Malt Fascination

My first rum by the SMWS. While I like a bit of diversity, I still think it a little weird that a WHISKY society goes into rum and armagnac and such. Anyway, I put this in the bottle-share because of that novelty value, and because I wanted to taste something that is over 80% ABV (yes, eighty). 81.3% to be exact. Anyway, since it had been ages since I tasted a rum, I tried this one to get warmed up a bit.

The rum has aged for 9 years in a refill hogshead, but it doesn’t say where it matured. With rum the rules aren’t as strict as with whisky, and I know that quite some single cask/small batch rums come to the UK in casks and mature there, since the temperatures in the Carribean are too high to sustain long maturation. I know Berry Brothers and Rudd do that for example. This will have a significant effect on the maturity of the product.

Nose:
Water based paint with rotten mint plants (I know, we had them last year…). Incredibly chemical and the alcohol is very present. It has the artificial sweetness of winegums and smell like weeds too.

I wrote down: “WTF is this stuff?”

Taste:
Incredibly dry and it makes the inside of my mouth feel like rubber, or whaleskin or something. After the initial dryness has kicked in it starts building up an incredible heat with loads and loads of chili peppers. The palate is also sweet with caramel and cola. Very late a bit of wood starts showing up.

Finish:
The finish has that chemical aspect again and isn’t as sweet as I would have expected. It also isn’t very good. It is special, though. The finish lasts for ages and comes up with banana flavor, and mind, that is something else than banana. I mean the chemical stuff. Also, band-aids.

Let’s give this some points for novelty and ridiculousness, because it’s not scoring much else in my book! I find very little in this rum that appeals to me. The palate is the least bad of all steps, but still isn’t recommendable. I threw half my glass out after a second sip.

Jamaican Rum, 9 years old, SMWS, R5.1 ‘Mint humbugs’, refill hogshead, 81.3%, no longer available, but it cost € 71.

Sounds like a great plan, right? Lunch and whisky, in Wormerveer at ‘De Vijfde Smaak‘ (the fifth flavour) which is the town next to Krommenie. Fairly close, that is. I went with my father-in-law and tried to get tickets for brothers in law, but it was already sold out. It was a four course meal with five drams to accompany the food.

1st course:
Aberlour 2000, Adelphi at 55.8% with salmon ceviche. The whisky was very sweet with dried fruits and some barley. Quite strong to taste a 55.8% at 1 PM, but the salmon went very nicely with it. A contrasting taste with the food being quite acidic and savory.

Whisky: ****, Combination: ****

2nd course:
Bowmore 2001, Berry Brothers and Rudd at 54.3% with white asparagus and patanegra ham and a nutmeg crisp/cookie. The meal itself had some contrasting flavours, and each flavour did something different to the whisky. All together it was a bit of a jumble, but nice nonetheless. The Bowmore wasn’t too flowery with no FWP to speak of.

Whisky: ***, Combination: ***

3rd course:
Rib-eye steak with fennel and yorkshire pudding, with a haggis sauce. The whisky was a Bunnahabhain 2000 at 59.8%, bottled by Adelphi and heavily sherried. The yorkshire pudding leveled out the sweetness of the whisky and displayed Bunnahabhain’s more spicy and nutty flavours, while the meat highlighted the sherry. The fennel didn’t do much for either the food or the whisky. Pretty kick-ass steak though. Especially since I hadn’t had any red meat since February, the misses being pregnant and such!

Whisky: ****, Combination: ***

4th course:
Cranachan with Wemyss ‘Well mannered mint’, which is a Laphroaig from 1999 (46%). This was an exceptional combination. The Cranachan was surprisingly light and it completely kicked out the smoke on the palate, only to have it kick back in the finish. A very nice combination and the fresh mint from both the food and the whisky tied everything together.

Whisky: ***, Combination: ****

Coffee, brownie and Drinks & Gifts’ own bottling of Macduff 2000 (by David Stirk). A very nice whisky and a very nice brownie. The whisky will be reviewed later, when I open my bottle. It’s still available and highly recommended though!

