Cragganmore 38, 1985-2023, Refill American Oak Hogshead 601269, 45.3% – Cask of Distinction for Wu Dram Clan

Posted on 22 April 2024 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

This truly is something special. There have only been four older Cragganmores ever, and with this one coming from the guys at Wu Dram Clan, my expectations are soaring. Cragganmore is one of those distilleries that never really disappoints, but when things get special, they tend to get very special indeed.

What also helps is that it’s become increasingly rare to try something this old. It’s not impossible but newer releases rarely get to this level of maturity. Of course, with it comes the risk of things being over-matured, but since this whisky is coming from the Cask of Distinction program and WDC, I am not really scared for that.

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
Toasted oak, a light touch of honey, tangerines, apples. The oak is clearly present but subtly, and not overdone at all, even after almost four decades. There’s some candlewax going on, as well as beeswax and other slightly honeyed notes.. Some minor notes of autumn forest. Dried leaves, moss, tree bark.

Sip:
The palate is impactful with dry oak sawdust, some white pepper and brittle honeycomb. Apple and tangerines again, with honey, beeswax, some star fruit too. Dry oak, tree mulch, and it gets a little bit more syrupy with some time. Treacle, lots of fruit and lots of oak.

Swallow:
The finish veers back to the wood as it was on the nose. Massively old and gentle. Long, dry, fruity and lots of cask influence.

This whisky has mellowed over the decades to show lots of flavors and depth. It’s massively layered, with all the good stuff that you got in whiskies from yonder year. A trip to the past indeed. It’s complex and reminiscent of whiskies from even longer ago, when things moved a bit slower. The honey and wax notes are epic, with the plethora of subtle fruit notes to go with it for even more great depth. Holy shit, what a dram!

93/100

Still available, starting at € 2200

Thanks to Wu Dram Clan for sending a sample!

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Blair Athol 14, 1998-2012, Ex-Bourbon Cask AM 007, 47.8% – Asta Morris

Posted on 15 April 2024 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

A while ago I ordered some ridiculous samples from WhiskySample.nl and with it came this surprise Blair Athol. Asta Morris is a bottler is somehow like but never keep track of. Strange, because the very first experience I had with them was nothing short of stellar. That was the BenRiach 1975, by the way.

More recent experiences were pretty solid too, but somehow, still, I find it hard to spread my attention wide enough to also include Belgium…

Anyway, a surprise Blair Athol. I like the distillery and have had a really nice tour and tasting there some years ago. So, that also helps. Let’s find out if this Highlands whisky lives up to expectations!

Sniff:
Toast and roasted malts, a bit of browned butter, pumpkin seeds, banana crisps too. Some old apple, and oak planks.

Sip:
A bit of sharpness with hints of iron and toasted black pepper. Dry oak, apple and a bit of banana sweetness. Roasted malts, coffee beans.

Swallow:
The finish brings some vanilla to the front, and shows the notes of apple, oak, barley. Quite rich and syrupy with a minor note of black pepper for balance.

With Blair Athol being a rather rich and syrupy spirit by itself, I was a bit afraid of how a rich bourbon cask would work out. They can sometimes get a bit too much like apple crumble and custard.

This one, even though it does have some of those characteristic flavors, has more than enough other flavors to be discovered to stay rather interesting.

A rather lovely dram, if I may say so. And this is my blog, so I actually may say so..

87/100

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Laphroaig Yggdrasil 26, 1996-2022, Cask 5391, 48.7% – Jack Tar

Posted on 9 April 2024 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Yggdrasil, the world tree in Norse mythology, is based in peat, or so it seems!

This very old Laphroaig is bottled by Jack Tar, a Polish bottler that is rather focused on mythology themed bottlings. Not only of whisky, but there’s also brandy and rums and things like that.

This one was bottled a couple years ago but only found its way to my glass recently. This weekend I was away with the missus for a couple of days and that was a nice moment to sit down for something as rare as this!

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
Coastal, but warming and bonfire like. Glowing embers, salty smoke, shammy leather. Earthy peat, washbacks, and some dehydrated lemon slices. A hint of coffee too.

