Malt Fascination

I was planning on buying a full bottle of the Devil’s Cut while in the USA in September, but, since I was way over the limit anyway, I decided to stick with a miniature. In a little plastic bottle…

The Devil’s Cut is created as an opposite to the Angel’s Share. The Angel’s Share is the amount of whiskey that evaporates during maturation. The Devil’s Cut is what remains in the wood of the barrel after it has been dumped. The bit of whiskey that is gained from the wood this way is then blended with Jim Beam 6 years old to produce this whiskey.

Nose:
Dry bourbon, old wood but still a little bit thin. Cigars and sweet cigar smoke, tobacco and quite autumnal. Old apples and coconut (the hairy outside).

Taste:
The taste is smooth with chili peppers and a little greasy. Sweet sponge cake with a hint of vanilla and bread crust.

Finish:
The finish is pretty long but doesn’t really offer any new flavours.

In general, its a nice way of marketing your whiskey and getting everything from the cask before sending it to Scotland (most likely). The flavour is quite a bit more woody than I am used to from Jim Beam, but on the other hand it’s not THAT special either.

Jim Beam Devil’s Cut, 45%, available in a 1.75 liter bottle at Jurgen’s Whiskyhuis for € 72.99 and I believe I saw a bottle at Zeewijck as well.

Or, translated, the car polish tasting. Not that it has anything to do with tasting car polish, but that’s just the name and business of the company that allows us to use their lunch room for a massive annual tasting. This always is the first national event for the Usquebaugh Society at which we meet up after the holidays.

This year, as was the deal last year, we also selected the club bottling that will be released somewhere during spring. Last year we had 3 drams of one distillery and selected the nicest Glenfarclas. This year we had 4 drams of different distilleries with rather different characters. My pick ended last and the one that was the favorite of the group had my third place, so I’m not sure I’m buying the 2012 version of …………. (I’m not sure if they want to announce it themselves…)

The rest of the afternoon was a BYO tasting at which everyone put their bottles on the pool table and you could just pick & pour. I didn’t taste many whiskies since I wasn’t feeling all that well. The nicest one being a 26 year old Glenesk by Duncan Taylor.

It was a terrific afternoon with many many friends and a really good chance to meet up with everyone! I also found out that many people were quite enthousiastic about a new Bottle-Share, so I might have to start thinking out a theme for it!

Chichibu is the youngest of the Japanese distilleries. It was opened in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto who previously ran Hanyu distillery until it closed in 2000. Since they could only call their product whisky in 2011 and wanted some return of investment before that, a few varieties of their spirit were release early in 2009.

Nose:
Very heavy and feinty with thick slow smoke drifting out of the glass. Beefy with almost no detectable wood, especially light on the wood for a Japanese whisky. Eventually you get a little bit of sweet fruitiness.

Taste:
Very very sharp, but do you expect at 61.4% and barely any time in the cask? Sambal and peppers with a peppery sweetness on the background. The palate is very hot and therefore almost too hard to let it swim for more than a few seconds.

Finish:
The finish immediately drops the sharpness a few notches and last fairly long for such a young whisky. You get the sweet and sharp peppers again, and after that the spicy sweetness lingers in a very gentle way.

A very decent spirit with quite some punch. I expected to get less flavours and scents from this apart from spirit and cereals. I am really interested on trying this as it just turned three years old. The flavour profile is very appealing if you like drams like Lagavulin and Yoichi. It could do with a few drops of water though, but that might just kill the flavours too. It really needs a few extra years, though.

Chichibu New Born Heavily Peated, 2009, 61.4%, no longer available but used to cost around € 70 for a bottle.

Drinks & Gifts in Krommenie is moving. From one very small corner shop just out of the most walked shopping route to a much more prominent shop about a 100 meters down the street, right across from the ‘yet to be built’ big ass supermarket.

The new shop is about three times as big and has a much larger storage area. Last Sunday I (and many others) helped out by moving everything from the old to the new location. Apparently, the old shop was so crammed we filled the new one right up.

Not all displays and cabinets were already built, so a lot was just stacked in boxes. Jolanda and others spent the last three days getting everything ready for today, when she reopens (the official opening is next Saturday).

Yesterday I went to help out setting up the whisky cabinets. It took me a couple of hours to find a spot for everything, and while I am not 100% satisfied with the result, it looks pretty neat. Some shelves were not yet delivered, so I could put everything exactly where I wanted it, but I think her assortment is being displayed pretty nicely.

Due to the immense amount of booze already coming from the old shop, nobody got around to filling the beer displays completely, and unfortunately a lot of the most interesting new beers are still in storage. Great Divide’s stouts and porters are not on the shelves yet, for example.

But, all in all, not bad for a night’s work to get this many cases unpacked and cabinets filled!

Today the shop will reopen and although its probably going to be a bit of a mess, its very much worth to check out!

On January 15th I went to Den Bosch to join the Bottoms Up tasting at De Whiskykoning. This is an annual event on which he puts most of his open bottles on a big table and everyone can have a go at it. Since such an amount of booze will surely attract many people it is on invitation only and, luckily, I got one again! Here are the highlights (not everything, some were far from interesting)

Lagavulin Feis Ile 2008, 52.9%
I had tasted this some years ago at, probably, the Islay tasting that he usually does in November. The nose had heavy peat smoke, with a salty and fishy edge to it, as well as some tea. The taste was dry and smoky with hints of smoked eel. A slightly sweet and salty finish with oranges and tea again.

Macallan 18 1979 Gran Reserva, 40%
On the nose it had leather and blood oranges with a slightly woody edge. The palate is thick and dry with lots of sherry, fruit and citrus. A long finish with quite a heavy, feinty edge and lots of fruit again. Terrific stuff but it could use a few more points in its ABV.

Glengoyne 28, 50.4%, 2000
A single cask bottling of Glengoyne from 2000, bottled at 50.4% is can nicely hold its own. This is a fruit bomb from the start, with creamy fruit, liquorice and honey and orange (that seems to be a theme here). Again lots of fruit on the palate with a somewhat heavier undertone. The finish is also fruity but displays some more wood as well. Quite dry.

Springbank 12, 1995, Blackadder Raw Cask, 55.7%
This was not one of the best whiskies of the afternoon, but its flavour was so rediculous that I wanted it in here! The nose starts with an overwhelming aroma of rice crispies. Liquorice water and burnt bacon follow. The flavour is less rediculous, quite sharp with lots of sherry and paxerette wouldn’t surprise me either. Overripe fruit too. The finish goes back to what the nose did with the rice crispies. More interesting than it is good.

After these drams I tried some random bottles I picked up from the 200 that were there. A Connemara from a tall bottle, from before they used the shorter ones. A Cask Strength Bowmore with a bottle print which was quite nice as well and an old 14 year old Glen Scotia. A 1984 Limited Edition Glen Moray was also quite interesting.

Hirsch 16, 1974-1990, 45.8%, gold top
Hirsch 16 is one of those old terrific bourbons with a story. This one was stored in stainless steel for a decade and bottled around 2000 while still being only 16. Its a very full flavoured bourbon with of course some corn syrup on the palate but it reminded me most of those light sweet cigars some people smoke. Very autumnal and good!