This week’s newest whiskies are all for the bourbon, rye, and scotch lovers.

First up, Basil Hayden’s is rolling out a limited-edition whiskey. Two by Two is a blend of two straight ryes (aged 5 and 7 years) and two straight bourbons (aged 6 and 13 years), both made in Kentucky and blended together. The whiskey costs $45 and will be available for a limited time.

Meanwhile, Heaven Hill has announced a 27 year old bourbon that will go on sale this fall. Less than 3,000 bottles of this whiskey will be available at a price of $399. Bourbon history...

Scallywag Chocolate Edition

It’s World Chocolate Day today and Douglas Laing celebrates with the launch of a Scallywag Chocolate Edition , a limited edition vintage 2009 matured predominantly in Spanish sherry butts. This results in deep cocoa and red fruit notes, perfect for pairing with high quality chocolate.

Just 300 bottles are available, bottled at 48% ABV.

Glenmorangie Allta

Glenmorangie Allta will be the tenth Private Edition from Glenmorangie . This whisky is created with the wild yeast that grows on their own barley fields near the distillery. It is said to result in a rich and fruity...

This Springbank 21 Years was botted by That Boutique-y Whisky Company . It was drawn from Madeira casks , which apparently were also used in the recipe of this year’s Springbank 21 bottled for the Open Day 2018.

It seems Springbank experimented a lot with Madeira wood around 1996-1997.

Springbank 21 yo (47,5%, That Boutique-y Whisky Company 2018, Batch #8, 911 btl.)

Nose: classic Springbank, showing dusty leather, lamp oil, hints of ‘clean’ flints and roasted nuts. Then more towards orange marmalade and dried figs, apricots, strawberry jam and Christmas cake. Delicate smoke. Cinnamon pastry, roasted chestnuts and...

If you asked me to make a shortlist of distilleries that have the nicest looking bottles, then Bruichladdich would be in it. I know, it’s not what matters most, but I do like the modern typography and bold colours. Too many whisky brands are taking the conservative (fake artisan) route when it comes to their identity.

They’ve now invested a lot of time in the new Port Charlotte 10 Year Old , which comes in a new type of dumpy bottle with dark green glass and heavily embossed lettering at the back. There’s something army-style to it, which suits this...

Here are two Glenrothes bottlings from the young series by Valinch & Mallet . One is bourbon matured, the other one is bottled from a sherry cask.

Glenrothes 9 yo 2009 (53%, Valinch & Mallet ‘Brotherhood Collection’ 2018, bourbon hogshead, 234 btl.)

Nose: a slightly milky nose, with hints of vanilla yoghurt and custard. Peaches and stewed apples, fresh butter and something faintly waxy. Just a hint of Panettone, as well as some marzipan and yellow flowers. Mouth: fruity and sweet, hints of pear juice but also a slight bitterness of ginger and herbs. Vanilla sauce. Parsley, apple...

Lost Spirits are a Californian Distillery (Yeah, USA California) producing American whiskey, Rum and other spirits including some interesting whisky under the Abomination brand. Why Abomination? Because what they did here is very unique and different, harnessing their technology to create them. They got some 45-55 ppm peated whisky from Islay, aged for 12-18 months in Bourbon casks before crossing the ocean to California. Some late-harvest Riesling seasoned oak staves were added and then those young spirits were  ‘tortured’ by the Lost Spirits Reactor for a few days. The reactor bombs the whisky with light, pressure, oxygen and who know what else,...

A weekend full of Glenmorangie news. After we reported on the...

When Compass Box released No Name last oktober, there was a lot of buzz around it. It is the peatiest whisky ever from Compass Box with 75.5% of it hailing from Ardbeg. Take into account that the Ardbeg portion carries an unpublished but still obtainable (via email) age statement that wasn’t seen from indie Ardbegs in ages (although recently a few indie Ardbegs popped up with similar age) and you can see why people were enamored by it. And let’s not forget the sexy black presentation and the added wink in the form of the ‘No Name’ name.

So the...

Along with No Name I reviewed yesterday , there was another interesting and engimatic Compass Box release coming out last year called Phenomenology with the slogan “Phenomenology – There’s No Right or Wrong”.

Phenomenology is a school of thought in psychology that focuses on phenomena, or, the experiences that we get from our senses–what we see, taste, smell, etc. It is a way of thinking about ourselves and the very personal, subjective nature of experience.

True to its name, when Phenomenology was initially released, it was an enigmatic whisky with no recipe nor official tasting notes released, but it’s been...

It’s a great feeling crossing off another distillery from the “yet to taste” list of Scottish distilleries. And it’s even more satisfying when it’s the smallest active distillery in Scotland – Strathearn distillery.

“Strath” means valley and so Strathearn means “the valley of the River Earn”. The distillery near Perth started distilling back in 2013 and is known for using a variety of small casks for the 30,000 liters or so of new make they made every year.

Since there are no official bottlings out there (The special inaugural release notwithstanding), the best way to acquire a Strathearn whisky bottle...

With a blink (and two days absence) I fall behind with my Feis Ile 2018 commemorative reviews. Let’s fix it as soon as possible…

Feis Ile third day belongs to Caol Ila, the largest distillery on Islay (production wise) and we’ll go with another Indie bottling – a 15 Year Old single cask bottling bottled by the SMWS.

The cask was distilled on 16.03.2000, filled into a Refill Ex-Bourbon Hogshead and was bottled in 2015, producing 270 bottles at 63.5%

SMWS 53.226 Teddy boys at the beach (63.5%)

picture credit: whiskybase.com

Nose : Feels heavy yet soft. Seawater smoke, dark honey,...

The fourth day of Feis Ile belongs to Laphroaig, the distillery that sparked my journey into whisky. My commemorative review is of a young Laphroaig, only 6 (and a half) years old bottled for whiskybase.com to celebrate the fact they have 100,000 bottles in their database for users to create and track their collections and stock.

It’s named ‘Same as 10k’ because it was a Laphroaig they bottled for 10,000 bottles in the database. It was distilled on 5/5/11 (nice date!) filled into a Refill Sherry Hogshead #3199 and bottled roughly 6 and a half years later on 23/1/18. This...