Bunnahabhain is without doubt the most widely available Islay distillery among independent bottlers these days. They seem to take advantage of the current shortage and popularity of Islay malt.

This is a heavily sherried Bunnahabhain 1990 , like we’ve seen a couple of times recently.

Bunnahabhain 23 yo 1990
(47,9%, Archives ‘Fishes of Samoa’ 2014, sherry butt #52, 201 btl.)

Nose: full-bodied nose, with juicy fruits and lots of sweet Oloroso sherry. Black cherries, rum & raisins, blackberries… Sweet but also quite spicy, with pepper and hints of curry. Nice tobacco too. Touches of balsamic. Also the typical flinty...

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Among the many bottlings for The Whisky Fair 2014 , there were no less than three Arrans: this Arran 1997 (sherry cask) , a bourbon cask Arran 2001 and a peated Arran 2005.

Arran 16 yo 1997 ‘Private Cask’
(50,1%, OB for Limburg Whisky Fair 2014, sherry hogshead #518, 246 btl.)

Nose: a kind of light, elegant sherry that leaves room for the original spirit. Some oranges, peaches, rhubarb and leather. Fruit stems. Hints of thyme honey and orange blossom. More and more flowers actually. Mouth: again a mix of round fruitiness (tangerines, cherries, berries), with some orange marmalade,...

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Some time ago, Belgian importers and shopkeepers have been on a joint trip to the Signatory warehouses, which is why there has a whole list of Signatory releases for Belgian companies lately.

This Bunnahabhain 2003 was selected by five shops: The Bonding Dram , Dims Dram, Comptoirs des Vins, Maison Baelen and Maison Demiautte.

Bunnahabhain 11 yo 2003
(58,8%, Signatory Vintage for The Bonding Dram and others 2014, sherry butt #1152, 627 btl.)

Nose: not your classic sherry influence, in the sense that there’s more toffee, brown sugar and buttery toast than the usual dried fruits. Maple syrup. It...

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This Glengoyne 14 Year Old is a limited edition for Marks & Spencer in the UK. It was launched in april 2011 but we’re trying the graphically updated version of late 2013. It was matured in casks that previously held Oloroso sherry (both first-fill and refill).

Glengoyne 14 yo
(40%, OB for Marks & Spencer 2013)

Nose: toffee caramel, sweet lemon and apples sprinkled with cinnamon. Sweet barley notes and brown sugar. Also poached pears. Hints of butter pastry and honey. Golden raisins. For a sherried malt, it’s a bit too malty (and slightly musty) for me, but overall...

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I’ve reviewed a couple of Glenturret 1977 expressions in 2012, all pretty excellent. Since then they’ve regularly popped up – now there’s a new one in the Mollusc & Medusa series from The Whisky Agency .

Glenturret 36 yo 1977
(46,3%, The Whisky Agency ‘Mollusc & Medusa’ 2014, refill hogshead, 245 btl.)

Nose: starts a little acetic but it picks up fruitiness by the minute. Fruit yoghurt. Pineapples, green bananas, then some floral notes and mint. Faint vegetal notes. Almonds and honey. More classic vanilla biscuits. Hints of leather old wood. A little unconventional, but very nice again....

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Buffalo Trace has a large number of brands and every one of them has several expressions. It proves the industry obsession with individuality, small batch releases and nice labeling. A virtually unlimited pool of flavour profiles and marketing opportunities.

Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr. is widely considered one of the founding fathers of the bourbon industry, fighting for the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, nearly three decades after he purchased what is now called Buffalo Trace Distillery .

The E.H. Taylor, Jr . collection contains a Small Batch version, this Single Barrel release, a Barrel Proof expression, Straight Rye, Old Fashioned...

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Remember NOG! – the gin matured by Asta Morris ? Back then we already mentioned there would be a second release soon. Here it is.

It’s the same distillate but matured in a different cask ( BenRiach this time) for a slightly longer time.

