The last whisky review I posted before our trip to Japan (and our subsequent summer travels) began was of the 2013 release of the Hakushu Sherry Cask. The first review I have for you now that our travels are over is of another Japanese whisky, the Nikka Pure Malt White. I acquired this bottle many years ago, along with the Pure Malt Black (which I reviewed almost exactly a year ago). A friend picked both up from the duty free at Reykjavik airport in 2012 for all of $22 each. Rub your eyes and read that sentence again. Where the Black was dubbed “Smoky & Mellow” this one bears the words “Salty & Peaty” on the rear label. Where the Black contained a high dose of peated whisky from Nikkas’s Yoichi distillery, the White was described by them as “made mainly with Islay, Scotland type malt”. Now as to whether “Islay, Scotland type malt” means it actually contains Islay whisky or whether it contains whisky made in that style—perhaps from peated barley from Islay—I have no idea. Anyway, I’m looking forward to finally tasting it. Continue reading
Category Archives: Blended/Vatted
Nikka Pure Malt Black, “Smoky & Mellow”
Let’s keep the mini-streak of bottles I purchased around the turn of the previous decade going. My spreadsheet tells me that I acquired this bottle of Nikka’s Pure Malt Black, courtesy a friend transiting through the Reykjavik airport in August 2012. My spreadsheet also tells me that the 500 ml bottle cost all of $22 in 2012. This makes me want to both laugh and cry. There is very little good Japanese whisky on the market in the US anymore and none of it is as cheap as this was in 2012 (and it was cheap then too). That much is clear. What is less clear is the makeup of the whisky. Nikka put out a number of these Pure Malt releases (do they still?). In addition to the Black, there was also a White and a Red (apologies to any other colours I may be forgetting). No one was ever sure how they were made. The official line was that these were blends of malts from Nikka’s Miyagikyo and Yoichi distilleries but unofficially they were said to also contain whisky from, at least, the group’s Ben Nevis distillery in Scotland. Anyway, I don’t know why I never opened this bottle (or the bottle of the Pure Malt White my friend got me alongside it) for so many years but it’s now open, and here now are my notes. Continue reading
White Horse, 1970s Release
It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed an old Scotch blend, by which I mean, a blend released a long time ago. The last one I reviewed was a White Horse released in the 1950s. Today I have for you another White Horse, albeit one released in the 1970s. Unlike the 1950s release, this review is not of a pour from my own bottle but of a sample I’ve had sitting in my stash for a few years now. I have an unexpected feeling of nostalgia about this whisky, however. This because in the late 1970s, when my family lived in Iraq, White Horse was one of a few Scotch whiskies that my father had in his bar. A bottle of White Horse or Black and White from this era was probably my first encounter with the aroma of Scotch whisky—and, of course, we repurposed the empty bottles to store drinking water in the fridge! I certainly didn’t taste any of it then but it feels a bit like a time machine trip to be drinking it now. Let’s hope the actual whisky doesn’t now disappoint! On that note, let’s get right to it. Continue reading
Compass Box, Delilah’s XXV
Compass Box week ends with another commemorative whisky. I say “another” because both of this week’s other Compass Box reviews were also of commemorative whiskies. Stranger & Stranger (which I thought was nothing very special) was released to celebrate their relationship with the eponymous design company, and Spice Tree Extravaganza (which I liked a lot more) was released to mark an event in company history. Well, this one was released to mark the 25th anniversary of the Chicago whisky bar, Delilah’s. This was released five years after Compass Box’s first release for Delilah’s in 2013 (on the bar’s 20th anniversary). A chunk of the 25th anniversay vatting incorporates a parcel of that earlier release (29%), which had been aged further in a refill hogshead. The rest of the vatting comprises grain whisky from Cameronbridge (10.5%), and malt whisky from Miltonduff (10.5%), Teaninich (20%), an unnamed distillery near Aberlour (15%) and Linkwood (15%). The Cameronbridge and Miltonduff came out of first-fill American oak barrels and the rest from first-fill sherry butts. I’m not sure what it cost on release but I’d be surprised if it was cheap. Well, let’s see what it all added up to flavour-wise. Continue reading
Compass Box, Spice Tree Extravaganza
Compass Box week continues. On Monday I had a review of their Stranger & Stranger, which I thought was decent but nothing more (and not at all a good value for the high price charged for it). Today I have a review for you of their Spice Tree Extravaganza. This was a limited edition take on their regular Spice Tree release, which had a slightly checkered history, having run into problems with whisky regulations and going off the market for a few years before coming back. Despite it having come back, however, Compass Box saw fit to mark the 10th anniversary of its original discontinuation with this release in 2016. It’s put together in a complicated manner. The vatting comprises sherry butt Glen Ord (32.6%), sherry butt Benrinnes (17.2%), bourbon barrel Allt-A-Bhainne (2.6) and the rest a vatting of Clynelish, Dailuaine and Teaninich that was vatted and matured further in three different toast/char levels of what they call their hybrid casks. You could call this a case of great transparency with their cask regimen—and at one point in my whisky geek career I would have saluted it; I have to admit I now find it mostly tiring to keep track of all this granular detail. Anyway, let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading
Campbeltown Loch
I got you a whisky review for Christmas. You’re welcome.
