Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 16

16 12 2015

BenRiach!  Finally!  After dominating last year’s Advent calendar with a whopping trio of entries (the 16 Year, the 20 Year, and the hilariously named 17 Year Septendicim), BR had been conspicuously absent from the 2015 edition, but I was happy to see it back, with a bottling younger than any of the 2014s:  the 10 Year Peated Single Malt Curiositas (they can’t stay away from the Latin, apparently).  The showy name is accurate, however, as a peated malt from the Speyside region of Scotland is certainly a curiosity, to the point of being a near-oxymoron; you almost never see a Speyside scotch make use of peat-kilned malted barley.  Not that this stops BenRiach, which has FIVE such peated whiskies in its lineup!  BenRiach may have the craziest history of any distillery I’ve come across:  it was opened in 1898 but mothballed just 2 years later, and it stayed non-operational as a distiller for SIXTY-FIVE YEARS before re-opening in 1965.  Even then, it didn’t bottle and sell whisky under its own brand name, instead providing its product to other distillers and blends.  It wasn’t sold as a standalone bland until 1994…and then it was promptly mothballed AGAIN in 2002.  In 2004 it was sold (for not the first time) to a group of individual entrepreneurs led by scotch industry vet Billy Walker, after which, 106 years after initially opening, it first hit its stride, and it’s never looked back.  Scotch is nuts sometimes.

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The Curiositas is not fooling around with its peat content, which you can smell as soon as the screw cap seal cracks.  BenRiach’s website notes the “wonderful overtones of peat reek” on its 10 Year – mmm.  Cigar box, tanned leather, burnt grass and new football smell puts a measured weight on the intensity of said reek, but there’s no doubting its volume.  But there’s more than just peat on the palate, a sweet, spicy and mossy symphony with smooth smoke, chocolate orange, candied ginger and suede flavours, a lovely balance of peat-induced and other notes.  This is an impressively complex dram for a 10 Year, and just an obscene value for $64, a price that made me do a complete double-take.  If you don’t mind a bit of smokiness, this is an absolute can’t-lose proposition.  It’s even cheaper than The Maritime Malt!  Value whisky squared.


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 15

15 12 2015

Only 10 days and 2 statutory holidays until I get to stop writing about whisky on a continual basis!  We have reached the 60% mark of whisky Advent, and what better way to celebrate than to crack something that looks and sounds like it would be at home being cracked on the streets of a little Scottish town:  Old Pulteney 12 Year Single Malt, possibly better known as The Maritime Malt.  Nestled in the coastal town of Wick (“once known as the herring capital of Europe”) on the very northeastern tip of Scotland, this is the most northerly distillery on the mainland, in the far reaches of the Highlands.  Old Pulteney was established back in 1826 and is known, at least to itself, for producing whiskies that have a whiff of the sea about them.

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The colour of old sap, the Old Pulteney 12 Year had a baffling series of aromas given that it was matured in ex-bourbon casks, which usually impart sweet flavours.  Not so much:  this whisky smelled funky, grimy, cheesy and salty, like the inside of an old boat (not the whiff of the sea I was expecting, let’s just say).  Casting about (damn it, maritime metaphors!) for aroma descriptors, I settled in my notes for “locker room, Sharpie, bouncy balls, Cheetos bag, pretzels”, so do with that what you will.  There was a surprising and immediate alcohol burn on the first sip despite the whisky being diluted to the usual minimum 40% abv, and some harshness remained in the spirit even after I (begrudgingly) added water.  It tasted more along expected scotch lines, but its lemon and grilled pear fruit was surrounded by hot rocks/sauna, hickory bark and shoe leather, and it was almost tannic in its textural dustiness.  I summed up my thinking by writing:  “This is cheap, right?”  Yes it is:  at $65, possibly the cheapest single malt in the calendar.  This all sounds predominantly negative, but I didn’t have that bad a drinking experience with this scotch; I just felt that it lacked some of the finesse and style of the other malts.  It’s a blue-collar fishing village dram…what else from The Maritime Malt?


