Two words that strike fear in the heart of any reasonable person: craft whiskey. Not all the bad whiskeys I’ve had over the years have been craft whiskeys but most of the craft whiskeys I’ve had over the years have been bad. This may explain why this bottle of Zeppelin Bend has sat umolested on my shelves for many years now. My friend Greg bought it at the New Holland Brewery in Michigan sometime in the last decade and gifted it to me. I must not have been very motivated to open it and then I forgot all about it until I noticed it on the shelves of the ever-shrinking whisky hoard last week. For whatever reason, I was suddenly driven to open it. And, what do you know? it turned out to be quite drinkable. It’s somewhere between Scotch whisky and bourbon in that it’s double distilled from malted barley (a la Scottish single malt whisky—though whether in a pot or column still, I don’t know) but matured in heavily charred new American oak casks (a la bourbon). I believe the maturation process lasts 3 years—very young by classic Scottish standards, even in these days of NAS, but older than most Amerrican craft whiskeys (or at least older than they used to be in the bad old days). I’ve enjoyed it straight on several occasions since I opened the bottle but have enjoyed it even more as a rye/bourbon substitute in Manhattans. Alright, let’s get to the notes. Continue reading
Category Archives: 80-84 points
Banhez Ensamble
One last mezcal to close out the month. This is an ensamble from Banhez that I purchased primarily for use in cocktails. The price is in the neighbourhood of $30 in the Twin Cities and was recommended from a number of different directions as one of the best choices in that end of the price spectrum. As it turns out, it’s also a decent sipping mezcal and so I thought I would also review it as such.
Banhez is an interesting outfit. It is a cooperative comprised of a number of families in Ejutla in Oaxaca: the U.P.A.D.E.C Cooperative. They release mezcals made from single varietals of agave and those bottles have the names of the distilling mezcaleros on them. The ensamble, however, a 90-10 blend of espadin and barril, is a collective bottling by the entire cooperative and does not bear the name of an individual mezcalero. Here are my notes on the first few pours from the bottle. Continue reading
Rancho Vale Madre Añejo: Straight and Mixed
This month’s booze reviews kicked off with a rum: the Amrut Two Indies. Though this was not planned, it ended up becoming a non-whisky month, with two reviews of French brandies following: an Armagnac from Cardinat and a Calvados from Toutain. To close out the month, I have a mezcal. This represents novelty for me in two ways: this is a mezcal from a producer I have not previously encountered, and it is an añejo, having been matured in oak casks for at least a year. The producer is Rancho Vale Madre in Oaxaca. My friend Ben visited the distillery in February and very kindly brought me back this bottle. Unlike mezcals released in the US, this is a fairly bare bones label: there’s no detail of any kind on the production method or the variety of agave used; indeed, not even the abv/strength is noted (though I am pretty sure it’s around 40%). I was very curious to try it as the word on the American mezcal enthusiast street is not very positive on oak cask-aged mezcals in general. The thinking is that the quintessential qualities of mezcal are best expressed in joven/blanco spirit that has been “aged” only in glass. I’ve no idea what the status of añejo and reposado mezcals in Mexico more broadly or Oaxaca in particular is. Nor do I know very much about Rancho Vale Madre beyond the fact that they seem to a popular stop on mezcal tours in Oaxaca; the estimable Mezcal Reviews site does not list any of their releases. Anyway, as you’ll see below, while I enjoyed this añejo fine on its own, I think I will probably finish most of the bottle via cocktails. Continue reading
Amrut Two Indies (Rum)
Here is an Amrut to start the month. It’s not a whisky though but a rum. Though Amrut is most famous now for its single malt whisky, they’ve actually been making rum for much longer. This, however, is not one of their old-school rums but a blend of their own rum with several Caribbean rums—from Jamaica, Barbados and Guyana: hence Two Indies. I’m not sure when it was first released but I first encountered it last December when I was visiting a friend in Coonoor in South India. She had a bottle that had come her way from Karnataka, the state in which Amrut is located. I tasted it then and really liked it. I didn’t look for it on my return to Delhi on that trip but when I was there again last month I made it a point to seek it out. Sure enough, it was easily available in liquor stores in Gurgaon (where my parents live); and since Gurgaon is located in Haryana and Haryana has some of the lowest prices for alcohol in all of India, I got this bottle for a very reasonable price: Rs. 1500 or $17.50. I opened it a few days after getting back to Minnesota and am very pleased to say that I like it as much now as I had in December. Here now are my notes. Continue reading
