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Craigellachie 13 Year Old is the youngest option in the new core range from Craigellachie. The distillery is still using worm tubs to create a thick spirit with some meaty character.

Check our review of its older brother, Craigellachie 17 Year Old , for more background information.

Craigellachie 13 yo
(46%, OB 2014)

Nose: fairly neutral and spirity. Plenty of apple peelings, with some raw yeasty notes and light mineral touches. Soft vanilla marshmallow. Citrus. Hints of banana skins and other vegetal notes in the background. Not bad, just a little youthful. Mouth: oily and sweet, very malty....

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Released exclusively for the Taiwanese market, this was the second oldest Karuizawa ever (at the time), and the only cask left of the 1967 vintage .

It was presented at Whisky Live 2012 in Taipei and then released to the market at the beginning of 2013.

I’m sure visiting Asia makes you understand this kind of whisky even better.

Karuizawa Vintage 45 yo 1967 (59,6%, OB for Taiwan 2012, Aqua of Life, sherry butt #2725, 310 btl.)

Nose: typical solventy ebony, cedar and sandalwood. Old leather. Mild ashes / incense. Reminds me of Asian temples (the dark...

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The Golden Cask is a single cask series bottled by Cumbrae Supply – House of Macduff (incidentally also the name of the distillery, but pure coincidence with the fact that the owners have this family name).

Until now they had a standard bottle with a fairly dull label, but apparently they’ve been given a recent makeover. They’re now sold in Compass Box-like bottles with a nice cardboard case. Of course it’s the contents that counts, but you can’t deny this is way more attractive.

We’re trying a new Macduff 1980 . Note that there was another Macduff 1980 from the...

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Lindores Whisky Fest 2014 is taking place this weekend. There are two festival bottlings, both from the Malts of Scotland stocks.

The official one is a Laphroaig 1996 matured in a brandy (!) hogshead, the other one this Ardbeg 1991 from a sherry hogshead . While the label says bottled for Geert’s Whisky Bar @ Hotel Bero it is only for sale this weekend so you can call it a second festival bottling.

Mind that there has already been a similar Ardbeg 1991 for Hotel Bero in 2011.

Ardbeg 23 yo 1991 (48,9%, Malts of Scotland for Hotel...

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Balvenie Tun 1509 is the follow-up of the distillery’s success story Balvenie Tun 1401 which was released in nine batches between 2010 and early 2014. All of them were good whiskies, some of them even outstanding.

So now there’s this new 8000-liter marriage tun #1509 which is four times bigger than its predecessor. For Balvenie this is a way of upping the scale and reaching more people. Nothing wrong with that.

However not only did the scale change, the cask distribution is also clearly different. Tun 1509 batch 1 consists of 42 casks: 35 ex-bourbon casks and 7 sherry butts...

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Bere is Scotland’s oldest cultivated barley. It was brought to the UK by the Vikings over 1000 years ago, and it was quite common in whisky production before the 20th Century. However over the last few decades it was hardly available because it is notoriously difficult to grow.

In 2004 Arran distillery worked with the Agronomy Institute of Orkney College (University of the Highland & Islands) to produce this high-quality grain and distill the Arran Bere Barley . After an initial release in 2012 (5800 btl.) there’s now a new edition, 10 years old and bottled at cask strength .

...

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Yes, lots of Irish single malt whiskeys lately, but this one – an Irish single malt 1991 bottled by The Nectar of the Daily Drams – is different because it says ‘peated’ on the label. Now most of the recent releases are linked to Bushmills (and to the Teeling stocks) which have a reputation for using only non-peated barley.

Does this mean it would have been produced by Cooley then (who make the peated Connemara)? Not necessarily… Bushmills did effectively make some lightly peated whiskey in the late 1980’s (as confirmed by Michael Jackson’s 1987 ‘World Guide to Whisky’) and...

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Velvet Fig is the latest NAS release from Wemyss . It’s a limited edition blended malt, matured entirely in Oloroso sherry casks . It’s also the first blended malt from Wemyss to be non-chill-filtered and bottled at 46%.

Velvet Fig (46%, Wemyss Malts 2014, blended malt, 6000 btl.)

Nose: starts just slightly meaty and too caramelly majbe, but it clears up nicely, leaving a thoroughly sherried whisky. Lots of blackberries, forest fruit jam, black cherries, Christmas cake and indeed… dried figs. Sticky toffee. Spicy notes too, mainly cinnamon and clove. Mouth: very thick, sweet and spicy. Lots of...

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Cù Bòcan is Tomatin ’s latest (lightly) peated expression. With the standard Tomatin Cù Bòcan comprising sherry, virgin oak and bourbon casks, this is the first of three upcoming limited editions highlighting the flavours derived from each cask type.

Tomatin Cù Bòcan Sherry Cask is fully matured in first fill sherry butts.

Tomatin Cù Bòcan Sherry Cask (46%, OB 2014, 6.000 btl.)

Nose: a bit confusing at first, with lots of pastry dough and dominant toffee. Moves towards sugary malty notes, surprisingly big vanilla (American oak sherry… of course), candy apple, cinnamon and lots of sweet red plums (PX...

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The new releases from The Whisky Agency and the Liquid Sun series were also present at Spirits in the Sky. While the Liquid Sun labels have an astronomy / astrology theme, the TWA labels seem to depict scenes from early hot air balloons and other airships. We’ll start with this Glen Garioch 1989 .

Also new from The Whisky Agency: Littlemill 1991, Linkwood 1980 and a fourth one that I don’t remember. The Liquid Sun series includes Littlemill 1988, Glen Spey 1988, Tobermory 1994 and Longmorn 1992.

Glen Garioch 25 yo 1989 (50,3%, The Whisky Agency 2014, refill hogshead,...

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Glenfiddich Excellence is a new 26 years old expression aged exclusively in ex-bourbon American oak casks sourced from the Kelvin Cooperage in Kentucky (which happens to be owned by a Scottish family). Actually it’s the first whisky in the core range of Glenfiddich to be entirely matured in bourbon casks.

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Springbank has a few interesting things coming up, some of which were available to try at the latest Sprits in the Sky festival , still the best whisky festival we have in Belgium.

There’s Springbank Green 12 Years , an organic whisky although not entirely. It’s made from organic barley but the distillery doesn’t have the necessary certificates to release the whisky as entirely organic. So it’s called ‘green’ instead. It’s fully bourbon-matured and I thought it was quite good.

I’ve heard some rumours about a new, more heavily sherried Springbank 17 Year Old due in januari, but...

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Earlier this year, Suntory launched two NAS expressions as part of the core ranges of Hakushu and Yamazaki, both named Distiller’s Reserve. Hakushu Distiller’s Reserve joins the 12 Year Old to form the standard range of this Japanese distillery.

As a NAS expression, the Distiller’s Reserve contains different spirits : young lightly peated malts (8 years and older), heavily peated malt and whisky matured in American oak for around 18 years. All the casks have been hand-picked by Suntory’s Master Blender, Shinji Fukuyo.

Hakushu ‘Distiller’s Reserve’
(43%, OB 2014)

Nose: very fruity and aromatic with plenty of vanilla. Unripe...

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The square or cube shaped bottles of Aberlour 8 Year Old have a great reputation for being relatively easy-to-get, nicely old-style whisky. From 1957 until 1985, most Aberlour was filled into this type of bottle, most importantly for the Italian market but also for France, Germany and the USA.

There’s definitely batch variation and it’s quite difficult to know which version you’re dealing with. Some of them have a distillation and/or bottling year on the front or neck label. Some of them say “8 Year Old”, others “8 Years Old”, “Over 8 Year Old” or “Over 8 Years Old”. Some of them have...

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In the Small Batch series from Cadenhead there is this 21 years old Clynelish 1992 . In fact there is also a 50,4% version specifically bottled for The Nectar in Belgium (a ‘Christmas bottling’ of 222 bottles) but we’re now reviewing the general release.

We haven’t seen much Clynelish 1992 lately (1996-1997 is all over the place) but quite a few 1992’s have been bottled around 2005-2007. I wonder whether this is a leftover cask or the first of a new wave?

Clynelish 21 yo 1992
(51,6%, Cadenhead Small Batch 2014, bourbon hogsheads, 792 btl.)

Nose: powerful, even a...

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Most distilleries are going down the path of launching NAS expressions, usually by introducing new bottlings. Sometimes old expressions are discontinued at the same time and you keep thinking they’re simply lowering the bar a little…

In the case of Ardmore , it’s not just lowering the bar but also watering down. Ardmore Traditional Cask , a rather well-respected dram (kind of the underdog for Islay whisky), has recently been discontinued and replaced with Ardmore Legacy . The old one was bottled at 46% and unchill filtered, the new one is bottled at the bare minimum of 40% and comes...

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This is the other release in the hard rock / metal-inspired series by The Whiskyman , a Bowmore 2003 . Like the Glen Scotia 1992 , it is nicknamed after an Iron Maiden song.

Bowmore 2003 ‘Children of the Dramned’  (47,6%, The Whiskyman 2014, 183 btl.)

Nose: starts very clean, coastal and sharp, but it grows wider and gains roundness. Still it’s quite minimal and focused on briney notes, olives and mezcal. Wet chalk. Some sugared lemon notes and a faint waxy sweetness. More coastal than peaty. A nice old-style metallic edge too. Mouth: again superbly clean and...

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