I’ll be starting the month with a week of reviews of brandies. First up, an armagnac. It’s been more than three years since my last armagnac review. Frankly, I have not been drinking very much armagnac in the last few years. I’m not sure why—I do have some nice bottles on my shelves. To make up for this neglect, I have for you today a review of the oldest armagnac on said shelves: a 50 yo Darroze blend (Les Grand Assemblages is their term). I’ve actually had this bottle open (and preserved with inert gas) for quite a few years now. Indeed, I had been under the impression that I had reviewed it right after I’d bought and opened it. A good thing I checked as the bottle is now well into the last quarter and I am unlikely to ever purchase a 50 yo armagnac again. Now, for those of you who don’t follow booze pricing, I should say that back when I bought this, it cost less than most official release 25 yo single malt whiskies, and I’m sure it still does by quite a margin. Indeed, this year’s Diageo Special Release slate includes an NAS Mortlach for only a little bit less than I paid for this 50 yo several years ago. I’ve enjoyed it a lot as I’ve dipped into it over the years and I’m glad I finally remembered to take some notes before it’s all gone. Continue reading
Coming Soon…
Whoops—I forgot to hit “publish” on this! I apologize for ruining your weekend—I imagine you spent all day, Sunday wondering if I was going to be posting anything on the blog this month and weeping uncontrollably at the thought that I might not. Don’t worry, I am. And here’s what you can expect.
On the booze front, odds are good that there will be very little whisky reviewed this month, and quite possible no single malt whisky. I’m going to start off with a week of brandy and then move to a week of mezcal (and there might be another week of mezcal before the month is out—possibly even a third!). Having finished a number of open bottles recently, I will be opening a few bottles of single malt from my stores this month but I’m more likely to post reviews of a few very old single grain whiskies. If there are any single malt reviews it’ll probably be a themed week of wine cask Edradours. If this prospect entices or revolts you, let me know in the comments. Continue reading
Clynelish 1996-2015, Prenzlow Portfolio (Jack Wieber)
Back to a sherry cask to close out this week of reviews of whiskies from highlands distilleries, and also to close out the month. We’ll go a bit further north than Tomatin, to Clynelish. It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a sherry cask Clynelish; my last three reviews were all of bourbon casks of one kind or the other (here, here and here). Well, the label on this bottle does not specify the cask type but it was very clearly a sherry cask. It was distilled in 1996 and bottled in 2015 by Jack Wieber’s Whisky World in Germany (and it’s been even longer since I reviewed a Jack Wieber release). The “Prenzlow Portfolio” part of the name refers to the label painted by the artist, Alfred Prenzlow. I assume there were other Jack Wieber bottlings in this series with labels created by Alfred Prenzlow but I have not come across them. This is another of many bottles that I purchased almost 10 years ago but for some reason never got around to opening. Well, I finally opened it over the weekend. Here now are my notes. Continue reading
Tomatin 11, 2006, Cask 4182
Highlands distilleries week continues with another bourbon cask, time from Tomatin. This was also not a cask available broadly, though it was available to the public. I don’t mean to be mysterious: while Monday’s Ben Nevis was a private cask bottling, this one was one of five casks available for hand-filling when I visited the distillery in June of 2018 (see here for my account of the excellent tour my family took of the distillery). I had purchased a similar bourbon cask the previous summer as well; and since I’d liked that one a lot, there was no doubt that I was going to get another. As it happens, I filled the PX cask as well alongside this one. I’ve reviewed that PX bottle previously—only a few months after purchase. Why I waited more than five years to open this one, I cannot tell you, except that I have a stupid amount of whisky on my shelves and often lose track of bottles. Anyway, I opened this a few nights ago and have very much enjoyed my first pours of it. Now that it’s had a few days to breathe in the open bottle, here are my notes. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, September 2023 (Bloomington, MN)
Well, it took a month but the tour of our favourite restaurants in the Twin Cities metro, after our return from a summer away, finally arrived at what is our family favourite restaurant in the Twin Cities: Grand Szechuan in Bloomington. Lunch here in June is how we had bid farewell to eating in the Twin Cities for more than two months. That we did not eat there right away on our return is down only to the fact that we unexpectedly ate very good Sichuan food in Dublin and so had other more urgent culinary desires to fulfill (Mexican and Thai among them). But this past weekend we finally made it there. We were accompanied by most of our usual Grand Szechuan crew. We were a large party of 11 diners (including our boys) and did a goodly amount of damage. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Ben Nevis 12, 2009
September began with a week in Campbeltown with a Kilkerran trio (here, here and here). It continued with a week of island distilleries (here, here, and here) and then a week that featured an English distillery (here) and two Speyside distilleries (here and here). Let’s close the month out now with a week of distilleries in the Scottish highlands. I’ll start with a bourbon cask Ben Nevis.
