Malt Fascination

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 special.

At 7 years old it was a pretty young dram. Was, since the bottle is empty and gone. Nicely enough by the formerly fiercely independent Hebridean distillers they didn’t make it an extra special rare release and this was available under € 40.

Sniff:

Bruichladdich Resurrection is still available at The Whisky Exchange!

Young with a lot of cereal and barley. Light straw and even lighter grass. Some lemon too, with shortbread. Rather simple, and a tad salty. Nice though.

Sip:
Quite sharp, the youngness of the whisky shines through in that. Again the lemon, but with a more doughy edge to it. Also small hints of oak with some random spices.

Swallow:
The finish goes very light very quickly with heaps of shortbread, old apples and of course more barley. There’s a bit more fruitiness to the finish.

For the price and the age, a very good example of what young whisky can be. A very nice daily dram that doesn’t get too dull after the entire bottle. A few more years will shear off the edges, but even with some sharp hints it’s very drinkable. Good stuff, I really enjoyed it!

Bruichladdich Resurrection Dram, 7 years old, OB, 46%, bourbon casks, still available at The Whisky Exchange for £ 39.95!

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 of the bottles. Luckily I was still able to taste it via this wee sample.

Ardbeg Day is the first of the annual releases for Ardbeg day, which is in line with the Feis Ile on Islay. I didn’t pick up when the next one is going to happen, whether it’s going to be June 2nd  again or just the Festival day every year.

Anyway, the Ardbeg Day 2012 bottling is bottled from sherry casks, but isn’t too heavily sherried if the colour is any indication.

Sniff:

Image from Whiskybase.com

Rather closed and compact. Slightly floral with smooth peat smoke in the background. Actually, so far all scents are in the background. There’s a bit of salt in there as well. With water it gets much richer with sand, straw. Not as smoky as expected and actually rather crisp.

Sip:
The flavour is somewhat more sharp with dried flowers, gras and straw. If you give it a while to swim it gets richer again with grilled apples, smoke. Peaty and earthy.

Swallow:
The finish is smooth right away but does give some fruity notes. Orchard fruits like apples and pears, but I also find a somewhat more tropical note in there. Not sure what though.

A tough one to rate, this Ardbeg Day thingy. On one hand you have a very, very good whisky that is a diversion from the sharp and extremely peaty things they’ve done in the recent past. On the other hand it’s also not that spectacular and I don’t think I’ll remember this one half a year from now. I think Ardbeg needs to come up with some 12 year old stuff which they should have lying around by now. A bit more depth would be welcome I think.

I got some left from the sample so I might do a reevaluation soon.

Ardbeg Day 2012, OB, 56.7%, sherry casks, long gone and going for close to € 200 at auctions.

Bowmore 1957

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 extremely old or rare whiskies.

A few years ago, when Highland Park released their 40 year old whisky with a price tag of around € 1000 I thought the world had gone crazy. Other distillers were asking similar prices, like Macallan and the likes, but those operated in an entirely different league and were aiming at Russian oligarchs and not specifically at whisky drinkers.

I expected that to be a short fad and distilleries would realize quickly enough that their general fanbase would not go for / care for / like such expensive whiskies. The fact that similarly aged whiskies from other distillers and independent bottlers are available at sometimes 20% of that price didn’t help their case, I thought.

The Dalmore Brilliance, available at Schiphol Airport for € 250,000

Things didn’t go that way. Actually, things went the exact other way. The companies behind distillers could apparently smell the money and they just kept upping the price. Highland Park 50 goes for € 13000. Macallan thought to throw in a polaroid with their regular priced 30 year old and raise the price by € 500. The older Dalmores are out of most people’s league too.

Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. Now, a trend has been around for a while in which the ‘oldest’ from a distillery is released at prices that people used to buy a house for. Dalmore Trinitas at £ 100,000. Bowmore 54 years old £ 100,000.

The alarming thing is that some other distillers and bottlers release stuff that is starting to look like a bargain while still being worth a small car. Glenfarclas 1953 for € 7500 and Gordon & MacPhail’s Glenlivet 70 year old at € 14000.

