Malt Fascination

Always a risky pick from any bottler, Bowmore can easily disappoint with their overly floral laundry softener scent every now and then, also known as FWP (French Whore Perfume). This sample is one I am tasting with a bit of skepticism, since previous ones have been okay, but not incredibly good.

Nose:
There isn’t much smoke, but the bit that is there is very pungeant. Also some heather, moss and flowers and not too big on the laundry softener. Not spectacularly good though. Kind of predictable.

Taste:
The flavour is rather smooth and gentle with a light creaminess with some lavender and vanilla. The floral notes keep growing. Grassy meadows with a small bonfire going upwind.

Finish:
The finish tones down to a gentle one very soon. Again, the slight peatiness is present. Rather short with some floral notes and something greasy. Maybe some laundry softener after all?

A rather predictable Bowmore and right up the alley of SMWS Bowmores that I’ve tried. They’re all on the brink of being too FWPy, just like this one. A nice dram, but nothing more than that.

Bowmore 1990, 18 years old, SMWS, ‘Atlantic waves crashing in the mouth’, 56.2%, Refill Hogshead, around € 70 when it came out.

A short extra note: The prices I state usually come from whiskybase. I think those are the prices asked in Scotland, since the SMWS bottles are A LOT cheaper there. Here, something 18 year old and Islay would probably set you back at least € 90 and more likely € 100.

This month I brewed a couple of batches of beer and thought my own brews were about ready. While I like to drink my own brew, I don’t think it’s one of the best beers I tried this month. Bummer!

Paradox Jura
Thick, creamy, oily, massive ABV (15%) but oh so good! I absolutely love this one, but at € 8.99 I won’t be drinking too many of them.

Horndog Barley Wine
Another new release from Flying Dog. While previously their beers were very okay, I feel they’ve been improving with what I tried lately. The Wild Dog series, this one, the single hop Simcoe IPA. Keep it up!

Wildeman Farmhouse IPA
A terrific and ‘different’ IPA. I loved it but I had to take some time getting used to it. I rated it four stars, but when tried again I would go for five.

Bitch Please Islay Cask
When I poured it I thought it was very light coloured for a stout, but that was because it’s a barley wine instead. Dumb-ass. The smoke is spot on but I didn’t really taste the shortbread and fudge all that much.

Bush Ambree
An entirely different style of beer, with a hint of lambic-like flavours to it. I liked it a lot and I think it is a good starting point for me to get more into the lambic and gueuze beers.

Mort Subite Geuze
My first Gueuze in many years and I liked it. I also tried some Lambics this month which I really didn’t like but maybe I just have to get used to the style. Very interesting and some variety to the endless Abbey style beers from Belgium

Another Japanese bottling from SMWS! A couple of years back I thought it was a good idea to aim my collection at mostly Japanese whiskies, but then the prices started to rise. Now the SMWS brings out the regular bottle and while their stuff is usually a bit more expensive, I don’t know if that also goes for the Japanese bottles. Luckily, in a sample swap a while ago I was able to get all these babies and I’ve been really enjoying them. Apart from dumping fruit juice in one, that is.

Nose:
Sour cherries, the black ones (amarenen in Dutch) with other red fruits on syrup. A lot of strong wood scents as well. I also get some hot spices and wasabi.Taste:

Spicy, hot and sharp (not unexpected). A very full sweetness which isn’t very defined. Meaty with quite some fruit as well. Lots and lots of strong flavours.

Finish:
This is weird. With all the strong flavours and scents going on at first, I expected a blast of a finish, but this is a bit disappointing. Mostly just astringent and then it’s gone.

The nose is absolutely fenomenal. Loads of strange combinations but oh so terrific all together. The flavour is back in the spectrum of us mortals, and the finish is a bit dissappointing. Which means it won’t be getting 5 stars, which was my estimate after pouring the sample. A bit of an anti-climax. But still. That nose…

After reading my notes on how this one smelled I looked on whiskyauction to see if this one’s there. After reading the notes on the finish I closed the window. That about sums it up.

Hakushu 1990-2009, 18 years old, SMWS, ‘A thousand flowers from a forest of tall trees’, 59.3%, Spanish Oak Butt, it used to cost only € 83!

