Tropical fruits

Ardbeg Perpetuum

It’s great seeing all those images from this year’s Feis Ile trickling in. It’s a trip down memory lane and a perfect moment to go through the photos and tasting notes we did on Islay last year. We found one that’s worthwhile!

Bunnahabhain Stiùireadair

Meet Stiùireadair, or Stuart as we like to call him. A surprisingly tasty dram for the price.

BenRiach 10yo Curiositas

What are you pouring on this whisky Wednesday? We’re totally in for a peated BenRiach!

Arran Machrie Moor Cask Strength 4th Edition 2017

Have you ever considered trying a cask strength Machrie Moor by Arran? We strongly suggest you do.

Glenkinchie 12yo

Glenkinchie is one of the few Lowland distilleries in Scotland. We’ve never really been a fan of Lowland whiskies, but we don’t know exactly why. This Glenkinchie 12yo is worth the taste!

Highland Park Dark Origins

Look at this people, it’s the the hero everyone deserves. But do we need it? The Highland Park Dark Origins is my favourite HP to date, let’s find out why.

GlenDronach 11yo 2003 Single Cask #5552 for The Old Pipe

Gotta love GlenDronach’s Single Cask bottlings. Despite the prices that have gone up in the past three years, they’re still a no-brainer for me. My first one was an 11yo Oloroso which was bottled for the Netherlands. And I still like this one today. So when I came across...

Ardbeg 10yo

Since the beginning of our whisky journey, we always considered Ardbeg 10yo to be peppery and heavy on the peat. The Uigeadail was always our go to, so we haven’t paid a lot of attention to the Ten. What a shame, because looking back, we clearly missed out. After...

Nikka From The Barrel

It feels a bit weird to post this snowy picture when the weather feels like May, but I couldn’t wait till next winter to share this delicious dram with you.

Bunnahabhain An Cladach

Bunnahabhain and its names… I don’t have much trouble pronouncing and spelling Bunna’s awkwardly named expressions. But this following anecdote is a reminder of the fact that it doesn’t always come in handy. Or maybe it does…

Glengoyne – The Legacy Series Chapter One 2019

A new global limited release by Glengoyne. It is, or will be soon widely available. We’ve spent some time with it, so allow us to let you know our thoughts.

Bowmore Cask Strength

Bowmore and the taste of kiwi, to me they are inseparable. I’ve tasted lots of different Bowmores, but this one thing always keeps coming back. It took me a while though, it was just this spark of enlightenment some years ago, when I tried to figure out what that specific note tastes like.

Balblair 1989 3rd release

This Balblair was gifted to me by a shop owner when he fell victim of another buying spree of mine. I don’t think it’s necessarily a good sign, just ask my wallet and please don’t tell my wife. Let’s go tasting this yellow lad.

Bunnahabhain 18yo

Can you believe we haven’t properly reviewed this one before? Well, time to change that fact today.

Lagavulin 12yo (bottled in 2012)

Lagavulin, one of the heavier distilleries on Islay. Not particularly because of the peat level of the barley, because that’s exactly the same as Caol Ila’s. It’s the shorter fermentation and shape of the stills which make Lagavulin this bold and full of phenolic flavours.

Bruichladdich 1990-2005 Scott’s Selection

What a beauty of a Laddie this is. Distilled in a previous era (1990) and bottled in 2005, this Bruichladdich should give us a sense of what it was, before the new owners started distilling again in 2001.

The Arran 14yo

A fruit cocktail in a bottle, this is one of those overlooked drams, which might steal your heart when you try it.

Balvenie 15yo Single Barrel 1997-2013

A Balvenie in its pure form, albeit a bit thinned with water at 47.8% ABV. It’s a bottle that we had around for a while now, so it was about time we wrote something about it. This ex-bourbon matured Balvenie is a favourite among many whisky lovers. To be...

Bowmore 10yo Tempest Batch IV

A whisky that captures the spirit of Bowmore perfectly, that’s what I’d like to call this Tempest Batch IV.