Last week was a week of Glen Scotia festival releases (2023, 2022 and 2021). We’ll stay in Campbeltown to close out the month and year but move to the more prominent company in the region. Cambeltown Loch is put out by Springbank. Once a name slapped on an old-style blended whisky (i.e malt+grain), the reinvented version Campbeltown Loch (as of 2022, I think) is a vatting of Springbank’s own Hazelburn, Longrow and Springbank malts along with Kilkerran from Glengyle, and, yes, malt from Glen Scotia as well. It is matured in a combination of ex-bourbon and sherry casks. I’m guessing that means it’s a vatting of spirit from ex-bourbon and sherry casks; though I suppose the maturation could have happened post-vatting as well—if you know which it was, please write in below. The other remarkable thing about is that it is quite reasonably priced, even in the US. In the UK it goes for £40—or it did: apparently it all sold out very quickly there. In the US it appears to still be available in many markets and, as per Winesearcher, can be found for as little as $54 in the US, which is pretty low compared to what we have to pay here for pretty much everything else from the distillery (though in some states it does go for quite a bit more). Anyway, let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading
Compass Box, The Circle No. 2
I am at the end of my week of Compass Box reviews and you’ll be relieved to hear that I’m not closing it out with another release from seven years ago. The last review of the week is of a release from just last year and it was not made as protest against whisky industry regulations. It seems to have some connection to a international bartender conversation called the Circle. This is the Circle No. 2, which implies—if you’re good with the detective work like me—that there was another release before that. And for all we know there may have been one after as well. It’s also different from the Enlightenment and Three Year Old Deluxe in that it’s got a lot more parts to it. While the Enlightenment had malt from four distilleries in it, and the Three Year Old Deluxe had malt from only two distilleries in it, this has malt from five distilleries, as well as a not-inconsiderable portion of blended whisky. About half of it is bourbon cask Glen Elgin and another 17% or so is bourbon cask Speyburn. The remaining 33% is made up of first-fill sherry hogshead Ardmore (2.2%), first-fill sherry butt Teaninich (13.5%), a little bit of wine cask Linkwood (2.3%) and that parcel of blended Scotch, said to be “primarily first-fill sherry butt” (14.3%) . I got all this from Compass Box’s fact sheet, which also tells me that I might know the person who composed this whisky. Let’s hope I like it. Continue reading
Compass Box, Enlightenment
For the first full week of November let’s do a series of reviews of releases from the boutique indie bottler, Compass Box. As you doubtless know, unlike most Scotch whisky indies, Compass Box does not release casks of whiskies from distilleries but their own blends of one kind or the other: vatted malts (or whatever they’re officially called now), blends of malt and grain, all grain whisky: they’ve released them all. They are very popular with the whisky geek corner of the market. I have previously aired my skepticism about aspects of Compass Box’s presentation and appeal to this part of the market. In short, I’ve speculated that their bespoke presentation and facility with the language of whisky geekdom is a large part of their success. The whiskies themselves have often seemed to me to be adjacent to the presentation of them. That said, I’ve liked a number of their releases even as I’ve wondered about the fuss. Enlightenment, released in 2016, was one of their releases about which a fair bit of fuss was made. Continue reading
Writers’ Tears, Cask Strength
My week of Writers’ Tears reviews comes to an end with what is, I think, the third in their trio of core releases: the Cask Strength. (See here for my review of the Copper Pot and here for my review of the Double Oak.) Like the other Writers’ Tears releases, the Cask Strength is a blend of Single Pot Still and Single Malt Irish whiskey. There’s no grain whiskey component: only barley. Of course the presence of the pot still component, not to mention the triple distillation, makes it different from your average Scottish single malt whisky. Like the Copper Pot, this is matured in bourbon barrels, but I’m not sure if there is any other relationship between them. By which I mean that I do not know if the Cask Strength is the cask strength version of the Copper Pot or even if the whiskeys that go into the two comes from the same sources. I do know that the Cask Strength costs far more than the Copper Pot. The current release was at 150 euros at Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin. This review is not of the current release, however. That one is at 54.8% abv. This one is at 53%. A number of prior releases have been at 53%, most recently in 2019. All three of the miniatures I reviewed this week came out of the attractive book packaging—I don’t know if that helps narrow things down. At any rate, here are my notes. Continue reading
Writers’ Tears, Double Oak
This week I am reviewing three different releases from Walsh Whiskey’s Writers’ Tears label. The week got off to a decent start yesterday with the Copper Pot, their entry-level blend. Today I have for you a review of the Double Oak, which joined their core range a few years ago. It is so-called because it is a blend of spirit matured in American oak and French oak casks. What the proportion of the two in the blend is, I don’t know (I am assuming that it’s not all double-matured in the two cask types). Like in the Copper Pot, the spirit that goes into this is triple-distilled and is a blend of single pot still and single malt Irish whiskey. It gets a step-up in abv from the Copper Pot, being bottled at 46%. As with the Copper Pot, there is no indication of age. It’s probably safe to assume we’re not dealing with an abundance of age here. Okay, let’s see what it’s like.