This 12 yo appears to have been a private cask bottling. It was bottled to mark someone’s bat mitzvah. And as per the rear label picture on Whiskybase, it had been distilled on the day that person was born and was then bottled on the day of their bat mitzvah. It must have taken some doing to make this happen. I assume the birthday cask was identified closer to the time of bottling than of filling—otherwise you’d be taking the chance that this special commemorative whisky might turn out to be a dud. Though it’s true that young bourbon cask Ben Nevis is usually a good bet. The yield was 293 bottles from an ex-bourbon cask (presumably a hogshead) and that probably explains how a bottle ended up in the possession of the person I got a part of a bottle split from. Let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading
Osteria Cantine Bernardini (Lucca, July 2023)
Here is a report on our last lunch on our Tuscan sojourn. It was eaten in Lucca, a town we had no plans to visit pretty much till we went there. We’d thought our last full day in Tuscany would be spent in either Montepulciano or Montalcino, or both. But in the morning we decided against driving to towns whose principal attractions include wine and drove north instead. We weren’t sure what we would make of Lucca and so had no firm plans. We figured if it wasn’t our favourite, we would cut and run to some other small town nearby. As it happens, we loved Lucca and stayed there the entire day. Which meant we needed to figure out a spot for lunch. 5-10 minutes of googling led me to Osteria Cantine Bernardini. The reviews I read indicated an easy going place that serves updated takes on Tuscan classics and we decided to give it a go. And I’m very glad we did: this was hands-down our best meal in Tuscany and among our best meals of the trip as a whole. Continue reading
Dosa Dosa (Dublin, Summer 2023)
My encounter with Indian food in Dublin on this trip did not get off to a good start. In the first week I visited an Indian grocery in the vicinity of Trinity College (where my classes were being held) that had a “street food” counter. The things I ate there ranged from marginal to execrable. I was subsequently warned online by various desis about the quality of Indian food in Dublin. Nonetheless, I decided to try Dosa Dosa, a counter at The Place, a fenced outdoor lot that is home to a number of stationary food trucks. The little I’d read about them had intrigued me and it was conveniently located (I didn’t have an office on campus or access to a microwave so needed to eat lunch out on most teaching days). If it was good, I’d be able to hit them up for lunch between classes and get a good brisk walk out of it. How did it go? Well, I am glad to say that I liked their food enough to come back two more times. Continue reading
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
Craigellachie 11, 2011 (Single Malts of Scotland)
This week of reviews of sherry cask whiskies from non-Island distilleries got off to a promising start with a young whisky from the new’ish English distillery, Bimber. For the second review of the week, we are back in Scotland, up in the Speyside, at Craigellachie. Craigellachie—like Mortlach—produce an atypical Speyside spirit. Both distilleries are among the few that still use wormtubs to condense their spirit; as a result both produce a heavy, meaty/savoury spirit. Sherry cask maturation can emphasize those qualities, and in the case of Craigellachie in particular, can bring out an organic, farmy note. Such was the case, for example, with a 15 yo bottled for K&L a couple of years ago. It’s a non-cookie cutter profile for sure. This particular cask, a single sherry butt, was bottled by the Single Malts of Scotland in 2022. That label is now operated by Elixir Distillers, which was spun off from the Whisky Exchange a few years ago; because I am old and resistant to change, I still think of it as a Whisky Exchange label. Get off my lawn. Continue reading
Restaurant Alma VIII, Fall 2023 (Minneapolis)
Our tour of our Twin Cities favourites after a summer away continues. I’ve so far reported on meals at Homi, Tenant and Krungthep Thai. This past weekend we went back to Alma for our dinner. At this point I need to specify that it was to Restaurant Alma that we went for dinner; this because Cafe Alma (in the same building) now also serves dinner till 8 pm from Thursday to Sunday. Maybe someday we’ll give their more informal space a go for a meal as well (I do after have sentimental ties to it myself). For now, though, it was back to the flagship restaurant. Having missed out on eating one of their summer menus (the menu turns over every 6-8 weeks or so), we were very much looking forward to the current fall menu. We’d really enjoyed our dinner there at the end of September last year and we had particularly fond memories of the sweet corn-centered dishes on that menu. We were hoping for more of the same at this meal; we were not disappointed. Continue reading
Bimber Oloroso Cask, Batch 3
Last week’s whisky reviews were all of sherry cask whiskies from island distilleries (Tobermory, Bunnahabhain and Highland Park). I’ll keep the sherry cask theme running this week but we’ll move away from island distilleries. In fact, today we’ll move away from Scotland altogether. Bimber is an English distillery, located in London. I have to confess that I hadn’t really heard of them before I went in on this bottle split. What’s the point of being a whisky blogger if I don’t know about new distilleries, you might ask. But as I’ve been saying over and over again for quite some time now, it’s been a long while since I stopped paying attention to whisky marketing and other industry news. Indeed, with the exception of Michael K’s Diving for Pearls, I no longer even read any whisky blogs with any regularity. And so it’s no surprise that I didn’t know about Bimber. For all I know, there’s 15 other London-based distilleries now. Anyway, Bimber are new’ish—their first casks were filled in 2016 and their first release was in 2019. This, the third release of a batch of oloroso-matured spirit, came out in 2020. They’re a small outfit and they make their malt whisky from barley grown on their own farm; I’m not sure how large their capacity is but their website indicates that their approach is that of a craft distillery. Well, let’s see what the whisky is like. Continue reading
