After a week of 20+ yo whiskies and a week of 10 yo whiskies, might as well give this week a theme too: wine cask whiskies. Yesterday I had the Springbank 12, Claret Wood, and here now is Edradour’s second release of their limited edition peated line, matured in Madeira casks (I’ve previously reviewed #3, #4 and #5 and last week reviewed the brand new regular release 10 yo).

I think the only other Madeira cask whiskies I’ve had have been from Springbank and I liked both of those a fair bit (see here for the 14 yo K&L put out a couple of years ago; I guess I never got around to reviewing the 11 yo that I liked even more; hmmm I think I might have a large’ish sample saved from that one). And I’ve also liked all of these Ballechins. A good omen? Let’s see.

This sample, like that of the Ballechin 10, came from Florin (the junior senator from Indiana). I introduced Florin to the Ballechin series via a sample swap a while ago and now he’s like some goddamned evangelist for the line, won’t shut up about it. That said, I can’t recall what he thinks of this one. Continue reading →

Ballechin is the name Edradour give their peated malt, which they’ve been making and maturing for a bit over a decade now. There have been a number of “limited” releases of this aging spirit along the way, from a range of cask types. I’ve reviewed #3 (port), #4 (oloroso) and #5 (marsala). I liked them all, the oloroso cask most of all. As such, I’ve been looking forward to trying their regular release 10 yo ever since it was first released last year (I think).

I got a chance to taste it when I visited Florin (small forward for the Sacramento Kings) in San Diego at the end of December, and was not overly impressed with the small taste of it I had then (small taste because if you have large tastes of everything Florin insists you drink when you visit him you will die within 30 minutes). He prevailed on me to carry a larger sample home for more careful review and here I am. Continue reading →