Monthly Archives: February 2014

Longrow: “CV” and “Peated”

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Longrow CVThe “CV” was the NAS entry-level Longrow (Springbank’s peated line) until recently when it was discontinued in favour of the new “Peated”. The CV was much beloved and there was the requisite gnashing of teeth at the news. It is not very clear to me though if more than the name has changed (I am clear though that I have not bothered to check–if you know one way or the other, please write in). It’s entirely possible that in a market where peat is king, Springbank felt the need to more clearly signal to the masses that they make a heavily peated whisky (after all, all Longrow is peated, so that description is not particularly unique to this release). Then again there may actually be a difference. Luckily, the price is not very different.

At any rate, I had saved a large’ish reference sample from my last bottle of the CV and having recently acquired a sample of the Peated the time is right to taste them head-to-head and see if I can make out any differences worth remarking. I’ve since found (and purchased) an old bottle of the CV at the original price at a store in the area and so unless the Peated knocks my socks off I’m in no hurry to run out and get a bottle. Continue reading →

Borough

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Here is your Twin Cities fine dining report for February. Borough, which opened last year, has received a lot of good press, locally and nationally, and after a good grounding dinner at Alma last month we were ready to once again try somewhere new. We had reservations at Borough for late dinner last Saturday with a group of friends and then a major storm hit southern Minnesota and snarled up the highways. It seemed at first that we would have to cancel–we have a 50-60 minute drive up to the cities, and there were reports all through Thursday and Friday of cars and semis crashed/spun out on the highway, and Saturday morning didn’t look promising either. Reports looked up in the afternoon, however, and we decided to chance it anyway (our friends live in the city). It probably wasn’t the smartest decision–the roads weren’t terrible the whole way but there were a few white-knuckle icy stretches. We arrived at the restaurant ready for some wine and hoping like hell that the meal would be worth it. Well, on the whole, it was. Continue reading →

Highland Park, St. Magnus, 2nd Ed.

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Highland Park, St. Magnus, 2nd Ed. In recent years Highland Park has really invested in the Norse history and connections of Orkney. The Magnus series, and the Hjarta before it, may have paved the way for Thor, Loki and Freya, proving people are willing to pay a lot for cask strength teen Highland Parks in wooden boxes and in “limited” releases. (The cheaper and lower strength travel retail warriors–Harald, Svein and Einar–hopefully do not foretell changes in the core line.) Though it must be said that the boxes the Magnus and Haakon (the third in the Magnus series) bottles came in look rather tame next to Thor, Loki and Freya’s longships. I did like the Loki a lot and so am looking forward to trying this sample from the second edition which saw Magnus get upgraded/downgraded from an Earl to a Saint while losing three years in age.

Highland Park 12 “St. Magnus” (55%; from a sample from a friend)

Nose: Strong peat–a little leathery, then quite a bit rubbery. After a minute or two here comes the fruit and it’s all dried: apricot, tangerine peel, figs. Just the faintest whiff of gunpowder. Gets salty (sea salt crystals) and sweet (inky) at the same time. With more time the fruit is more like very reduced preserves rather than dried/fruit leather/peel and it gets increasingly raisiny as well. With a drop or two of water the fruit is all integrated and there’s a savoury, slightly meaty note as well–oh wait, maybe that’s the gunpowder getting stronger. Continue reading →

Café Lota (Delhi, January 2014)

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exterior
Okay, so in my last Delhi restaurant review I noted of Indian Accent that it must surely be on the short-list of highly talked about and ambitious restaurants in the city and environs. It has recently been joined on this list by a restaurant very far away from it in price and ambience, though not, as you will see, in culinary scope. I refer here to the new(ish) restaurant at the Crafts Museum in Pragati Maidan, the unfortunately named Café Lota. We ate two wonderful meals there, but before we get to them let’s take a bit of a necessary detour first. Continue reading →

Glen Grant 1967-2003 (Scott’s Selection)

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Glen Grant 1967, Scott's SelectionThis ancient Glen Grant from Scott’s Selection is for me one of those stories that every whisky geek whose reach exceeds his or her bank balance’s grasp knows well. I saw it for years on shelves, listed at prices that were then past my comfort level (well past for whiskies on which little information was available), and passed. Now those prices are not entirely out of the question for me but I no longer see it on shelves. So when a friend offered me a sample I was partly hoping to have my initial qualms vindicated. But, as you’ll see, that did not turn out to be the case. Bloody hell.