Whisky: ****, Combination: (a very easy one, of course) ****

All whiskies are available at Drinks & Gifts, imported by Whisky Import Nederland. Eating at ‘De Vijfde Smaak‘ in Wormerveer is also highly recommended!

It’s been since I visited the Hielander Whisky Festival in Alkmaar that I tried an Ardbeg. This doesn’t surprise me much, actually, since I am not a huge fan of their new releases, with a few exceptions of course (Corryvreckan for example). Usually I find what they bottle a bit too one dimensional or just too focussed on the smoky part.

I made this whisky part of the Bottle-Share because I thought it would be a good way to try a heavily sherried one, since you don’t see those all that often. Sherry and smoke can be a good combination if done right, and it’s fairly rare. All good reasons, right?

Nose:
Sweet, with some sherry, not as much as expected by the deep colour. Sweet tropical fruit, salty fish and ashes. It does leave the salty part pretty quickly and becomes sweeter with fresh peaches and syrup. Apple and ripe pear are showing up late too. All this is on a background of smoke and ashes.

Taste:
Spicy with a lot of smoke and ashes, and burnt heather. Still slightly salty but the sweetness is back as well. The pear and peaches make up the fruity part. Strangely enough, I find a bit of a floral thing going on as well, more like I would expect in a Bowmore.

Finish:
Very dry, it makes my mouth feel like leather and sand paper at once. Pretty sharp and fruity, but again the unexpected floral flavours are very present too. Also some sherry wood, but it doesn’t display the heavy sherry flavours I expected by the colour. It’s a lighter, more fruity kind of way.

I’m not sure what to think of this one. It’s quite fruity and shows some sherry wood quality as well. I’m not too big a fan of the fishy part in combination with it. Usually the salty Islay style of sherry is quite appealing, but without the fish bit. Very weird. It’s a high quality dram though, and still quite delicious. The price was fairly low too, for an indie Ardbeg!

Ardbeg 11, 08-1998 – 06-2011, SMWS, 33.109 ‘Delightful intensity of sherry and smoke’, Refill ex-sherry Butt, no longer available at the SMWS, but cost € 78.

On our trip through Champagne country we also visited a whisky distillery. I knew there was a distillery there somewhere, since Hans Offringa wrote about it in a Whisky Passion a long time ago. In our motel there was a brochure of Distillerie Guillon and it happened to be on our way from one champagne house to the other. A visit was imminent!

The location is rather terrific with trees surrounding the place, and it being on a hill side. Upon driving up the lane we found a nice and tranquil spot with all kinds of old trucks sitting in the yard. The visitor center was pretty crowded with a big ground of Belgians trying everything available. We settled for less (after all, whisky was the side note on this trip) and tasted only a few.

Le Guillon No 1
A dram composed of four different cask finishes (Puligny, Meursault, Sauterne, Banyuls) and very sweet and fruity. The wines they use to finish their spirit is all very sweet and local. This is represented in this whisky. Because of all the finishing going on I didn’t feel like I could taste the spirit itself very well.

Guillon 8 – Banyuls finish
In their regular range they finish everything in wine casks after maturing for five years in different wine casks. All casks are local and the recipe for all finishes are similar (Banyuls, Mersault, Champagne, Puligny, Sauterne, Loupiac, Vin de Paille). This one had a bit more focus but was still incredibly fruity with ripe plums, pears, peaches and such. The finish was still overpowering the whisky too much for my liking.

Guillon 8 – Champagne finish
This one caught my interest right away since this feels like it has the most ‘terroir’ of the area. The finish wasn’t as thick as with the previous drams and I really enjoyed that. The lighter spirit got more able to shine through and therefore, it tasted more like whisky than the other two.

After a short tasting we got to see the stills and the ‘warehouse’. The stills are odd ones set in an old stable or shed of some kind. Two wash stills and one spirit still. The spirit itself tastes and smells pretty okay. The beer and low wines were rather nasty, but that’s no surprise in any distillery. They distill only a few months per year and the rest of the period the stills are silent. I guess they should be able to grow much in this respect and become a much larger distillery!

The warehouses consist of a few old shipping containers sitting in the yard. In summer they got hot, and therefore the angel’s share is a little bit higher than in Scotland.