Ristorante Peruca (San Gimignano, July 2023)
In my report yesterday on our lunch in Volterra, I made reference to a fancy meal we ate accidentally in San Gimignano the next day. Here now is a report on that meal. Let me begin by explaining what I mean by an accidentally eaten meal. It was a scorcher of a day in Tuscany and we figured we’d spend a good chunk of the afternoon in the pool at the agriturismo we were staying at outside San Gimignano. And so we decided not to go too far on this day. As we’d not seen very much of San Gimignano on our first outing we decided to spend a little more time there and then head to the town of Certaldo, also not very far from us but in the other direction. We figured we’d spend the morning in San Gimignano and then head to Certaldo for lunch. And then we spent so much time ambling around San Gimignano that it made more sense to eat there. But where? The sun was high in the sky and it was hot. The owner of the agriturismo had recommended one spot but it did not have air conditioning and the outdoor tables were in the sun. “You can come back in 30 minutes”, the manager said, “the sun will move across the street”. With that in our back pocket we ambled some more and then found ourselves outside another place the agriturismo had recommended. They had air conditioning and available tables and so we went in and sat down. Continue reading
Il Giardinetto (Volterra, July 2023)
We visited Volterra on our third day in Tuscany and here is an account of the lunch we ate there. You may be wondering where the report on lunch on our second day is (we ate at Magnino in San Gimignano on the first day). Well, we visited Siena on the second day. It was a lovely day but punctuated by heavy bursts of rain. And so we ended up eating panini on the run at an informal museum cafe counter in the Piazza del Duomo. Our Siena outing was to influence our Volterra outing as well. Rain was once again in the forecast but after a prolonged drama with finding parking lots with spaces we contrived to leave our rain jackets in the car. We discovered we’d done so only after the steep ascent to the town proper. And so when it came time to think of lunch, we decided to find a place within very close reach of the Etruscan Museum, which was to be our major port of call, culture-wise. I had done no research into the Volterra dining scene and so we picked a place with covered outdoor seating: Il Giardinetto. Lunch was nothing special but it was also not bad at all. Continue reading
Highland Park 12, 2006 (for Binny’s)
This was a week of reviews of sherry cask whiskies from island distilleries. It started on Monday on the Isle of Mull, with an idiosyncratic official Tobermory 17 that I enjoyed despite the clear presence of sulphur. I enjoyed Wednesday’s Bunnahabhain 12 from A.D Rattray even more, despite the stupidly high abv. Here now to close out the week is another 12 yo, another official release, and another whisky at a very high abv. This is a Highland Park selected by Binny’s in Chicago and bottled in 2019. It was matured in a first-fill European oak hogshead. Was this an European oak butt that was broken down and rebuilt as a hogshead or two? Or was it a purpose-built hogshead that was then treated with sherry to turn it into a “first-fill” cask? I expect the second is probably closer to reality but don’t really know. If you know more about Highland Park’s cask program for these high octane sherry cask releases that they’ve been pumping out over the last half-decade or so, please do write in to the comments. Continue reading
Dim Sum at Ka Shing (Dublin, Summer 2023)
Our first meal out in Dublin featured Persian/Kurdish food (at Passion 4 Food). Our second meal out featured dim sum. I’d done some cursory googling on Dublin’s Chinese restaurant scene and the consensus seemed to be that Good World on Georges St. was the place to go. Accordingly, we went there; only to discover on arrival that we needed to have made a reservation. Casting around for a fallback option, I came upon another restaurant just a few minutes walk from Good World: Ka Shing on Wicklow St. We sauntered over and were glad to be told that they could seat us. Herewith a report on the meal that followed. Continue reading
Bunnahabhain 12, 2009 (A.D. Rattray)
The theme for this week is sherry cask whiskies from island distilleries. The week got off to a good start on Monday with a funky, idiosyncratic Tobermory with more than a bit of sulphur mixed in. That was a 17 yo. Today I have for you a review of a Bunnahabhain 12. No, not the official 12 yo but an independent bottling of a single sherry butt. The bottler is A.D. Rattray and the cask was filled in 2009. There’s more than one of these Rattray Bunnahabhain 12s around. Well, there’s at least one more. While Whiskybase does not have an entry for the cask I’m reviewing (900020), they do have one for cask 900037. It was also a sherry butt, and, like this one, it was bottled at a very high strength: 66.7% abv. If you can believe it, cask 900020 had even more alcohol in it at 67.3%. That might make it the highest strength Scottish single malt I’ve ever had. I’m not in general a fan of whiskies being bottled at these crazy strengths but there certainly is a market for that kind of thing—especially in the US, where this seems to have been released (I’m sure it’s all gone by now). Bunnahabhain’s sherry cask spirit has also been known to have a fair bit of sulphur in it—I’m thinking o my last bottle of the OB 12 yo, which furred my mouth a fair bit—though that was a long time ago. Hopefully, this won’t be in that vein. Let’s see. Continue reading