Ardmore 23, 1997 (SMWS 66.199)

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My “Ardmore 23, 1997s bottled by the SMWS” week got off to a good start yesterday with cask 66.198. That one was matured for 21 years in a bourbon  cask and then for two years in a French oak barrique. Today I have a review of cask 66.199. This one was also matured for 21 years in a bourbon cask and then spent two years in a heavy-toast, medium-char hogshead. Were they just running out of ideas at that point? Or was there a bigwig at the SMWS screaming, “Not enough vanilla!!!” after tasting the 21 yo spirit? I guess we’ll never know. Oh yes, they named this one “Cricket in the Caribbean”.

Ardmore 23, 1997 (50.6%; SMWS 66.199; 2nd-fill HTMC hogshead finish; from a bottle split)

Nose: A mix of lemon, vanilla and mineral peat. Sweeter on the second sniff (more vanilla, plus some cream) and the lemon edges towards citronella; some white pepper and other more indistinct oak spice emerges.  With time the citrus trumps the vanilla. A drop or two of water and there’s first a floral burst and then the citrus gets a bit musky with hints of makrut lime. Continue reading →

Ardmore 23, 1997 (SMWS 66.198)

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I’d thought to do another week of Irish whiskey reviews but after the way last week’s Teeling series worked out (here, here and here), I’m a little bit wary. Let’s wait another week. In the meantime, this week I have for you reviews of three Ardmores bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society a few years ago. They’re all 23 years old, all distilled on the same day in 1997 and bottled in 2021. They are also therefore adjacent casks in SMWS’ esoteric cask numbering system. Ardmore is distillery 66 in their system and these are casks 195, 198 and 199. I’ve previously reviewed 66.197, which was also distilled on the same day as these three; indeed, as per Whiskybase, they’ve released nine such casks. I really liked 66.197, which had been finished in a refill Spanish oak sherry hogshead. I’ll begin this week’s series with 66.198 which spent 21 years in a bourbon hogshead and then also received a finish or second maturation (at 2 years it doesn’t really seem like a “finish”) but this time in a refill French oak barrique. Would that have made the previous contents of that cask wine of some kind or cognac? I don’t know. I do know that the SMWS gave this the name “Serene sunset satisfaction”. Let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading →

Teeling Single Malt

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My week of reviews of whiskeys from Teeling got off to a very shaky start on Monday (with the Single Grain) before looking up on Wednesday (with the Small Batch). Will the upward trajectory continue with the Single Malt? This miniature was purchased, along with the others, at the distillery last week. I assume it represents the current release. If so, it’s a true Frankenstein’s monster of a whiskey, put together from spirit that was fully matured in sherry casks and spirit that received finishes in cabernet sauvignon, white burgundy, madeira and port casks. I’m not sure, however, what the makeup is in terms of age. When the Teeling Single Malt was first released the oldest whiskey in the vatting was said to go back to the 1991 vintage. Is that still true? Or do they have older whiskey from some other distillation year in there? I would assume they would have wanted to maintain consistency. The other question, of course, is whether at some point this release will turn to using only the malted whiskey currently being distilled on premises. If so, that will be a much younger whiskey. I’ve not been able to find—from desultory googling, I will admit—much information on the current and projected composition of Teeling’s releases and the plans for their own distilled spirit. If you know more about all of this, please do write in below. Continue reading →

Mercato Testaccio (Rome, June 2023)

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Lunch on our third full day in Rome also featured pizza but it was not eaten at a restaurant; it also featured more than pizza. We took the bus out of of the tourist center to check out and eat at Mercato Testaccio. As the name indicates, Mercato Testaccio (or Mercato di Testaccio, if you want to be more grammatically correct—though the market’s own signage clearly doesn’t) is located in the Testaccio neighbourhood. Unlike a market like Campo di Fiori—where we had fruit juice earlier in the day—Mercato Testaccio is located indoors, in a modern building that lets in a lot of air and light. It is filled with stalls (or boxes in the market’s parlance) that range from clothing and shoe stores to butchers and fishmongers to fruit and veg sellers to a range of food purveyors. In the center is a seating area where most people vie for tables to eat. In other words, it’s along the lines of similar markets found in many large cities around the world, including Minneapolis’ own Midtown Global Market. Continue reading →

