Monthly Archives: December 2021

Bowmore 15, Feis Ile 2019

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After a week of Talisker let’s keep the focus on peat but shift south to another island: Islay.

Up first is a Bowmore 15, released for Feis Ile 2019 and put together from spirit matured in first-fill bourbon casks. In this it differs from the other Bowmores I’ve reviewed this year, which include one from refill sherry casks, a port finish, one from a mix of oloroso and PX casks, and another single refill sherry cask. Well, bourbon cask Bowmore is a particular favourite of mine and so I hope this is a good instance of that style. Let’s see.

Bowmore 15, Feis Ile 2019 (51.7%; first-fill bourbon casks; from a bottle split)

Nose: Takes a few beats to open up and then there’s the sweet Bowmore florals along with some passionfruit, some vanilla; mineral peat runs through it all. Brinier with each sniff. Not too much change after that. A few drops of water pull out some cream and turn the fruit more acidic. Continue reading →

Talisker 20, 1982

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Talisker Week began with the very first release of the Talisker 18 from 2004 and continued with the 2015 release of the Distillers Edition. Let’s now close it out with a 20 yo. This was released in 2003 and was put together from a number of  ex-bourbon casks distilled in 1982, for a total of 12,000 bottles released worldwide. This came a year after (I think) another 20 yo from sherry casks from the 1981 vintage. That sherry cask release has divided whisky geeks who’ve had it. Some utterly love it, some find it marred by sulphur. The bourbon cask edition, however, I don’t think I’ve ever read any complaints about. It’s about as quintessential modern-era Talisker as you could hope for. Indeed, I wonder if this release didn’t inspire the 18 yo that became a part of the distillery’s core lineup the following year. I would not be surprised to learn that the vatting for that first 18 yo drew on casks that went into this 20 yo—after all, in the early 2000s it was still common for official releases to contain spirit older than the age on the label. At any rate, as I am currently drinking both side by side I find many points of similarity; the major difference being abv and that the 18 yo has some fraction of ex-sherry casks in it as well. Alright, let’s get to it. Continue reading →

Christmas Lima Beans with Coriander and Roasted Cumin

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Punjabi-style rajma remains my favourite Indian way of making beans but when you cook beans as often as I do it’s difficult to resist changing things up. The major form these departures take for me tend to do with the mix and proportion of spices. While I do very much enjoy the robust blend of spices that goes into proper rajma (really very well achieved by using a commercial rajma masala mix—affiliate link), bean recipes that emphasize particular spices work very well too. Such, for example, was the recipe I posted almost exactly a year ago for white beans with cumin and ginger. This recipe is, as you will see, built on the same template—except instead of the darker, richer flavour of cumin in the spice mix there is the floral scent of coriander seed. The cumin comes in at the end roasted and powdered and sprinkled over the finished dish. It all comes together very well for a perfect bowl of winter beans. Give it a go: you won’t regret it. Continue reading →

Talisker Distiller’s Edition, 2005-2015

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Following Monday’s review of a bottle from the first-ever release of the Talisker 18 in 2004, let’s continue Talisker week with another from the distillery’s core range. The Talisker Distillers Edition—like all Diageo’s Distillers Edition releases—is the distillery’s entry-level age-stated malt—in this case the 10 yo—finished for a few months in sherry or wine casks—in this case, Amoroso sherry casks. As I’ve noted before, the only one of these I’ve consistently liked is the Lagavulin Distillers Edition. In most of the others the finish has not in my view tended to add very much that’s compelling to the base malt; though I suppose it is always good to have some variation. Such was my view of the only other Talisker Distillers Edition I’ve reviewed—the 2011 release. This one is from four years later. Will it be appreciably different? And will it make me curious enough about more recent releases to seek them out? Let’s see. Continue reading →

Petite Leon (Minneapolis)

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We were originally supposed to eat at Petite Leon (in Minneapolis’ Kingfield neighbourhood) in early September. We’d made those reservations in July before Delta took off. By the time September approached we were too wary about eating indoors and so cancelled the reservation. Now, of course, Omicron is the variant of concern—and Minnesota’s infection rates are still nothing to be happy about—but we still made Petite Leon our first indoor meal in the Twin Cities since our dinner at Estelle in late July. The missus and I have both received our boosters—as have the friends we dined with—and both kids are now fully vaccinated as well. As such, we are loosening some of our previous caution. Did the food at Petite Leon justify this change? Yes, it did. We thought it was very good indeed. Continue reading →

