Category Archives: The Whisky Exchange

Caol Ila 12, 2002 (G&M for TWE)

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Okay, here’s a geographically appropriate review for a change from my ongoing visit to Scotland. I previously posted reviews of a Speysider on the day we left for Glasgow, an Old Pulteney while leaving Drumnadrochit for Skye, and a Highland Park while leaving Skye for Islay. We’re still on Islay and this is a Caol Ila.

I’m not sure if I will make it to Caol Ila on this trip though I would like to at least see the outside of the distillery. I’d thought this would happen as our ferry arrived in Port Askaig from Kennacraig on Monday evening but apparently views of the distillery are only available from the ferry from/to Colonsay. Nonetheless, here’s a Caol Ila. This was bottled by Gordon & MacPhail for the Whisky Exchange and I purchased a bottle on one of my visits to their Covent Garden store. I drank it down before leaving London—the notes below were taken well before this preamble was written. Continue reading →

Laphroaig 20, 1996 (TWE “Masterpieces”)

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Laphroaig 20, 1996, TWE "Masterpieces"
After a week of bourbon reviews (all Four Roses single barrels: here, here and here) let’s close out the month with single malt whisky. This Laphroaig was bottled by the Whisky Exchange for their annual Whisky Show in October and was apparently a huge hit there. Remaining bottles made it to the website with a single bottle limit per customer. I snagged one before it sold out. Why the fuss? Well, it’s a 20 year old Laphroaig from a sherry cask, and a PX sherry cask at that. (I should say that I have no idea if this was matured full-term in a PX cask or if it finished its life in one—these days in the Scotch industry it’s best not to take anything for granted.) Between the Islay premium, the Laphroaig premium and the sherry bomb premium this was not a bargain bottle—but as a Laphroaig fan it was hard for me to look past it. As I’ve said before, the successful marriage of peat and sherry is one of the greatest things in the whisky universe and Laphroaig in particular stands up to heavy sherry really well. Anyway, let’s get to it.  Continue reading →

Aberlour 17 (for the Whisky Exchange)

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Aberlour 17, Cask 2371, for the Whisky Exchange
I have not reviewed very many Aberlours on the blog and I certainly have reviewed any in a while—the last one was Batch 45 of their ever popular A’bunadh series, which I wasn’t too excited about. Among whisky geeks the A’bunadh is really where the interest in Aberlour seems to lie. The market for big sherry bombs at high strengths is seemingly endless. Those, of course, have no age statements on them and most are likely quite young (<10 yo). I’ve liked a number of the ones I’ve had over the years but have often found others to be either too hot or too woody or both. Accordingly, I was very interested to see this 17 yo bottled especially for the Whisky Exchange, which seems to essentially be a grown-up A’bunadh. Still from first-fill sherry, at cask strength but at a reasonable abv, and all of 17 years old. This should hopefully give some sense of how this distillate does with heavy sherry over a longer period of time.

Incidentally, even though this is a single cask, and the cask number is specified, the Whisky Exchange don’t specify the year of distillation. Since this was bottled in early 2016, however, it’s probably from 1998.  Continue reading →

Ledaig 16, 1997 (G&M for TWE)

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Ledaig 16, 1997, G&M for TWE
Here is another teenaged, sherried Ledaig. This was distilled a year before Wednesday’s 17 yo, 1998 from Cooper’s choice and is a year younger. And where that one was from a sherry butt (fill type unspecified), this was matured by Gordon & MacPhail in a refill sherry hogshead (and bottled for The Whisky Exchange). I opened my bottle a couple of months ago and it was quite rough to start. I’ve been drinking it down slowly and while it has mellowed a bit it’s still pretty aggressive on the peat front. Time now to finally record my notes (this is from the last quarter of the bottle).

Ledaig 16, 1997 (56.8%; Gordon & MacPhail for TWE; refill sherry hogshead #465; from my own bottle)

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Amrut Special Reserve

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amrutspecialreserveAmrut is an Indian distillery that became very prominent a few years ago when Jim Murray awarded a very high score to their Fusion bottling. Their whisky is quite different from the vast majority of Indian whisky in that it is actually malt whisky–made from malted barley, and not a blend of spirit made from molasses and grain/malt whisky. There is, of course, all kinds of controversy over the labeling of that vast majority of Indian whisky as whisky and it’s not all academic either. European regulations will not allow for this spirit to be sold in that market as whisky on account of its molasses based/dominant origins. And at the same time the Indian government will not relax its high import tariffs on liquor, which more or less closes the lucrative Indian market (the largest market for whisky, or “whisky” in the world) to the conglomerates that own most Scottish distilleries. Both sides insist these things are unrelated, but who knows (see here for a sense of how charged all this was a while ago).

At any rate, even though I am not a fan of the non-malt/grain Indian whisky–and believe me, I consumed a fair amount of it in my late teens and early twenties–it doesn’t really bother me so very much if Indians want to have a more expansive definition of whisky. God knows, we’ve put up with all kinds of culinary abominations being called “curry” in the West. And frankly, most of these whiskies are not so very much worse than the bog standard blends that are the cornerstone of the scotch whisky industry.
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