Malt Fascination

When I was at the Hielander Whisky Festival in Alkmaar last February, I got a small sample of the Tomatin 30 from Mr. Jock Shaw (of Scotch & Folk fame). He told me it was better to give a sample since I had already tasted quite a few whiskies and it would work better on it own than in such a random line-up. Since I haven’t been tasting whiskies all that much until recently, I only got around to it now!

Nose:
Lemon drops and icing sugar. Quite sweet with some wood and barley. The sweetness is very thick, almost cloying. Very tasty but I understand why this should not be tasted after 10 other whiskies. Very mature. I even get some pound cake batter.

Taste:
Tingling and fresh, especially for a 30 year old. I think to get some coconut, and again the lemon drops or pear drops. Winegums, sweet and tinned pineapple with syrup.

Finish:
The finish kind of revives after letting it swim for a minute or so. It’s not very long, but ‘medium’. Full flavoured with nice and supple bourbon-cask-flavours. Some coconut again, and other sweet candy.

I find it a bit tough to form an opinion on this whisky. It’s quite clear it’s bloody tasty, but it’s not very complex and, especially in older (more expensive) whiskies, I like something to explore and this one feels like it’s been mapped pretty properly already. The redeeming thing is that it’s not an expensive bottle, for a 30 year old Original.

Tomatin 30, OB, 46%, around € 150 at The Whisky Exchange.

Thanks to Jock Shaw for the sample!

Occasionally Kintra does a Confidential Cask. This one is from Speyside, and usually unnamed Speysiders turn out to be Glenfarclas, but recently there have been quite a few Balvenies popping up.

Not much to say about it, so here it goes.

Nose:
Light ‘whisky’ with quite some sherry under its belt. Loads of fruit, mostly fresh. Plums, peaches, grapes. Tinned peach syrup (with a bit of the tin flavor). The sherry is rather fresh and not as cloying as it can be with youngsters at this age. It does get a bit thin after a minute or ten.

Taste:
Again, light with lots of fruit. Sweet and juicy nectarines and peaches. There’s some barley and cereal underneath it, with just the slightest hint of chili pepper in there.

Finish:
The finish is smooth and not too long (it is, after all, only 8 years old). Quite a few flavors with mostly fruit. Almost no wood but all less-welcome youthy flavors like spirit and sulfur are gone too. Slighty more spices than before.

A pretty damn fine dram, if I might say so! I’d say this to be a Glenfarclas, but as anyone involved in last year’s Blind Tasting Competition, my vote on that is worth squat. It might be a bit one dimensional but still pretty damn tasty! Maybe even too drinkable!

2nd Confidential Cask, 8 years old, Kintra Whisky, sherry butt, 52.9%, € 69.99 at Drinks & Gifts.

Number two in the four day Kintra run. I hope I can find the time to post all four in a row, else there might be a short hick-up with a no-post day. Quite busy, the coming days.

Glen Garioch is, although a pretty well apreciated distillery, rather inconsistent in my book. Their cask management is all over the place and you never know what you’re going to get. Even the smokiness of the whisky is very varied, although that has to do with casks as well.

The style they profess is something I like, but that’s the case with many distilleries (I think over half of them).

Nose:
Initially I would have said it to be Bowmore. A bit salty, with heather and more smoke than I am used to from Glen Garioch. Some herbs and spices with heather being the most prominent, and some ginger after that. Old wood that is being reused, if that makes sense. Warmer and fuller than I expected from the pale color.

Taste:
The first second it feels a bit watery, with some heat following it. Spicy peppercorns and again the herbs and spices. Wood, ginger, maybe some cloves. A bit milky too, but the 0.2% fat milk without body. In a weird way crisp as well with a minor hint of wood.

Finish:
Spices again and quite dry with old bourbon casks (refill I guess). There’s a lot to discover and there’s even some fruit popping up now. I get some banana in the back, when the smoke hits. Apple too and some minerals or slate (I get those two together a lot, apple and minerals).

An unexpected belter with heaps of flavours to be discovered. I had to take some time to get used to it but it appeals more and more. There are loads of flavours and behind everything, there’s something else. Gorgeous whisky!

Glen Garioch 20, 07-1990 – 05-2011, Kintra Whisky, bourbon hogshead, 49.6%, can’t find it anymore, but it used to be around € 95.

