I’m hoping to get to this year’s Laphroaig Cairdeas release by the end of the month but in the meantime here is another Feis Ile release from Islay’s south shore. This is not this year’s Lagavulin release though; it is the one they put out in 2015. At 24 years old it’s one of the older releases at recent Feis Iles. It’s also somewhat complicatedly made, being triple matured: first in ex-bourbon casks, then in PX sherry casks and then finally in oak puncheons (presumably either not sherry or refilled so many times as to not matter). The PX sherry maturation was apparently the briefest of the three. This was said to have been selected by the excellent Pinkie McArthur but I’m not sure exactly what that means in this case as there were 3500 bottles released—probably 6-8 puncheons worth at 59.9%. Were there in fact far more of these triple-matured puncheons, a few of which Pinkie selected to be vatted for Feis Ile 2015? That would appear to be the explanation. That makes you wonder what is happening/happened with the rest. Well, I cannot answer that question but I can tell you what I think of this bottle which I recently opened several years after acquiring it at auction for a king’s ransom (well, maybe not a very important king). Continue reading
Tag Archives: Whisky
Lagavulin 18, Feis Ile 2018
The last time I reviewed one of Lagavulin’s special releases for Feis Ile was in 2014. I have a few of the subsequent releases on my shelves but haven’t opened any of them yet—hmmm I should do something about that. Anyway, that one was a 17 yo from a vatting of European oak sherry butts. This one is a year older and is put together far more complicatedly. It was a release of 6000 bottles from a vatting of refill American hogsheads, rejuvenated (presumably this means re-charred) hogheads and “bodega” sherry butts. Whether “bodega” here means American or European oak is anyone’s guess, as is whether that means these butts were actually used to mature or transport sherry or whether they were sourced from some bodega and filled with disposable sherry for a short period of time. Anyway, that 17 yo, bottled for Feis Ile in 2013 was very sherry forward in all the best ways. Let’s see what this one is like. Continue reading
Ballechin 12, 2005 (Signatory for the Whisky Barrel)
Back again to the combo of big sherry and big peat. This Ballechin was/is an exclusive for the Whisky Barrel. It was bottled by Signatory and as Signatory owns Edradour—whose peated malt Ballechin is—it seemed a pretty good bet that this would be a good cask. Also relevant: I quite liked the old limited edition Ballechin 4 which was from oloroso casks (or finished in oloroso casks, I can’t remember). I got this sample as part of a bottle split and indeed liked it so much (spoiler alert) that I purchased a couple of bottles. I was surprised to see later that Serge didn’t rate it very highly. This may explain why this is still available from the Whisky Barrel. I think it’s one that requires some time and then water to reveal all its charms. Anyway, I do recommend it highly, especially if you like that combo of big sherry and big peat.
Ballechin 13, 2003
This is a distillery-only Ballechin—which is to say it is/was only available at the Edradour distillery (whose peated malt is called Ballechin, as you doubtless know). No, I did not pick it up while driving through the highlands last June. We did go very near Edradour on our way to Blair Castle but Tomatin was the only distillery in that part of the country that we stopped at, and that only for a little while. No, this is a sample from a bottle that the redoubtable Michael K. purchased at the distillery in 2016. Me, I didn’t even know that Edradour had bottled any Ballechin of this age. All I’ve had are most of the various younger, wine cask releases of yesteryear and the 10 yo that was released in 2014. Michael said in his review last year that he liked this very much at the distillery but not as much later. As you will see below, I liked it quite a bit now. I did also like the Ballechin #3, Port Cask—there seems to be something about the marriage of their peated malt and port casks that works well. Anyway, here are my notes. Continue reading
Glenfarclas 21
With this post I complete, as far as I know, a series of reviews of Glenfarclas’ entire basic age-stated range. And it’s a large range. Here are the others, in order of age, if not in order of review: 8 yo, 10 yo, 12 yo, 15 yo, 17 yo, 18 yo, 25 yo, 30 yo and 40 yo. I don’t know if there’s any other distillery that has ever offered such a large range of stops up their maturation ladder—yes, I know the 8 yo and 18 yo weren’t really part of the core range. The 21 yo and 25 yo continue to be available at very reasonable prices relative to the competition—the 21 yo a bit above $100 in many US market and the 25 yo at about $150. Alas, the same can no longer be said about the 30 yo (which never came to the US) and the 40 yo but it’s hard to complain about Glenfarclas in this respect. They’re one of the few Scottish distilleries whose prices seem to have the middle-class whisky enthusiast in mind. The less charitable may note that very few of the releases in their core range ever seem to get very many people excited but not all whisky needs to set off fireworks. Continue reading
Glenfarclas 12
Back to Glenfarclas. I’ve previously recently reviewed the 8 yo and the 10 yo—I found the first to be passable (78 points) and the second a bit better (80 points). Will the 12 yo, with its bump up to 43% abv, continue the incremental improvement/rise in my ratings? Let’s see. This one, like the 10 yo, can be found easily all over the US.