Glendronach 11, 2002 (for Whiskybase)
This week’s booze review is of another young whisky released about a decade ago. A little over a decade ago in this case. This Glendronach 11 was distilled in May 2002 and bottled in December 2013. The label on my bottle says that it was “specially selected by and bottled for Whiskybase.com”—and that is indeed where I bought my bottle in early 2015—but I think this was a split cask, with half going somewhere else. I don’t think Whiskybase bottled all 701 bottles that came out of this oloroso sherry cask. Now, you may be thinking that 701 bottles is a lot at 57.2% even from a sherry butt and all I can say to you is that this is Billy Walker era Glendronach we are talking about. The whisky was bottled from a single oloroso cask but that doesn’t mean that all of it spent all 11 years in it or that multiple casks of different types didn’t get re-racked together into this oloroso cask for a short while before bottling happened. Of course, we’ll never know. On the plus side, Whiskybase did always make good selections. I will say though that the first few pours from this bottle—which I opened a few days ago—were not very promising, with the whisky tasting quite oaky and raw. Let’s hope it’s calmed down now as I take my notes. Continue reading
Bowmore Vault Edition, Second Release
Alright, let’s close the month out with a week of single malt whiskies. And as the blog’s 11th anniversary was yesterday, let’s start with a Bowmore. [My first-ever review was of the lowly Bowmore Legend, and so I’ve marked every anniversary with a Bowmore review.] This is the second release of Bowmore’s Vault Edition and hit the market back in 2019. The Vault series was apparently intended to showcase different aspects of Bowmore’s character—I’m not sure if it’s still on the go—and the second edition emphasized peat smoke. It was matured in bourbon and then sherry casks. No word on age but the price on release was £70. This was down from the first edition’s original asking price of £100, which I guess might mean that even in the inflated market of recent years, drinkers are not uncritically buying up every official release from a name distillery no matter what ludicrous price is being asked for them. That said, I’ve no idea what the prices asked for later releases were. Let’s see if I like this one more than the Legend all those years ago. Continue reading
Teaninich 10, 2007 (Signatory for Binny’s)
This week of reviews of malts from highlands distilleries began on Monday with a young release from a new distillery I had never tried before: Ardnamurchan. It continues today with a malt from a much older distillery: Teaninich. I’ve not reviewed so very many malts from Teaninich either—there is not a massive amount of it about—but I’m always happy to have encounter one of them in my glass. This one is another single cask bottled by Signatory for Binny’s in Chicago. It’s a hogshead, which is good news as that austere northern highlands style that Teaninich is part of shines best from bourbon casks. Anyway, let’s see if it’s shining here.
Teaninich 10, 2007 (58.5%; Signatory for Binny’s; hogshead 702710; from a bottle split)
Nose: A sweet arrival with cereals and apple; some wet wool in there too. On the second sniff there’s some honey and some simple syrup; behind it there’s some hot tarmac and some wet stones. With time the simple syrup trumps the fruit. Water tames the simple syrup a bit and brings out some cream. Continue reading
Foursquare 12 (for the LCBO)
Alright, by popular demand—by which I mean that one person put in a request—let’s do a week of rum reviews. It’s been a year and a half since my last rum review and two and a half since my last review of a rum from the great Barbados distillery, Foursquare. Well, all of this week’s reviews will be of rums from Foursquare. Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, Foursquare was a very good value proposition but now prices for most of their releases have crept up quite a bit and the releases have become harder and harder to find—at least in Minnesota.