Writers’ Tears, Double Oak (46%; from a miniature)
Nose: Orange peel, vanilla, polished oak. On the second sniff there’s some apricot and the vanilla moves in the direction of butterscotch. Not much change with time. A drop or two of water and there’s more citrus at first and then a metallic note. Continue reading
Writers’ Tears, Copper Pot
After exactly six weeks in Ireland—five of those in Dublin—we are headed back to Minnesota tomorrow. Regardless, I am going close the month out with an extended run of reviews of Irish whiskeys. Last week I reviewed a threesome from three different producers. Two were entry-level blends (The Irishman: The Harvest and the West Cork distillery’s Black Cask); and one was a peated single malt (W.D. O’Connell’s Bill Phil). This week’s whiskeys are all from the same producer. Walsh Whisky are the ones who put out the Irishman series. That series has quite a few releases in it at this point and the same is true of their better-known line, Writers’ Tears. I’ll be reviewing three from that line this week: the Copper Pot, which is their entry-level blend, bottled at 40%; the Double Oak, which steps up a bit in price and abv at 46%; and finally the Cask Strength, which is priced as a premium whiskey. First up, the Copper Pot. This is a blend of single pot still and single malt Irish whiskey, all of it distilled from barley. It’s all triple-distilled and unpeated and the maturation is in “flame charred” bourbon casks. No word on the likely age of the pot still and single malt constituents. Draw your own conclusions. Continue reading
The Irishman – The Harvest
I quite enjoyed the first of this week’s trio of Irish whiskeys. That was yesterday’s Bill Phil from W.D. O’Connell. That was a heavily peated, single malt from an undisclosed distillery (probably Great Northern). Today I have a blended whiskey from Walsh Whiskey. Walsh Whiskey are blenders who produce two lines/brands: The Irishman and the more famous Writers’ Tears. I confess that I am not really sure what the distinction between the two lines is supposed to be. At any rate, there are a number of labels in each line. Currently, there seem to be six different iterations of The Irishman. Today I am reviewing what I think is the entry-level whiskey in the line: the Harvest. This is a blend of triple distilled whiskeys: 70% single malt and 30% single pot still, all matured in bourbon barrels. What the sources of the single malt and single pot still spirit that goes into the blend are, I don’t know. I don’t expect an entry-level blend to be anything very out of the ordinary but I am hoping that it won’t be extraordinarily bad. Let’s see. Continue reading
Old Blends: White Horse, 1950s Release
Here is a review of the only bottle of very old whisky I have ever owned and very likely will ever own. By “very old” I don’t mean length of maturation but era of distillation. As per people who know far more than me about this sort of thing, this bottle of White Horse was released sometime between the mid-1950s and very early 1960s and probably in the late 1950s. I don’t know how this provenance is established and am only very slightly interested. In the EU bottles like this one circulate regularly–or did anyhow—at auction. How did I come into possession of this bottle, living in the US? Well, about five years ago a friend visiting in Israel emailed me saying he’d come across this bottle at his in-laws’ home and asking if it might be worth anything at auction. I made some inquiries and told him what the likely range of prices might be. It then transpired that in transporting the bottle from Israel to Berlin—his next stop—there had been some leakage resulting in the label coming a bit loose. All of this, I advised him, would probably drive the auction price down. His own interest in pursuing the auction market had dimmed at this point and he ended up offering it to me at the low end of the auction prices I’d initially given him—with a further discount once even more of the whisky leaked on its way to the US in his suitcase. I then wrapped the the spring cap up tightly and, as is my wont, forgot about it for a few years. I think the initial plan had been to save it for an unspecified special occasion. As I’ve noted before, during the pandemic I revised my definition of “special occasions” to now include almost any given day. And so about two months ago I decided to open it to mark the end of term. Here now are my notes. Continue reading
Ambassador 25 yo, Blend
