Category Archives: The Daily Dram

Ben Nevis 21, 1996 (The Daily Dram)

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Ben Nevis week got off to a disappointing start with Monday’s 20 yo from 1996. That one, bottled by Single Cask Nation, was from a refill oloroso puncheon. Today I have for you another from the 1996 vintage, with an additional year of age. It is also from a refill sherry cask—a butt in this case, and the type of sherry not specified. This one was bottled by the Daily Dram—which, I have to constantly remind myself is an independent bottler unrelated to the Nectar’s “Daily Drams” series. Anyway, I’m hoping this will reset this week of Ben Nevis. Odds are good as I can’t remember the last time I had two indifferent Ben Nevises in a row.

Ben Nevis 21, 1996 (50.6%; The Daily Dram; refill sherry butt; from a bottle split)

Nose: A classic Ben Nevis arrival with roasted nuts, malt, ginger powder, yeasty dough and rubber gaskets from old medicine bottles. On the second sniff there’s a fair bit of salt and just a hint of smoke. As it sits some sweet citrus emerges (orange peel and juice). With time the yeast comes to the fore and is joined by some white pepper. Water pushes the yeast back a bit and brings out more citrus. Continue reading →

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Secret Orkney 19, 2000 (The Daily Dram)

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Highland Park week didn’t get off to the best start. The first release of the Cask Strength was a pretty raw alcohol bomb that was rescued by water but still didn’t make it out of middling territory. Wednesday’s 17 yo from Duncan Taylor was quite a bit better. Will that trajectory continue with this cask from The Daily Dram which is two years older still? As with the Duncan Taylor label, this one doesn’t specify cask type but I am hoping it was a bourbon cask. The label also doesn’t name the distillery—though we all know these Secret Orkneys—and all the other indie “Orkney” variants—are Highland Park. This is a nudge-nudge, wink-wink deal, of course. While there isn’t a lot of it around, there is some indie Scapa out there: Gordon & Macphail (who else?) have released a number of them in their Connoisseur’s Choice series in the last few years. And so in theory a single malt whisky identified only as being from Orkney could be from Scapa. If so, it doubtless would benefit the bottler mightily price-wise from all of us assuming it was a Highland Park—just as those who bottle undisclosed Islays benefit from the speculation that those might be Lagavulins or Ardbegs. Anyway, let’s get to it. Continue reading →

Ben Nevis 20, 1999 (The Daily Dram)

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I must apologize for lying to you. On Monday I said that all three of this week’s reviews would be of 20 yo Ben Nevises distilled in 1997. This was true of Monday’s Berry Bros. & Rudd cask and also of Wednesday’s Exclusive Malts cask. But it turns out that this one—bottled by The Daily Dram—was actually distilled in 1999. It is a Ben Nevis though and 20 years old, which means I’m only 33% a liar. It’s also different from the other two in that while those were both sherry casks—well, the Berry Bros. cask does not specify but it seems pretty obviously a sherry cask—this one is not. Okay, so this one does not specify the cask type either but by the looks of it this seems very much like an ex-bourbon cask. Will it be more quintessentially Ben Nevis than the other two were? I did like both of those but felt the sherry covered up the Ben Nevis funk a bit too much. In theory, at least, the bourbon cask should let more of that out. Let’s see if that proves to be the case. Continue reading →