First up, I have for you a 12 yo released for the LCBO in Canada (the other reviews this week will also be of store picks). It’s a mix of rum matured in ex-bourbon and sherry casks (the last one I reviewed was from ex-bourbon and madeira). Let’s get right to it. Continue reading
Compass Box, Stranger & Stranger
Alright, after a week of reviews of agave spirits (two mezcals and a raicilla) that no one reading the blog seemed to be interested in, let’s go back to Scotch whisky. Here’s another week of reviews of releases from Compass Box. First up, is one from 2018 that they called Stranger & Stranger. The name is apparently that of the design company they work(ed) with and the whisky was composed to commemorate the relationship. This is a blend of malt whisky with a tiny bit of 1 yo spirit from Girvan (apparently 1% of the whole). The explanation for the odd choice to blend a tiny bit of 1 yo spirit with a lot of malt whisky in a very expensive release (close to $200 in the US) is that Stranger & Stranger’s work is also category-defying. Of course, it also makes for a story of sorts and what is a Compass Box whisky without a story? The malt components are from Glenlossie (recharred hogshead, 80% of the whole), Glen Elgin (recharred barrel, 14% of the whole), and Linkwood (sherry butt, 5% of the whole). Okay, let’s see what it’s like). Continue reading
Ardmore 23, 1997 (SMWS 66.191)
2024 got off to a smoky and tasty start with Wednesday’s Croftengea. Here now is another peated malt from a distillery elsewhere in the highlands: Ardmore.
I’ve previously reviewed a number of these Ardmore 23, 1997s bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and liked them all. This despite the fact that none of the previous have been from straightforward ex-bourbon casks, my preferred incarnation of Ardmore’s spirit. All spent the first 21 years in ex-bourbon and then the final two in another type of cask. 66.199 came closest to being ex-bourbon, having been matured for 21 years in ex-bourbon before receiving a finish in an engineered HTMC cask (high-toast, medium-char, I think). 66.198 spent its last two years in a French oak barrique. 66.195 and 66.197 were both finished in sherry casks, the former in a first-fill oloroso barrique and the latter in a refill Spanish oak hogshead. This is another of those oloroso barrique finishes, a first-fill STR oloroso barrique to be exact (STR= shaved, toasted, re-charred, I think). The SMWS gave it the name “Smoky Cajun Roux”. As good as the others? Let’s see. Continue reading
Glen Scotia 10, Campbeltown Malts Festival 2021
My week of reviews of Glen Scotia’s recent releases for the Campbeltown Malts Festival comes to an end with this 10 yo bottled for the 2021 iteration of the festival. On Monday I’d reviewed the 11 yo bottled for this year’s festival, and on Wednesday I’d reviewed the 8 yo bottled for last year’s festival. Both were peated whiskies but while the former had received a white port finish, the latter had been finished in PX casks. I thought both were pretty good, though neither got me very excited. The 2021 release did not feature peated spirit (as far as I know) and was finished in red wine casks from Bordeaux. Will this be the rare red wine cask that gets me going? I have to say my recent encounters with red wine-bothered single malts have not been dire. Both the Mortlach in Diageo’s 2023 Special Release I reviewed earlier this month and the single Super Tuscan cask Edradour I reviewed in November were enjoyable enough (if nothing very special). Let’s see where this one falls. Continue reading
Oban 11, Special Release 2023
I’m almost to the end of my series of reviews of Diageo’s 2023 Special Release slate. For the most part, it has been a somewhat mundane experience. However, Monday’s Clynelish 10 was a true highlight. We’ll remain in the highlands for this penultimate review. Will this Oban, just a year older, be in that general ballpark of quality? Like many of the others in this year’s Special Release, this one received a finish. The Talisker, you will recall, was finished in port casks, the Lagavulin in tequila, the Glendullan in chardonnay and the Mortlach in a mix of Japanese whisky and pinot noir casks. This Oban was finished in casks that had previously held Caribbean pot-still rum. I’m not sure if they said which distillery or even island the relevant pot-still rum was from—at any rate, I don’t have that information. I also rather doubt that this brief finish has been enough to impart “The Soul of Calypso” to this Oban but that is what Diageo has chosen to call it. Anyway, let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading
Edradour 10, 2011, Chardonnay Cask (for Spec’s)