This week’s reviews are all of blends of one kind of the other. Monday featured the Campbeltown cask from the Edinburgh Cadenhead store from April 2014. That one was almost certainly all malt whisky, almost certainly all Springbank. But in the absence of specific information we will consider it a blended malt whisky. Today’s whisky is the the type of blend we think of more usually when we think of blended whisky: a blend of malt and grain. But it’s no easier to locate now than that one-off Campbeltown cask. This is a 25 yo from a defunct brand named Ambassador and I know very little about it. The person I acquired the sample from pointed me to this entry on Whiskybase. There is no bottling year listed there but another entry for an identical label indicates it was probably a 1970s bottling—so the whisky in it was distilled in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Apparently Ambassador once contained malt from Scapa and Glen Scotia though I’m not sure if this was still the case for 1970s releases. For more information on the brand I will direct you to Michael K’s review of an Ambassador 25. His review is not of this release though but of a much older bottle from either the 1940s or 1950. Okay, let’s see what this is like. Continue reading
Campbeltown Blend, ca 2014 (Cadenhead)
Alright, we’ll begin the month with a week of blends. But they won’t be widely available blends—what do you think this is? A useful blog? No, it is not.
Getting us started is a whisky bottled by the Cadenhead store in Edinburgh in 2014. The store always has a Campbeltown cask on the go and this was the one they had when two friends and willing mules, D & B, visited it in 2014. The store was then managed by the renowned Jolly Toper who I knew from the Whisky Whisky Whisky forums. I’d asked him to put together a selection of interesting whiskies they could bring back for me. He selected a 21yo Allt-a-Bhainne and a 22 yo Tamdhu and also their current Campbeltown and Islay casks. When I visited Edinburgh in 2018 I purchased a few more of their exclusives including the then-current Campbeltown cask—almost entirely 15 yo sherry cask Springbank and rather good (review here). I have to confess that I’d forgotten that I still had an unopened 350 ml bottle of a 2014 incarnation of that cask; but I found it earlier this year and opened it a month and change ago. Here now are my notes. Continue reading
Cromarty’s Firth/Dalmore 13, 2007 (Hepburn’s Choice for K&L)
Let’s stay in the highlands but go 75 miles or so up the A9 from Dalwhinnie to Dalmore.
Dalmore sits on Cromarty Firth, hence presumably the name of this release—though why the possessive has been added to the name I do not know. I haven’t had official Dalmore in ages—not since the prices for their regular releases rose sharply, though not as sharply as the rate of release of bullshit from the distillery, whether in bottled or marketing form. Still, independently bottled Dalmore is very rare on the ground and just as rare is bourbon cask Dalmore and so this is very intriguing on the face of it. As with a number of K&L’s recent round of cask exclusives, this one is teaspooned. I assume that is the distillery’s way of making sure that no independent whisky appears with the name Dalmore on the label. My experience so far of these teaspooned K&L casks has been middling. I was not overly impressed by either the 28 yo John McCrae/Balvenie or the 23 yo Hector Macbeth/Glenfiddich. Will this Dalmore set a new trend? I hope so as I have a few more of these teaspooned casks left to review. Continue reading
John McCrae/Balvenie 28, 1991 (Hepburn’s Choice for K&L)
Okay, let’s end the month with another older Speyside from a bourbon cask, and having started the month with one of K&L’s recent exclusives, let’s end it with another. This is one more of the many teaspooned casks released by K&L this year, in this case a teaspooned Balvenie—why John McCrae, I have no idea. As far as I can make out from K&L’s marketing spiel, this cask was not teaspooned prior to bottling but right at the beginning when the spirit entered the cask, presumably using a bit from one of William Grant’s other malts (Glenfiddich or Kininvie) but that’s only speculation on my part. Balvenie almost never shows up under its own name from independent bottlers— and very rarely shows up at all by any name. And so, however this was made and sent out into the world, it is a welcome opportunity to try older bourbon cask Balvenie. Let’s hope what’s in the bottle doesn’t let me down. Continue reading