legendary Bunnahabhain ever bottled. It’s a Hogmanay dram, i.e. it was distilled on the 31st of december.

At the time of bottling during the Islay Jazz Festival in 2002, it was the third in a series of limited editions of Bunnahabhain single malt (after a 1965 and 1966), and it cost £ 100.

 

Bunnahabhain 34 yo 1968
‘Auld Acquaintance’ (43,8%, OB 2002, 2002 btl.)

Nose: very expressive and delicate at the same time. Juicy sherry...

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Diageo’s Special Releases 2013 have started to arrive in stores (at least in the UK), so what better way to celebrate 5 years of WhiskyNotes than with the new Brora 35 Year Old ?

 

While last year’s Brora 35yo (2012) was a mix of 1976 / 1977 casks, all refill American oak, I’ve been told the new one is composed of casks filled in 1977 , and both refill American oak and European oak.

Even with the € 900 price tag, shops don’t seem to have problems in selling their allocation…

 

 

Brora 35 years old 1977...

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