Glenfarclas 12 (43%; from a bottle split)
Nose: As with the 8 yo and the 10 yo, there’s obvious citrus here (orange again) but this is maltier from the get-go and there’s a milk chocolate/cocoa powder note. Less citrus and more malt at first with a few drops of water but then the fruit comes back strong.
Glenfarclas 10
Last week I reviewed the Glenfarclas 8—the malt that may or may not be the youngest age-stated malt in their lineup. The confusion stems from the fact that Winesearcher shows it on sale in many places in the EU (it was never available in the US) but Glenfarclas themselves don’t seem to list it on their website. The status of the 10 yo, however, is far clearer. Glenfarclas do not deny its existence on their website and it’s widely available everywhere, including the US. It may then be more accurate to say that this is effectively the entry-level malt in the Glenfarclas portfolio. In Minnesota it can be found in the low $30s but its average price nationally is $46. By the way, if you haven’t done so, you should check out the latest in Michael Kravitz’s annual parsing of production and price trends of Scotch whisky; the final entry in this year’s series lists, among other things, the rate of increase of price of most popular single malts—the Glenfarclas 10’s price has gone up almost 22% in the last 10 years. But what is it like? Continue reading
Bowmore 2001, “Wanted: Rabbit Franky The Mohre” (Jack Wieber)
Here is another bizarrely named release of Bowmore from Jack Wieber’s “Wanted” series. This was distilled in 2001 and was released in 2012. I have so far reviewed two others in this series (see here and here); those had odd names too but not quite as odd as this one, which I think I would, on the whole, rather not have explained. Well, I did like both of those a fair bit, so if oddness of name maps on to quality of whisky then I should be in for a treat. Let’s see how it goes.
Bowmore 2001, “Wanted: Rabbit Franky The Mohre” (53.4%; Jack Wieber; bourbon cask; from a purchased sample)
Nose: A little blank at first but then it starts getting both fruity (melon, a bit of guava) and coastal (seashells, brine). On the second sniff it’s also quite custardy and there’s some sweet and prickly peat too now. Fruitier with time. With water it gets a little mentholated but the custardy fruit is still to the fore. Continue reading
Lochside 29, 1981 (Captain Burn’s)
Lochside is one of those closed distilleries that is never coming back. Located in the eastern Highlands—well east of the Speyside and separated by it from most of the distilleries we usually associate with the Highlands—it was closed in 1992 and then demolished in 2004-2005. It was somewhat unusual in that it was set up to produce both grain and malt whisky—though I’m not sure if grain whisky was indeed produced there for its entire history. As with a number of closed distilleries, Lochside’s reputation expanded well after its closure. It is also one of the distilleries that has a magical year of production associated with its name. People go on about Caperdonich distilled in 1972 and BenRiach and Tomatin distilled in 1976, and in the case of Lochside, it’s the 1981 vintage that is said to be the magical one. I haven’t looked into it closely but I suspect the same selection bias is at play as I’ve described for Caperdonich and Tomatin. Feel free to heap coals on my head. It won’t be the first time. Continue reading
Caol Ila, Feis Ile 2009
This was bottled for Feis Ile, the annual Islay whisky festival, back in 2009. It’s either a 12 or 13 yo and was bottled from a single sherry cask. My understanding is that the whiskies bottled by Caol Ila for Feis Ile are/were all from casks matured on Islay, at least back in the day—the vast majority of Caol Ila’s spirit, in case you’re wondering, is actually tankered off and matured on the mainland (terroir!). For those of us in the US, most of these Feis Ile bottles are out of reach. I’m always happy to see Laphroaig’s fairly priced Cairdeas—I’m more ambivalent about the Ardbegs that have been launched at Feis Ile in recent years. For all the others, however, you have to either go to Feis Ile or look to marked up bottles at auction. Of all of these releases, Lagavulin’s always garners the most interest—and the greatest auction premiums—but there are those who feel that some of Caol Ila’s releases have been on par with them. This 2009 release is particularly lauded. Let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading
Bowmore 15, Feis Ile 2012
This Bowmore 15 was bottled for Feis Ile (the annual Islay festival) in 2012. I first tasted it in August at one of my friend Rich’s annual (more or less) tastings of sherried whiskies up in St. Paul, and he was generous enough to share a large sample for review purposes. Bowmore’s Feis Ile releases don’t get as publicity as those of Ardbeg and Laphroaig, whose releases are generally widely available (i.e. you don’t need to go to Feis Ile to get your hands on them) and nor do they command the reputation or secondary market prices of Lagavulin’s releases. Indeed, this might be the first of their Feis Ile releases that I’ve tried. I have tried other limited edition, heavily sherried Bowmores of similar age before though and some of those were very good as well (see, for example, the 13 yo Maltmen’s Selection). Unlike those I’m not sure if this was full-term matured in a sherry cask—I failed to take a close look at the bottle when I had the chance, and looking around now I see a reference to it being finished in Spanish sherry casks. Well, I guess I’ll ask Rich in the morning. I quite liked this at the tasting and am looking forward to being able to pay closer attention to it tonight. Continue reading
Ballechin #2, Madeira
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 10
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
Lagavulin 17, 1995 for Feis Ile 2013
No, I didn’t go to Feis Ile 2013, and no, I didn’t buy a bottle at auction. This sample comes to me from my friend Rich who acquired a bottle somewhat complicatedly. It was purchased at Feis Ile by one person, passed on to another who lives in Canada, who then brought it down to other parts of the US from where it eventually made its way to Minnesota. All I had to do was go to a tasting in St. Paul last month featuring sherried malts and wheedle Rich into sharing a sample of it (it was one of the featured malts at the tasting and I knew I wanted to review it at leisure for the blog as well).
