Right. Toasted Oak Cigar Barrels. They don’t really disclose what this means on the website, apart from the barrels being air dried in the Vosges region of France.
This is remarkable for two reasons: Why would they dry casks in France before shipping them to America. Secondly, why would you air dry something in the wettest region of France?
A cigar barrel seems to be something like a port pipe, in shape at least. It’s a more elongated cask than a regular barrel and bears some resemblance to a cigar. So there’s that.
Heaven’s Door is a whisky brand that has developed the whiskies in partnership with Bob Dylan. I always get a bit itchy when it comes to celebrity partnerships in the booze world. Most of the products from these partnerships are nothing more than marketing exercises resulting in fairly mediocre booze.
Image from Whiskybase
Writings on the internet also only disclose that Bob Dylan has partnered with the brand, but not in which way he is involved in product development. My apprehension remains strongly in place.
Let’s see what the whisky is about then.
Sniff: A gentle arrival, but with a lot of rye crispness. Basil, orange and a whiff of leather. Almost wintry fresh, if that’s a thing. Pink peppercorns follow after a short while.
Sip: The palate is sharper than I expected with a lot of peppery heat. Still that orange juice and herbaceous freshness remains. Pine needles too.
Swallow: The finish is a bit more grain forward, and a little less focused on the typical rye flavors. Some bready notes, and a bit more oak.
This is one of those typical modern rye whiskies that is a tad generic. I would be very surprised if this is not an MGP product, by the way it tastes and smells, and after some Googling I seem to be correct on that.
I like rye whisky in general and therefore this is not something I dislike. But with this clocking in at € 76, I think you can do better for less.
I tried this whisky on two different occasions. Once at Fiddler’s in 2019, and recently when it also popped out of the Advent Calendar I’ve been going on about for a while now.
Ballechin, as some of you might know, is peated Edradour. And generally Edradour scares me a little bit. Although, Billy proved that there’s some good ones available, back at Maltstock a few years ago.
Let’s just see where this one sits.
Image from Whiskybase
Sniff: A mix of coastal and highland peat. Quite intense on the smokiness. White pepper, a whiff of oak. Mostly grass, smoke, straw, a bit of minerals. Honey, with a bit of medicinal scent behind it. The coastal peat dimishes with some time. Something slightly custard-y
Sip: The palate starts off very light, almost watery. But it builds up rapidly with vanilla and custard, some honey. Smoke, straw, seaweed. Quite coastal for a Pitlochry distillery. White pepper, oak, barley.
Swallow: The finish brings a lot of salinity, together with a lot of smoke. It’s pretty sweet with some vanilla, although it’s more a barley sweetness than custard.
I have to admit I’m not a fan of Ballechin in general, and less so of Edradour. And while this is a very decent whisky, it just doesn’t do it for me. As in, I like it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, but I don’t get all giddy thinking about it either.
It’s interesting that I found this quite a coastal dram, which is absolutely isn’t. There’s quite a lot of vanilla in it too, which makes it a little bit more generic.
Chateau du Breuil is a rather well known distiller of Calvados. They’re known for their iconic bottles, but also for adding some pear to the apple brandy. A few years ago they made their foray into distilling whisky.
I completely missed that news until their whisky showed up at the local bottle shop a few short weeks ago. I got enthusiastic about tasting these whiskies since it’s a company that knows their way around a still, and has known it for some 70 years. Good news, right? Just wait a bit for the tasting notes.
I like trying stuff from new distilleries in general. In a time when more and more distilleries and their products become homogenised, these new distilleries have every opportunity to carve out a niche for themselves.
Centralized malting, centralized grain buying, centralized warehousing. Even centralized still replacement parts. More and more variables become constants in Scotland. A shame, since that also goes for the character of a lot of spirit. Angus wrote a great piece on ‘terroir’ some years ago, which I occassionally re-read.
Some distilleries choose to go with the flow and are a new brand, but produce whisky in the same way everyone else does. There’s nothing wrong with it, except it can make your whisky forgettable. I remember trying, and enjoying, Wolfburn’s first release some years ago. However, I’ve not bought a bottle of the stuff since.
Other distilleries try to do everything in a rather grassroots way, but stick to their guns even if the product is absolutely horrid. Looking at you, Abhainn Dearg.
In some cases that is just a preference, and my own palate that doesn’t agree with a whisky. That obviously goes for old and new distilleries alike. I don’t enjoy Annandale so far, but I know lots of people do.