A little while ago I got a set of tasting samples from Erik Molenaar, the guy behind Kintra Single Cask. He sent me four different ones and I’m planning to review them this week. The first one I tried was a 12 year old Cooley at 49.6% ABV. I started with this one since I think it is the lightest one in the set. I planned to taste a couple more yesterday, but didn’t get around to it.

Nose:
A very typical bourbon cask scent. Lightly fruity, with lots of yellow fruit. Very sweet lemon curd and pineapple mostly. I also get brioche pastry, very sweet and syrupy.

Taste:
A little dry and fairly sharp. I didn’t expect that from the juicy scents that came first. A bit more wood than on the nose, but that’s welcome. Again, loads of yellow fruit. Lemon and pineapple again.

Finish:
The finish is light, but full flavored. The lemon and pineapple are the main theme here. A little bit of wood is detectable as well, but not very in-your-face.

I like this kind of whisky, especially in Irish whisky for some reason (I loved a Connemara single cask I tasted at Hielander!). This one is very delicious, and very drinkable. The only concern I would have before buying a bottle would be that it’s only displaying 2 or 3 flavours and not much more.

Cooley 12 year old, Kintra Whisky, 49.6%, € 73.50 at Pat’s Wine & Whisky in Groningen.

This month I didn’t taste many new beers, but mostly focussed on old classics. Some were new to Untappd though, and the list of what was the best stuff I tasted is here.

Mug Bitter – De Halve Maan
A specialty beer brewed for Café De Mug in Middelburg where I went to pick one up when I was at my dad’s cottage in Vlissingen. It tasted surprisingly well and although I barely have any experience with bitters, I know this one was a bit more crisp and flavourful. Good stuff!

La Lilloise – Les Trois Brasseurs
A brew pub in Reims, brewing its own stuff on the premises. A good combination on any night, but to go there after a champagne filled day was terrific! This beer was pretty great too! Belgian style with a twist.

IPA is Dead Motueka – BrewDog
My favorite of the new BrewDog IPA is Dead package with a herbal bitterness that I found very appealing. I love these kinds of IPAs with new things to discover!

Trappist Westvleteren 12 – Westvleteren
The heaviest barley wine style ale from Trappist Abbey Westvleteren, on the French border. An absolutely stunning beer that could do with less hyping. It is a bit overhyped, but still a bloody terrific beer.

Biologisch Ur-Weizen – Gulpener
A weiss beer that goes very well with the sun out, and burgers on the grill. Not my favourite style of beer but this one had a bit more body than I’m used to.

A month in which I drank mostly my own beer or reruns from previous months. Although I really think my own brews are pretty damn tasty, I’m not big on blowing my own horn here. I hope to get some reviews in from some other people I’ve sent it to and who tasted it. I do have some five star reviews on Untappd already! Reviews will follow shortly, before supplies run out!

Glenfarclas 1953. The oldest Glenfarclas ever bottled at 58 years old. The oldest whisky I ever tasted (in age, not in the year it was distilled, that was this one).

I got this sample as a total surprise a week or two ago from Master of Malt, the only shop selling this one. It has been bottled for an investment company in Poland, called Wealth Solutions. I think the € 7500 the bottle cost is a pretty effective way to solve your wealth problems…

The fact that I got a sample of it, apart from it coming as ‘a thunderstroke in a clear sky’, was pretty awesome. For some reason my blogging appeals to some people. At least, I hope that’s the reason!

Yesterday Anneke and I went to the echoscopist to see whatever alien is growing inside of her and has been there for 20 weeks. Everything is well and I thought it a terrific moment to celebrate stuff and what better way to do so than with a terrific dram!

Nose:
With every whiff it changes, right from the beginning. I get a lot of dry wood when I poured a dram, but that went away very quickly. After that I get long aged white wine, what I imagine a Chateau d’Yquem would taste like. I also get some mint, toasted oak and a complex mix of ginger, milk chocolate and hazelnut. After about half an hour I also get some bacon!

Taste:
Quite fierce at first, which I found surprising for a 58 year old whisky. Slightly sweet with caramel and tingling like there’s carbondioxide in there. I goes gentle fairly quickly and addition of water is unnecessary. Might be worth a try though, but I’m kind of scared of drowning it. Light sherry with nuts (brazil and cashew). There’s something new coming along with every sip I take.

Finish:
The finish revives everything a little bit, after the taste had gone very gentle. It’s lasting forever and gives me cinnamon, wood, wild peaches and toasted oak again.