Glen Grant 1967-2003 (55.1%; Scott’s Selection “Sherry Cask”; from a sample received in a swap)

It’s a little unusual for Scott’s Selection to specify cask type on the label but apparently it says “Sherry Cask” or “Sherry Wood” on this one. Continue reading →

Eagle Rare 10

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Eagle Rare 10
After yesterday’s Eagle Rare 17 from the 2010 BTAC here is the regular Eagle Rare 10. This is quite ubiquitous (most decently-stocked liquor stores have it), and very recognizable in its tall bottle. This is a single barrel release (not sure if this has always been the case); there’s surely some variation from barrel to barrel but I imagine they shoot for a pretty consistent profile in barrel selection. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never tried it before. Well, here goes.

Eagle Rare 10 (45%; B13 140; from a sample received in a swap)

Nose: Far less raisiny than yesterday’s Eagle Rare 17. More light molasses and maple syrup with strong notes of clove as well. With more time there’s some citrus, caramel and a touch of dusty wood. Gets a little brighter and a bit more floral with water. Continue reading →

Eagle Rare 17, BTAC 2010

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Eagle Rare 17 BTAC 2010Every famous group has one member that doesn’t get as much respect as the others from the general populace and the Eagle Rare 17 is the Charlie Watts of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. Of course, Charlie Watts was a great drummer and the Eagle Rare 17 is a pretty good bourbon too, despite being the one from the collection that’s most likely to hang around on shelves–at least that used to be the case; I’m not sure if it is anymore now that BTAC-mania has reached Pappy proportions. Anyway, this is from 2010– a more innocent time when there was no hatred in the world, every quarterback in the NFL was openly gay, and unicorns delivered free cases of the BTAC to every home in the land.

Eagle Rare 17, 2010 Release (45%; from a sample received in a swap)

Nose: Raisins soaked in honey, sweet caramel and slowly expanding wood. The sweet notes get richer with time and transition from caramel to toffee, and it gets spicier too–some rye, some cinnamon. After some time there’s also some wet slate/granite. With a lot more time it has a fair bit in common with some older sherried Highland/Speyside malts. With water there’s more dusty wood to go along with the caramel and also some nutmeg. Continue reading →

Indian Accent (Delhi, January 2014)

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Indian Accent Interior

Indian Accent, which opened in the boutique Manor hotel in Friends Colony three or four years ago, may or may not be Delhi’s most talked about fine dining restaurant but it is surely on the very short list of the most ambitious. Its reputation among Delhi foodies–at least among the subset in my group of friends–rests on Chef Manish Mehrotra’s nouveau/fusion take on traditional Indian food. A few things about my feelings about all this before I get to the meal itself:

1) I’m generally suspicious of all kinds of Asian fusion in the US because it seems to me that restaurants that try it are predicated on two things usually: a clientele that doesn’t actually eat/know Asian cuisines in their original contexts; and a bogus narrative in which Asian cuisines are seen as being “modernized” or elevated through whatever is being done to/with them. At best in the high end the use of Asian ingredients/flavours/techniques is seen as proof of the Euro/American trained chef’s openness of mind or creativity while they remain firmly grounded in the Euro/American idiom which remains the guarantor of their credentials. Continue reading →

Braeval 14, 1996 (Chieftain’s)

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Chieftain's, Braeval, 1996Here is another malt from Braeval, released well after the shift from the Braes of Glenlivet name. It was tasted right after the first (the 1977 from Glenhaven that I reviewed a couple of days ago). This was bottled by Chieftain’s, one of the independent labels of Ian Macleod who also own Glengoyne and recently Tamdhu. This was one of the first releases, I think, after Chieftain’s moved from 43% to 46% as their minimum abv. This is obviously from a different era than the Glenhaven; but it’s also from a different cask type than the Cadenhead’s 16, 1997 I reviewed last month. Will cask type or era make more of a difference? Let’s get right to it.

Braeval 14, 1996 (46%; Chieftain’s; sherry butt; from a reference sample saved from my own bottle)

Nose: Quite similar to the Glenhaven at first but much less intense: honeyed malt, some citrus and apricot and a hint of toasted wood and cereals. The fruit gets a little deeper with time. With a lot more time the gunpowder from the palate emerges on the nose as well but it’s not dominant here.

Palate: Citrus first and then a wave of savoury gunpowder. Some hints of tropical fruit below that but it’s a little too thin. The gunpowder gets a little stronger and begins to cover up the fruit. Not a whole lot of development.

Finish: Medium. A little metallic at first and then there’s the gunpowder.

