Longmorn 10, 2011-2022, 52.4% – Michiel Wigman ‘They Inspired’

Posted on 25 April 2023 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

I guess by now not much of an introduction is needed for the ‘They Inspired’ series by Michiel Wigman. Single cask whisky, selected by the master himself, with a portrait of someone on the label that Michiel finds inspiring.

We’ve had musicians, political figures, and now we’re doing a round through the whisky industry. This Longmorn shows Hans Dillesse as portrayed by Hans Dillesse.

The whisky is from the Longmorn Distillery in Speyside and, by the look and taste of it, matured in a bourbon cask. Michiel recommended to add a drop of water to it, but I forgot. There was only 2cl in the sample, and while trying it on our weekend on Terschelling I didn’t go through documentation when tasting a dram!

Then, not entirely surprising in this case, there’s the issue of price. I know I moan a lot about at least that part of the current situation in the world of whisky. But let’s say there’s gradations in expensiveness. I think this one is pushing it a little bit. A 10 year old Longmorn at more than € 200 is a hard sell for me.

Image from Whiskybase

While I love what Michiel is doing, and especially that he very much holds his own standards quite high, I’m struggling to justify a tag like this. Let’s see if the whisky makes up for it!

Sniff:
A sweet, bourbon cask Speysider for sure! Lots of pastry cream and vanilla notes from the bourbon cask. Baked apple and ripe pears, canned peaches too.

Sip:
The palate quickly builds up with lots of white pepper and oak shavings. A bit sharp but still with quite some pastry sweetness with tinned fruit salad.

Swallow:
The finish shows more notes of oakand barley than before, when there was mostly fruit and pastry.

A bit sweet and straight forward. Nice enough, but I would’ve loved for the spirit to get a bit more room. I think the cask was rather active and imparted quite a few notes of vanilla and other aromas and flavors typically found in a bakery. While that’s all very agreeable, it doesn’t often make for a complex and deep whisky.

Of course, I forgot about adding water and that might indeed make a lot of difference. I guess I’ll have to find out from someone who has a bottle!

87/100

Still available through Dutch Whisky Connection.

Posted in Longmorn | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wolfburn 10, 2nd Fill Oloroso Hogshead, 46%

Posted on 24 April 2023 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Tom continues his love affair with new-ish distilleries by reviewing the first ever 10 year old Wolfburn!

Not only the first ever Wolfburn 10, but as far as we can trust a quick search on Google, also the first review of said whisky!

Wolfburn Distillery released their first age stated “10 Years Old” expression. Well worth a heartfelt congratulations to the team behind this accomplishment. As one of the first from a wave of new distilleries, Wolfburn released their share of bottles of the years. I got to admit I tasted only a handful and those did not make me an immediate fan. Maybe that was because of immaturity, so let’s dive in with this 10 years old then.

Sniff
The Spanish oak gave the whisky a light brown color, and I dare say the wood was not overly active, which is a good thing. I find notes of butter, wet woodland and green tree bark. You can easily imagine walking in the sparse Caithness forests. Also, there is a nice sense of fudge. Not very expressive, rather subdued. The buttery note is a bit too dominant, reminiscent of a style that was more common 20 years ago. 

Sip
The taste is mostly about chocolate notes and a gentle oaky sweetness. The overall feel is very smooth but maybe a bit one-dimensional. Let’s call it straightforward. Pleasant to drink. Even though I’m drawn to forest notes, there is certainly a coastal character in the background. This whisky comes from rugged lands! 

Swallow
A bit hot, despite the excellent drinking strength. With a drop of water the sweet chocolate and oak character takes center stage. 

Though the Wolfburn 10 makes me feel very nostalgic for the early days of me exploring malt whisky, this expression is very generic and modest. Maybe that’s a smart choice for Wolfburn, to really have a gateway to what they have to offer. I also think that this spirit can easily mature longer, so I do look forward to (older) future releases. For now, the Wolfburn 10 is an easy sipping whisky.

80/100

Available at Tyndrum Whisky for £ 64.50

About Tom van Engelen

Tom is a whisky enthusiast since the beginning of this millennium, not only savoring the taste of the drink but also the soul of it. Malt whisky from Scotland therefor remains his favorite focus. As former editor of the oldest Dutch whisky magazine he found a passion in writing about whisky too, with a mild preference for the nostalgic. He lives between the big rivers of the Netherlands with his wife Dasha, daughter Sasha and cat Amour.

Posted in Wolfburn | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Glen Moray 10, 2007, Bourbon Barrel, 46% – Alba Import

Posted on 18 April 2023 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Glen Moray is one of those distilleries that tends to have a style that is fairly generic. It makes a perfectly decent Speyside style whisky, but often it doesn’t really make memories. However, some times what comes from the Elgin distillery is utterly stunning.