And again, back to Scotland for the next SMWS dram! This time a Glenrothes from 1992. I always find this a bit of a weird distillery since I usually am not a big fan of their own (vintage) releases, but the style and releases from independent bottlers are usually pretty darn good. Let’s see if this one lives up to that!

Nose:
Light and fruity with heaps of green apples. Behind that is a lot of wood and old waxed leather.

Taste:
Pretty sharp (it’s SMWS after all) but very nice. It’s quite a complex dram with old fruit, spices and a very wintry feel to it. Quite warming.

Finish:
The finish is surprisingly smooth which lingers quite a while with spices and pepper.

A strange Glenrothes, since you usually get the sherry casks or sherried releases. This one is quite different. Before I tasted it I didn’t know it was Glenrothes and I think I would never have guessed if I was asked to. A very decent dram! They’ve called it ‘A spice cupboard’ but that feels a bit like overdoing it. There is some spiciness but not that much.

Glenrothes 1992, 16 years old, SMWS, ‘A spice cupboard’, 56.7%, Refill Hogshead, used to cost around € 99

A minor change and a big change on this blog!

Minor: This blog is now available as maltfascination.com! I’ve wanted to change the url for a while but I kept doubting whether to host the site myself or let WordPress do it. I opted for the last bit since it takes a bit of work out of my hands without much cost.

Big: A new page has been added today. A page with new releases in the worlds of whisky and beer. Malt products, so to say. I asked a few small and independent Dutch whisky and/or beer retailers to supply me with frequent updates on what they have in stock and I will publish it here.

I have contacted De Whiskykoning in Den Bosch, Uw Top Slijter Zonneveld in Maassluis, Drinks & Gifts in Krommenie, Zeewijck in IJmuiden, DH17 in Bergen op Zoom and The Old Pipe in St. Oedenrode. Those are six whisky retailers to which I owe most of my collection.  Of course, this page will only be successful if I get timely updates and full information, so I will be nagging at their doors a lot the coming (hopefully) years.

For now, there are only some updates by Jolanda (Drinks & Gifts) and Rob (De Whiskykoning) but I have been promised more lists soon.

I chose to do this with the above retailers since they are all independently run shops, with no affiliations to massive companies or big chain stores. I have visited these shops and like the people. I might add some others I know and like in the coming weeks, depending on how much content is supplied.

Also, apart from new releases I’ll post discounts and special prices and such when it’s worthy of mentioning. See the page for the first one!

Yamazaki, also a distillery that puts out many great bottlings, if you can get them. Since last year they have started to understand that too in Japan, and the standard 18 year old (which is an absolute stunner) has gone up from € 90 to about € 130. We might have to make do with these occasional indie bottlings.

Nose:
Lots of etheric oils, sandalwood and also a heap of Christmas cake. In the background I get dried mint leaves. Like a Japanese temple on Christmas. Very terrific.

Taste:
As with most Japanese cask strength whiskies this one is incredibly hot. It burn on your tongue and at first it is pretty hard to get many flavours out. Eventually you get used to it a bit and it also settles a little. You get a massive flavour bomb then. Very dry, with lots of wood, oily. Almost no fruit at first but it starts opening up after a minute or so. It does have a bit of a carbondioxide effect in your mouth.

Finish:
Sweet coffee at first, then more liqueur with pepper and wood. A pretty long finish with a sticky sweetness of peach syrup.

A terrific dram and very Japanese in style. Or I should say very Yamazaki in style. The oiled sandalwood with fruit in the background is rather typical for their sherry casks and this one fits that description very well. There is a lot to discover here and this definetly is a bottle I’d like to have on my shelf. Bummer it sold three years ago!

Yamazaki 1989-2009, 19 years old, SMWS, ‘I wish it could be Christmas every day’, 62.6%, 2nd fill sherry butt, used to cost about € 86.

Littlemill, as I’ve mentioned before, isn’t one of my favourite distilleries. There has been a terrific one in the Usquebaugh Society’s Blind Tasting Competition, but that is, by far, the best one I’ve ever had. Most of them are too like wheat porridge with a blast of alcohol. Not my favourite style, so to say.

Nose:
Light and flowery at first. Soon I also get some crushed plant stems (the green stuff). A little fruit is added to the mix and some gentle vanilla is present as well. A lot of things going on.

Taste:
Pretty sharp, but still light in profile. Pepper for sure. Maybe a bit thin on the palate. It does move forward to show a bit more fruit, but rather indistinguishable.

