Malt Fascination

I did a very short review on this whisky before when I tasted it a club event last year. Since then I bought a bottle and then forgot to review it properly.

Adieu Lina is a whisky from the Daily Dram series of anagrams. Adieu Lina is Dailuaine, and there are a lot more available: Keen Light (Glen Keith), Oat Mint (Tomatin) and so on. A fun way of naming your bottles but not so obscure that you can’t figure it out without help.

This is a pretty old Dailuaine which I bought in my ‘Dailuaine is a pretty fine dram’ period last year. I tasted some three or four Dailuaines in a very short amount of time and all of them were pretty good.

Nose:

Image from Whiskybase

‘Real whisky’, if that holds any meaning. Quite some grain and cereal, pretty heavy although the sherry is not too thick. It has a bit of a beery character, with quite some bitterness in it, like a hoppy ale. Chocolate and coffee pop up a bit later, and veers in the cappuccino direction. Quite some fruit too with plums. Also some peppery spice. The wood influence is soft and gentle.

Taste:
The grain flavour is pretty sharp, with chili and mango to go with it. Hops and barley again, with very dark bread. Grilled peaches and pineapple. Quite bitter but very tasty. Old wood, wax and light sherry.

Finish:
Long and friendly with soft whole grain bread, grilled and dried tropical fruits with dried orange too. The hoppy bitterness is still here but accompanied by a bitterness that comes of orange pits. I get a bit of a white oak with sherry feeling from it.

A very, very tasty dram with loads of flavours to be discovered. I absolutely love this kind of stuff with high complexity and no flavours that overpower or out play the rest. Daily Dram did very well in selecting this cask and I hope to find more stuff like this!

Dailuaine 35, 1973, Adieu Lina!, Daily Dram, 47.6%, used to be about € 140, but is sold out now.

I got this sample of a recent whisky auction. It got my attention because it wasn’t overly expensive, 21 years old, distilled in 1969! So, the sample bottle has been around for 21 years as well. I love old style Glen Keith, but only know the finesse of the sherry casks. This one is from a bourbon cask and bottled at 62.5%, so I should be in for quite the experience!

Nose:
Vanilla, coconut, wood spices, tree bark and white oak wood shavings. After a while I also get grass and light caramel, with even later a very explicit lemon note is present.

Taste:
VERY sharp, which is not really a surprise, and very dry too. The sharpness is almost painful. The heat from the alcohol is quite intense with breadcrust and vanilla. The lemon note comes in very late again.

Finish:
Again, the breadcrust. It’s fairly long with grass and straw notes remaining after the vanilla  and coconut have gone. There is something ‘French’ to it. Like a French herb mix.

Well, this was an experience. You don’t often get this sharpenss after over 20 years in a bottle, especially not in a miniature.

It isn’t like any other Glen Keith I remember trying, apart from the fact that it has a complex spice mixture in the flavours and scents.

Glen Keith 21, 1969-1991, James MacArthur’s, Exclusive for the Mini Bottle Club, 62.5%, I picked it up for € 20.

When I was at the Limburg Whisky Fair with Thomas we ended up talking to Jurgen, from Jurgen’s Whiskyhuis in Belgium. Of course we also shared a couple of drams, but we mostly talked about some bottlings that were exceptional. He recommended up to a 1988 Macallan by Silver Seal that tastes like a Macallan from 15 years earlier. Thomas and I bought one (half bottle each) and yesterday I thought it was a good idea to taste it.

Nose:

Image from Whiskybase

Light sherry that focuses mostly on oranges and grapefruit. Also reine claude (those little green plums) and apricot. Loads of fresh fruit! There’s also quite some wood influence and I expect this was European oak. The oak is also of a lighter character and doesn’t overpower any of the other scents. Later I get cinnamon and cloves, while it stays fresh. After about an hour I suddenly get yellow raisins.