Sip:
Rather gentle on the arrival and at first it needs a bit of time to get going. There’s a light hint of candy-floss, but mostly dry white oak, a cherry stone bitterness, dried lemon peels, apple, sea weed (nori), a surprisingly light hint of smoke and sand. It stays a bit muted.

Swallow:
The finish starts showing the more typical Laphroaig notes of band-aids and iodine, as well as tarry ropes and coastal smoke. A big and classical finish.

This is a bit of a rollercoaster. The nose and finish are spectacular. However, the palate is a lot less impressive. It feels a bit thin, and seems muted in almost all ways. It took me quite a while to get these tasting notes out, and even being as focused as I can be it was a bit of a struggle.

Having nagged about that for a bit. The nose and finish then. Those really are good and save this whisky in a big way. The ‘heads and tails’ of the dram show all the things you want in an old Islay whisky. Well integrated peat, some crisp coastal notes and the old-fashioned Laphroaig notes of iodine and band-aids.

88/100

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WhistlePig 12, Fiji Rum Cask, 43% – OB for Cane & Grain

Posted on 2 April 2024 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

A couple of months ago Whiskybase was having their Dutch Auction discount and I managed to snag this one up, among at least one other bottle. American whisky (or Canadian, because that is what the distillery started with) isn’t overly popular in The Netherlands and that means that IF (a big if…) stuff comes here it is not unlikely to end up in a discount at some point. A shame if you ask me, but there’s not much to be done about which except for what Norbert / Whisky4All is doing.

WhistlePig is a distillery nowadays, but they started out by bottling spirit they bought elsewhere. Production of whisky only began in 2015, which means this is whisky that they bought from other distilleries. On the label is stated ‘hand bottled on the Whistlepig Farm’, so they’re not trying to wind you up contrary to some other brands.

This particular cask was bottled for Cane & Grain, a bottle shop in Amsterdam which I have yet to visit. Due to tourism and prices that go with it I tend to avoid shops in Amsterdam, but in this case I might have to make an exception. Anyway, the bottle was available through a competitor, which is interesting.

Image from Whiskybase

I always find it interesting that Fiji Rum is a thing, since Fiji is tiny and a million miles away from anywhere else. Also, and I know this is very wrong, I always think of the Caribbean when thinking of rum. At least, initially. I know and have tried rums from many other places as well.

Let’s just see where a very gentle whisky with added rum sweetness ends up.

Sniff:
Dry and spicy, with some added sweetness because of the rum cask. Dark bread croutons, some white pepper and sawdust.

Sip:
Soft, but with a bit of a dry peppery heat, and some honey and golden syrup sweetness.

Swallow:
A rather long and gentle finish. Mostly dey and dusty with a hint of straight forward rye grains.

I’m not the biggest fan of this one. I think it would have been better if it was bottled at a slightly elevated ABV, somewhere between 46 and 50% or so. Now there’s a bit too much focus on the sweetness for my liking. Having said that, it does make the whisky dangerously drinkable.

85/100

Available at Cane & Grain for € 111.50

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Ardnamurchan 6, 2016-2023, 1st Fill American Oak PX Sherry Butt, 60.6% – SMWS 149.3 (A Walk in the Woods)

Posted on 28 March 2024 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Even though I think Ardnamurchan is a distillery that is doing very, very well, they don’t often find their way to my shelf. It maybe has to do with me not paying attention, or simply that there’s so much out there. I find it slightly hard to navigate all the bottlings from that distillery.

Image from Whiskybase

However, that does also mean that when someone else does the navigating and offers me a sample I don’t say no. So that’s what happened here too. Someone in the bottle-share club bought a couple of bottles from SMWS (the other one will follow at a later date) and allowed us to chip in and get some samples.

So here we are. Rocket fuel ABV, a sherry cask but from American oak.

Sniff:
Oak, barley, shoe polish. Orchard fruits, apples and oranges (a hard to compare whisky?). A light and mossy crispness. A forest in spring.

Sip:
Fierce, but with lots of layered flavors. Dry barley, lots of wood, fruits and a hintbof spices. White peppery heat with apples, oranges. A pithy bitterness too.

Swallow:
The finish mellows quickly but leaves most flavors. Oak, barley and the sweeter side of the fruits.