Finish:
A lot more fruit than this dram initially displayed, but quite mixed and hard to pin down which kinds. The finish is very good, spicy and dry but with loads of fruit running around.

Not my best notes, but it was a pretty hard to pin down whisky. It goes in several directions and while I really enjoy the wakening fruitiness that starts slowly and gradually takes over the profile of the dram, I do think it is a bit thin and maybe a bit too light at first.

Littlemill 1990-2010, 19 years old, SMWS (USA), ‘Dreamy drammie’, 55.6%, used to cost around € 95 when it came out 2 years ago.

Springbank is one of my favourite distilleries in Scotland. Not so much their whisky (although quite a few of my top-ever drams are from their stills) but the distillery itself. The people, the town, the vibe are just plain awesome. I still hope to go there someday to do their whisky school! Maybe next year, if I manage to not spend everything on bottles…

Nose:
Salty at first with some caramel and cereal. Rather typical Springbank style, with a little bit of a dustiness. Like old warehouses. Nothing too extreme.

Taste:
The flavour veers in the direction of the nosed caramel with more hints of caramel fudge and scottish tablet. The saltiness is back as well, with some pepper this time. It also shows the thick sweetness of banana, without the flavour. Does that make any sense at all?

Finish:
Well, this is okay. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not very long and doesn’t add too many flavours. It just summarizes what happened before.

What I described in the notes on the finish can be said for this entire dram. It’s okay, but that’s it. Kind of Springbank in the middle of the road. Should you search for this one? Meh. I’d go for their 12 year old Cask Strength. Comparable but cheaper.

Springbank 1996, 12 year old, SMWS, ‘Stripped Down’, 57%, used to be around € 64 but it came out a few years ago.

Another SMWS dram and still going strong. I’ve tried several Glenmorangie bottlings from the SMWS with limited success. I had some sherry cask which I didn’t really like but it was a profile I’ve encountered more from the SMWS. All kinds of vegetable and pickle notes and such. Let’s see where this takes me!

Nose:
Very different from the one linked above, but that’s mostly due to this being a First Fill Bourbon cask. Soft bread, but with a slight chemical edge. Lemon, vanilla and slightly burnt caramel. A candy sweetness like lemondrops but quite sharp. Eventually I get some forest fruits too. Blackberries, I think.

Taste:
Full but a little sharp on the tongue, not too sharp though. It does increase the burn a little bit but the full bodied palate stays. Peppery with vanilla and gets more fruity along the way. A little dry, but showing hints of pineapple and mango in the background.

Finish:
Quite long and consistent, no surprises here. A little bit of oak with soft vanilla hints and a tiny hint of anise in the background.

This whisky is like a default Glenmorangie, but at that it’s pretty damn good. Usually a pretty consistent distillery with the weird dram every now and then. This one is probably a cask that would normally have gone into the standard 10 year old. I’m glad it didn’t. The slight fruity notes are very nice and while not too exceptional, it’s a very nice sipping whisky.

Glenmorangie 2000-2011, 11 years old, SMWS, ‘Bright and vivacious’, 55.8%, probably was around € 80 when it came out.

The first distillery ever bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society back in the early eighties. By now they’ve done more than 156 bottlings of their casks and this is one of their latest.

Nose:
Pretty heavy at first, but apart from something feinty it’s fairly unspectacular. There’s isn’t that much happening at first. After a short while a lot of cereals pop up and I get quite some liquorice and ginger. The cereals are thick but not malty. A little ‘green’.

Taste:
Very sharp with heaps of pepper. Almost astringent and quite some wood. It’s very hot with alcohol and there’s some vanilla too. Again, not very spectacular.

Finish:
In the finish I get not many new flavours apart from the cereals that go more in the direction of rye and shortbread. Still sharp.

It’s a weird one, this one. At first I got all the above and it felt a bit unbalanced. Too much alcohol, a little green and such. I wrote down two stars. But after half an hour in the glass it seemed to find its balance and started getting the flavours right. No new flavours, but just more in proportion. Then I wrote down trhee stars. I’m still in doubt.

Glenfarclas 10, 1999-2010, SMWS, ‘New York Cheesecake’, 63.2% (!), First Fill Barrel, probably around € 75 when it came out.

 when drunk quickly.

 when you let it air enough.