Teeling Small Batch

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Living very close to the Teeling distillery, as we currently are, I decided to do a week of reviews of Teeling’s core lineup. Things got off to a very shaky start on Monday with the Single Grain, which I really did not like. Here now is a review of the Small Batch, which is a blend of grain and malt whiskey. As to whether the grain whiskey that goes into this blend is the same as the grain in the Single Grain, I do not know. Nor am I sure of whether the malt whiskey in it is that distilled by Teeling themselves. I assume the odds are decent that it is as the Teeling distillery has now been open for about eight years. The whiskey itself is NAS and if there’s been any indication made about its purported age, I am unaware of it—I haven’t followed whisky marketing for many years now, and even when I did I was not very up on the Irish whiskey scene. As with the miniature of the Single Grain I reviewed, there’s some variance between this miniature and the Small Batch as currently described on the distillery’s website. There it is said to be finished for up to 12 months in rum casks; this label definitively notes a 6-month rum finish (after initial aging in bourbon casks). As to whether the duration of the finish varies from batch to batch, I do not know. I’m also beginning to wonder if there are any Teeling releases that don’t involve maturation or finishes in non-traditional casks. Continue reading →

Trattoria Monti (Rome, June 2023)

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Two things to note about Trattoria Monti to start: first, despite the name, the restaurant is located not in the Monti neighbourhood but in the adjoining Esquilino. The location was a big plus for us, as our flat was also in Esquilino, just 7-8 minutes walk away. Esquilino is an immigrant-heavy neighbourhood and on AirBnB reviews and elsewhere you are likely to come across not-very-coded references to it being or feeling “unsafe” for this reason. We found it to be no such thing. We very much enjoyed being in the midst of the Bangladeshi, Chinese, Korean and African populations of the area and getting a sense of a newer, multicultural Rome; in fact, I purchased excellent mangoes from a Bangladeshi store and spoke more Bengali in four days in Rome than I have in many years in Minnesota! And the neighbourhood itself we found pleasant both during the day and after dark. We didn’t have a single sketchy encounter walking back from the metro station in the late evenings; and as we walked back after dinner at Trattoria Monti much of the neighbourhood was watching a movie together in the central Piazza Vittorio Emanuelle II. So much for unsafe. Continue reading →

Teeling Single Grain

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Well, this wasn’t on the list of potential reviews for July but as I am in Ireland for a spell, it seems appropriate to review some Irish whiskey; and as I am living in Dublin, only 10 minutes walk from the Teeling distillery, it seems all the more appropriate to review something from Teeling. I’ll do you two better: I’ll review three Teeling whiskies this week. Mind, they won’t be anything very exotic. I went over to the distillery a couple of days ago and while they do have a distillery exclusive release, it involves red wine casks and I’m not buying a full bottle of a red wine-bothered whisky without tasting it first. I might yet do so at their bar—but that might depend on what I make of this week’s trio. All of them are whiskies from Teeling’s core portfolio and you don’t have to come to Ireland to drink them—they’re all available in Minnesota. While at the distillery I purchased what they call their “Trinity Pack”, three 50 ml bottles of their Single Grain, Single Malt and Small Batch. First up is their Single Grain, which is a NAS whiskey that is, I think, also a sourced whiskey. My understanding is that the Teeling distillery is only set up to distill single malt and that the grain whiskey—and for that matter, most of the other stuff they put out—is sourced whiskey of one kind or the other. Those who know more about the ins and outs of Teeling should feel free to correct or add detail. Continue reading →

Pizzarium (Rome, June 2023)

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If you ask people with a decent knowledge of Rome’s food scene for recommendations of places to eat pizza, odds are good that Pizzarium will pop up on the top of everyone’s list. Unlike at Emma—where we ate the previous day—they do not do whole pizzas with thin, crisp crusts. Their specialty is pizza al taglio (or pizza by the slice), on thick bready crusts, cut and served in rectangles or squares of a size of your choosing and priced by weight. This is basically the model followed by a place like Mama’s Too in New York. The difference here is that at Pizzarium the experience is less hectic—despite the place being even more crowded—and the staff are patient and not at all unpleasant. And, oh yes, the pizza is a lot better. Continue reading →