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 14

14 12 2015

Ireland!!  The Whisky Advent Calendar visits its 4th country in 14 days today, and the first to spell “whiskey” with an “E” (standard rule of thumb: if the country has an E in its name, it usually spells whiskey with one too, like IrEland and the UnitEd StatEs).  Irish whiskey is represented by another familiar face from last year’s calendar, but this time we’ve been upgraded, from the Teeling Whiskey Small Batch blend from 2014 to tonight’s Teeling Whiskey Single Malt.  Irish whiskey is generally similar to Scottish whisky except that it is almost always triple-distilled (as was last night’s scotch, the Hazelburn 12 Year, which is anomalous in that regard for Scottish whisky, usually only double-distilled) and unpeated.  The same rules apply in both countries to the single malt designation, so this Teeling is made from 100% malted barley that was distilled by Teeling itself.  The component Teeling whiskies that make up this bottle date back to 1991 and have been matured in a borderline crazy FIVE different types of barrel:  sherry, Port, madeira, white Burgundy (??) and Cabernet Sauvignon casks.  Contrast that to the base Teeling blended whiskey, which was aged only in rum casks and tasted like it.  At $70, this is on the cheaper end of the single malt world.

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The nose on this whiskey is the epitome of “pleasant”:  vanilla, banana cream, white flowers, black jellybean and Fig Newtons, all sweet-tinged and ready to enjoy.  This core of sweetness is paired with a luscious textural softness on the tongue, which makes the whiskey feel like it’s just floating in your mouth, weightless.  Wine Gums, chamomile, anise, hot chocolate and marshmallows use the pleasantly simmering 46% abv to warm you up on a cold winter’s night like tonight.  This is like the golden retriever of whiskies, friendly and unthreatening and dependable.  It isn’t as complex or challenging as some of the Scottish malts, but it is immediately gratifying, without any flavours that take some getting used to, making it a great intro whiskey for newbies to the spirit world.  And what a rock star bottle and label to boot!


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 13

13 12 2015

I could have sworn that I had read or heard somewhere that the 2015 KWM Whisky Advent Calendar would contain no duplicate whiskies from the 2014 calendar, which I’m sure was a logistical challenge due to the so-so availability of mini-bottles, but which I thought was an excellent choice to maintain the intrigue for repeat buyers.  So far this year we’ve had a couple of distillery overlaps, but zero identical bottles, as was expected.  But that ended tonight, as 2015’s Day 13 whisky was strangely the exact same as 2014’s Day 13 whisky:  the Hazelburn 12 Year Single Malt from Campbeltown, Scotland’s least prevalent whisky region in the southwest corner of the country.  I will not try to hide my disappointment at this development, particularly since I was sort of meh about this scotch last year; of all the ones to repeat in the calendar, why this one?  Hazelburn is a relatively new line of whiskies from the Springbank Distillery, which is by far the largest and most important remaining in Campbeltown.  This lineup was first distilled in 1997 and features triple distillation as its calling card:  the whisky is run through old copper stills three separate times during distillation, with each run removing more and more impurities and heightening the proof level of the spirit.  Removing impurities isn’t exactly the distilling goal of scotch whisky (if you removed almost all of them and ended up with a nearly pure spirit, you’d basically have vodka), as what keeps the spirit impure is the flavour and character of the land and grain, but the extra distillation results in a lighter, more subtle dram that is Hazelburn’s signature style.

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The 12-year maturation in sherry casks gives this scotch a lovely deep golden colour, and I am an admitted fan of the Oakland Raider-style silver and black label design (with the aforementioned three stills front and centre).  The nose was a swirling melange of rubber, chemical, peaches and cream, popcorn kernels, char and citrus, with the fruit notes mostly overtaken by the industrial ones.  As I remembered from last year, the Hazelburn 12 comes across as heavily wooded when you taste it, like the barrels used were strongly toasted or something, as smoke, hickory and ash are at the flavour forefront, with banana and cantaloupe fruit, honey, vanilla and varnish sneaking through the oak wall at various points ahead of a dusty, papery, fiery finish.  Looking back at the tasting notes in last year’s writeup, I see a number of similarities emerge, although my notes are clearly less identical than the bottles are.  Let us hope this will be the last time we’re able to do this kind of head-to-head 2014 vs. 2015 comparison.  Bit of a letdown night overall, I have to say.