Then there’s the category that I’ve yet to find out about. I have high expectations of Dornoch Distillery, Ardnahoe, Lagg, and I still hope that the whisky industry in Campbeltown will expand some more the coming years.
I also hope that these new distilleries keep in mind that there’s already 120 distilleries out there. If they simply produce a more expensive and younger version of what’s already available, they might never transcend the status of a tourist attraction.
Back to this French company then. A company that’s been distilling since 1954, with quite some success. I enjoyed getting their bottles and taking them for a spin.
Le Breuil Origine Single Malt, 46%
Sniff: Lots of vanilla, some iron and apples (funnily). A whiff of oak. Very simple and straight forward.
Sip: A bit of bite with a crisp, snowy flavor. Some herbs with some vanilla. White pepper, apples, pears, white grapes.
Swallow: More iron and red apples on the finish. Some white pepper. Some apple pie with cinnamon.
Not bad, just very simple. I’ve not really been able to find something that defines them. Some vanilla and apple is virtually what you taste in every three year old bourbon cask whisky.
Le Breuil Finition Sherry Oloroso, 46%
Sniff: Lots of sweet sherry and vanilla. A lot of cake, pie, baking spices.
Sip: A bit of bit from youth and alcohol. Lots of baking spices. Some dried dark fruits, dates and plums. Quite a bit too sweet.
Swallow: The finish carries on in the same way.
This one is a bit too sweet for me. It’s like they really forced the sherry onto it, and since it’s a finish of a three year old whisky, it’s hard to have proper maturation.
Le Breuil Finition Tourbee, 46%
Sniff: Even though it’s pretty mich a one note thing, the smoke really makes it better. Peaty, with smouldering hay, a bit funky.
Sip: Quite a lot of smoke, both peaty and woody, even though it’s only peat smoke. Smoked apple, barley, a bit of sand, dirt, oak.
Swallow: The finish has some herbs, but is mostly young smoky whisky.
Again, generic, but better than the others. The smoke really helps it along and makes the lack of maturity a lot more bearable.
Now we get to the hard part of rating these whiskies. Technically there is nothing wrong with them. It’s a very clean distillate, and it’s not one of those French whiskies that still taste like they were made in brandy stills. It genuinely tastes like whisky. All good.
Except that they make their whisky the same way virtually everyone else does, and therefor it’s a bit forgettable.
Speyburn, one of those distilleries that does things more or less the same as they did it when the distillery opened. At least, that’s the way their official bottlings taste.
Image from Whiskybase
Made more or less infamous by the insessant unwanted marketing of certain individuals in Scotland regarding a ‘fan day’ called Speyburn Transcontinental Day, or STD for short, they got some attention, but never a lot.
A few years ago there was some rather kick-ass marketing from the distillery in the form of randomly sent out Christmas sweaters and heavy prints of a painting of the distillery. Pretty cool, and not just because I got those.
Now this here bottling also came from the Advent Calendar I’ve been going through with my good friend JPH. We tried it a little while ago and below are our notes.
Sniff: Dry barley and some white oak. Some dirt and straw, a bit farmy. Wool, hay, grass. Granny smith or maracuja, so a slightly acidic fruity note.
Sip: Dry, white pepper and white oak. Pretty hot, actually. Straw and dirt, wool, grass. Corky apple and dried passion fruit. It has quite some acidity, with bite.
Swallow: The finish adds a bit of barley sweetness, pound cake. It’s much softer than the palate. It loses the acidity, mostly.
What a weird whisky. It has something that makes me dislike it. I think it’s the inconsistency, with that weird, slighty caustic note.
This bourbon was released to celebrate the life of Elmer T. Lee. He was a long time employee of Buffalo Trace Distillery who made it from engineer up to being distillery manager.
Image from Whiskybase
Officially he retired in 1985, but never really stopped coming to work, according to the stories.
He passed away in 2013, at the age of 93. After that, this bourbon was released. I was lucky enough to get a sample as part of the Fiddler’s Advent Calendar last December.
Sniff: Lots of corn, slightly bitter oak and almonds, cherry stones, lots of oak too. Cherry and honey after a while. Becomes more sweet after some time.
Sip: Far drier than I expected, with quite a lot of bitter notes. Almonds, cherry stones. Tree bark, oak, pink peppercorns.
Swallow: A long finish that continues the dry and bitter notes. The cherry lingers longest, with some almond paste.
This is a stellar bourbon. It’s not overly sweet and offers a lot of layers and intensity. I love the bitter notes that are present in it. If this truly is the standard set by Elmer T. Lee, I might have to get my hands on some of the other Elmer T. Lee bottlings!
A little while ago I got another awesome rum sample from Best of Wines, but I waited a little while to sit down for it and give it the attention it deserves.
It’s another one in The Duchess’ Hummingbird series with the awesome labels by Hans Dillesse. He’s been doing a lot of label work lately, also for ‘They Inspired’ by Michiel Wigman.
Anyway, Uitvlugt, a distillery from Guyana that uses a Port Mourant still. As it turns out that’s a wooden still that looks like what’s shown on the picture. I don’t have much experience with this kind of distillate, and would love to do head-to-heads between this and a copper pot still, just to see where the main differences are.
Sniff: Slight hints of glue and molasses. Very complex with no one scent taking the lead. Leather, nutmeg and clove. Dried papaya.
Sip: Some heat from the alcohol, with a bitterness too. Fruity, sugary sweetness. Drief mango and papaya. Some baking spices, nutmeg and clove. Leathery, molasses.
Swallow: The finish is a bit brighter, with an added hint of pink peppercorns, leather. A bit more funky.
I keep being surprised by the breadth of flavors in various rums. This one is no exception and does something quite different to other bottlings by The Duchess, let alone a random other distillery.
I love the combination of the peppercorns and the dried papaya, and I love it even more that it’s a complex dram with not one flavor or scent leading the way.
Highly recommended!
90/100
Thanks to Best of Wines for the sample! It’s still available there for € 240
About two weeks ago the newest WhiskyNerds release came out. This time they opted for an Old Rhosdhu from 1990. Old Rhosdhu is one of the older brands of Loch Lomond Distillery.
So, in a way this is not a new distillery for them, but it is a new brand. My guess would be that it is a new brand for most of us, since you don’t come across it often, if ever.
They did the bottling together with Wu Dram Clan, which is a German club of folks whose taste it at least on par with the WhiskyNerds. I’ve had the luxury of tasting some of their past bottlings and I’m quite the fan.
I guess now is as good a time as any to write a little bit about this ‘new normal’. Not in regards to COVID-19, but in whisky pricing.
Loch Lomond has never been an overly popular distillery. In most cases I think that’s justified, but they do release some awesome bottlings now and then. However, a few short years (and one massively long year) ago this would result in prices being a little bit below average.
This is, after all, not a brand for which there are many collectors and it doesn’t really fly off the shelves.
However, with so many people fishing in the same pond, prices have started to soar once more. The WhiskyNerds’ Allt-a-Bhainne of a little while ago was an expensive one, too expensive for what it was. Let’s not even talk about the Caol Ila.
And now we sit here, looking at a 29 year old Old Rhosdhu that goes for (at least) € 225. I’m having some trouble letting that sink in.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand why this happens, and I also understand that Bram and Floris (and the Wu Dram Clan, in this case) don’t have much choice, if any. But as a broad development in the world of whisky, it seems that it gets more and more absurd. Even when we don’t think it can get anymore absurd.
Image from Whiskybase
Let’s get back to the good stuff. Let’s do tasting notes!
Sniff: Light, with some funkiness. Paper, hessian, straw. Dried apple peel, porridge. Hints of candied lemon. Smoked butter.
Sip: The palate is quite a lot sharper than I expected. Straw, oak, hessian, paper. Also slightly sweeter on the fruit side. Ripe pear, warm apple sauce.
Swallow: The finish touches upon the light side of grain whisky, a hint of copper of some sort. Wood, apple and pear.
After all my nagging, I think the € 225 is acceptable for a whisky like this. There are some inconsistencies between the nose and the palate, but not so much so that it’s becomes an issue.
There are notes that I found hard to pin down and describe. That’s my limited palate acting up, I guess. However, I love the high complexity and uniqueness of the whisky. It’s not often that something ‘unique’ like this pops up, and that’s worth something!
GlenGlassaugh was reopened in 2008, under guidance of Billy Walker, who took over BenRiach and GlenDronach before then. He’s now active at GlenAllachie since selling the trio of distilleries to Brown-Forman.
EDIT: GlenGlassaugh was restarted under guidance of Stuart Nicholson. Billy Walker took over in 2013.
To celebrate the reopening of the distillery in 2008, after being closed for over 20 years, the ‘Rare Cask Releases’ were done. It’s a set of single casks to showcase the diversity of the distillery’s output.
When this Port cask came out last year, it was one of the first ones I saw on Dutch shelves that was affordable, and even then we were talking at an eleven year old whisky at over € 100.
I believe it’s more affordable now, but I don’t know why it started popping up at lower prices.
My bottle was bottle-shared, used in a tasting and yesterday I finished the last bit of my share. Let’s see where this one ends up on the spectrum of deliciousness!
Sniff: Jammy, with lots of fruit. Unmistakable a port cask. Quite some fruity and woody sweetness, with a nice scent of oak. Some stewed cherries and strawberries.
Sip: Quite gentle for the ABV, with lots of old oak, and port. Slightly funky with wet dirt, dunnage warehouse floors. Stewed red fruits.
Swallow: The finish is a bit more dry with a hint of white pepper. The jammy fruit lingers longest.
Quite sweet, with a lot of cask influence. Absolutely not bad though. It’s good that it’s typical for a port cask, but the drawback is that it’s hard to determine how the spirit has matured. Also, I would need more than one whisky to get a bit of a bearing of that.
Anyway, a solid whisky that is very enjoyable. Not overly complex or layered, though.
Transistor is one of the three whiskies that have been released in cooperation with BrewDog. Whiskies specially selected to pair well with one of BrewDog’s most available beers.
There’s Tulip Torpedo, a rye whisky from Zuidam that is to be paired with Dead Pony Club. The third is Skeleton Key. This is a blended Scotch from Duncan Taylor.
All three are pretty readily available at quite affordable prices, however, we’re reviewing just the Transistor today.
Punk IPA is the beer that more or less kickstarted my fanaticism for good beer. I’ve had it quite a few times over the last decade. As in, probably over a hundred bottles or so. This seemed like it was something I needed to try.
First, I tried the whisky on its own:
Sniff: Lots of vanilla and baked apple, hints of cinnamon and raisins. Quite sweet, with a lot of wheat flour.
Sip: Some white pepper. Very consistent with the nose. Vanilla, sugary puff pastry, baked apple. Gentle, very gentle.
Swallow: The finish still has some lingering pepper. The sweetness and vanilla is a bit toned down.
It’s a rather simple whisky. Absolutely not bad, but not something that most afficionados will sit down for to disect for tasting notes. Still, very well made and for € 40/45 you can do much worse.
83/100
After writing these notes I started drinking the beer as well and doing it ‘hauf an a hauf‘.
Initially I was rather skeptical, since the whisky has quite some sweet notes with lots of vanilla. And the Punk IPA is a pretty bitter beer, with some fruity notes, but nothing that indicates a combination with a gentle, but cask driven blended whisky!
A sip of the beer, which is hoppy, with hints of herbs and quite some fruit (apple, lychee), followed by the whisky, transforms from hoppy to fruity very fast, but almost seemless.
There’s a bit of a papery hint in the middle of the drinks, but nothing disturbing.
Apart from being an interesting experiment, it’s an awful lot of fun to drink. I think this is something very well done and it makes me very curious to the other two combinations!
I generally don’t care much for grain whisky. In most cases, especially in the last eight years or so, I consider it to be bottled too young. Before then, there were lots of really tasty 40+ year old being bottled, but in the end the character of the distillery is lost to cask influence.
Of course, a discussion can be had whether there is any distillery character at all since, contrary to single malts, grain distilleries are all about efficiency and not about quaintness. They are more akin to refineries than they are to white-walled farm buildings with a copper pot inside.
Then this one came along in Fiddler’s Advent Calendar, and JPH and I tasted it a few weeks ago. It kind-of stopped us in our tracks. I needed a bottle of this. That last part took some doing but in the end the Whiskybase marketplace came to the rescue and I now sit here looking at my very own Girvan.
Let’s do tasting notes!
Sniff: Baking spices, gentle but unmistakable oaky. Menthol, bergamot, lemongrass. That powdery sugar on boiled sweets (the tins, you know), dried pineapple and papaya. It does go towards the more typical barley sugar with some time.
Sip: The palate is surprisingly gentle, with some grain-sugar sweetness. The floury dust in the boiled sweet tins. A bit more oak with a whiff of chili heat. Mango and chili chutney.
Swallow: A bit more wine-gum like on the finish, but a bit more chili and oak too. Nicely warming, and quite long. Medium in length.
Not too sweet and quite complex. Absolutely gorgeous with the dried yellow fruits, boiled sweets and grain sugar. It’s like a Scottish take on bourbon, where they went over the top on quality and aging.
I absolutely love it, which is no surprise after the introduction and even though it is ‘only’ 27 years old (not ridiculously old for a grain whisky) I’m glad they didn’t push this any further.
Malt Fascination 