Emma (Rome, June 2023)

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On our first full day in Rome we had an excellent lunch in the middle of a very hot day of hardcore touristing: the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, the Forum etc.. It was hot, hot, hot in Rome, with blazing sun and no little humidity, and what had seemed like an easy 15 minute walk from the Forum to Emma turned into a bit of a trial. We arrived hot, sweaty and cranky but unlike a number of fellow tourists waiting at the door, at least we had a reservation. Alas, this reservation—made weeks before—didn’t get us an indoor table under the air conditioning. We were shunted instead to an outdoor table—covered seating, yes, but still very hot, and with the sun advancing on our table, not the most comfortable situation as the meal went on. The food, however, was very good indeed. Herewith, the details. Continue reading →

Caol Ila 22, 1990 (Mackillop’s Choice)

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This week of Mackillop’s Choice releases comes to a close with the oldest of the trio: a 22 year old Caol Ila. Monday’s 19 year old Scapa was very good; Tuesday’s 20 year old Bowmore, less so….Hopefully, this Caol Ila will give the week a good ending. Let’s see. By the way, unlike the other two (or, for that matter, the three I reviewed in May—here, here and here), it was bottled at 46%.

Caol Ila 22, 1990 (46%; Mackillop’s Choice; from a bottle split)

Nose: Mineral peat, olive brine, a touch of lemon. On the second sniff there’s ashy smoke and more of the coastal complex (kelp, oysters). More “green”/vegetal notes as it sits and then some sweeter notes (wet stones, apples). Softer with a drop of water: smoked cream.

Palate: The smoke starts out sharp but turns sweet as I swallow. A good drinking strength; rich texture. As it sits, there’s a mix of soot, coal and ash on the smoke front, more of the wet stones, and some cracked pepper. Water emphasizes the pepper. Continue reading →

Santo Palato (Rome, June 2023)

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My fourth restaurant report from our trip to Italy is of our first meal in Rome, at Santo Palato, a small, relatively new trattoria that serves up slightly tweaked versions of classic Roman dishes. Now this last part I am not really equipped to judge: I don’t know very much about Roman cuisine and so cannot tell you in what ways exactly the dishes we ate riffed on classic preparations (if all even did). What I can tell you is that this was a fantastic meal, perhaps the family’s consensus pick for the best formal meal of the trip; it was certainly my favourite meal of the trip. It almost got derailed on the way to the restaurant though… Continue reading →

Bowmore 20, 1983 (Mackillop’s Choice)

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My second week of reviews of releases from Mackillop’s Choice got off to a strong start yesterday with a 19 yo Scapa (see here, here and here for the reviews from the first Mackillop’s Choice week back in May). We’re now on shakier ground for the second review. It’s of a Bowmore that’s a year older than the Scapa but was distilled right in the thick of Bowmore’s dangerous decade: the 1980s. Much—though, it must be said, not all—of the whisky distilled in this period at the great Islay distillery has been marred to some degree or the other by a soapy, artificially floral character.

The problem had begun to sort itself out by the end of the decade—and was mostly gone by the early 1990s—but today’s whisky was distilled in 1983. Will it be an exception or an exemplar of everything people dislike about Bowmore from that era? Only one way to find out. Continue reading →

Scapa 19, 1989 (Mackillop’s Choice)

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After a week in the Speyside (at Dailuaine, Craigellachie and Glenlivet), let’s go further north to Orkney. Not for the whole week, mind. This is the first of a Mackillop’s Choice trio this week. I did another trio back in May. Those included a Tomintoul from the 1960s, a Glenlivet from the 1970s and a Highland Park from the early 1980s. This second trio is younger from the point of view of vintage. We’ll begin with a Scapa that was distilled in 1989 and bottled at the age of 19. No cask type is specified.