Glengoyne Cask Strength Batch 3

Who are you going to share a dram with this Christmas? Our buddy Stefan is sharing his Glengoyne Cask Strength Batch 3 with us, a good start of the holiday! What’s gonna be your dram for tonight?

Glen Scotia 15yo

A well crafted dram for its price, the Glen Scotia 15yo. So full and warming that it’s almost hard to believe that is has matured on bourbon casks only.

Glen Garioch 6yo 2011-2018 by Càrn Mòr (Morrison & MacKay)

There’s something about young expressions of whisky bottled by independent bottlers. I always feel that there’s a lot of honesty involved. You’ll get a real taste of a particular moment at the distillery instead of tasting a whisky which tries to be the same in every batch. A snapshot, so to speak.

When in doubt…

… visit Islay! Figuring out which region to visit on your next or maybe even first trip to Scotland? We’d recommend everyone to visit Islay at least once in your life.

Glengoyne 21yo

Glengoyne; often compared with GlenDronach in the sherrybomb league. But never reached such a high popularity. I wonder why, because this 21yo expression truly stands its ground.

Jura Superstition

We often tell people: no association is wrong when writing down your tasting notes. But a hint of ‘urinal cakes’ in a whisky? Are you crazy? We proved we aren’t with this Jura Superstition.

Starting the Festive Season with Redbreast 12yo Cask Strength

The leaves have fallen and it’s getting colder. The festive season has started! The robins are looking for food in our gardens, and we love to help them a bit. Especially when the robins (or Redbreasts as we roughly translate it from our Dutch language) look like this.

Laphroaig 18yo

To me, this Laphroaig encaptures the spirit of Islay perfectly. A sadly discontinued expression, but luckily I still have some juice left in the bottle to enjoy.

The Dalmore – Cigar Malt Reserve

Smoking kills. But does smoking kill the dram? Depends on who you’re asking. We don’t pair cigars with whisky a lot, but so now and then it’s something we do, especially when it pairs well. In the case of this Dalmore it does, the cigar and the dram enhance each other.

Octomore Masterclass 08.1

We’ve already talked about high peat levels and how it doesn’t matter that much. We brought this one to a blind tasting two weeks ago and asked the participants which glass contained a whisky with such a high peat level as this Octomore (168ppm). Most of them were wrong, and chose an Indie NAS Lagavulin, which is only peated to a level of 35ppm. So let’s focus on the taste, which is most important of course!

Raasay While We Wait 2nd Release

What to do when you’ve built a distillery, but you have to wait before your whisky reaches the age of 3 years old? In the case of Isle of Raasay Distillery you just show off your skills by taking whisky from another distillery and let it finish for a while, to reach something that resembles what’s yet to come.

Aberlour A’bunadh Batch 61

The Aberlour A’bunadh is one of those must-have whiskies. Back in the day, it was our first so called sherrybomb we owned, and we’ve always had one in stock since then. The price/quality ratio is outstanding, but we’ve noticed some decline in taste in the past few years.

Port Askaig 12yo

Let’s wave the summer of 2018 goodbye for good with this pretty independent expression bearing the name Port Askaig. Of course we all know this is Caol Ila, but have you heard they just recently bottled a Bunna for Bresser & Timmer? However, there’s no doubt this 12yo is...

Bruichladdich The Organic Scottish Barley

This awkwardly shaped liter bottle of Bruichladdich is perfect for hot summer days. “But it’s autumn” I hear you say. Well, the weather in the Netherlands is pretty much confused at the moment, the thermometer hit 26 degrees Celsius last weekend. So bring in the Laddie!

GlenDronach 10yo Forgue

Now GlenDronach finally brought back the Revival they also came with other exciting news about a new member for the travel market: GlenDronach 10yo Forgue.

Our experience with travel exclusive bottlings aren’t always very good. But there are some great exceptions, will this be one of those?

Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon

We’re exploring daily, but the path to bourbon is still sort of unknown to us. But we have to start somewhere right? So we dipped a toe in the water with this Buffalo Trace.

Ben Nevis 10yo

We made it a kind of sport to look for other sub €50 whiskies that are at least as good or even better than their better-known colleagues. Enter the Ben Nevis 10yo.