As expected from Ardnamurchan, a lovely dram. It doesn’t do anything that’s not been done before by this distillery, but that is also where their strength is. So, really good stuff at an acceptable price (unless you think about the time in cask versus the price… Value for money, if you ask me, although a bit lower ABV would have been nice.

87/100

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Springbank 11, 2011-2023, Fresh Sherry Rotation 155, 56.7% – Duty Paid Sample

Posted on 27 March 2024 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

A ‘Duty Paid Sample’ of 70cl, or as it is commonly known, a ‘Cage Bottling’. Erik E/H. brought this over last year, and shared this one with the group. And as is quite well known to returning readers, I love me some Springbank!

Image from Whiskybase

With it being a very limited bottling, although not exactly one-of-one as they once were, there’s not much to say about it except what can be found on the Whiskybase page. So let’s just get to it!

Sniff:
Even though it’s a fresh sherry cask there are not too many typical sherry notes. There is sulfur though, but I’m one of those folks that can appreciate some of it. This is the ‘matches’ kind, so slightly sharp on the arrival. After a little while it gets a bit more rounded, a bit more sweet. It has the expected notes of hessian and a whiff of mushroom.

Sip:
The palate packs a punch, but with this being at 56.7 that’s not too surprising. There are chili peppers, some oak and barley. Also a hint of date, hessian, hay and more chili peppers.

Swallow:
The finish continues with quite some heat initially. After half a minute or so it starts to dissipate and dates, nuts, and oak start showing up a lot more.

It’s a fairly straight forward sherry cask matured Springbank with all the good and (for some) bad that comes with it. I find these bottlings highly enjoyable, but that’s not overly surprising.

88/100

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Glenlivet 12, The Original Stories – Illicit Still, 48%

Posted on 26 March 2024 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

I always have a bit of a chuckle when one of the biggest, most corporate distilleries in Scotland starts toting things like ‘Illicit Still’. This whisky is about 200 years removed from an illicit still at Glenlivet, but that doesn’t hold back the old marketing department.

What did surprise me is that this is a whisky with a title/name AND an age statement. Generally speaking these things are mutually exclusive, so some kudos to Glenlivet for that.

Image from Whiskybase

Tom, of Whisky Odyssey and from many a guest post here, bought a bottle and was kind enough to supply me with a sample. Let’s dive in!

Sniff:
This is a very light whisky, I think I would have guessed it to be a blend if I had tried it blind. There is a bready barley note, with a touch of cardboard and lemon. A hint of charcoal dust and simple syrup behind it.

Sip:
The palate shows more of that charcoal dust and cardboard. Also grist, sawdust and more of a wheaty bread like note. Hints of white pepper, a bit of vanilla, syrup and lemon curd.

Swallow:
The finish loses the note of pepper and gets a bit more sweet. A bit more vanilla too, surprisingly generic.

I strongly doubt this tastes anything like illicit still whisky of yonder year. Also, it is actually quite generic. Unfortunately, I think this is different but not better than the regular Glenlivet 12, but almost twice as expensive.

80/100

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Cognac Mauxion 78, 1945, 60% – Wu Dram Clan

Posted on 25 March 2024 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

There is a lot to unpack here.

In the world of whisky they often talk about slow maturation and state things like ‘patiently matured’ on labels. It often doesn’t mean much, but if there is anything to go by, this one is slowly matured. If you think about the simple fact that the alcohol content is still 60%, ever after 78 years (!), that is quite miraculous.

Mauxion was able to get this far along with such a high ABV by intentionally storing in an incredibly humid cellar and partially burying the cask so that interaction with the air around it was minimal. It change quite a few maturation parameters compared to the more traditional ways of doing that.

On top of that (quite literally) the spirit was made by using the ‘Remy’ method. This means that the brandy is distilled with a segment of natural wine. By heating the spirit the ‘raw’ parts of the natural wine (yeasty and cloudy parts) float to the top and give the spirit more complexity.

And then there’s the more cultural or psychological factor that this was distilled in the year that the Second World War was still happening. Much like the 1941/1943 Vallein Tercinier from a couple of years ago, it’s quite special to have a French spirit bottled by some dudes in Germany. Europe has come a long way.

Sniff:
Very timid and clean for both the age and the alcohol. A slight minty note, but after a few minutes (not seconds!) it turns to blood orange and copper. Red cinnamon and Meranti hardwood.