Image from Whiskybase

As I’ve said on this blog a number of times, those 35 year old SMWS bottlings from little over a decade ago were epic, but also some of the distillery’s own stuff is really good. I fondly remember going through their range after visiting the distillery in 2018. A peated sherry cask matured Distillery Only bottling comes to mind.

This one, bottled by a German bottler for their market to our east came from a sample from Tom van Engelen, of guest post fame. Let’s see where it sits.

Sniff:
Rather spirity with quite a lot of sweet fruity notes. Heaps of banana and apple sauce. Very ripe pear and sweet notes of vanilla, oak and pastry.

Sip:
The palate brings some white peppery heat, a lot of sweetness and vanilla. Unfortunately, apart from the sweet notes it feels a little bit thin. Banana, ripe pear, pastry. Overly sweet fruit cordial, with pepper.

Swallow:
The finish loses a lot of the sweetness, but the pepper steps up to fill the space left by the sweetness.

It’s a bourbon cask all right. Quite on the sweet side, and in this case that’s not only from the cask usage. The spirit itself is also rather sweet, and shows the big fruity notes that make it typical for the distillery. However, in the end it’s not overly complex and a bit too simple for a higher score. Decent, but not great.

84/100

Still available in Germany for € 70

Posted in Glen Moray | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Port Ellen 27, 1983-2010, Refill Butt 517, 59% – Signatory Vintage

Posted on 17 April 2023 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

It’s been a while since I tried a Port Ellen. Not overly surprising with the distillery being closed for 40 years now. And because of that I expect that the frequency will go down further, until it hits the frequency of trying Brora, and after that Malt Mill.

I got a sample of this from my whisky buddy Nils and decided to give it a go a while ago. By the color there is no indication that this comes from a refill butt, but that might not be all to it. Let’s find out what this one is about!

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
Very coastal up to a level of ‘the fishermen just came in with their catch’. Some burnt sugar and toasted almonds as well. A very strange combination of scents. With some time the salinity lingers, but the overly ‘harborly’ scents diminish a bit.

Sip:
It’s only on the palate that the smoke starts to come through. It wasn’t ‘unpeated’ before, but it wasn’t very clear either. Now it is. Still very coastal and still very Islay. Salinity, tarry ropes, band-aids and iodine. But with that sweet caramel layer behind it all.

Swallow:
The finish is a bit more crisp, and loses some of that sweetness that came before. Very coastal and it moves VERY much into the typical Port Ellen territory of shammy leather and dried lemon. Mostly the shammy leather, though. Quite a long finish.

The finish adds a couple of points, because that combination of coastal notes with a caramel like sweetness didn’t really work before that. I don’t generally shy away from weird combinations of flavors, but the ‘very’ harbory (putting the Port in the Port Ellen!) aromas and flavors combined with the caramel… That’s just a bit too weird.

87/100

Of course, with this starting to be as rare as hens’ teeth, prices are going up rapidly. Currently this one goes for over € 1500 in Switzerland, and € 2750 (!) in France.

Posted in Port Ellen | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Longrow 15, 2006-2022, Fresh Sherry Hogshead, 53.8% – The Cage

Posted on 14 April 2023 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

So, this might need some explanation for those who’ve never been to Campbeltown.

In Campbeltown there’s Springbank Distillery and at the distillery they have a visitors center. At the visitors center there’s a cage with some bottles in them. This is one of those bottles.

What these bottles boil down to are ‘one-of-a-few’ bottlings from 70cl cask samples that have been drawn from semi-random casks in the warehouses. So, while prices have gone up recently, you can get your hands on some ridiculously rare and awesome Springbank products at prices that make a bit more sense than current market prices for older Springbank.

This one comes from the cage, from ‘rotation 582’ to be specific and was shared by Tom van Engelen, who recently was there.

Now, sherry and Longrow, so sherry and peat, tends to work very well. Even at not ridiculously high ages this combination tends to score insanely high. The same goes for Springbank products in general, so when this entered my glass yesterday, expectations were stellar.

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
Smoke and sherry, to the surprise of approximately no one after looking at this whisky’s label and color. They do keep each other in check. Dark dried fruits, with lots of wet oak and soil. Dates, cherries and almonds too.

Sip:
The palate arrives with gentleness and a minty freshness. There’s some licorice on top of the dried fruits and soil. Quite earthy with a building heat of chili pepper and smoke.

