Monthly Archives: February 2023

Longrow Hand-Filled, October 2022

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Here is the third of this week’s trio of reviews of Springbank distillery hand-filled bottles from October 2022. I reviewed the Springbank from the set on Tuesday and the Hazelburn on Monday. I found that Hazelburn—as I had the August 2022 Hazelburn hand-fill—to be quite palpably peaty. In fact, blind, I would have guessed it was a Longrow. I also liked it a lot. Here now is the actual Longrow from the set and I can only hope that it will not turn out to be devoid of peat. I would also say that I expect to like this even more but the Longrow in the August trio was actually the weakest of that set (which is not to say it was bad). Let’s get right to it.

(As with the other Springbank hand-fills, there is no information on age, distillation here or cask type for this Longrow.)

Longrow Hand-Filled, October 2022 (57.6%; from a bottle split)

Nose: Earthy peat with a bit of savoury gunpowder, dried orange peel and dried mushrooms. Maltier and saltier on the second sniff. With more time there’s toffee as well. A few drops of water and the gunpowder recedes a fair bit and there’s more malt now. Continue reading →

Recipes on Hiatus

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In my look-ahead to February on the blog, I’d noted that I had not posted a recipe poll for the month and would instead be clearing out my backlog of recipes. In fact, I am going to be taking a break from posting recipes in any regular manner for the month of February and probably through March as well. Though it may not appear to be the case, given how sloppy my recipe writing is, recipe posts actually take more of my time to produce than my whisky reviews or restaurant reports. And right now I don’t have the time for that. Through February my recipe energies will be focused on the pop-up dinner I am doing with/at Alma at the end of the month. And in March I will likely be setting out again on some long and tiring international travel on behalf of the college. And so rather than hold myself to the usual schedule of weekly recipe posts, I am going to give that a rest for a while and instead clear out my even larger backlog of restaurant reports. By my rough calculation, I have six reports to go from our trip to Southern California in December and 15 from Delhi and Goa in January. And let’s not even mention my long-promised reports from my trip to Dublin and western Ireland in July… Continue reading →

Josui Ramen (Torrance, CA, December 2022)

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Back to Southern California, back to the South Bay, back to ramen. As I’ve noted before, when my mother-in-law moved from Koreatown to Seal Beach, we lost easy access to the best Korean food in the United States but gained easier access to what is probably the most extensive Japanese restaurant scene in the US in Torrance, Gardena and environs. Japanese cuisine is probably our family’s easiest call when eating out all together: whether it’s sushi, ramen, or izakaya food, the boys are always into it and it’s easy to find things that everyone enjoys. Consequently, now that we are 20 minutes from Torrance and Gardena, we eat Japanese food a lot on our visits to Southern California. Indeed, on this trip it was the cuisine we ate out most. This visit to Josui Ramen in Torrance was not the first of those outings but it’s the one I’m reporting on first. Continue reading →

Springbank Hand-Filled, October 2022

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I am having a hell of a time getting over jet lag after getting back from India last Friday afternoon. I have not had the energy to sit down and resize pictures and write my next restaurant report. Therefore, here, a day early, is this week’s second whisky review.

This is also the second of this week’s reviews of a trio of hand-fills bottled at Springbank in October 2022 (I did not fill them myself; I acquired the samples from the person who did). You may recall that I reviewed the Hazelburn from the set yesterday, and that I liked it a lot. I found quite a bit of peat in that Hazelburn, as I had in the August iteration as well. Will this Springbank be likewise atypical? Or will it be more in line with the Springbank in the August set, which I liked a lot? Let’s see.

Continue reading →

Hazelburn Hand-Filled, October 2022

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Back in November, I did a week of reviews of hand-filled casks from Springbank (a Hazelburn, a Springbank and a Longrow). Those casks were all filled in August of 2022. This week I have a set of reviews of hand-filled Hazelburn, Springbank and Longrow that were all filled in late October—not by the same person, neither of whom were me. As with the August and most other Springbank distillery hand-fills, these do not have vintage or age statements and nor are cask types specified. Indeed, I’m not sure if they’re even single casks per se, as opposed to containers that get topped up when they get low. If any regular visitor to Campbeltown knows more about how this hand-fill program works at Springbank, please write in below. I do know that I liked all three of the August hand-fills very much indeed. And, indeed, I may have liked the Hazelburn the most of the three. As sometimes happens with Hazelburn—nominally, Springbank’s unpeated distillate—I found a fair bit of peat in that previous iteration alongside fruit and the usual Springbank/Longrow earthy complex. Blind, I probably would have guessed that one was a Longrow. I’m not complaining, mind. Let’s see if this one lives up to Hazelburn’s official unpeated description. Continue reading →

An Annoying Pop-Up at Cafe Alma, Friday Feb 24

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If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you may already have caught a whiff of what may well be the beginning of the end of fine dining in Minnesota. I will be collaborating with the fine chefs of Alma on an Indian pop-up dinner in the Cafe Alma space. The pop-up is named India’s Gandhi Tandoori Bollywood Mahal and will take place on Friday, February 24. There will be two seatings: one at 5.30 pm and one at 8 pm. The cost is $60/head before drinks, tax and the 21% hospitality charge.

Both seatings will feature the same set menu of 7-8 dishes presented in a few courses along the lines of the restaurant’s current dinner model. There will be no choices available, which means this will not be appropriate for vegans, vegetarians or people with dairy or gluten restrictions (and I should note that the menu will include pork). Nor will there be choices offered on spice/heat levels in any of the dishes (though I don’t think anything will be very hot). Continue reading →

Glen Mhor 44, 1966 (Gordon & MacPhail for Van Wees)

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This ancient Glen Mhor was bottled by Gordon & MacPhail in 2011. It was part of a legendary parcel of casks bottled for Van Wees in the Netherlands. The other casks in the parcel included a legendary quintet from Longmorn. One of those, a 41 year old distilled in 1969, was the recipient of the highest score I have yet given a whisky; and the others were no slouches either. I’m hopeful that this Glen Mhor will prove worthy of its company and signal a good start to the month in whisky reviews. Let’s see.

Glen Mhor 44, 1966 (52.1%; Gordon & MacPhail for Van Wees; refill sherry hogshead; from my own bottle)

Nose: Sweet orange, paper, old coins, brown butter, an old wooden box, just a hint of soot. The citrus gets brighter/more acidic as it sits and the softer notes expand as the brown butter is joined by some malt; a leafy note now too. As it sits the fruit comes to the fore and there’s pineapple and a bit of apricot now along with the citrus. Continue reading →

Coming Soon…

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I’m afraid I don’t have much of a look ahead to February on the blog. I am in Delhi as I type this—I’ll be back in Minnesota on Friday—and have not put much thought towards the blog for the last few weeks. January’s whisky reviews were scheduled before I left along with a handful to get a jump on February before I got back. And so I can tell you that the first whisky review of the month will be of a very old whisky from a closed distillery and that next week’s reviews will all be of casks of Springbank, Longrow and Hazelburn that were hand-filled at the distillery in late October. Beyond that, I have very little idea of what I might review this month. I had a large cache of samples scheduled to come in earlier in the month but they met with a bad fate in transport and are no longer on the horizon. I am also supposed to be receiving a batch of samples of 25+ yo sherry monsters bottled by G&M and if those show up in one piece I might review them. And there’s a good chance there might be a week of Glenallachie as well. Let’s see how it goes. Continue reading →