N.O.G. gin
(46%, Asta Morris, batch n°2)

Neat Nose: less assertive than #1. The lemon and minty top notes are muted and the profile is a little warmer. It seems more compact, majbe more complex but with the flavours closer together. Mouth: sweeter than expected (orange), with some boozy heat and a big spiciness (pepper,...

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This is an old Bunnahabhain 1968 released in 2012 in the Sea Life series by The Whisky Agency . I don’t recall other sherry butts for this vintage.

Bunnahabhain 43 yo 1968
(47%, The Whisky Agency ‘Sea Life’ 2012, refill sherry butt, 498 btl.)

Nose: fruity and honeyed. The fruits are more indigenous than tropical: pears, plums, figs, apricots. Indeed “sherry fruits”, including a vegetal, slightly dirty aroma which takes away some of the magic. Light resinous notes, floral notes and leafy notes. A little leather in the distance. Very elegant, a slightly drier, sherried version rather than the tropical...

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English Harbour is a top-quality molasses-based rum distilled by the Antigua Distillery and named after the town on the island briefly inhabited by our own Horatio Nelson during the 18th century.

Distilled in 1981 and bottled in september 2006 – this is the oldest rum from the Antigua distillery. It was matured in used Jack Daniels barrels. About two pounds of oak chips are added to each barrel to provide more colour and flavour. Only 600 bottles are released each year.

English Harbour 25 yo 1981 (40%, OB 2006)

Nose: complex nose, very integrated with lots of tiny...

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A trio of Littlemill expressions was added to the Archives series in a very short timespan. This Littlemill 1989 is a joint bottling with The CasQueteers , a Dutch group of whisky enthusiasts constantly looking for the best casks (or parts of casks). They regularly sit together to try cask samples, they also buy new make spirit and split the costs when a certain whisky is bottled.

Littlemill 24 yo 1989 (53%, Archives 2014, joint bottling with CasQueteers, bourbon hogshead #42, 178 btl.)

Nose: typical Littlemill fruitiness. Peach, pear, liters of apple juice. Moving towards tropical fruits as well....

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Like the Port Ellen 1983 , this Glen Grant 1972 was bottled by Maltbarn in 2012 but held back until recently. Like the neighbouring Caperdonich 1972, it’s one of the old delights that seem to have disappeared from the market almost entirely.

Glen Grant 40 yo 1972 (51,6%, Maltbarn 2012, sherry cask, 49 btl.)

Nose: the joys of whisky. Different kinds of fruit jams (apricots and greengages), mixed with wonderful beehive notes (pollen, beeswax, honeycomb) and fine polished oak. Very light mineral notes, as well as a minty freshness. Quite brilliant. Mouth: spicy, with a faint oaky bitterness, but...

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No, I didn’t win the lottery that was used to randomly assign bottles of this Karuizawa 1984 cask #3663 to potential buyers. I think The Whisky Exchange came up with a pretty fair solution for the problem of high demand that has become hard to avoid with Karuizawa releases.

On the other hand, I think this is mostly a solution for the problem of high server load, which most online retailer are not capable of handling. Buying Karuizawa has always been a lottery, majbe not openly so, but a lottery of getting information and being awake at the right moment...

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Compass Box Delilah’s is an homage to Delilah’s, Mike Miller’s legendary punk rock whisky bar in Chicago, to celebrate the bar’s 20th anniversary in 2013. The late Michael Jackson called it the most important bar in America.

Delilah’s is a blended whisk, developed by John Glaser and Mike Miller as an expression of their shared vision on great whisky. It’s a mix of 50% Maltwhisky (our guess would be Longmorn and Teaninich) and 50% grain whisky from Cameronbridge. The bland was aged in ‘experimental’ new American oak barrels and rejuvenated American oak hogsheads.

Funny remark: the press release claims...