Scapa 19, 1989 (43%; Mackillop’s Choice; from a bottle split)

Nose: Lovely mix of malt, brown sugar and fruit (apples, bananas, lemon). The malt expands as it sits and is joined by toasted oak. A few drops of water push the oak back and pull out melon and some peach jam (on buttered toast). Continue reading →

Eating at Gwangjang Market, Pt. 2 (Seoul, March 2023)

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Here, only about four months after my return, is my last dining report from my trip to Seoul in March. It features the third and fourth of four dinners in a row eaten at Gwangjang Market, my absolute favourite place to visit on this trip. As you may recall from my first dining report from the market, at my first visit I ate dumpling soup; and on my second, I ate yukhoe tangtangi (seasoned raw beef with the chopped tentacles of a recently dispatched octopus). By the time of my third visit my overeating had been catching up with me. I’d eaten a deep-fried lunch at Namdaemun Market that day and so was in the mood for something light and fresh. Accordingly, I honed in on the stalls selling hwe or sliced raw fish and sat down at the first one that had empty seats. The following night I happened on the stall of an international celebrity but passed on the dish she is most famous for, in favour, once again, of something light and fresh. Details follow. Continue reading →

Mimi alla Ferrovia (Naples, June 2023)

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We are in Padua with only a few days remaining in our Italian itinerary. I am very far behind on the meal reports, which may take the rest of my life to get caught up on. Here, for example, is only my third report, covering our very first meal in Italy, eaten just an hour after our arrival in Naples. We took a cab to our AirBnB flat, got checked in and then headed for Mimi alla Ferrovia. This is a Neapolitan institution. The name comes from the fact that the original proprietor’s nickname was Mimi and the restaurant is located by the train station (ferrovia). I got to it as well via Katie Parla’s website—she recommends it as a less informal place to get classic Neapolitan cooking. It’s not that I was looking for more formal places but the fact that I could make an online booking and be assured of dinner without a wait after arrival was very attractive. Our flat was also just about a 15 minute walk away. Our AirBnB host, however, dissuaded us from walking there—the area by the station can apparently be sketchy after dark—and put us in a cab. On our way back the restaurant likewise advised against walking back and called us a cab. Between cabs, the meal itself was rather good. Continue reading →

Glenlivet 15, 2006 (Signatory for Binny’s)

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Speyside week began on Monday with a bourbon cask Dailuaine bottled by Signatory for Binny’s, and continued on Wednesday with the 2019 release of the Craigellachie 23. I liked both of those a lot. Here now to close out a week is another cask bottled by Signatory for Binny’s. This is a 15 yo Glenlivet and it’s a single first-fill sherry butt. It’s one of several high-octane sibling casks bottled by Signatory. And I mean high-octane: this is nearly at 64% abv. Let’s see what it’s like.

Glenlivet 15, 2006 (63.8%; Signatory for Binny’s; first-fill sherry but 900788; from a bottle split) 

Nose: Unsurprisingly closed at first but after a bit of airing there’s rich notes of raisins and orange peel plus a lot of salted nuts; a very slightly rubbery note as well (rubber gaskets on old medicine bottles). With more air there’s more fruit: apricot jam to go with the orange peel; some butterscotch as well now. With a few drops of water the apricot and butterscotch expand dramatically and there’s some cherry in there too now. One more drop and there’s some plum. Continue reading →

Craigellachie 23, 2019 Release

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Speyside week began on Monday at Dailuaine with a 12 yo hogshead bottled by Signatory for Binny’s. I liked that one very much. We’ll continue with an official release: this is the Craigellachie 23, probably bottled in 2019 (as per the source of my sample). It sits at the top of the distillery’s regular portfolio of releases (there’s also currently a 13 yo, a 17 yo and a 13 yo Armagnac cask). I’ve previously reviewed the 2017 release of the 13 yo (just about a year ago) and wasn’t terribly impressed by that one, finding it to be quite austere but not interestingly so. Let’s hope this older sibling is better.

Craigellachie 23, 2019 Release (46%; from a bottle split)

Nose: Honeyed malt with a slight whiff of peat (carbon paper). Below that is some lime and some metal polish. The citrus gets sweeter with time (orange). The sweeter notes are emphasizes by a few drops of water—a touch of vanilla too now—and there’s more of the carbon paper as well. Continue reading →