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 12

12 12 2015

Halfway there!  Well, almost.  At this calendar milestone, it was fitting to pull out a scotch from a distillery that was the focal point of an even bigger milestone last year, when the Glenfarclas 40 Year  was the culmination of 2014 Advent on Christmas Eve.  Since this is only the halfway point of 2015 Advent, we got a scotch about half as old, but the Glenfarclas 21 Year Highland Single Malt is still the oldest whisky pulled from the calendar to date.  The Glenfarclas distillery is located in Speyside, in the northeastern Scottish Highlands, and has been owned by the same family since 1865, when it was purchased for a shade over £511.  If you really want to make something out of your investment portfolio, buy a scotch distillery 150 years ago.

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As you might expect from a spirit that spent 21 years inside of a (I’m guessing Oloroso sherry – that’s Week 2’s quota) oak barrel, the Glenfarclas was a gorgeous polished amber colour, one of those whiskies whose visual appearance is a central part of its drinking pleasure and not just an afterthought.  The nose was part confectionary (carrot cake, burnt sugar, sticky toffee pudding) and part sherried (brine, nuttiness, vegetal hints, dates), with the former aromas giving the latter some life and approachability and the latter keeping the former in check.  The scotch was a little fiery to taste, its alcohol asserting itself even at a relatively tame 43% abv, and even after I added water, but it still delivered flavours of toasted marshmallow, pumpkin spice, cedar, coffee grounds and cinnamon sticks ahead of a slightly salty finish.  All in all a well put-together dram at a solid price for its age ($143), but for whatever reason I couldn’t quite forge any emotional connection with it, so it probably won’t leave any lasting memory.  It was clinically good, but not in a way that would make me scramble to get more.  It’s all downhill from here for the next 13 days…


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 11

11 12 2015

This is the kind of impact two years of this Advent Calendar has had on me:  I opened the cardboard door to Day 11, saw the top of a squat, bulbous bottle, and immediately said aloud:  “Kilchoman”.  And so it was.  I remembered the low, round bottle shape from last year’s KWM calendar, when Kilchoman’s entry-level Machir Bay might have been my least favourite whisky of December 2014, an opinion based on personal taste rather than anything in particular wrong with the scotch.  I really wanted to like it too, because Kilchoman is one of the best stories in Scotland, the first new distillery to open on the island of Islay in 125-odd years and one committed to all parts of the whisky production cycle, including growing its own barley to malt and distill, something that basically nobody does.  As a traditional-minded producer (especially for one that just celebrated its 10th birthday), it is also committed to the near-extinct practice of floor-malting, which I’ve strangely discussed before on this blog here and which is also featured in possibly the greatest cartoon whisky-making video ever made on Kilchoman’s website.  Tonight’s attractively named Loch Gorm bottling, named after the peaty lake (bog?) overlooking the distillery, is higher up the food chain than the Machir Bay, on the shelf for $118.  Despite its sherry-based maturation, I hoped that this one would appeal to me a bit more than the last one.

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Alas, ’twas not to be.  The Loch Gorm smelled oily in more than one way, both diesel and Vaseline, but wasn’t overly aromatic otherwise, a surprise for an Islay whisky.  Shoe polish, leather, tomato leaf and celery stalks rounded out a fruit-free aromatic profile.  Both Islay’s characteristic peat and the flavour volume generally turned up the volume on the palate, layering tar, moss, smoke and wet pavement on top of bakers’ chocolate, dried fruit and rubber balls, but things tapered off again on the finish, which seemed papery and a touch bitter.  I’m sorry, Kilchoman; I have friends who love you and I know you’re making waves in the industry, but you’re just not my thing.  Onto the weekend, and the halfway point of this spirit adventure!