Feis Ile (in case you don’t know, this is the annual, week-long, festival of Islay distilleries) is something I’ve always wanted to attend, but the reports of queues of hundreds of people trying to get into every distillery are off-putting. I’m not a big fan of crowds. Still, if ever I go to a whisky festival it will be this one. The festival bottles are always very tantalizing, especially as only a small number of the distilleries make any of those available more generally. And the Lagavulin bottles are always the ones I crave the most. Quite apart from anything else, they’re sold at very reasonable prices. This one, for example, was about £100. That might seem a lot, and it is in the abstract, but full-term sherried Lagavulin is not easy to come by and when you look at the price asked for the most recent edition of the Lagavulin 21 it does seem like a very reasonable price. Say what you will about Diageo, at least they’re not gouging the faithful who’re willing to make it out to Islay in May. Continue reading
Ballechin #5, Marsala
This is the fifth release of Edradour’s limited peated line under the Ballechin name. I’ve previously reviewed #3 from port casks, and #4 from oloroso sherry casks. This is from marsala hogsheads, as per the back label which also informs us that only 6000 bottles were released. This was opened not too long ago for one of our local tastings and went down to the halfway mark right away. I’ve been drinking it fairly regularly since then (after reserving a reference sample) and have had a fairly up and down response to it. I initially took notes about three weeks after the bottle had been opened and didn’t like it as much as when it had just been opened–the palate seemed to have flattened. I thought this was odd and so waited on publishing the notes. Sure enough, that impression went away the next few times I tasted it. It may be that something changed in the bottle; more likely, something was off with my palate when I first took notes. I jettisoned those notes, and these are from later when the bottle was approaching the end. I should stress that from opening to finishing the bottle took only about 1.5 months. Continue reading
Ballechin #4, Oloroso
I’ve previously reviewed the port cask-matured third edition in Edradour’s Ballechin series of young peated whisky. Tonight I am tasting the fourth edition which was matured in oloroso sherry casks. The bottle itself was finished quite some time ago but, as usual, I have a large reference sample reserved. I’ve liked this one very much in the past; let’s see how it holds up tonight.
Ballechin 4, Oloroso (46%; oloroso sherry matured; from a reference sample from my own bottle)
Nose: Peat and carbolic smoke which turns somewhat organic and farmy pretty quickly. Some of the vegetal/bell peppery quality not unusual in sherried peaters. The dark sherry aromas are evident–the usual suspects (raisins, hint of orange liqueur)–but the primary notes are of the peat. With time there’s a slightly nutty quality and it also gets somewhat coastal (sea air, sea shells). After yet more time the smoke is dry and leafy. Twenty minutes and a few sips later the raisins are a lot more pronounced and joined by some caramel. Water does not do anything interesting. Continue reading
Ballechin #3, Port Cask
Ballechin is the name under which the Edradour distillery puts out its peated whisky. Edradour, which has a variable reputation, is one of the smaller distilleries in Scotland, and one of a number that lays claim to being the smallest distillery in Scotland–though what virtue there is in this title, I am not entirely sure. The distillery is owned by the independent bottler, Signatory and does a fair amount of experimentation with cask maturation, especially with the Ballechin line. Each release of Ballechin so far has been matured entirely in a different type of cask; in order: burgundy, madeira, port, oloroso sherry, marsala, bourbon and bordeaux. I have previously emptied a bottle of #4, which I quite enjoyed, and I have a bottle of #5 in reserve.
Today, however, we have #3. Will it be as good as #4 or as weird as a single sherry cask Edradour I had a couple of years ago?
Continue reading