Flavour tag: Wood | Tasting Notes

85

Muirhead’s Silver Seal 16yo

Maybe not the prettiest bottle, but the price and taste certainly are. Let’s have a look at this rather unknown independent bottle, named Muirhead’s Silver Seal 16yo.

93

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.

86

Welcoming 2019 with Port Askaig 19

And as we move towards the last hours of 2018 and the reflections have been done, it’s time to look forward. Which beautiful whiskies will we encounter in the everchanging landscape? And what trips are we going to make?

85

Aberfeldy 16yo

Aberfeldy has been off our radar for some years now. Dion owned a 12yo in back in the days and it was a perfectly smooth whisky for us at the time. But we were mere beginners and when our journey proceeded, we didn’t really consider Aberfeldy anymore. Until now…

85

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?

87

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.

85

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.

87

Glenlivet Nàdurra Peated Cask

Don’t get confused here people, this is not a peated Glenlivet, but it’s a Glenlivet that has finished on a cask that previously held heavily peated whisky. We’ve see that more often lately, and it’s quite an enjoyable way of finishing whisky.

84

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.

90

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.

94

Bunnahabhain 14yo Pedro Ximénez Finish

Sweet, warm, chewy, sticky, syrupy, juicy… only so much words can describe this incredible release from one of our favorite distilleries.

93

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.

90

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.

85

Talisker Port Ruighe

Talisker, the creator of many friendly single malts, which offer a nice peppery touch of the sea with often a sweet twist. With this port cask finished expression they took the sweetness to another level.

82

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.

93

Delicious discoveries: Deanston 10yo PX Finish

I have the annoying habit of finding the first couple of drams of new whiskies incredible, getting a little bored after a while and looking for something new.. But certainly not with this one!

89

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!

91

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.

96

Mortlach 1997 18yo by Wilson & Morgan

Wilson & Morgan are one of my favourite independent bottlers, especially their barrel selection. No need to turn around it: this Mortlach is incredible. It was finished on Marsala cask, but it didn’t overshadow the true character of the spirit.

87

Balblair 1999 3rd Release

Balblair is a distillery which I personally overlooked for far too long. Sure I knew it exists, but I never really gave it proper attention. But when I saw a reasonably priced bottle somewhere in a store, I simply took a chance and bought it.

87

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.

85

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...

90

Millstone 2014-2018 – Triple Distilled – PX Sherry Cask – Beek Vintage

I love a good story when it comes to whisky. Entering Jan Beek, formerly known from Van Wees, the Dutch independent bottler of The Ultimate series. He began his own brand last year: BEEK spirits, which has a large focus on quality and craftsmanship.

83

Connemara Irish Peated Whisky Orginal

Frankly, my expectations weren’t very high for this one. The bigger was the surprise when I bought a bottle and tasted it for the first time. This highly affordable bottle grabbed my attention, because it’s a peated Irish single malt. Looks like some inspiration from Islay crossed the sea and created this rather unusual dram.

90

Ardmore 2003-2017 – Malts of Scotland

If you ask me which whisky blew my mind most in the last couple of years, I will answer with: Ardmore 2003 bottled by Malts of Scotland. This most definitely is my definition of a sherry bomb. What blew my mind is that it’s only 3 years old.

85

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!

89

Bunnahabhain 8yo Red Wine hand-filled #636

Bunnahabhain certainly has the greatest views of all the distilleries on Islay, if you ask me. But their hand-filled distillery exclusive bottles aren’t too shabby too.

87

Glen Garioch 12yo

Good memories, it was 2014 and I bought myself two bottles: a GlenDronach 15yo Revival and a Glen Garioch 12yo, both are still whiskies that I can’t live without.

90

The Glenlivet Nàdurra 16yo

Does this one need any introduction? It’s easily my top core-range Glenlivet. Bottled at cask strength, non-chill filtered and matured in American oak, which makes your taste buds explode with honest, natural flavours.

82

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.

90

GlenDronach 15yo Revival

The one that makes you fall in love. The GlenDronach 15yo Revival was one of the first whiskies that I fell in love with.

88

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.

88

Sherwood’s Craigellachie 9yo

Not for the feint hearted, but what an incredible Craigellachie from the new Dutch bottlers Sherwood’s.

87

GlenAllachie 25yo

The last and by far the most expensive bottle of the new GlenAllachie core-range. Does the taste justify the price?

84

Sherwood’s Orkney 11yo

The second whisky Sherwood’s managed to bottle. This time it’s from the Highland Park distillery, although they weren’t allowed to state in on the label.

86

GlenAllachie 18yo

It’s time to review the third expression from the new GlenAllachie core-range.