Swallow:
The finish keeps a large chunk of heat and chili pepper. The sherry and smoke come through with heaps of dried fruit and coastal sea weed like smoke. Almond based pound cake.

What an epic dram. This does everything what you expect a whisky like this to do, and it does it very well. It’s awesome that it’s not too hot, and the sherry and peat keep each other in check. Which, in turn, leaves room for fruity and coastal flavors to develop.

I was under the impression that these bottlings were utterly unique, but with this being in Tom’s possession and ‘elitewhisky.nl‘ also selling a bottle (at a stellar mark-up) proves otherwise.

91/100

Posted in Longrow, Springbank | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Benrinnes 12, 2007-2020, Cask 14358, 54.9% – WIN for Whisky Weekend Twente

Posted on 13 April 2023 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Whisky Weekend Twente is one of the many whisky festivals in The Netherlands. It is also one that I’ve never been to, since it’s quite far away (to Dutch standards) and it’s one of those festivals where it’s mostly importers and bottlers, much like about 90% of the other whisky festivals in the country.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it’s not something I have to travel for a lot. As in, I could also go to Alkmaar, Den Haag, Groningen, and quite some others that I could come up with if I gave it some thought.

A couple of years ago they bottled this Benrinnes, and by the looks of it the cask was selected by Whisky Import Nederland. Known for importing quite a few brands, and bottling First Cask and such series.

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
Very grain forward with not much to back it up. There’s barley and a bit of oak, but it smells very young and like it matured in a rather lazy cask. I tried giving it some time, but nothing else is happening. Maybe there’s a timid note of dried apple, on top of the bit of oak and lots of barley, but that’s it.

Sip:
The palate is rather sharp with a biting alcohol. Dryness from the grains, lots of chaff and such. Some oak shavings and white pepper.

Swallow:
The finish keeps its bite and doesn’t diminish quickly. As in, the bite remains, but since there wasn’t a lot of flavor to begin with, there’s not much else happening on the finish either.

This is one of those single malts that don’t really fill a gap on the market. Especially at € 55 there are many, many better whiskies available.

A while ago I got into a discussion on Facebook (silly, I know) about what the cut-off point of whisky’s ratings is in regard to quality. I said something blunt like ‘whisky scoring below 80 point is shit’ and that there’s no reason for it to exist since there’s so much affordable and better whisky available at that point. This is one of those whiskies that don’t need to exist. It’s just not good enough..

79/100

Still available (which is also rather telling) at € 55

Posted in Benrinnes | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Oban 12, Freshly-charred American Oak Casks, 56.2% – Diageo Special Releases 2021

Posted on 12 April 2023 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

One of the prettier distilleries, in the very lovely town of the same name, is part of Diageo, and part of a lot of the special releases. This one was released in 2021 and matured in freshly charred oak casks. I guess this can also be described as ‘virgin oak’ since that is a sketchy description at best.

Generally Oban 14, their regular release, is considered to be a solid coastal Highlands whisky, even by veterans in this hobby, with thousands of whiskies behind them. It does a rather straight forward thing, but it does it well and it’s consistent. Not the most exciting, but always tasty.

Image from Whiskybase

Of course, that makes a special release all the more interesting, since there’s almost no Oban available other than the regular 14, the distiller’s edition and the Oban Little Bay. Of which the regular one is, I think, the best of the bunch.

Sniff:
The nose starts off with quite some roasted grains and charcoal. A hint of oak, and some peppery spiciness. Slightly resinous, with a hint of coconut husk, sawdust and dried treebark. Cinnamon too, maybe.

Sip:
The palate arrives with a mix of syrupy texture, but also a bit of dry spiciness. Sawdust, apples and coconut. Black pepper, resin cinnamon. A strange jumble of flavors. The syrupy feeling also brings some sweetness to counter a slowly building chili heat.

Swallow:
The finish is a bit weird. It has a fatty greenness to it, which reminds me of tequila, with out any of its zestiness. Green, with sawdust, cinnamon and pepper.

The oak is, maybe surprising, not overly prominent. I think that’s a good thing, because that also leaves some room for the spirit to work its magic. Lovely notes of wood spices and fruit, while being quite a crisp and coastal whisky. Solid stuff!

87/100

Still widely available for about € 115

Posted in Oban | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Eddu Gold, 2021 release, 43%

Posted on 11 April 2023 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Eddu is a release frmo Distillerie des Menhirs in Brittany, France. Brittany is a bit like the England-part of France, so it’s not too surprising that they lean towards their northern neighbours for boozy inspiration. Brittany has quite some whisky distilleries, and makes heaps of good Cider as well. Let’s just say I didn’t run dry when I was on holiday there, a couple of years ago.