Okay, having done a week of blended malts/whiskies from Compass Box (here, here and here), let’s do a week of single malts. This week’s whiskies are all from Edradour, they were all bottled for Spec’s in Texas, and they’re all wine casks of one kind or the other. Edradour—the tiny highlands distillery owned by Signatory—have a history of wine cask releases; both for the mainline malt, and for the peated variant, Ballechin. The base spirit is an idiosyncratic one and it’s probably fair to say that Edradour in general is more a cult distillery than a crowd-pleaser, and also that the cult is not very large. I myself have historically preferred the heavily peated stylings of the Ballechin variant to mainline Edradour—just as I prefer the heavily peated Ledaig to that distillery’s also idiosyncratic mainline malt, Tobermory. And whether it’s Ledaig/Tobermory or Ballechin/Edradour, I generally prefer sherry casks to ex-bourbon. Well, none of this week’s casks of Edradour for Spec’s are sherry casks. First up, is a chardonnay cask. It was bottled at an eye-watering strength; which is, I suppose, another hallmark of the distillery’s single cask program. Anyway, let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading
Ardbeg 5, “Wee Beastie”, 2020 Release
I started the week (and ended October) with a young, heavily peated whisky from Islay. I now end the week (and begin November) with a young, heavily peated whisky from Islay. The 2023 Cairdeas does not, of course, carry an age statement but it’s probably still at least a few years older than this Ardbeg. This is the five-year old, dubbed “Wee Beastie” that joined the distillery’s core lineup in 2020. This sample, indeed, comes from that original release. It is a vatting of spirit matured in both ex-bourbon and ex-oloroso sherry casks—I don’t know about the proportions—and the distillery’s website pronounces it the “rawest, smokiest Ardbeg ever”. I don’t know that that first adjective really gets me very excited but I am famous for the openness of my mind: if the whisky is good, I won’t care what they say about it. I do appreciate that they put the 5 yo age statement on the bottles, but not enough to forgive the owners all the rest of the tomfoolery they’ve gotten up to in the last decade or so. Okay, let’s get to it. Continue reading
Mal Bien Verde
This week of reviews of mezcal began with a Mal Bien release made from maguey alto, a type of agave. That was a mezcal from a small producer in Michoacán. Today’s review is also of a Mal Bien. This time the mezcal is from Oaxaca and made from maguey verde by Victor Ramos. Unlike in the current world of Scottish whisky, where not very many different varieties of barley are used, there is a lot of variation in the types of agave used in making mezcal. As I said on Monday, I know next to nothing about any of this—I couldn’t tell you what the expected characteristics of different kinds of agave are or whether this one made from maguey verde is a good example of the type or an outlier due to other variables of the production process. If you are an aficionado, feel free to enlighten me. I can tell you that I very much liked the Mal Bien Alto and am hoping this Verde will be at least as good. Let’s see if that’s true. I am not sure, by the way, if there have been multiple releases of this but my sample is from Batch 032DER. Continue reading
Invergordon 43, 1973 (The Whisky Agency)
This week of reviews of old single grain whiskies got off to a good start on Monday with a North of Scotland 43, 1971 bottled by Gordon & Company. Let’s see if the streak continues with this Invergordon, also 43 years old but distilled a couple of years later. The bottler is the Whisky Agency, once one of the biggest names in independent bottling in Europe. Now that I’ve stopped buying whisky from Europe, I’m no longer sure which bottlers are still active or as active as they used to be. Is the Whisky Agency still a big name? This is not my first review of an old Invergordon, by the way. I’ve also reviewed another 1973, a 39 yo bottled by Malts of Scotland, another German bottler that was a big name back in the day. No idea if they’re still as active either. I do know I didn’t care very much for that 39 yo. Let’s see if this 43 yo is any better.
Domaine Montreuil 15 (for Astor Wines)
I said in Sunday’s look ahead to the month on the blog that Twin Cities restaurant reports would be posted on Tuesdays as per usual, with booze reviews on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as per usual—and here I am, just two days later, already a liar. I’m afraid I didn’t have the time on Sunday or Monday to resize the photographs from this weekend’s eating out, and so here is the second brandy review of the week. The series began yesterday with a very old Armagnac. It continues today with a considerably less old, though far from very young Calvados. I noted yesterday that it had been a long time since my last Armagnac review. The same is even more true of my last Calvados review: the last one was posted more than 7 years ago. That was a review of an excellent Michel Huard and in the comments on that review you can read a spirited argument with my old nemesis, Sku. As it happens, Sku was the source of the sample of the Calvados I am reviewing today, which was an exclusive for Astor Wines in New York. I can’t remember when he gave it to me, but I can tell you I am disappointed by how conventional the sample label he made for it is. I guess he sold out. Continue reading