That was theme of this weekend. On Friday we (Thomas, Floris, Joost, Elco and me) left for Reims, for a Saturday full of champagne and whatever we came across. We had booked a hotel which turned out to be a motel in an industrialized area, but we weren’t going to be there anyway.

On Saturday morning we had a fairly early breakfast and drove to Verzy to visit the first Champagne House, Alain Lallement. A very small house (about 25.000 bottles per year) that does everything in town. Ringing the door and asking for a taste at someone’s home felt very weird. A good Cuvee Prestige Brut though! I wasn’t too thrilled about the rosé champagne. The Cuvee Prestige was very crisp and a little bit dry, but the flavours were all right and it was dangerously drinkable. Even at 10 AM!

After that we went on our way to Ay, with a stop at Guillon Distillerie (more about that tomorrow) We visited Canard Duchêne on our way (4 million bottles). We were welcomed for the booked tour of the vineyards and cellars. No production facilities this time. The tour was fun, and very informative. It was ended by another glass of champagne, and I had the Authentic Green, of which the first fermentation is done on oak barrels instead of in stainless steel. This gave the wine a bit more subtleness and a more round body, in my opinion. Absolutely loved it!

After that we drove around a bit for another visit, which turned out a bit useless since most houses we came across were closed (France on a Saturday afternoon…). After a late lunch we went back into Reims for a visit to G.H. Mumm (25.000.000 million bottles). A truly massive estate in downtown Reims which indicates they’ve been raking in money since they started 200 years ago. A highly commercial tour in which the guide was ‘uhm’ing more than enjoyable and he tried to make us believe Mumm is the company that created and ruled the universe. We did the ‘Grand Cru’ tour which included some extra special champagnes. We still felt a bit robbed afterwards since we paid € 8 per tiny glass and the really special ones were only promoted, not tasted. Some extra treatment would be nice for a € 24 euro tour.

After that, dinner and beers in town, with the beers being supplied by ‘Les 3 Brasseurs‘, a local and huge brewpub of which I’ll blog later!

My first Auchentoshan in a very long while. I’ve not been giving this distillery much attention for a plethora of reasons. First, there isn’t that much happening until recently when they released 4 (I think) new bottlings for travel retail. Second, I’ve got a couple of bottles here that have been here from long before I started this wee blog. Third, I think they’re not as good as Rosebank, which is my favourite Lowlands distillery. That means I try more Rosebanks than Auchentoshan. Mark will hate me for this.

Nose:
Very grainy like those crunchy breakfast cereals by Quaker’s, with some added white sugar (as in Dutch: bastard sugar…). It also has a typical Lowlands style with some straw and dried flowers. Some lemon zest, basil and rosewater later on, but all has a tiny undertone of cardboard.

Taste:
Pretty sharp with grass and some heather. It’s quite hot, but not peppery for a change. There is a little bit of a greasy feel to it as well, which I didn’t expect. Later on, the typical Lowlands-ness kicks in. Light vanilla, lemon, grass, coconut. A little better than the nose.

Finish:
All of a sudden I get candied orange parts. A very nice surprise! Apart from that, it didn’t do much for me. I can just rewrite everything I got on the palate, but I won’t do that.

It’s a bit of a strange one, this. It has its moments, but it just didn’t do it for me. It might be better with a bit more age to it (like the Auchentoshan 16 Bourbon Matured). There are some flavours which are very enjoyable, but it’s not a dram that will soar to your top-whatever list. A bit too middle of the road for me.

Auchentoshan 11, 03-1999, SMWS, 5.29 ‘Freesias crushed by an escaping car’, 2nd Fill hogshead, 60.6%, available for € 76 at the SMWS.

Another dram from the Bottle-Share with the currently very popular Mortlach. A powerful spirit of which we don’t see nearly enough. It can both handle sherry casks and bourbon casks alike and has enough body to shine through in a very typical and maybe at one point recognisable way.