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 10

10 12 2015

My immediate thought upon pulling out tonight’s whisky was:  “Again?”  Hadn’t I just seen this bottle before?  Well, yes and no.  Day 4 featured another scotch from independent bottler Gordon & Macphail’s Connoisseurs Choice range, the 1999 Ledaig.  Tonight’s bottle, six days and five whiskies later, featuring a slightly differently shaded but otherwise identical label, was the 1996 Auchroisk, at 18 years the oldest whisky of the calendar to date (quick tangent: the age figure on a whisky denotes its period of maturation and ends at bottling, so this whisky, bottled in 2014, is an 18-year rather than a 19-year in whisky-speak).  As this is a totally different scotch from a totally different distillery and region (the Ledaig was from the Isle of Mull, while the Auchroisk is from Speyside), I suppose I have no grounds to have felt a twinge of disappointment at seeing the familiar label come out of the box, but I think I would try to keep any and all similar bottlings as far apart from each other in the Advent order as possible.  That said, don’t think the presence of both the Ledaig and the Auchroisk in the Connoisseurs Choice lineup makes them kindred spirits or anything; the Gordon & Macphail website lists 152 different CC whiskies, so it’s not exactly an exclusive club.

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Auchroisk (actually pronounced “oth-rusk”) was built rather recently in distillery terms, in 1974, and is found in the northeast of Speyside, which itself is in the northern part of Scotland.  This bottle states that whiskies from Speyside “are known as the ‘Premier Cru’ of Single Malt Scotch”, which I have literally never heard anyone say, and which might well cause a revolt in the other regions, but who am I to doubt a label slogan?  The ’96 oth-rusk was a pale watery lemon colour and went through an instant metamorphosis on each sip from nose to palate.  It smelled flowery, like potpourri, and soapy, like Thrills gum, with clear vegetal notes, sharp salinity and a lingering Brie cheese aroma (the latter two of which made me write down:  “sherry casks?”  Answer:  yes.).  But it was much more approachable, comforting and pleasurable once you tasted it, sweet and spicy, balancing cornbread, orange and tangerine fruit flavours with charred oak, smoke and pepper, but finishing deft and pure rather than bitter.  I can’t decide if the two-faced nature of the whisky made it more interesting or more annoying or both, but at $140 even that uncertainty is a problem.  Quite happy to have it in 50 mL form, however.  40% done the spirit blogging marathon!


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 8

8 12 2015

Time for a twist to start Week 2 of whisky Advent.  I was recently asked if I did whisky reviews, responded something to the effect of “um, sort of” and was given a spirit aerator from Vinturi for use with this year’s calendar.  You may know the Vinturi from the wine side:  it’s that intricate hard plastic funnel that insta-aerates any liquid that passes through it and into your glass, a sort of hyper-decant to open up tight wines in seconds rather than hours.  It’s one of the few wine gadgets that I actually use semi-regularly, not for the special occasion good stuff (which I like to see unfurl gradually), but for weeknight bottles that seem closed off when I first crack them.  I get why it works for wine, a drink that is highly susceptible to, and highly influenced by, oxygen from the second it is first exposed to it, at first in a good way (some air time softens and opens wine and releases packed-in flavours) and then in a very not-good way (too much air flattens and oxidizes wine and ultimately ruins it).  But spirits?  Once something is distilled and cranked up to 50% alcohol like tonight’s scotch, wouldn’t oxygen exposure cease to matter to it?  Once its maturation is done and it is freed from barrel and bottled, isn’t its flavour development over?  You never protect your whisky bottles from oxygen once you open them, and they never seem change even after months or years in an unstoppered bottle, so I was unsure how the wine-based premise of the Vinturi would carry over.

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The guinea pig whisky for this aeration experiment was the Glenglassaugh Evolution, a Highland Single Malt from a distillery that was shut down and mothballed in 1986, only to be surprisingly salvaged and re-opened in 2008.  For the second day in a row we have a repeat producer from last year’s calendar; Day 7 of 2014 featured the Glenglassaugh Revival, the first scotch released after the distillery’s (literal) renaissance.  Weirdly, the 2015 offering from yesterday’s first repeat calendar producer, GlenDronach (Day 7 of 2015!), was also called Revival.  I’m hoping that was intentional.  Tonight’s Glenglassaugh is the SECOND scotch released after the distillery re-opened its doors, called Evolution, which holds the distinction of being the first whisky I’ve tried that was matured in ex-Tennessee Whisky barrels.  Seeing “Tennessee” displayed on a bottle of scotch takes some getting used to.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 7