Taste:
Very sharp, and a lot sharper than I expected from the nose. There’s a lot of sharp wood influence here with quite some chili heat. After the initials heat blast the orange comes back really quickly. The sweetness is always on the background supporting the flavours. I also get high cocoa chocolate that feels a bit grainy. Like the brown goo at the bottom of an espresso.

Finish:
The finish gives me the chocolate first and then goes back to the orange with some pink grapefruit. Fresh, sweet and zesty citrus fruits. It’s not a very long finish.

I didn’t really know what to expect with an ‘old style Macallan’. I expected a more feinty dram that was more in the style of the Macallans bottled in the sixties. The seventies style is quite different from before then. Not a whisky that blows you away, but one that is very flavourful with loads of goodness to be discovered!

Macallan 1988, 22yo, Silver Seal for Whisky Antique, 56.7%, € 187 at Jurgen’s Whiskyhuis.

Since the Netherlands apparently suck at football, the hosts of the ProBieren event at De Groote Weiver thought it would be a good idea to drink beers from participating countries instead of trying to beat them. A theme was born.

Five beers from five different countries. All for € 15, with snacks included. A pretty solid deal. They do this monthly, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to join the last few sessions (themed Wood aged, Stout & Porter, Beer & Food, so pretty good ones…)

Speciale Vlo – Brouwerij ‘t IJ
The only Dutch beer in the line up was this limited release from Brouwerij ‘t IJ in Amsterdam. A Belgian style pale ale which held the middle between an IPA and a Belgian Blonde. Nice, but not spectacular.

Ghisa – Birrificio di Lambrate
A very light stout that had good flavours of malt and forest fruits. Quite light in body which made it a more summery version of what you would expect.

Belgian Triple – Mikkeller
A Danish take on a Belgian Staple. Mikkeller is very good at brewing all kinds of beer and this is no exception. The drawback for me is that it’s a very good triple. Loads of brewers make that and Belgium is too close for me to find this a very special beer.

Golden Pride – Fuller’s
The English one in the line up. An amber ale that had loads of flavour. A bit malty but also soft stewed fruits. Quite fresh for an ale and the bottle looks very cool too!

Berliner Art – Brewbaker
The second country that beat us at the championship, Germany. A very good IPA from a country from which you don’t find many non-German style beers. At least, I don’t. A good IPA which was a bit gentle on the hop but had a very rich body. I might check out Brewbaker a bit more when I get the chance!

Emelisse is a small and fairly new brewery in the Netherlands (Kamperland, to be precise) and for me, it has the benefit that it’s very close to my dad’s cottage in Zeeland. We went there two weeks ago to check it out, have lunch and buy some beers. On a Tuesday afternoon which meant we were the only ones there. Time for a chat with the owner, I’d say!

First of all, by new I mean spic and span new. The building has been there for only a couple of years in a location that used to be a meadow. The brewing equipment was actually added to the company after they decided that only doing a lunch café wouldn’t cover it. They still have the lunch stuff, you just eat next to a giant copper brew pot.

The lunch menu is small, but all the food on there is fresh and that’s more than you can say for many places in such a touristy area. We had fried fish (Kibbeling) and chips. The misses had an Ice Tea and I decided to go for the Emelisse White Label (Glen Elgin barrel aged). Delicious (both the food and the beer)!

Emelisse brews about 2000 hectoliters per year, which makes it about 40% of the size of Westvleteren, for example. The owner talked about expanding the brew routine from 4 days per week to 7 and thereby fully utilizing the brewery’s capacity. That’s not the case yet, but there are options!

What do they brew? Quite a lot, to be honest. Blond and Dubbel, Double IPA, Triple IPA, Espresso Stout, Russian Imperial Stout, Black IPA, Rauchbier, Pilsner, Weizen and seasonals, like spring and autumn Bock Beers. Then there are the white labels. Very limited editions which are cask aged or otherwise very special. I’ve tried a few thusfar (Ardbeg, Glen Elgin and Jack Daniel’s barrel aged) and they’re all good with the quality of the whisky really influencing the stouts. I believe there is a Barley Wine White Label now, available at Drinks & Gifts. They’re keeping busy!

If you’re in the area, stop there and have a bite to eat, with a brew and pick up some as you go out as well. Their prices are very good, for both the food and take out beers. That also meant I supplied myself with a selection of their stuff which I empties over the last two weeks. Great stuff!

Frank Lieck is a German guy from Düsseldorf who I got to know a bit through Facebook. Since I live on the internet, that’s the place I meet quite a few people now and then!

Since doing a post on Colin Campbell, which was the first of the ‘whisky people’ series I thought it would be good idea to include Frank here. I plan to more posts like this every now and then, on people that mean something to me and the whisky/beer hobby.

Frank Lieck, born and raised in Düsseldorf, married with children, is a guy who I’ve been sending beer and whisky to, and he to me, to show what our respective locales have to offer. Unfortunately, there’s no local brewery in Krommenie, apart from my homebrew project which means I had to resort to other Dutch breweries and some other things as well (not sure if that’s a bad thing). He was kind enough to send me bottles of several Düsseldorfian brews and even a liquor which I still have to taste.

He is very active on his own blog called mewhisky.com, and has been moving from beer towards whisky for the last couple of  years. Started by a customer who gave him a dram of an unremembered whisky (time and alcohol do that to people) which got him interested. After a few years it took of from Macallan, to Glenfiddich, to Talisker, to Ardbeg.

Since he started blogging I’ve quite some interesting bottles highlighted, and I know he has some upcoming posts that are going to be even more worth reading (Highland Park spirit, Ardbeg Day and such).

Frank names Highland Park as a favorite distiller and is already saving up to Christmas to buy the 30 year old (and he mentioned the 18 year old Silver Seal as well…).

He got me enthousiastic about Dusseldorf and I have already decided that the town has to be visited in the not too distant future, with a visit to Uerige and of course, catching up with Frank in a nice bar with a couple of beers and/or drams!

He also passively enjoys football and basketball and probably laughed his ass off when the incredibly arrogant Dutch team got their collective butts kicked last week by his national team.

I hope to meat the man in person somewhere next year, and look forward to continued beer and dram parcels to and from Germany!

A sample of a quite old Glen Grant, from the square bottle era, which is probably the 1980s. I expect quite something from this wee sample, since if it’s bottled in the 80s, it’s distilled in the 70s and this is from the batches that is giving us all those incredibly great 30 and 40 year old now.

Nose:
Quite fresh and floral, is the first thing that I notice. Lightly sherried, and I expected heavier sherry influence since they had ‘better’ sherry casks back then. Not too deep, smell-wise. Juicy fruits and for some reason it smells ‘old’. More feinty than you’d expect, with polished and waxed wood.

Taste:
Very very watery and thin. There are some fruit flavours present, and some wood too. Peach and apple, but man, this is watery.

Finish:
The finish shows some pepper but is rather short. Again, juicy sherry but not much else is going on.

It’s antiquity makes it interesting, but nowadays I wouldn’t rate a modern whisky with this profile more than 2 stars. And since I care more about flavour than antiquity, two stars it is. The flavours that are there are all nice, but if you’d tell me this was watered down to 20% I wouldn’t be surprised.

Glen Grant 10, bottled in the ’80s, OB, 40%, 75cl, at € 45 on Whiskyauction at the moment of writing.

A Black Label bottling of 54 years ago! I got a sample of this from Rare Whisky Site, about a year and a half ago and more or less forgotten about it after tasting the Old Mork, Ballantines and Haig samples that were in there. I decided to taste it, especially after seeing the Johnnie Walker Red Label review by Ralfie on Youtube a while ago. He did a head to head with the new and old version. I originally planned to do a head to head between the new Black Label and this oldie, but I didn’t feel like spending € 25 on a bottle of crap whisky. I still have a 1960s bottling of Johnnie Walker Black Label and will try to taste that somewhere in the future.

Nose:
Very intense, with full smoke unlike the thin coarse smoke of the current version. Some barley and cereal, sweet bread crust, tree bark and wood. Also quite spicy with grilled fruit, bacon and barbecue. Straw and more and more smoke with quite a big dollop of sherry influence.

Taste:
Light and spicy, wood. Sparkling almost, well, tingling. Salty smoke with lemon, hard candy and sticky sugar.

Finish:
Not too long, but absolutely not bad. Wood, cereal, sweet vanilla and caramel. The bacon and barbecue thing is back again.

I wish they still made blends like this. This is an absolutely terrific whisky and if this was regularly available, I would drink way more blended stuff than I do now! The nose is stunning with loads of things happening and while there is slightly less going on on the palate and in the finish, it’s still quite awesome.

Johnnie Walker Black Label, bottled in 1958, OB, 40%, samples available at Rare Whisky Site for € 9.60 for 2.5cl.

One of my first Silver Seal bottlings and the first proper review of it for sure. I did taste some Silver Seals in Germany, last April. Don’t worry, I didn’t club them or anything.

The price category of Silver Seal is pretty high, but for some reason Max Righi knows how to pick his casks and almost all reviews give pretty good ratings. Although I’m not a big fan of the ‘we-make-it-more-expensive-so-it-is-more-exlcusive’ approach, they’re pulling it off pretty nicely.

I heard that in the case of Silver Seal, the idea is to pay extra to get that one specific kick-ass cask, instead of the slightly less good one for less money.

Nose:
Herbs and spices at first, with bread, cinnamon and cloves leading the scents. I get a hint of smoke and some tobacco. Quite some wood and ashes as well. Slight hints of straw and farm scents.

Taste:
Sharp, but light. Spicey with quite a bit of wood and peppery heat. Slightly smoky again. It tastes a bit like some Broras with this complexity and combination of light sherry wood, spices and farmy notes. I do get a bit more of those sherry notes than I got on the nose. Wood spices and such.

Finish:
The finish is a lot smoother and less sharp than I expected. Nice fruity tones pop up in combination with the straw, spices and light smoke. The wood is still in there too. Great!

An absolutely gorgeous whisky. The ‘smooth and complex’ stigma applies, but in this case, it’s absolutely terrific. The ‘Brora Light’ thing that’s going on is exactly what I adore in whiskies. Which means, I like Brora’s style and such. And in this case, this is what I hope to find in every Highland Park I try. This moved to my wish list.

Highland Park 18, 1992-2010, Silver Seal, 53.1%, € 151 at Whisky Antique.

Not that I am a Glengoyne Cask Owner, unfortunately, but I did manage to get a sample of it. I like trading samples for exactly that reason. Getting rare and sometimes obscure stuff to taste without having to track down a bottle and trade it for a kidney. These things can be quite expensive!

Nose:
Thick, greasy sherry on the nose, with a huge amount of oak. There’s a slight hint of sulphur, but nothing unsettling. Also flint, juicy raisins, grapes and hazelnut. Some cocoa and dried plums. Quite the nose, but not too sherried. I find that sometimes to be the case with Glengoyne, but this one is in great balance with wood and enough whisky-like flavors to keep me going.

Taste:
Pretty sharp, and again the juicy fruits with sugary syrup. Dried peaches and plums, some chili pepper heat. It goes more gentle pretty quickly, which is nice. It brings the flavours 0ut better.

Finish:
The finish is quite long, and has more notes of juicy fruit. Peaches, grapes, raisins, that kind of stuff. Not necessarily dried. Also a lot of wood that shows a bit of the age (it’s 18 after all).

A very tasty dram, like I always hope from Glengoyne. I expected I would find this over sherried, but that wasn’t the case at all. There’s a lot of sherry action going on, really a lot, but the spirit shines through nicely, with more fruity and wood flavours than I expected.

Glengoyne 18, Cask Owner, OB, Sherry cask #619, 55.2%, about € 80 (which would be very nice for a single cask Glengoyne!)