Just a bit of bragging, now. Yesterday the annual Bottoms Up tasting at De Whiskykoning took place. All kinds of scraps from his tasting room were available for one last hurrah!

Of course, you have to be suspicious of things that are too good to be true. Sometimes he puts something else in a great bottle, or puts something great in an average bottle.

Point in case: The bottle of Talisker Port Ruighe contained Talisker 30, and the Port Ruighe was put in the hit-or-miss sample bottles strewn around the table.

A rather good AnCnoc, very likeable and a nice warming up!

Epic stuff, this.

This probably contained something else, but I think it was still Springbank…

A very solid and earthy Clynelish

From an unmarked sample bottle: 30 year old brandy from Jerez

Not very good.

Tasting leftovers in a tiny cask. A shit whisky.

Yup! Very good and rather recognizable as Irish.

The actual Talisker Port Ruighe wasn’t very good.

This one, however. This one was not to be topped during the afternoon.

Okay, but not great.

I was very enthusiastic about this one! A very solid Pulteney!

20 guys can do a lot of harm to a table of bottles.

In the end I had some random other stuff, but after the Talisker things started to wind down. It felt a bit futile to keep rummaging around for something else that was in that league.