7 12 2015

Fresh off a tasting of 13 Austrian and other Gruner Veltliners in 2 hours, I am doing an alcoholic 180 and re-centering on scotch, at least far enough to get 400 words out.  Ah, the trials and tribulations of a booze geek.  I believe tonight’s Advent scotch marks the first time that the 2015 Kensington Wine Market Advent Calendar has repeated distillers from the 2014 Advent Calendar.  Last year featured two different whiskies from the GlenDronach distillery:  the 18 Year Allardice, which I didn’t like too much, and the 21 Year Parliament, which was my favourite whisky of the whole calendar and which I promptly went out and bought after Christmas.  (You should too – it’s obscenely good.)  This is the younger brother of those two, the 15 Year Revival, and its relative youth is reflected in its sticker price, an impressively affordable $102.  GlenDronach is a Highland distillery that has been owned by BenRiach since 2008 and is known, at least according to itself on its website, for richly sherried malts.  You may or may not remember this from last year, but the 2014 calendar was so overloaded with Oloroso sherry cask-aged whiskies that it almost drove me to violence and left me with a massive case of Oloroso fatigue (until the Parliament came along and all was forgiven).  I think this is the first Oloroso-aged whisky of 2015; one a week is fine, so consider the allotment filled for Week 1.

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This might be the most singularly delicious whisky I have ever tasted.  It’s not necessarily the most complex (although it does still have layers to it), but it is just so, so fantastically tasty, like every treat you love in the holidays packed together.  It is an incredible deep burnt amber colour — an Oloroso trait — and just radiates sweet treacle, gingerbread, cabane a sucre, brown sugar and clove, all Christmas baking all the time.  Weighty and soft on the palate, with alcohol that gently warms instead of obliterates, it rounds out the alluring flavour parade with orange zest, nectarine, toffee and coffee beans added to the warm embrace of sweet caramel glory.  There is just no reason not to buy this scotch; I want more right now.  KWM, save me some!


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Whisky Advent Calendar: Day 6

6 12 2015

OK, fair warning.  I was out until 4 in the morning at an office Christmas party last night.  There was wine involved.  If there was ever a night to question the integrity of my palate and the quality of my insights, this is it; however, I felt bound by advent duty to forge onward with my whisky calendar mission and not be steamrolled by circumstance in week 1.  I just hoped I would open the little cardboard door and find a nice, mild, demure whisky to let my system off easy.  I got Ardbeg Ten instead.  F***.

I believe this is the 2015 calendar’s first visit to the notorious island of Islay, world Mecca of peated whisky and home to many distilleries unafraid to unleash it.  Ardbeg may be the most brazen of the lot, a producer that does not lack for confidence (their website says they are “unquestionably the greatest distillery on earth”) and has been accelerating the recent arms race to develop peatier and peatier whiskies with their borderline absurd Supernova.  Even this base 10 Year bottling (which goes for $80 and which the label calls “The Ultimate Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky”, so again with the self-belief) is peated to between 55 and 65 parts per million, which is a whole hell of a lot; see here for a peat concentration scale for various distilleries, and you will note Ardbeg at the very top.

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You can smell the peat leaching out of the Ten Year as you’re pouring it into the glass.  It is a rather nondescript light straw colour but radiates powerful, greasy, non-nondescript (descript?) aromas of leather, moss, shoe polish, sesame oil and seaweed, with a hint of citrus peeking through underneath.  There is a surprisingly sweet honey-maple attack on every sip that lasts for a millisecond before the peat hammer drops and layers on iodine, liniment, campfire, tar and struck matches, one after another after another.  At the end of that crescendo you get some baked apple and lemon curd fruit and anise and cinnamon spice, but they’re in the chorus line and not fronting the cast.  I will say that this isn’t the total blunt instrument that I partly expected and feared, holding back a bit on the brute force in approach and demonstrating some level of dexterity with how the peat is presented.  That said, there’s basically no way that people who dislike this style of whisky will enjoy this scotch; there’s really no unwinding peat from Ardbeg.  Please have some pity on me tomorrow, calendar.