Wow. Just, wow. This is an absolutely stunning dram. It’s gentle and you have to pay attention. Dangerously drinkable but with massive amounts of flavour. As everybody said who has reviewed it, it just keeps giving layers and layers of flavour. I wish I could afford stuff like this!

Glenfarclas 58, 1953, OB for Wealth Solutions, 47.20%, € 7510.66 only at Master of Malt

 (97 points)

About a year ago I posted about BrewDog’s ‘IPA is dead’ pack with four single hop IPAs. This year, I think in April, a second batch was released with four new and different ones. While last year focused on hops regularly used in England, this year they went for more extreme varieties from across the globe.

I hope they’ll continue doing this or start looking into other comparisons, maybe to change nothing the kind of barley they used to brew their IPA.

HBC
On the nose it doesn’t have that much maltiness but there is a coriander like crispness, maybe even slightly minty. The palate is really gentle and fresh, with some lemon. I do find this one a bit middle of the road. It can handle a bit more hops I think.

Challenger
A bit fuller and more thick than the other ones. The hops are less crisp and that allows for the grains to come through more powerfully. It does have a more herbal flavour than the others.

Galaxy
This is rather crisp one with lots of cereal and passionfruit. In a way it reminds me of Trashy Blonde. Some potato crisps and lime with a heavy undertone. The finish is a bit more crisp than the palate again. A bit reminiscent of the Farmhouse IPA by Flying Dog.

Motueka
This one is a little bit more bitter than the Galaxy, and a tad more sharp. Almost coriander like. You, of course, have to look into the details to find the differences. This one’s more like Punk IPA than the Farmhouse.

The differences are smaller in this pack than in last year’s, in my opinion. All four are pretty solid beers and maybe I should rate them all 4 stars to display the consistency, but you have to make differences clear in some way, right?

The AnCnoc 35 is finally out! There was a twitter tasting with a very select group of people last year, in which I was allowed to join! The tasting notes I wrote down can be found here.

The Press release:

anCnoc Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky has released its oldest and most exclusive expression to date – anCnoc 35 Year Old. It is only available from specialist whisky shops and select on-line retailers. Only 1,495 bottles are available world-wide.

The whisky comes from a small selection of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks chosen by distillery manager Gordon Bruce and master blender Stuart Harvey. The spirit was distilled and matured at Knockdhu Distillery, the home of anCnoc Single Malt. anCnoc 35 Year Old is bottled in its most natural form; cask strength (44.3% ABV), natural colour and unchill-filtered.

This oldest and most exclusive expression of whisky from Knockdhu Distillery features minimalistic yet striking packaging, in keeping with anCnoc’s ethos of combining traditional production methods and modern branding. Recommended retail price in the UK is £200.

Smooth and well-balanced, with sweet, fruity overtones and hints of vanilla, opening up with a drop of water to bright honeysuckle and gooseberry.

Smooth and full-bodied with a long-lasting, elegant finish. Sweet notes of sherry and vanilla balanced with a zing of citrus.

I absolutely loved the dram, but expect subtlety and gentleness since this is not a big belter of an alcohol and flavour kick!

I had to dig real deep to find some tasting notes that I hadn’t published yet. For some reason I keep not getting around to really sitting down and trying some new drams, unfortunately. I have some tasting notes here and there, but they’re far from interesting. A Glengoyne from 1973 might just be a wee bit more fancy, right?

I think (!) I got this sample from Teun when I visited his place a long time ago, but that might not be true. I simply can’t remember. I think I wrote these notes around Christmas, so they’ve been gathering dust for a bit too.

Nose:
Vanilla, sweet coconut and banana. The sweet notes of the white oak are present too. An entirely different sweetness than European oak. It smells like a dessert in a glass, this whisky. Light, and maybe a tad on the cloyingly sweet side. After a few minutes it gets a bit dryer with more straw and farm smells.

Taste:
Sweet with a hint of chili pepper and spices. Again, a little bit dry but in a very nice way. It’s a lot less fruity than this one, and there is quite some wood to compensate for that.

Finish:
And the fruit is back! A complete fruit salad, mostly the tinned kind with syrup. More bourbonny flavours too. Dry leaves, a sweet waxiness. The flavour softens a bit and the peppers are more in check.

A very nice Glengoyne, but different than what I expected. That might have to do with the fact that you don’t come accross many Glengoynes from bourbon barrels. I do miss the fruit a little bit, though.

Glengoyne 1973, 05-02-1973 – 03-2010, 37 years old, Malts of Scotland for Belgium, bourbon barrel, 50.4%, used to cost around € 180.