Sip:
Again, a timid arrival, but the high ABV makes itself known after about 20 seconds. Lots of oak and sweeter but crisp citrus.

Swallow:
A rather hot and teary finish that leaves a dry and hardwood sawdust flavor. Long, but gentle after a while. Back to the blood oranges, wood pulp and some copper.

This is quite something. The combination of this being ridiculously old, and very high in alcohol is interesting. The alcohol has been mellowed over the long decades of maturation, but there still simply is a massive amount of it. So there’s quite some bite, but it’s not extremely hot on the arrival.

The finish starts with a lot of heat, but mellows soon into a lovely batch of flavors. The tropical blood orange notes are great. It combines well with the notes of copper.

In the end I didn’t have to guts to add a drop of water, because I was afraid (I was petrified) that it wouldn’t swim well.

90/100

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Macallan 1998-2009, Bourbon Barrel 1193, 54.9% – Malts of Scotland

Posted on 22 March 2024 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

It’s been ages since I had a Malts of Scotland bottling, and it’s been even longer since I had a Macallan.

I was about to rant a lot about why Macallan is no longer regarded as highly as it was 20 years ago, by whisky fanatics at least. Things about age statements, golden promise barley, sherry casks and price points, I think it’s a topic that has been chewed out a bit too much.

This one came from a share a very short while ago through another channel than my own. It looked interesting and I didn’t even check which whiskies were in the share. Somehow I must have read it, but this Macallan was still a surprise. A youngster at only 10 years old, but then again, it has a vintage and not just a random color reference.

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
Sweet with a dusty nuttiness. Some apricots, with their stones. Barley and a bit of a sweet pound cake note, with a dark buttery crust.

Sip:
The arrivals is quite sharp on the first sip. All the nutty goodness, but in a biting way. Oak, pastry, nuts.

Swallow:
The finish has quite some bite. Dry, woody, lots of assorted nuts. Apricots and almonds for a touch of bitterness on top of the sweetness.

The reviews on Whiskybase are utter trash for this one, but I quite liked it. It’s weirdly nutty, maybe even some ‘picked nuts’ which seem to pop up in this distillery’s profile now and again. It’s weird, it’s definitely not run of the mill single malt, but I found it rather enticing.

86/100

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Bruichladdich 30, 1988-2018, Bourbon Hogshead, 48.9% – Cadenhead’s

Posted on 21 March 2024 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Old Bruichladdich can be hit or miss. As in, the distillery was highly inconsistent in the quality of its output spirit. Since the reopening in 2001 it still is but the spirit is far more consistent. The new inconsistency is in the use of all kinds of weird casks between 2005 and 2015-ish. It has gotten far more consistent over the last couple of years with more focus on bourbon and sherry casks with far less wine casks and other things mixed in.

Personally, I think that’s a good thing because the spirit works so very well with bourbon casks. However, I’ve had some older ones from before it closed down in the nineties that were really weird distillates that have some serious issues. Luckily, those are gone now and what is coming out now is older and has been taken care of. Also, the shit casks are probably gone by now, sold to blenders or just chucked out.j

Anyway, let’s see what Cadenhead’s made of this one. This one is from their single cask series, with the golden labels. I’m not sure if that still exists, since they seem to have moved to batches instead of single casks.

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
Flint and minerals. Slightly acidic, but not in a lemon or lime way. Cocoa powder, but otherwise I find it very hard to get many different scents. It’s lovely, but hard to pinpoint different aromas. A hint of low fat milk too.

Sip:
Reeds, green oak and green malt. After a few seconds there’s a lot of white pepper. A milky acidity again with a powdery dryness. Almond flour, tartaric acid.

Swallow:
The acidity continues in the finish, although the white oak becomes a bit more prominent. Tartaric acid powder again, with white pepper and sawdust.

More interesting than gorgeous. As it turns out to be Bruichladdich (we tried it blind), I get it a little bit. It’s the flipside of that Archives one that had somewhat comparable weirdness, but that one was far nicer. This isn’t one of the best casks out there, in my opinion, but it’s far removed from the worst ones too.

It currently is available for € 563 in Switzerland and I think you can do far better for that kind of money.

86/100

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