Friends and followers alike, it’s time for something really special! A cask sample of Laphroaig ! The weekend before last I did the Gothenburg Beer and Whisky festival, working for Edrington in their booth and mainly taking care of Laphroaig and Connemara. It is an honour to work with such great people as the Edrington crew! When the festival started to move towards the end I was very lucky indeed to receive from Vicky a small bottle containing a cask sample!

The whisky in the sample had been used in Vicky and Martins tasting with the creative name ’Battle of...

Friends, it’s time for a premiere! I will for the first time do a tasting note of a whisky from Balblair ! During this years Linköping Whisky Expo I was very lucky to receive a sample from my good friend, and Balblair-expert, Evert who is helping out Berntson Brands at different festivals all over Sweden. So a big thanks to Evert!

Balblair is a Highland distillery that was founded in 1790. Now the special thing about Balblair is that in 2007 they started to release their whisky in vintages only: ”Every bottle of Balblair captures the essence of its Vintage...

On the 1st of april swedish independent bottler ’Svenska Eldvatten’ (’Swedish Firewaters’) released yet another exciting whisky at the swedish state monopoly liquor store. Tommy and Peter was very kind to send me a sample and I was very happy to receive it two days after the release, especially since it sold out that same day! 

The name of the whisky is a play with words of a famous Gothenburg seafood market called Fiskekôrka (Fishchurch) thus being modified into Wheskykôrka (Whiskychurch).

Anyway, the whisky is described as a more than usually peated Bunnahabhain matured in a single sherrybutt that was...

Yay! On the 13th of mars, the day after tomorrow, swedes will finally be able to purchase yet another swedish Whisky at the state monopoly ’systembolaget’ (through a web-release )! Smögen Whisky , founded in 2009 and located on the west-coast of Sweden, is launching their first whisky which is a three year old composition of nine casks made out of european oak. One of the casks was a 225 litre ’Barrique’ that previously held Bourdeaux-wine, the remaining eight casks were new charred 110 litres casks so this should be interestin. The barley is peated to 45ppm. The batch resulted...

Yay! On the 13th of mars, the day after tomorrow, swedes will finally be able to purchase yet another swedish Whisky at the state monopoly ’systembolaget’ (through a web-release )! Smögen Whisky , founded in 2009 and located on the west-coast of Sweden, is launching their first whisky which is a three year old composition of nine casks made out of european oak. One of the casks was a 225 litre ’Barrique’ that previously held Bourdeaux-wine, the remaining eight casks were new charred 110 litres casks so this should be interestin. The barley is peated to 45ppm. The batch resulted...

Hey folks! Finally the time has come for me to try the well received and much hyped (?) small batch release  Bowmore Devils Cask ! I've longed for this moment for quite some time know, the sample has been in my sample-stash for more than a month but there has been some other whiskies to try that have gotten in the way and I simply did not want to rush it with this one since I've heard it's a beauty. 

A big thanks to Håkan for being very generous and just sending me a sample for free! Thanks! 

Okay, as...

Yay it’s finally Friday! To celebrate I thought I might put the three travel retail exclusive  Laphroaig s head to head in a little line-up. The three travel retail Laphroaigs are: 

’QA Cask’ was released in 2012 and holds 40% ABV. It has had it’s first maturation is in ex-bourbon barrels and then a final maturation in (new?) charred American white oak casks, there of the name QA (of course meaning Quercus Alba). I don’t know the age. It goes for arond €48 for a litre bottle.

’An Cuan Mór’ was released in 2013 and holds 48% ABV. The name...

Let’s do something fun and compare two Highland Parks, namely the 21yo and the 25yo! The first Highland Park I bought was the 18yo and that was a looong time ago. It took a while for me to try HP again but when I did I really fell in love with it, not to wonder since it was the 30yo! : ) Anyway, I haven’t really done tasting notes on any HP but now the oppurtunity has come thanks to some ”samples” from Dani at Edrington . So big thanks to you Dani!  

The info I have managed to...

Following the success of the very special release   Vintage 1979 Single Cask Blended Scotch , here comes once again another very special release and quite rare composition of whisky from ' Svenska Eldvatten ' (Swedish firewaters)! Their latest bottling of whisky is a Single cask of blended malt scotch, and it's sherry matured! As you all now blended malt (used to be called vatted malt and) means that at least two malts from separate distilleries are mixed together. In this case, as far as I have heard, Maltwhisky from six distilleries have been used for this...

It’s finally time for me to try the anCnoc 22yo! The anCnoc whisky is a Highland malt that is produced by the Knockdhu disitillery (the name of the whisky comes from the distillerys water source). I’ve tried some anCnoc whisky before out of which the 35yo is my favorite so far. The 12yo and 16yo are very good ’standard’ whiskys. 

The 22yo is matured in a combination of bourbon casks and oloroso sherry casks, though a majority of the whisky has spent its time in bourbon casks. If you wanna go for it its available for just below €100 at ...