Nose:
The nose has a very classic feel to it at first with loads of barley and some wood. It’s rather sweet with barley sugar and has a certain crispness that I attributed to a coconut flavour, but it may as well be anise. That means, it’s not very prominent and you have to search for it. A tad dry with some yellow fruit (apples, star anise). Also leather and ropes, coffee and some saw dust. Some wood spices pop up late.

Taste:
The wood spices are more pronounced on the palate with more saw dust as well. It builds up in sharpness, but never becomes uncomfortable. I expected it to be peppery but it wasn’t, but it has some red cinnamon. It reminds me of Glenmorangie for some reason, and in a good way.

Finish:
The finish is nice but not very long. The flavours don’t change much but are quite full. There’s more fruit and less spices. Apples, pear, white grapes, star anise. Slightly drying as well.

Very classic, but very good at what it does. The finish is a bit short and in a way it’s not a very exciting whisky, but it is extremely nice and uncomplicated. Uncomplicated may conflict with it being not too complex. All flavours are there but it makes you settle for it more than you want to go explore. Good stuff, and I like this style more and more nowadays.

Mortlach 15, 11-1995, SMWS, 76.83 ‘Cocktails after Rugby’, First fill sherry butt. Available at the SMWS for € 88

Yesterday I went to a shop that was on my to-visit-list for a while called “De Man van Drank” (The Booze Man). I heard about it a while ago and it was described as whole sale store for mostly beer, closely linked to Bier & Co, the main Dutch importer for brands like Anderson Valley, BrewDog, Flying Dog and such. There are several stores through out the Netherlands, but I visited in Den Bosch.

The store more or less is a big warehouse with loads of boxes and crates of beer. I wasn’t sure what to expect but this was about it, although I expected there to be more. Not necessarily more variety, but a larger stock. Also, the way it was set up was kind of a mess. Brands weren’t together, styles were spread out with American IPAs sitting next to kegs of Jupiler and Trappist beers.

Redeeming factors? Certainly! Nice people, and it’s quite wallet friendly if you’re up for buying a box of something. You can’t buy single bottles (which I expected), but buying 24 of something there is a lot cheaper than buying 24 singles somewhere else, in my case (pun intended) about 26%.

I gave in to my weakness and bought a case of Flying Dog’s Wildeman Farmhouse IPA, which I technically could have done without. But then again, now I’ve got a summers supply of a great IPA and I’m quite happy with it. Of course, my mind started working on a beer tasting I could host somewhere. Still thinking about that though!

Ah, Clynelish! One of my favourite whiskies in almost all age categories. For some reason I’ve taken to some of the Classic Malts from the start. Lagavulin, Clynelish, Caol Ila and Talisker are still favourites from day one. Let’s see if this one can live up to expectations!

Nose:
The first word that pops in is Austere. It’s taken me quite a while to understand what was meant by that, but I think I’ve got it nailed. In combination to whisky, it usually goes with the minerally whiskies. This one is one of those. Basalt, iron, slate and for some reason, that also includes apples for me. I get white wine, very crisp, a little bit of white oak. After a few minutes I get some bitter and burnt caramel, and a hint of vanilla. Eventually I get the beeswax and candles I know from Clynelish. The white oak is strange, since it is a sherry butt.

Taste:
The palate is thicker and sweeter than I expected. A panacotta creaminess mixed in with the Clynelish waxiness and sawdust makes for an interesting combination. Quite sharp with powdered white pepper, vanilla, whipped cream and the minerals and iron I got on the nose is back too.

Finish:
The fairly long finish continues with these flavours and makes them linger for quite a while. It’s a tad dry but the very sweet white grape juice and cream is highly enjoyable. It really coats the inside of your mouth!

While I’m writing this blog post I get more enthousiastic about this dram than I initially was. The flavours are very nice and highly enjoyable. It’s very sweet but the intense minerals offset that nicely. Good stuff! Now I’m in doubt between four or five stars!

If you expect the classic more spicy and fruity Clynelish, this isn’t it. If you don’t expect anything this is a terrific whisky. Read another great review here (in Dutch)!

Clynelish 15, 08-1995, SMWS, ‘Soft light at sunset’, 57.9%, Refill sherry butt, available at the SMWS for € 89.