Is this the year of white port finishes in Scotland or is it just the year in which I’ve noticed them. Or is it the year of white port finishes in special releases? In October I reviewed the 2023 Cairdeas release from Laphroaig which sees a third of the vatting finished in white port casks. The Talisker in Diageo’s 2023 Special Release was also partly finished in white port casks. And here now is Glen Scotia’s release for the 2023 Campbeltown Malts Festival, which was also a white port cask finish (I’ve previously reviewed the 2020 Festival release, which had a tawny port finish). Unlike the Cairdeas, this one bears an age statement: it’s 11 years old (no vintage statement though, I don’t think). I’m guessing the base spirit was matured in a mix of bourbon casks prior to receiving the finish (for how long, I have no idea). As per Whiskybase, there were 24,000 bottles in the release—I assume these weren’t available only at the festival. The base spirit was distilled from lightly peated malt. Well, I quite liked the marriage of white port (and madeira) with Laphroaig’s heavier peat. Let’s see what I make of this one. Oh yes, this week’s whisky reviews will all be of Glen Scotia’s Campbeltown Malts Festival releases. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Port Finish
Laphroaig Cairdeas 2023, White Port & Madeira
My whisky readership has shrunk dramatically in recent years (I base this entirely on the lowered level of engagement with my whisky reviews). And so I almost feel I should apologize to the little that remains of that readership for trying their patience in October. So far this month I’ve posted two weeks of reviews of mezcal, one week of reviews of brandy, and one week of reviews of grain whisky (I am assuming here that my whisky readership is really mostly interested in single malt whisky). Please accept as penance this very timely review of a recent release, one that should be widely available all over the United States: the 2023 release of Laphroaig’s annual Cairdeas, bottled for Feis Ile, the Islay whisky festival. The Cairdeas releases have come to the US every year since 2011 (the series itself is only a few years older than that). The price has slowly edged up (it’s now in the mid $80s in Minnesota, before tax) and this year—for the first time—it’s a 700 ml bottle even in the US. Which means it’s a bit more expensive still per pour. Continue reading
Kilchoman 8, 2012 (for the Southern California Whiskey Club)
And Kilchoman week comes to a close. I started on Monday with a 13 yo—the oldest Kilchoman I’ve yet tasted and reviewed. On Wednesday I reviewed a 10 yo. Both of those were bourbon casks bottled for the Spec’s liquor chain in Texas. Today’s release—bottled for some outfit called the Southern California Whiskey Club—is both the youngest of the three, at 8 years of age, and also a little more unconventional. It too started out in a bourbon cask but received a finish in a ruby port quarter cask. As per Kilchomania, it spent more than 7 years in a Buffalo Trace cask before entering the port quarter cask—which presumably was a quarter cask treated with ruby port for this purpose; I don’t think port of any kind is typically matured in such small casks. Port casks work best for me when heavily peated whisky is involved and so that part should be fine. But there’s also quite a bit of oak contact here and I’m not generally big on oaky whiskies. Which way will this one go? Only one way to find out. Continue reading
Bowmore 15, 2004 (SMWS for Feis Ile 2020)
The blog turns 8 today. What did you get it? Nothing? Typical. As long time readers—down to the low single digits at this point—know, my first-ever review was of a Bowmore—the one-time entry-level Bowmore Legend—and so I’ve marked every anniversary since with a review of a Bowmore: The OB 12 in 2014, the OB 18 in 2015 and so forth—the only other official release since 2015 was the 30 yo Sea Dragon in 2019; other than that it’s been a run of independent releases. Well, today’s is an independent release as well, bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society for Feis Ile 2020. It was apparently finished in a first-fill barrique or port cask after 14 years in a bourbon hogshead and was given the whimsical name, Loungecore Stave Exoticism. (I’m sure this makes sense to someone but I am fine not having any idea what it’s a reference to.) I’m not sure that I’ve ever had any kind of port-bothered Bowmore before. Well, what better time than at the start of the blog’s ninth year? Continue reading
Laphroaig Cairdeas 2020, Port & Wine Casks
