The Glenfarclas 40 was first released in 2010. It got very good reviews, not least for its very fair price. In the US the retail price was less than $500 and in practice it could be found relatively easily for the next year or two for quite a bit less than that. This was very Glenfarclas. While most official releases of this age were and are released in fancy decanters with ludicrous packaging at prices far above $1000, Glenfarclas just popped their 40 year old in the same bottle and tube in which they sell their 10 yo and put the price in reach of regular punters. This used to be the case with their 30 yo too: not long ago it could easily be found in the UK for just above £100—and their 21 and 25 yo malts have always been very fairly priced vis a vis most of the rest of the market as well. For this reason, perhaps, no one has ever begrudged Glenfarclas for the higher prices on some of their Family Casks releases: they’ve always done right by regular drinkers. That said, the price of the 30 yo has gone up of late and I’m not sure what the status of the 40 yo is—the price being asked for it now in the US is quite a bit higher than $500, and I’m not sure if that’s for what’s left of the original release or if there have been more releases since. If you can shed light on any of this please write in below. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: November 2016
Kilkerran Work in Progress 6, Bourbon Wood
Until Kilkerran’s whisky began to be available a few years ago there were only two functional distilleries in Campbeltown—once the heart of Scottish whisky production. These distilleries were/are Glen Scotia and Springbank. Now Springbank does produce the Hazelburn and Longrow malts as well, but as any whisky geek will tell you, these are merely production variants of Springbank, produced at the same distillery. Kilkerran, however, is distilled at a completely different distillery. Confusingly, the distillery’s name is not Kilkerran but Glengyle. And Glengyle has a long and convoluted history: it was founded in the 1870s but by the early 1900s was not really making whisky anymore. After a number of abortive attempts to get it going again throughout the century it was finally re-started in 2000 by the same people who own Springbank—bringing the distillery full-circle: it was originally started by a member of the same family who’d broken away from the Springbank business. However, at this point Glengyle was a brand name owned by Loch Lomond (who operate Glen Scotia) and so Kilkerran was the name chosen for the malts made at the reopened Glengyle distillery. Continue reading
Jean-Talon Market, Pt. 1 (Montreal)
We were recently in Montreal for a few days. It was a wonderful trip despite the grey weather (and a nightmarish travel day to end it after we missed our early morning nonstop flight back to Minneapolis). We hung out with some old friends who work there, walked around the city and saw a couple of really good exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts (one on Toulouse-Lautrec and another on Robert Mapplethorpe). And we ate some very good food. When it comes to food in the French vein, traditional and contemporary, there is probably no better city in North America than Montreal. There certainly isn’t a better city for bakeries and patisseries. I’m going to start my report though not with a bakery or a restaurant but with a visit we made on the morning of our second day there to the famous Jean-Talon market. In case you don’t know, Montreal has a number of public markets that combine traditional farmers’ markets with restaurants/food stands and various purveyors of cheese, pastry, meat, fish etc. And Jean-Talon is the most renowned of these markets. Continue reading
Ben Nevis 19, Batch 4 (TBWC)
That Boutiquey Whisky Company is a line of whiskies released by Master of Malt, the UK whisky store best known for not being the Whisky Exchange but seemingly desperately wanting to be. Take for example, this series, in 500 ml bottles, that launched after TWE’s 500 ml Elements of Islay series. The TBWC malts, however, are not limited to Islay and have labels as colourful (or garish, if you prefer) as those of Elements of Islay are minimalist. It’s a campier look, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is that reviewers I trust rarely seem to have overmuch praise for what’s in TBWC’s bottles. That used to generally also be true of Ben Nevis, though its previously dodgy reputation seems to be on the rise of late. I’m on record as saying that Ben Nevis, especially from sherry casks, may well be the next big thing among whisky geeks. It’s certainly true that well-aged, independent, sherried Ben Nevis can still be found at reasonable prices. I’m not sure if this one was reasonably priced though—these TBWC releases are usually priced pretty high as well. Anyway, let’s see what this is like. At least it’s not NAS as many of their earlier releases were (and, to be fair, as every single Elements of Islay release has been). Continue reading
Coming Soon…
Here is a look ahead to November on the blog. But first a quick look back at October. The most read reviews in October were of the Laphroaig Cairdeas 2016 and the Laphroaig Lore. Right behind them was the review of the Booker’s Small Batch. In fourth position was my recipe for Pork Pickle. After that it was three more bourbons: the Dickel 12, Booker’s Noe Secret, and the Dickel 17. Of all the other Islay whiskies I reviewed only two made it into the top 10: the Ardbeg 27, 1973 and the Caol Ila 14 Unpeated. Advice to the beginning blogger who is very interested in page views: review only bourbon and current releases. The list was rounded out by the perennially popular piece on Glendronach’s cask shenanigans (at #6) and my love letter to Pentatonix. Continue reading