Comments: Well, this is not very much like the bourbon cask Cadenhead’s from the following year. At first it seemed like it was going to be similar to the 1977 but then the gunpowder showed up–especially on the palate. It’s not overpowering or offensive (though the sulphur-phobe might disagree) but it doesn’t work so well with the thin mouthfeel. And given the thinnness I didn’t add water tonight. Not bad–especially on the nose–but a little too simple–especially on the palate.

I have now reviewed (and tasted) three Braevals, and found none of them particularly whelming. Ah well, more research needed.

Rating: 82 points.

Swagath (Delhi, January 2014)

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Swagath
I mentioned Swagath briefly in the intro to my review of Kerala Express. It opened in Defence Colony about ten years ago and was a sensation with its southwestern/coastal menu, with an emphasis on Konkani food. This kind of thing is all over Bombay, of course, and is far superior there but it was, by and large, new to Delhi. I can’t remember when Dakshin at the Sheraton opened but that was, of course, both far more expensive and also served a broader South Indian menu than Swagath did/does.

This is not to say that Swagath’s menu only or predominantly features food from the Konkan coast and environs. As is often the case in Delhi, it has been a “multicuisine” restaurant from the start, and you’ve always had to leaf past the Mughlai and Chinese sections of the menu to get to the interesting stuff. And that, in short, is a good illustration of what I said a while ago about the state of regional dining options in Delhi (and elsewhere): once they did not exist; now they do but the gods of butter chicken and chicken chowmein must still be appeased.  Continue reading →

Braes of Glenlivet, 1977-1997 (Glenhaven)

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Glenhaven, Braes of Glenlivet, 1977This is my second review of a malt from the erstwhile Braes of Glenlivet, now Braeval. I was not terribly enthused by the previous one, a 1997 vintage from Cadenhead’s. This whisky was released by the now-defunct Glenhaven and is from an earlier era. I quite liked an Auchroisk of the same vintage that they released at the same time as this and so I’m hopeful.

Braes of Glenlivet, 1977-1997 (49.3%; Glenhaven; from a sample received in a swap)

Nose: Toasted wood, light caramel, cinnamon butter (is that a real thing?). Gets quite malty. After a minute or two there’s quite a lot of honey and apricot and the wood is more polished than toasted now. There’s also more wood spice and notes of rye in particular. Very nice. With a drop of water the maltiness expands at first and then the fruit gets muskier and creamier.

Palate: Far hotter than I expected at 49.3%. The wood, malt, honey and apricot make the strongest impressions, roughly in that sequence. The apricot brightens out into something more citrussy (somewhere between lemon and orange) and there’s more bite from the wood spice on the second sip. And in general the wood gets stronger. Okay, let’s add water. Water pushes the wood back a bit and brings out a lot of pepper and some lemon.

Finish: Long. The fruit leads out into the wood but it’s the malt that seems to linger the most. With time the wood trumps the rest.

Comments: I liked this a lot on the nose but there was just a little too much wood on the palate and finish. It’s certainly not overly woody or tannic but just felt a little out of balance. While water pushed the wood back a bit, on the whole, I think I preferred it without. Not bad at all though and more evidence of how much good whisky is produced at unheralded distilleries.

Rating: 84 points.

Thanks to bpbleus for the sample!

Glendronach Confusion (or What is a “Single Cask”?)

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[Update: See the follow-up post here.]

Warning: this is long and symptomatic of obsessive compulsive disorder, and in any case may be something you already know or don’t care about. If you do choose to read the whole thing what are you going to find? Well, after a long’ish setting of the stage in which I describe how I came to think about this issue at all and the conversations that led me to explore it further, I detail how I came to discover that the term “Single Cask” may not refer to a whisky that was matured for its entire life in one cask; and furthermore that the cask type stated may not refer to the only type of cask in which it was matured. My chief reference here is to the Glendronach distillery but I suspect this is far more broadly applicable. Continue reading →

Kerala Express (Delhi, January 2014)

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I began my reviews of Golconda Bowl Express and Oh Calcutta by noting that back in the day there weren’t any Hyderabadi or Bengali dining options in Delhi as such. This is not exactly true of Malayali/Kerala food. In the early 1990s there was a restaurant by the name of Malabar in Hauz Khas that we used to eat at from work quite regularly and it had some Kerala stuff on the menu. And then there was the excellent Coconut Grove in the Ashok Yatri Niwas (a budget hotel in the Janpath/CP area). Then came the infamous tandoor murder case wherein a Youth Congress leader shot and killed his wife and tried to dispose of her chopped up corpse in the tandoor of the Baghiya restaurant in the same hotel. This understandably put a lot of people off the idea of eating in the hotel, and the Coconut Grove migrated to the nearby Hotel Janpath for some time and then disappeared (at least I think it’s gone–I haven’t really looked for it in a while)–its place in the Hotel Janpath being taken by another outpost of the now ubiquitous Swagath. The Ashok Yatri Niwas itself is also gone (it changed its name and was completely renovated and may have turned into a Ramada or something). Continue reading →