I look forward to the release of the Laphroaig Cairdeas every year, even though Laphroaig has not consistently been giving me very many reasons in recent years to look forward to it. I liked 2018’s Fino cask finish but last year’s Triple Wood CS and 2017’s Quarter Cask CS were acceptable but not at all special. The distillery seems to have got caught in an endless cycle of cask finishes; a far cry from 2011 and 2012 which saw them release excellent bourbon cask whiskies (neither of which, I realize, I’ve reviewed). And the only truly excellent Cairdeas since then—2015’s 200th anniversary release—was also from bourbon casks. But there’s no excitement in bourbon cask releases, I guess. Will next year be a rum cask? A marsala cask? Or will we see another Frankenwine release like this year’s (a vatting of port and wine casks)? Well, I suppose if the results taste good there’s no point complaining about the high-concept gimmickry. Let’s see if that is indeed the case. Continue reading
Benriach 27, 1984, Cask 4050
This Benriach, peated and finished in a tawny port cask, was brought by my friend Rich to a whisky gathering to celebrate his birthday last fall. It is from a cask that won a “Gold Medal” from the Malt Maniacs back in 2012, also picking up their award that year for the best peated whisky. The Malt Maniacs may award a lot of medals but very few of them are gold and so this would seem to be a sure thing. At our tasting, however, it got a less rapturous reception. While no one came close to disliking it, most of us—including me—found it a bit of an oddball (though I liked its oddness a lot), with vegetal, meaty and sweet flavours going in and out. It was not clear, however, if it was suffering juxtapositional effects: everything else we had that night was fairly straightforward ex-boubon or ex-sherry and it’s possible aspects of the port/peat character got exaggerated as a result. I came away with a large sample though and so am able now to evaluate it by itself. Continue reading
Heaven Hill 2001-2015, Port Cask Finish (Malts of Scotland)
As to why a bottler named Malts of Scotland is releasing wine cask finished bourbons of America, I don’t know. They’ve also released a Heaven Hill 2001 from a sherry hogshead and a regulation Heaven Hill single barrel from 2005. All three were bottled this year. Other things I don’t know include: whether this means Malts of Scotland are getting into bourbon in a big way; if these are experiments conducted by Heaven Hill themselves that they got their hands on or if they took the bourbon and finished it in their own casks; why Minnesotans don’t know what to do at four-way stop signs. If you have the answers please don’t be shy. Anyway, I quite enjoyed the last port-bothered bourbon I drank. That was High West’s “A Midwinter Night’s Dram“, and I liked it so much I went out and purchased an expensive bottle. If this is as good I may have to look into whether it’s still available (it was only released in the EU, as you might expect). Continue reading
High West, A Midwinter Night’s Dram
This is another of High West’s high concept whiskeys. It is a blend of two rye whiskies, one a 6 yo 95% rye, and the other a 16 yo 80% rye, finished in port and French oak casks. In other words, it’s the Rendezvous Rye finished in port and French oak casks. As to whether it goes into the finishing casks in sequence or whether some fraction is finished in one and the rest in the other and then vatted together, I have no idea.
I tasted this in late December at the home of Fabulous Florin (head of small animal husbandry at the San Diego Wild Animal Park) and do know that I liked it a lot; more, I think, than I had the Rendezvous Rye itself. I’ve since found a store in the vicinity that has a bottle and so I’m interested to taste it again and see if that initial impression is confirmed.
Laphroaig Cairdeas 2013, Port Wood
The 2013 edition of the Laphroaig Cairdeas was double matured in bourbon and port casks and was met with the usual gnashing of teeth by the usual suspects who decry single malt whisky going near any sort of wine cask (never mind that the most traditional of all casks used to mature single malt whisky previously held wine too: sherry). Well, I guess I’ve said rude things about the Glenmorangie Artein and the Bruichladdich Black Art as well, but that’s because I don’t think those whiskies quite work. I don’t rule out the possibility that port/marsala/madeira/etc. cask matured whisky can be very good, and as it happens I think this Cairdeas is very good. At least so I and all the others (including a couple of people who’re not big fans of peated whisky) thought at our local group’s October tasting where I opened this bottle. It’s now past the halfway mark—let’s see how it holds up. Continue reading
My Annoying Opinions 