Talisker 18, 2004 Release

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When we arrived in Minnesota in 2007 I fortuitously happened on Chicago-Lake Liquors while visiting the Midtown Global Market across the street. Chicago-Lake’s large collection of single malt whisky at minimal markups had a lot to do with my rapidly accelerating whisky mania at the time. Alas, those days are long gone—Chicago-Lake is still around but the selection shrank and the prices rose quite a few years ago. I will always be grateful to the owners of the store though for making it possible for me to try so many excellent official releases at such reasonable prices. These included the Laphroaig 15 for $40, the Glenlivet Nadurra for $55, Springbank 15 for about $65, the Highland Park 18 for $80 and, yes, the Talisker 18 for all of $50. The Talisker 18 had only just been introduced a few years ago and had recently been named the best whisky in the world by some publication or the other. And so I was very happy to try it. I loved it right away and for a good few years bought it regularly from Chicago-Lake. Elsewhere the price was higher—$80’ish—but that paled in comparison to the price hike around 2012 or so when it shot up to $140. Alas, I had not had the foresight to stock up on a case or two and so the memories of the early releases were soon all I had left of them. Thus when the chance recently presented itself to acquire a bottle of the 2004 release I jumped at it. I was curious to see what I would make of it now. I’d liked the 2011 release but not thought it very special; the 2007 release I’d liked a lot more. Would this one live up to my memory of it? Well, I’m very glad to say it does. Continue reading →

Orkney 21, 1999 (Impex)

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I closed out November’s whisky reviews with an independently bottled Highland Park from a bourbon cask. Let’s start December’s whisky reviews with another.

Like Monday’s cask for K&L, which it is four years older than, this one bears the “Orkney” appellation. It’s part of something called the Impex Collection. Impex is a US-based importer. I’m not sure if this Impex Collection business is new in 2021 or if they’ve been at it for a while. I do know the prices being asked for the bottles in the series are enthusiastic. This 21 yo, for example, is going for $200 and up. I suppose that’s low compared to what an official bottle from the distillery of similar age would go for but that’s certainly a price at which I expect a whisky to be very, very good indeed. K&L’s 17 yo cost a scant $80 and it was very good indeed. Let’s see if this one can match it. Continue reading →

December’s Recipes: A Poll

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Thursday is recipe day on the blog. Though there are five Thursdays this December you will not be getting five recipes from me. We will begin the month with the recipe poll on the first Thursday.

The summer and my vegetable garden are now a faint memory—though it’s not actually gotten very cold here yet: on December 1 the maximum was a positively tropical 52f or so. Still, signs of the summer persist here with the presence of an eggplant and pork dish that I first made back in early October when my eggplant plants were enjoying their last hurrah. It didn’t make the cut in November but who knows, December may be its month. It’s joined on the poll by another past also-ran: a masala-crusted stir-fry of spare ribs that I rather like but which has failed to garner enough votes to make it out of last place in the last two polls. I have one more packet of spare ribs left in the freezer from the last pig we went in on and if this makes the cut this month I will quite enjoy frying them up again. The other four dishes are new to the poll, all of them vegetarian. Continue reading →

Coming Soon…

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And so we’re almost at the end of the year. Even as things begin to look uncertain again on the pandemic front with the new Covid variant, we’re finally as a family all completely vaccinated—with the missus and I having received our boosters to boot. And we’re finally about to take a trip on a plane. We have tickets to go back to Los Angeles for 10 days at the end of the month. The boys and their halmoni haven’t seen each other in almost exactly two years and it’ll be good to be able to fix that. It’ll also be good to be able to eat out a little more freely in Los Angeles, where restaurants are subject to a vaccine mandate for in-person dining. This is very much not the case in Minnesota, even though our infection numbers are still very high. Nonetheless, given our fully vaccinated status the missus and I are stepping back out into the in-person dining world here as well. We have reservations at Petite Leon this weekend. Hopefully, no further Omicron news will emerge between now and then to call them into question as happened the last time we had reservations there (early September, Delta). Continue reading →