It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed an old Scotch blend, by which I mean, a blend released a long time ago. The last one I reviewed was a White Horse released in the 1950s. Today I have for you another White Horse, albeit one released in the 1970s. Unlike the 1950s release, this review is not of a pour from my own bottle but of a sample I’ve had sitting in my stash for a few years now. I have an unexpected feeling of nostalgia about this whisky, however. This because in the late 1970s, when my family lived in Iraq, White Horse was one of a few Scotch whiskies that my father had in his bar. A bottle of White Horse or Black and White from this era was probably my first encounter with the aroma of Scotch whisky—and, of course, we repurposed the empty bottles to store drinking water in the fridge! I certainly didn’t taste any of it then but it feels a bit like a time machine trip to be drinking it now. Let’s hope the actual whisky doesn’t now disappoint! On that note, let’s get right to it. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Blend
Teeling Small Batch
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
Tomatin Cuatro, Blended + Musings
If you’ve been reading along for the last week you’ve probably noticed that I posted reviews of the four releases of Tomatin Cuatro (Fino, Manzanilla, Oloroso and PX). Of these I liked the PX release the best. Though I didn’t dislike any of the others, I didn’t find them to be particularly distinctive. I didn’t find the Fino and Manzanilla to be particularly sherried either, for that matter, in the way that we normally think of sherried whisky. It could be argued, however, that their dry, yeasty qualities might well be expressing the character of Fino and Manzanilla sherry quite well. The Oloroso and especially the PX casks were more in line with what whisky drinkers expect when they see the words “sherry matured/finished”. But because Tomatin does not clarify the kind of wood these casks were made of, it’s not clear if the greater stereotypical sherry influence of these two releases is down to the type of sherries these casks previously held or if it’s because these two releases had their second maturation in European oak while the other two were re-racked into American oak casks after the first nine years. Without this information it’s a little hard to come to any meaningful conclusions about the effect of aging in casks that had previously held different types of sherry. Continue reading
Dewar’s White Label + Some Fooling Around
This is the third, and probably last for a while, of my reviews of easily found mass market blends (see here for the Black Label, which I liked a lot, and here for the Famous Grouse, which I did not like a lot). Unlike the Black Label and the Famous Grouse, I have never previously tasted the Dewar’s White Label (unless I have and have suppressed the memory). Owned by Bacardi, this White Label is claimed by them to be the top-selling blended Scotch whisky in the US. Then again, the Famous Grouse is claimed to be the top-selling blend in Scotland.
The group’s premier distillery is Aberfeldy and their malt is said to be the cornerstone of all their blends. I’ve not had much Aberfeldy before either so that doesn’t really create any particular expectations for me. I’ve also never tried the age stated Dewar’s blends—I believe there’s a 12 yo, a 15 yo and an 18 yo. If you do know those and would recommend them please write in below. Continue reading