Glenlivet 16 “Nadurra”, Batch 1109I

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Glenlivet Nadurra
Of all the official Glenlivets the Nadurra is the most respected by geeks. It is very good indeed, but the fact that it is (now) cask strength and released in batches probably helps get it in the door. Not everyone loves it (see, for example, Jordan Devereaux’s review of another batch last month) but I’ve not yet met a batch I didn’t like a lot. This review is of a reference sample saved long ago from my very first bottle (I have bottles from two other batches in reserve). It’s still very reasonably priced in the US and should, I think, be a staple in any collection striving for representation from all the parts of the Scotch single malt spectrum.

Glenlivet 16 “Nadurra” (54.2%; Batch 1109I; from a reference sample saved from my own bottle)

Nose: Toasted wood, more buttery than laden with vanilla, at least at first–a little later some vanilla emerges. Also emerging is some sweetness–some honey, some raisiny notes–and also some mild citrus. And the woody note gets a little spicier too. With a couple of drops of water the citrus gets brighter and there’s some muskier fruit too–melon, pear, a hint of apricot. Continue reading →

Golconda Bowl Express (Noida, January 2014)

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mirchi-ka-saalanIn my review of Oh Calcutta last week I noted that when I lived in Delhi in the late 1980s and early 1990s there weren’t any Bengali restaurants around. Well, there was no Hyderabadi or Andhra food to be had either—not outside of the canteen (or cafetaria for you Amreekans) of the Andhra Bhavan (the Andhra Pradesh state government’s center of operations in Delhi). The Andhra Bhavan canteen is still in operation and still very popular–I ate there on my last trip to Delhi (and it’s still very cheap and good). But now there are plenty of other options. Of these on my last trip I also ate at a place named Poppadum (in the Ambawatta complex in Mehrauli) with comical service but pretty good food. But Mehrauli is a long way from my parents’ place in Noida, and in any case I remember Poppadum being all but impossible to find (in fact, it may no longer be in business—perhaps because no one could find it). And so when an old, close friend of mine drove over to pick us up for lunch we decided to stay local and head to the Noida outpost of Golconda Bowl (the main one is in the nightmare that is Hauz Khas village—more on this nightmare in a later post). Continue reading →

Laphroaig 13, 1998 (Archives)

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Laphroaig 14, 1998, ArchivesIt’s been too long since I last reviewed a Laphroaig. And considering the last one was from port casks it’s time to get back to bourbon cask basics. This was bottled by Menno and CJ of Whiskybase for their Archives label. It’s the first of two 1998 Laphroaigs they’ve put out (I have a bottle of the other but who knows when it will be opened). This is claimed to be 13 1/2 years old, but let’s not upset the Scotch Whisky Association.

Laphroaig 13, 1998 (54.2%; Archives, bourbon hogshead #700228; from a purchased sample)

I don’t actually remember purchasing this sample. Those of you who’ve purchased from Whiskybase know that they always kindly include a few 20 ml samples. But as I have two of these, and as I’ve been purchasing samples in pairs (so as to have more to taste) I think these must have been purchased too. Continue reading →

Glenlivet 18

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Glenlivet 18
Glenlivet have a fairly broad range of offerings for the single malt drinker, at various price points. The entry-level 12 yo is simple and uncomplicated (some would say uninteresting, but, again, it’s the entry-level malt). A few years and a little more money up the range sits the 15 yo French Oak (this one I have not tried). And at a little less than twice the price of that is this 18 yo. And then there’s the 21 yo “Archive” which comes in a nice wooden box, and is presumably aimed at a gifting market. And at about three times the price of the 21 yo sits the XXV, which I got to taste last October and which is rather good. Whisky geeks, generally, are most interested in the 16 yo cask strength Nadurra (very reasonably priced) among the official bottlings. My review of a batch of Nadurra is forthcoming but first the 18 yo. I’ve always enjoyed this when I’ve encountered it in friends’ homes and so am looking forward to evaluating it a little more attentively. Continue reading →