You may have noticed that I failed to post the promised Seoul restaurant report this past weekend (I’d actually said I might post two) and that I also failed to post my usual Monday booze review yesterday. What can I say, it was a hectic week, capped by travel on Sunday—we are currently in Southern California—and I just did not have time to either resize photos for a restaurant report or take tasting notes for a whisky review. Accordingly, this week’s booze review is being posted on a Tuesday and the usual Tuesday Twin Cities restaurant report will be posted tomorrow. And even though my track record with actually following through is so poor at this point, I am going to once again say that I will try to post one or maybe even two food reports from our time in Korea by the end of the week—I have a total of five of those left to do, I think. I also still have two reports yet to come from my trip to New Jersey/New York in mid-May; and by the time Thursday rolls around I will have already begun to add to the waiting list with meals from this current Southern California sojourn. I will at least refrain from making promises of reports to come from those fronts this week. Continue reading
Category Archives: Glenallachie
Glenallachie 10 CS, Batch 6
Let’s close out non-island distillery sherry cask week with another whisky from a Speyside distillery. After an 11 yo Craigellachie, here is a 10 yo Glenallachie. This is Batch 6 of their 10 CS release—I’m not sure what number it’s up to now. I rather liked both Batch 2 and Batch 3 and am hopeful that this will be good as well. Like those batches this one—a large release at 39,000 bottles—has been put together from a hodge-podge of cask types: PX and oloroso puncheons, rioja barriques, virgin oak casks of one kind or the other. That’s a lot. What does it add up to? Let’s see.
Glenallachie 10 CS, Batch 6 (57.8%; from a bottle split)
Nose: A quite nutty, slightly beany arrival. On the second sniff there’s some orange peel and some sharper notes (yeast? chalk?); some palpable oak too behind it all. More of the orange peel with time but there’s also a touch of bitter oak extract. Water pushes the bitter notes back a bit and pulls out some cherry. Continue reading
Glenallachie 12, 2008, PX Cask (for Spec’s)
Glenallachie week comes to a close with another heavily sherried, cask strength whisky. But this is not yet another batch of the 10 yo CS (see here for my review of Batch 2 on Monday, and here for my review of Batch 3 on Wednesday). This is a 12 yo and it’s a single cask that was bottled for Spec’s in Texas. And where both batches of the 10 yo CS were vatted from whiskies matured in more than one type of cask, this one was matured in a PX puncheon. Or at least so it seems. Keep in mind that Glenallachie is run by Billy Walker, and when he was at Glendronach, they used a much looser definition of the term “single cask” (see here for more on all that if you don’t know what I’m referring to). So maybe this is all whisky that was matured for 12 years in this specific single cask; or maybe it’s whisky that was re-racked into this cask before being bottled. If you know one way or the other, please write in below. Anyway, I liked both batches of the 10 yo CS that I reviewed this week quite a lot. Let’s see if this keeps that streak alive. Continue reading
Glenallachie 10 CS, Batch 3
Let’s continue with the reviews of sherry cask-matured, cask strength Glenallachie. I reviewed Batch 2 of the Glenallachie 10, Cask Strength on Monday. Here now is Batch 3. Batch 2 was released in 2018. Batch 3 was released in 2019 in the Europe and in 2020 in the US. As to whether the 2020 release was the same vatting as the 2019, just released later, or if it was a different vatting, I don’t know. But I’d guess it was the latter since, as per Whiskybase, the US release was bottled a full year later. Or I suppose they might have released an 11 yo as a 10 yo to preserve the branding of the series. At any rate, both releases, like Batch 2, are officially 10 years old. However, while Batch 2 was vatted from spirit matured in oloroso, PX and virgin oak casks, Batch 3 dropped the virgin oak, making it an all-sherry cask whisky. I liked Batch 2 quite a lot and given that this one doesn’t have virgin oak casks in the mix, odds are good I’ll like it even more. Let’s see if that proves to be the case. Continue reading
Glenallachie 10 CS, Batch 2
I’ve reviewed a couple of official Glenallachies in the last six months—see here for the 2021 release of the 12 yo, and here for the 15 yo (release year unknown). Those are two of the only three Glenallachies I’ve reviewed—the third was an older independent release from Whiskybase from before the Billy Walker era. This week I will double my total Glenallachie count. Yes, this is going to be a week of reviews of Glenallachie. They will all be official releases, they will all involve at least some sherry, and they will all be at cask strength. First up: Batch 2 of the Glenallachie 10 CS. This was released in 2018 in the US market (and, for all I know, in other markets as well). I don’t remember seeing it in Minnesota but then again I don’t really spend much time in liquor stores any more—or for that matter on liquor websites. It’s a vatting of spirit matured in oloroso, PX and virgin oak casks. Let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading
Glenallachie 15
Let’s make it a week of age-stated, official releases from three different parts of Scotland. From Campbeltown on Monday, let’s move to the Speyside. Like the Kilkerran 16, the Glenallachie 15 is a relatively recent entrant into the market. As far as I can make out, it was first released in 2019, with more releases in the years following. Like the Glenallachie 12 (which I quite liked), this is a sherry cask whisky. Unlike the 12 yo, which has virgin oak cask matured spirit in the mix, the 15 yo is vatted entirely from PX and oloroso casks. Once again, I don’t know which year’s release my sample came from. But in this case it may not matter very much. This because there is apparently a lot of batch variation in these releases from the same years; and so the year of release by itself would not mean very much. In other words, here’s yet another completely useless review. You’re welcome. Continue reading
Glenallachie 12, 2021 Release
Glenallachie, or The GlenAllachie, as they style themselves, is another of the Scottish distilleries I have very little experience of. I’ve only reviewed one other—this 22 yo bottled by/for Whiskybase. It is a young distillery—only built in 1967—and is also one of the few independent distilleries left in Scotland. Mothballed in 1985, it was purchased in 1989 by Campbell Distillers, who in turn later became part of Pernod Ricard’s holding. In 2017 it was purchased by a group including Billy Walker, ex of Glendronach. The following year the distillery released a new core range, featuring 10, 12, 18 and 25 yo whiskies. They’ve since added 8, 15, 21 and 30 yo expressions to that lineup. Good on them for not going the NAS route as so many have done. They’ve not as yet released any single cask whiskies—as far as I know—which means we might have to wait a while to find out if in the move from Glendronach to Glenallachie, Billy Walker’s understanding of what the term “single cask” means has undergone any development. At any rate, I am interested to see what this 12 yo is like. My understanding is it is put together as a vatting of ex-oloroso, PX and virgin oak-matured spirit. An unusual combo, to be sure. Let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading
Glenallachie 22, 1995 (Whiskybase)
This is the first Glenallachie I’ve reviewed and it may well be the first Glenallachie I’ve tasted. It was bottled just over a year ago by the good people of Whiskybase to commemorate a milestone on the popular crowdsourced whisky database: their 110,000th entry. I don’t know much about the distillery and so have no expectations. The distillery is relatively young, as Scottish distilleries go—it was opened in 1967 and then mothballed for a few years in the 1980s. For most of its life it produced mostly for blends but under the recent new ownership its malt offering has expanded. That new ownership, as you probably know, includes Billy Walker, ex-owner of Glendronach and pioneer of single cask shenanigans. As to whether we can expect more of that from Glenallachie as well—or The GlenAllachie, as the new owners style it—I guess only time will tell. For now let me tell you what I found this to be like after I opened the bottle. Continue reading