What I’m trying to get at is that I absolutely don’t see the point of these ultra expensive releases, even from the distillers’ point of view. Yes, it’s easy to sell 10 bottles and have the quarterly turn-over of the century, but why would you want to be associated with that? To me their reputation is lessened because of this easy money scheme. Distillers should be in the drinks business, not in the Chinese-museum-of-foreign-booze business.

Since Dalmore and Macallan started doing these tricks I haven’t even considered buying a bottle of their whisky, albeit lovely drams. I regret Bowmore is taking this route too and I can no longer see them as an ancient company on an island full of honest and good people. To me they’re now the Japanese-run money maker on an island full of honest and good people.

Glenfarclas 40 year old £ 275 at The Whisky Exchange

I’ve just stopped caring. Whenever such a bottling is announced with all the bravura accompanied with it I just shrug and close the browser window. With me a lot of people who spend the better part of their income (after tax) on booze do so too. Not that I mind paying good money for good booze, but I want it to be in balance.

The best example of a distiller keeping both feet on the ground is, I think, Glenfarclas releasing their 40 year old baby a few years back for € 240. A regular bottle without diamonds, platinum, African hardwood cases and such. A bottle in a cardboard tube. You spend your cash on whisky. Not on marketing.

By the way, I intentionally didn’t mention the Macallan Lalique that was auctioned for about a $ 250.000 a few years ago, since that was for charity.

Macallan Lalique Cire Perdue auctioned for Charity: Water

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 a lot more that I haven’t found or already have forgotten.

What I’m getting at is that there are a LOT of samples available on the internet in a very wide range of prices, distilleries, casks, bottlers and even styles of booze. I was talking about this with Christof at Maltstock who inspired me to do bottle-shares in the first place. The market is full, he stated.

This got me thinking. About a year and a half ago I didn’t have any problems filling 30 spots on a list for a bottle-share. With the last few bottle-shares I barely got to one set of bottles in the end. People say they’re interested but cancel or I don’t even get up to 13 interested dudes (13 +1 = 14. 14 * 5cl = 70cl).

Add to that that doing a bottle-share is a lot (A LOT) of work and a financial hassle (people paying late, cancelling after everything has been ordered, getting sample bottles, filling and sending) and my conclusion can only be that it’s not really rewarding to do it on a regular basis.

I have decided that I am not going to quit doing Bottle-Shares all together, but I will be much more selective to what will be shared and when. I won’t be doing the Bladnoch stuff anymore, nor will I do random SMWS and Gordon & MacPhail samples. Things that are still viable options is, for example, the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection and such expensive and limited releases.

Another change that I’m going to make is that I’ll be trying to sell more 10cl samples instead of 5cl. This saves me heaps of work and the biggest/most often heard comment I got was that the samples were too small. With a good friend of mine I have been sharing bottles for a while now (each gets half a bottle) and this is a very nice way of doing things. A four to seven way split seems nicer than a 1/14th share.

Justed wanted to let you know!

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 some rare independent Lagavulin which actually states that it is Lagavulin on the bottle. You don’t come across those things often.

Usually Murray McDavid’s bottlings are clearly from the guys at Bruichladdich with all kinds of weird finishes. Luckily, that didn’t happen to this stuff. It was matured in a bourbon cask without any sherry finishing, so in that way it is a rare Lagavulin!

Image from Whiskybase.com

Sniff:
A bit thinner and sharper than we’re used to from Lagavulin and the sweetness that I know is less direct. The lack of sherry is rather clear. Quite some vanilla and rather a lot of wood, for a 14 year old. Grass, heavy and sharp spices that become sweeter after a bit. Straw, farmy notes, barley sugar, sweet malt and a dusty grain store.

Sip:
Sharp and salty. Smoke, wood, dust, grain dust. Dry. It does get smoother after a few seconds of swimming with some vanilla and caramel. Rather creamy with heather honey.

Swallow:
The finish is not too long but not short either. I reckon this is what they call medium. It gets very gentle then, with a lighter smoke, vanilla and icing sugar.

Almost Brora-esk in the farmy notes on the palate but the style is rather different without the usual sherry notes. Very delicious and very interesting to find out what those few months in a PX butt normally do to Lagavulin! A rare treat! Not the full five stars because of a slight lack of depth.

Lagavulin 14, 1984-1999, Murray McDavid, 46%, long, long gone.

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 day after that).