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Ezra Brooks is a sour mash Kentucky straight bourbon. It was first produced in the 1950’s by the Medley distillery in Owensboro, Kentucky. The brand has been sold a number of times and today it is marketed by Luxco and distilled by Heaven Hill Distilleries (Elijah Craig, Evan Williams, Parkers Heritage, Bernheim Original , Georgia Moon , Rittenhouse…). A “rare old sippin’ whiskey” according to the label. While it was typically bottled at 90 proof, this one is an older version bottled in the 1970’s at 101 proof (50,5%). Nowadays the brand has degraded a little, with a 12yo and...

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Enough independent Bunnahabhain 1987 to fill my bathtub these days. Here’s one of my personal favourites.

Bunnahabhain 26 yo 1987 (50,4%, The Whisky Agency ‘Mollusc & Medusa’ 2014, refill hogshead, 210 btl.)

Nose: nice to see so many fruit notes. Orange wine gums, Cointreau, apricot and Cantaloupe. Some yellow flowers and beeswax. Floral honey. There’s a soft edge of linseed oil and coastal references. Really nice, its style hints towards the 1980 casks (and much older ones). Mouth: rich, very bright and fruity again, slightly candied. Apricot jam, plums, apple peel, rhubarb, majbe a little nectarine, although the coastal...

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We already tried Bowmore Small Batch with its accompanying chocolate made by Montezuma’s .

Bowmore 15 Year Old Darkest was released in 2007. I tried it back then and wasn’t really impressed, as the sherry was not entirely fresh. But this is a totally different batch of course.

Bowmore Darkest is finished in Oloroso sherry casks for three years. It’s also coloured with caramel to make it darker than it actually is.

Bowmore 15 yo ‘Darkest’
(43%, OB 2013)

Nose: quite nice, a classic combination of smoke and sherry. Subtle smoky bonfire rather than heavy peat. The sherry is...

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In the Singleton series that was originally made for travel retail, the Singleton of Dufftown offers three expressions: 12 Year Old, 15 Year Old and 18 Year Old. This year, two new NAS expressions were launched: Tailfire and Sunray.

Singleton of Dufftown 15 yo
(40%, OB 2013)

Nose: much nicer than expected. There’s an uncommon mix of lipstick wax, orange blossom and a dark beer-like malty sweetness. Works surprisingly well. Apple pie and toffee, oranges and honey. Also a certain dustiness. majbe soft tobacco. I quite like this. Mouth: fairly soft, too bad, with a generic sweetness. Bummer. The...

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This too is Gordon & MacPhail…

The Belgian retailer The Bonding Dram picked this Caol Ila 2006 from the Gordon & MacPhail stocks. It was a joint bottling with the Flemish Maltwhisky Society, a whisky club based in the same region.

Caol Ila 7 yo 2006 (56,5%, Gordon & MacPhail for The Bonding Dram & FMWS 2014, refill sherry hogshead #306202, 309 btl.)

Nose: very straightforward. Lots of coastal notes, deep soot, burnt heather. Also quite some medicinal notes, iodine, camphor, a little asphalt. Intense peat. But there’s also a loud sweetness that fights back. Baked apple, molasses,...

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Most people have this romantic idea that sherry casks used for the maturation of whisky have been used for years in the soleras of Spanish bodegas first and are then sent to Scotland. In reality this is an exception rather than a general rule, nowadays the vast majority of casks are actually new – they are made on request and filled with “seasoning wine” (which sits a couple of steps below the regular sherry wines) for a relatively short period.

In this case it’s different. Bodegas Tradición , a highly respected supplier of (very old) sherries, provided Glengoyne with two casks that were...

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The latest superwhisky brought to us by Poland’s investment company Wealth Solutions is a Glen Grant 1948 , sourced from the Gordon & MacPhail stocks. It’s a stunning 66 years old and bottled at cask strength.

The 160 decanters had already been sold before the presentation in maj 2014, for an undisclosed amount.

Gordon & MacPhail , as one of Scotland’s oldest independent bottlers, have always had long-standing contracts with major distilleries to buy new make and mature them either at the distillery, or more commonly in their own warehouses in Elgin. Their portfolio contains some of the...

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