Even though the distillery has been around for quite a while, there aren’t that many releases, especially compared to Warenghem and Glann ar Mor, which are far wider spread and more known.

Apart from that, I really like that they’re doing their thing in Brittany, learn from the Scots and then do their own things like buckwheat whisky and things like that. I have a few bottles of that at home but haven’t gotten around to reviewing them over the last couple of years… It’s shameful, I know.

Image from Whiskybase

This one then. This is also a 100% buckwheat whisky, which should make it a bit different to barley based whiskies. It matured for 10 years in French oak. According to the website it can be compared to 15 to 18 year old whisky, although without specifying which one, that doesn’t mean much.

Sniff:
Strangely chalky with quite some dusty minerality. Parma violets and candy hearts. Some grist too. A very unique nose. Not bad, but I’m quite surprised by it.

Sip:
The palate is quite thin and a bit more typical for whisky. More oak and gtain, some white pepper and slightly bitter apple seeds. Still that dusty candy stuff, although it’s not very sweet at all.

Swallow:
The finish keeps the dry notes of grist, and lasts quite a long time. Slightly more sweet than before.

I’m not entirely sure what part of the scents and flavors can be attributed to the different grain, but there’s certainly something a bit different than ‘regular single malt’. It’s anything but a spectacular whisky, but with this setting you back almost € 100, I wouldn’t go for a full bottle.

83/100

Posted in - Grain Whisky, - World Whisky, Distillerie des Menhirs, Eddu | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Vintage Bourbon 17, 1983-2000, 43%

Posted on 7 April 2023 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Vintage Bourbon is both a description and a brand name. It also is something I’ve been eyeballing in auctions for years but prices are fairly insane. Of course, any old whisky and especially older bottlings of old whisky are insanely expensive nowadays, but bourbon has surged spectacularly over the last decade or so.

Image from Best of Wines

I got a sample of this from my whisky buddy Nils last week, and I quickly sat down to try it. There’s a few more in the works to be reviewed next week.

‘Kentucky Bourbon Distillers’ is in this case a bottler. Currently they do have a distillery, Willett, but that’s only been the case since a decade or so. The distillery existed since the 1930s but closed down in 1980. So, this can’t be from their own distillery. Also, if it was, it would have been bottled under the Willett brand name, I would assume.

Sniff:
Dry bourbon with lots of oak and some charcoal. Corn stalks, brown sugar and waxed leather.

Sip:
Quite a syrupy texture with some heat, oak and chili peppers. After that arrival it’s very gentle, and rather dry. Brown sugar, a bit of charcoal too.

Swallow:
A long finish with dark, toasted bread. A bit more spicy than the palate was. Black pepper, oak. Very gentle, but there is a surprising bitter note that adds some depth.

That extra depth because of the slight bitterness pulls it up a little bit. I was really hoping for fireworks with a bourbon this old, but that didn’t really happen. Without the finish being what it is it would have scored a bit lower.

87/100

Posted in - American Whiskey, - Bourbon | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Caol Ila 15, 2006-2022, 53.3% – Michiel Wigman ‘They Inspired III’

Posted on 6 April 2023 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

In the third year of Michiel Wigman’s independent bottling carreer, the labels veered towards whisky icons, in this case showcasting Geert Bero from Belgium. You might know him from several festivals, Oldies & Goldies Whisky and Hotel Bero in Oostende. Of course, the label is illustrated by Hans Dillesse.

Image from Best of Wines

Anyway, with the name of Michiel Wigman come expectations, and with a Caol Ila you expect those expectations to be met. It’s such a consistent distillery with a very idiosyncratic style that I also happen to love. Let’s dive in!

Sniff:
An interesting combination of lighter lemony notes, combined with a rather heavy engine grease nose. A heavy smokiness that’s really machine like. Like heavy diesel machinery, There’s coastal scents behind that. Marram grass and sandy beaches.

Sip:
The palate is not too intense. There’s a bit of bite from the alcohol, but it’s not hot. Some sawdust and oak shavings, there are bonfires on the beach and old engines too. Smoke, but with a slightly creamy note behind it. Not as much as with some other Caol Ilas though, it’s rather timid on that front.

Swallow:
The finish is a very smoky one. There’s a sooty quality to it, so slightly greasy and sticky as well. Which could be the creamy, engine grease thing that Caol Ila has going for it anyway.

This is a big whisky. Very modern, but with some age to it. As in, there’s a lot of younger Caol Ila out there that has a similar smokiness, but these lack the depth this one has. Good stuff indeed!

88/100

Still available through Dutch Whisky Connection and Best of Wines for € 175-ish

Posted in Caol Ila | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment