This year, Distill collection contained 3 Bunnahabhain releases and for the first time in a few years none of the special releases is peated.

The first one we check out is a 11 Year Old Bunnahabhain from 2007 that was finished in French Brandy casks before being bottled at 52.5%

Can it live up to the expectations of previous years releases?

Bunnahabhain 2007 11 Year Old French Brandy Finish (52.5%, £109 / €149.90 )

Nose : Somewhat dry and quite oily, A very airy feeling like we’re sniffing it from afar time does the trick and the it’s getting stronger...

Yesterday we checked out the Bunnahabhain 2007 Brandy Cask Finish which was good but I felt was missing something to be a special offering and today we’ll check his twin – the Bunnahabhain 2007 11 Year Old Port Pipe Finish.

This whisky spent almost full 9 years in refill hogsheads and then was finished for 2 more years in Portuguese port pipes. Only 1578 bottles were made at abv of 55.3%.

Bunnahabhain 2007 11 Year Old Port Pipe Finish (55.3%, €159 )

Nose : Sweet nose, red fruits with  plums, sour-sweet red berries, blueberries, roses, honey, vanilla, oily and heavy....

Earlier this year (2 months ago to be precise), Milk & Honey distillery has released their Founder’s Edition whisky, a limited edition of 1000 bottles for those who participated in their crowd funding campaign six years ago. I was fortunate to think ahead and invest in the campaign and get some bottles home.

This is the first official release of whisky distilled at the distillery, excluding the Bottle-Your-Own  offering at the distillery. The timing for the release was crucial. It had to prelude the single casks releases for the festivals season and the first core line up official whisky offering...

In the last few years we’ve seen a huge number of sherried 2007 Vintage Glenlivet casks bottled by Signatory and they became oh so very popular that it’s time I’ll review one of those. Our ‘victim’ is cask #900242 that bottled by Signatory under The Un-Chillfiltered Collection brand at 46%

The sherry butt was filled on 10/04/2007 and bottled 27/02/2019 and at the diluated ABV of 46% it yielded 887 bottles.

Glenlivet 2007 11 Year Old Cask #900242 (46%, £55 / ₪280 )

Nose : Soft dried fruit, cereals, milk chocolate, raspberries and blueberries, cinnamon, nutmeg and soft oak spice....

In the wake of the news of the forthcoming Ardbeg Blaaack (An Ardbeg Comittee for 2020, possibly Ardbeg day release), it’s a good idea to review one of Ardbeg releases and one that was eagerly expected by Ardbeg fans for years – Ardbeg 19 Traigh Bhan.

I remember myself waiting patiently over the years for a new core line-up Ardbeg with a higher age statement from the new regime stock. But when the opportunity to release a new 15,17 (now that could be something – a rebirth of the 17!) or 18 year old expressions has passed without new releases,...

One more Deanston from Distell 2019 collection and this time it’s the 1997 vintage 21 Year Old finished in Palo Cortado casks.

The whisky was distilled and filled into bourbon casks on november 1997 where it matured for over 18 years and then it was finished in the Palo Cortado sherry hogsheads since april 2016 (so finished for over 2 years).

1663 (or majbe it’s 280?) bottles were made, bottled at 51.8%.

Last year Distell released Palo Cortado finished Bunnahabhain which was excellent and I assume those Palo Cortado casks here are from the same cask parcel so I have...

The second Deanston in Distell 2019 Collection is a 2002 vintage aged for 16 years. It spent 14 years in re-charred ex-bourbon casks on (filled on 18th december 2002), then transferred into organic Oloroso casks (supplied by Robles, the only fully organic sherry producer) on 5th maj 2016 for additional 2 years or so.

Total of 528 (or 3492) bottles were made for this limited edition.

Deanston 2002 16 Year Old Organic Oloroso Cask Finish (50.6%, €113.99 )

Nose : Soft, strong malt and cereals notes, with bread dough and croissant, honey. Then sweet red dried berries, cinnamon and nutmeg,...

It’s time for the first (but not the last!) review of an official bottling from Foursquare, the Rum distillery in Barbados. Let’s start with the latest vintage release ,Foursquare 2007 which follows the 2005 vintage from last year (and the 2004 vintage the year before).

It’s a 12 Year Old rum from ex-bourbon casks, all matured in Barbados so the aging is intense and the Angel’s share is on a different (and higher) scale than the Scottish whisky figures…

Foursquare 2007 12 Year Old (59%, £55.95 / €59,97 / $ 74.95 )

Nose : Bright and fruity, almost perfume-y, banana,...

Even though it’s still summer and hot here, I can’t let the week pass without a single whisky review. So here’s something light and fitting for the season – Cadenhead Creations ‘Light Creamy Vanilla’ 26 Year Old .- a blended Maltwhisky mixing spirit from Glenlivet, Bruichladdich, Glen Grant, Aultmore, Tamdhu, Strathisla and Braeval and matured in a bourbon hogshead.

It’s the 3rd batch, the whisky was distilled back in 1991 and bottled in 2018. 288 bottles at 43.8% were made available.

Cadenhead Creations Light Creamy Vanilla 26 Year Old (43.8%, €99,99 / €109 )

Photo: whiskybase.com

Nose : Punchy...

Take a whisky from a classic vintage year from a well-known distillery, one that was matured in sherry casks they are famous for using them and you’d expect a fantastic whisky.

This is what we had in mind when I selected this whisky for a blind tasting events earlier this year – A Glendronach from 1993 (A Master Vintage!) matured in Oloroso and PX casks so it must be a winner.

Let’s see what I thought of it:

Glendronach Master Vintage 1993 25 Year Old (48.2%, £250 / € 218.90 )

Photo credit: whiskybase.com

Nose : Sour dried berries, a...

Deanston distillery is the lesser known member in Distell distilleries portfolio and also the most underrated one. But in the the last few years, Distell has released a few Deanston limited editions that made some waves and raised the wareness of the distillery products in whisky drinkers minds.

This year, Distill has includes no less than three different Deanston offerings in their Distell 2019 collection and of course we’ll check them all this week here on Whisky Gospel.

The first one up is the younger offering: Deanston from 2006 with 12 Year Old age statement that was finished in Fino...

Today’s subject is a shiny Glenfarclas which just happens to be the latest link in a series that honors Scottish figures that started back in 1996.

The 23rd edition in the series honours the Scottish king Jakob I. (19 juni 1566 – 27 mars 1625):

Charles James was the son of Maria Stuart and her second husband’s Lord Darnley. When his mother had to resign one year after his birth, he was appointed Scottish king under the name Jakob/James VI. on 24 juli 1567. But after Elisabeth I. died without children in 1603, he also received the crown of England...

The review today checks out the latest Glenlivet core line addition (from augusti 2018) – The Glenlivet Captain’s Reserve . The name comes from Captain William Smith Grant who was the great grandson of Glenlivet’s founder George Smith.

It’s a NAS offering (at 40% and probably chill filtered), matured in ex-bourbon barrel and sherry butts and then finished for a short time (6 months) in Cognac casks. Cognac cask finish isn’t too common in the industry, especially for mainstream core line release, so I’m quite intriguing to try it.

The Glenlivet Captain’s Reserve (40%, £46.95 / € 35,50)

Nose : Weak...

After checking out the mildly disappointing Glenlivet Cpatain’s Reserve let’s have another Glenlivet to balance the scales. In the last year we’ve seen a few interesting releases coming from an unnamed Speyside distilleries, and some are rumored to be from Glenlivet. They have similar age and strength so majbe they are coming from the same casks parcel?

One of those releases is the Dramfool special bottling for Spirit of Speyside 2019, named Elderly Elvis Tilting

Bruce, the man behind Dramfool love words game and anagrams. We reviewed a Lagavulin called Like a Villian and there was another Glenlivet called Give...

Longrow 14 Year Old Sherry Cask Matured was one of the 2018 limited editions from Springbank (along with the Hazelburn Oloroso) and it was released exactly 12 months ago in augusti 2018.

Interesting enough, even a year later it’s still widely available (unlike most Springbank limited editions), so we need to review it and understand why…

This Longrow was distilled november 2003 and Bottled in juli 2018, the refill oloroso casks yielded 9000 bottles at 57.8%

Longrow 14 Year Old Sherry Cask 57.8% ( €97 / $109.99 )

Nose : Dirty, gun powder and mild sulphur. Then dried raspberries, strong...

Compass Box are really geared up in 2019 as I counted 6 new global releases so far in 2019 and a few more are coming later year. We’ve managed to review most of them here and here’s the review on their latest release to date: The Circle No. 1.

The Circle is the result of a competition ran by Compass Box back in 2018 for bartenders and Rosey Mitchell, the winner of the competition was prized creating a blend along with John Glazer and Jill Boyd.

Rosey wanted to make an approachable whisky to be shared with friends, something for...

After reviewing last week the new entry level Mortlach 12 Year Old , it’s time to tackle the next step on the Mortlach ladder – the new Mortlach 16 Year Old.

The new Mortlach 16 Year Old is the litmus test of the new line up as Inevitably it’s compared to the classic Flora & Fauna Mortlach 16 Year Old which was a loved whisky (even I liked it ) and then became a cult and sought after bottle when it was dropped from production in favor of the older (and failed) line up.

Unlike the 12 Year Old which...

It’s a very slow Sunday here so I think it’s a good time to review a punchy whisky to wake up the spirit and eventually I settled on some heavily peated whisky. Yes you guessed right – an Octomore. I have a few of those ready to be published so let’s review Octomore 8.4 today. I know it’s not a recent release (we already have the 9.x series out there for a while and the 10.x series coming soon) but since it’s still available out there for purchase, why not?

It’s the x.4 designation and it means that Otomore 8.4...

Yesterday we reviewed Compass Box Affinity, their Whisky and Calvados spirit and today we’re checking out their latest (and very peated) release: No Name No. 2,

No Name 1 was released late 2017 and it caught on like fire also because it contained a large portion of Ardbeg malt which we rarely see outside (expensive) single malts (at least back then). I reviewed No Name and didn’t like it much thinking it was a bit one dimensional and peat focused without depth. Seems like Compass Box somewhat agreed with this assessment (even though I’m sure they liked it), as we...

It’s been a while since we had a non-whisky review and once again I turn to a Rum bottled by The Duchess, this time their recent 21 Year Old Caroni.

This Caroni was distilled 02/1998, then matured for 21 years in cask #20 before finally being bottled on 05/03/2019, yielding 245 bottles from the cask (so not 100% tropical weather maturation).

This is a sister cask to the 20 Year Old Caroni The Duchess released last year and I loved it so let’s see how this one with extra year fares:

Caroni 1998 21 Year Old (The Duchess) (64.1%, €199...