The tasting was postponed for a few weeks because of distribution difficulties, so it was a nice warm up for afore mentioned fest. It consisted of the standard Speyburn 10, the to-be-released brand spankin’ new Speyburn 25 and a Speyburn 1975 bottled for ‘the Clan’.

Speyburn 10, 43%

Image from scotchwhisky.net

The nose starts very malty and not too mature. Oatmeal and dry porridge. Thin at first with honey and richer scents after that. Star apple, old corky apples too and some cardboard. On the palate it’s light and slightly spicy. Classic Speyside style with sweet apple, apple seeds for bitterness and fairly thin. The finish is light and short. Honey and apple again, but also some pear.

Speyburn 25, 46%
The old Solera version will be discontinued but this one will replace it somewhere later this year. I hope it’s comparable in price, since the Solera was under 100 quid.

The nose starts of luxurious with old grains and quite some wood. Very nice! Quite some fruit with boiled fruit juice too. Honey, allspice. Very, very good. The flavour is warming with loads of fruit and spices. Quite some ginger, wood, peach and other tropical fruits. The finish is rather long with fruit (apples) and more spicy, in a friendly way, smooth.

Speyburn 1975, 55.8% ‘Clan Speyburn’
Loads of ripe tropical fruits, with tinned fruit mix too and some Christmas cake. Honey as well but not too sherried. Light notes of leather and nuts. The nuts gain a bit of power and there’s some wood too. Orange liquor, rum, molasses. The taste shows more bite than the previous samples (duh, it’s cask strength). Sugary with rum hints. Sweet orange and more and more Christmas cake with chocolate. The finish then. It really revives with loads of sweet citrus and chocolate.

My favourite was the 25 year old. The sherried version was stunning too, but currently I’m more into bourbon casks and somewhat more mellow drams that show a lot of depth and complexity.

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 on to Schiphol to pick up Gal who flew in from Israel to join the fun in Nijmegen. After that, on to Den Bosch, to visit De Whiskykoning where a rather stunning bottle of Springbank 21 was waiting for me (and a friend, we’re splitting it) and then on to Overasselt (of all places).

Upon arrival we had to check in, dump our stuff in the dorms and put our bottles on the big BYO table. I brought a 1980’s blend called Ambassador, a random auction bottle and what was left of my Octomore 1. That last one disappeared quickly!

Image by Gal Granov

Then, tasting some stuff. We were there at 4 PM and until 6 PM there was no Masterclass or anything, so with two hours to kill we started talking to all familiar faces that were already there and having a dram. I did that too.

The evening after Billy‘s Masterclass lasted long and there was quite some whisky involved. Luckily I took things rather slowly and I found myself being rather selective of what to drink. This might have come off as a snobby way of approaching what other brought, but that was not the intent. After the Glenfiddich masterclass which I didn’t attend some other were nice enough to bring some wee leftovers to taste so I had a sip of the 1974 single cask and a 14 year old virgin oak. Good stuff and better than the generally available ones.

I spent the night talking to Billy, Jason and Rocky. Ben E. wandered off and came back about 100 times to tell everyone at the table he loved them. Jock tried to tell a story about his family history. Something about Budapest and Bucharest.

There was a very geeky whisky quiz too, with LOADS of questions that only real whisky nerds know the answer to and luckily I had some good answers during the trivia round. I suck at ‘Which distillery is this…’ thingies with pictures.

Image by Gal Granov

The second day was more or less a copy of the first, only it took longer and there was a short hike involved. The full Scottish breakfast in the morning got everyone up and running again and I spotted some guys who came to breakfast with whisky already.

More masterclasses during the afternoon and in the evening there was an absolutely kick ass barbecue with pulled pork, a hog roast, smoked salmon and a mountain of chicken. Whisky was drunk with that of course.

Image by Gal Granov

Image by Antoine de Weerd

During the afternoon everybody had a great time with old and new friends and with those smaller groups with which you sat the extra special drams and samples came out. Lagavulin White Horse, Kininvie, Kavalan, all kinds of old and rare stuff. Luckily I was informed of this beforehand so I had some stuff to have go around as well.

The evening was finished by a bonfire and some music, stand-up comedy and the results of the Balvenie Barrel Race (which I did not attend for some reason). More merry making ensued after with loads of music by random people, loads of whisky by other random people and good fun with Jason.

So, why is Maltstock so f-ing cool?

• People have fun without being whisky snobs.
• Everyone is your friend.
• The booze is frigging good, but not the main reason for being there.
• People get hammered but NOBODY is being an asshole. Very remarkable.
• Everything is included so you don’t have to worry about unplanned expenses.
• It’s just incredibly cool to be around so many likeminded people for two full days.

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 brand ambassador. With ‘the fuss’ I mean the recent set of releases from Tun 1401 of which I tasted none. I got a little bit more intrigued by the distillery when I got a small sip of the Balvenie 30 year old last year in The Hague (Thanks Wouter van Tol!).

This tasting was set up to honour the 50th anniversary of David Stewart. Therfore we tasted cask samples from all decades that he worked at the distillery. Quite special to be tasting stuff that is so rare. There was a sixth whisky as well, but that’s all below.

Balvenie 1964, 33.5%, European Oak Hogshead
Very old fashioned and light, with some leather and apples. Wood of fruit trees. Rather crisp for such an old whisky with pear icecream. A slight dryness follows. Way underproof for you who hadn’t noticed, but that didn’t really bother anyone.

Balvenie 1973, 47.3%, European Sherry cask
Full sherry with a light background of wood and confit fruit. There’s a spirity lightness to it that I find very surprising on a 39 year old whisky. Friendly with fresh peach and banana.

Balvenie 1980, 42.3%, American Oak
Loads of tropical fruit with peach and pineapple. White oak, quite  alot of it with barley sugar. Kind of dry too, at the end.

Balvenie 1992, 53.3%
Quite sharp with a big dollop of malt, sherry, sharp pepper and grilled fruit and marmelade. The finish is long and has a certain greasy quality to it.

Balvenie 2003, 56.6%
Young and spirity with quite some vanilla, spices and a little dirty. Smooth at first but it does build up some power quickly to vanilla, wood spices and pepper.

Sorry, the last one is redacted. There was a non-disclosure agreement and everything. It was very good, that’s what I can say. Someone even tried to steal a sample (yes, talking about you, JdV!). That wasn’t nice. I absolutely loved that dram, however I loved the 1964 and 1980 best. The 1973 was good too, but for some reason I have not been as charmed by many sherry casks as I used to be. The 1980 did have some more oomph (duh, the other one was way down in ABV) and nice fruity white oak flavours.

Oh, and about Sam Simmons. He’s cool. Go see his tastings or something. He’s very passionate about his work in a very modern way. Not so posh and stick-up-his-arse as I’ve seen some other ambassadors.

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.

Since, officially, most of the whiskies were from undisclosed distilleries there wasn’t an entire lot of information to be shared but it was fun nonetheless with more focus on the whisky than on anything else. That was, until the fire alarm went off and wouldn’t stop. Evacuation and all, and of course, continuing the tasting outside.

My thusfar internet-only pal Billy Abbott hosted the tasting. It was absolutely great to meet him in real life and have a chat that is not limited to 140 characters per statement.

Photo by Steven D’hondt

Port Askaig 12 (45.8%)
The newest one in this line which can’t be much else than Caol Ila. Lightly grassy with sharp smoke and not too much wood influence. After a couple of minutes or airing you get a bit more fruit. Not too interesting but probably very fairly priced.

Bowmore 1985 – Single Malts of Scotland (54.9%)
A mid-eighties Bowmore, which means soap and lavender to almost anyone. This one was no exception to that rule but it wasn’t as soapy as some others. Well, without water at least. With a drop of H2O it went full laundry detergent FWP.

Karuizawa NAS – 48%
Lots of sherry and wood, as to be expected from a Japanese whisky. It’s smoother than expected with some fruit as well. But still, quite astringent and ‘very Japanese’.

LP2 – 64.1% – Elements of Islay
A sherried Laphroaig. You wouldn’t say that because of its colour, but the flavour is rather full and clear. Typically Laphroaig with light peat, flowers, bandaids and lemon. Very good stuff.

Pl1 – 60% – Elements of Islay
The first from this ‘distillery’, this Port Charlotte is great (as are most Port Charlottes). Loads of fruity sherry with allspice and malt. Not too much depth, but very interesting and hopefully nicely priced too!