Author Archives: Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

After Bruichladdich released their Blacker, Redder and Golder Still I decided to lovingly call this baby the Bluer Still. I believe it was the first release of their own distillate without also using old stocks, which made it kind of … Continue reading →

A good old tasting note, for a change! I managed to get a sample of this bottling through Mark Dermul (thanks!). I didn’t go to any of the events which with the ridiculous embassy system meant I didn’t get any … Continue reading →

A trend has been going on for a few years now. A trend that I expected to be over sooner or to be smaller in any case. By that trend I mean the incredibly high prices that are asked for … Continue reading →

Master of Malt, Whiskysamples.eu, DH17, Drinks & Gifts, SMWS, Whiskysite, Jurgen’s Whiskyhuis, ‘t Fust, Passie voor Whisky, Whiskysample.nl. Those are the websites and shops selling whisky samples that I can think of off the top of my head. There’s probably … Continue reading →

A few years ago I bought half a bottle of this from Jeroen Koetsier, aka Fullproof when he was selling some samples and such. It took me a while to empty it, but I was in no rush to finish … Continue reading →

Lukasz from Alembic Comms and The Edinburgh Whisky Blog hosted another Twitter tasting recently. I haven’t gotten around to blogging about it yet, since there was a little festival called Maltstock the next day (and the day after, and the … Continue reading →

The last three posts were about Maltstock’s masterclasses, Speciality Drinks, Master of Malt and The Balvenie. What is still lacking is the general impression of the festival. The Friday started by picking up Tom at his home in Amsterdam, then … Continue reading →

I have never been a huge Balvenie fan and the biggest reason for going to this tasting to see what all the fuss is about, and to see Sam Simmons in the flesh. He’s supposed to be a rock star … Continue reading →

The first masterclass of the festival and according to everyone traditionally late. Being approximately half an hour late the Speciality Drinks mastertclass began. There were five drams in front of me from their line so all was ready to go. … Continue reading →