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 5

5 12 2015

I have to head out of town overnight so I’m posting early, which means that I may be one of the first to alert you that Day 5 of the KWM Whisky Advent Calendar is a showstopper.  When it was first announced that this year’s calendar would contain an offering from Taiwan, I knew that could (literally) only mean one thing:  Kavalan, the first and only distillery in this small Asian nation.  Kavalan has only been around for 10 years, since 2005, but in that short span of time it has basically set the whisky world on fire and danced on the smouldering ruins, culminating in this year’s announcement that its Vinho Barrique malt (which I own and is spectacular) had been named the world’s best single malt whisky by the World Whisky Awards.  How can a distillery that just hit the decade mark be churning out world elite scotches so quickly?  (Remember, single malt whiskies have to be distilled solely by their producer.)  Don’t top whiskies usually need a long time to mature and develop their complex flavours?  Not in Taiwan.  Like the roasting hot Bourbon aging warehouses in Kentucky on warp speed, Kavalan gets extreme flavour transference and development during maturation in record time due to the heat and humidity almost always prevalent in the country, which speeds up both water evaporation and the reaction between spirit and barrel wood, resulting in concentrated, deeply coloured, layered whiskies after only a few years.  That sounds too good to be true for the distillery, but it’s real.  You have to taste it to believe it.

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This is a cask-strength (54% abv) rendition of the Kavalan ex-Bourbon Oak Single Malt Whisky.  I have to start by noting that the (stunning) packaging tube for this whisky identifies its colour as “Cattle egret”.  Cow heron!  I would have said “deep golden”, but sure.  You almost have to add water to drink this dram pleasurably, lest it otherwise Novocaine your entire tongue and eradicate your stomach lining.  This is one of those whiskies you can smell all day, due less to incredible complexity than to an immediate and easy, almost languid appeal:  brown sugar, white flowers, honey, Amaretto, fresh peach, kettle corn.  You feel like you should be floating down the Mississippi on a raft in the summer sniffing it.  That emotion only elevates when you taste it, as the unabashed sweetness from the bourbon barrels lend instant pleasure to the downright delicious flavours of coconut, baked apple, Corn Pops, vanilla bean and what I’ll call “caramel macchiato”, part burnt sugar, part creamy steamed milk, part roasted coffee.  This is pure joy in a (cask-strength) bottle.  We’re treading into premium territory now in the $140 range, but damned if you don’t get premium results for the price tag.  This is just achingly good.


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 4

4 12 2015

It’s times like this that I sympathize with people who think whisky is confusing.  The full title of tonight’s scotch is:  Gordon & Macphail Connoisseurs Choice 1999 Ledaig (from Tobermory Distillery) Single Malt Scotch Whisky.  Good luck with that.  Let’s unpack.  Remember when I said yesterday that whisky from any particular distillery in Scotland gets around and how some companies act as negociants sourcing pre-made whisky from elsewhere and then bottling it themselves?  The Ubermensch version of those companies are the independent bottlers, whisky brokers extraordinaire, who release from dozens to hundreds of different whiskies under their own labels, but who (unlike the artisan blenders like Wemyss from yesterday) also provide the details of the source distillery on the label.  So you might be able to get a 12 Year malt from a certain distillery’s own label but then also get a 12 Year malt from that same distillery under an independent bottler’s label.  It’s weird.  Gordon & Macphail is one of the pre-eminent independent bottlers of scotch whisky, with over 300 single malts in its lineup, and its Connoisseurs Choice portfolio is an array of rare single malt whiskies from various distilleries, many of which would not otherwise offer a single malt expression.  This particular bottle comes from the lesser-known Ledaig distillery, which changed its name to Tobermory Distillery a few decades back.  So the label name above reads [Independent Bottler] [Portfolio Name] [Vintage Date] [Old Distillery Name] [Current Distillery Name] Single Malt Scotch Whisky.  Good thing it’s tasty.

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This is the first unabashedly peaty scotch in the calendar, to the point where you might think it comes from the peat haven of Islay, but Tobermory is in fact located on another island just north called the Isle of Mull (which I’m secretly hoping is where mulled wine comes from).  The label just says “Islands”, possibly because the Isle of Mull isn’t trendy enough to get its own mention.  The Ledaig was a disarmingly pale greenish colour that displayed no visual hints of the power to come.  However, the first sniff brought an immediate blast of peat-induced scents:  mechanic’s shop, diesel oil, catcher’s mitt, shoe polish, funk, but also hints of sweet tropical fruit that kept the whisky from coming across as harsh or dirty.  The taste was both beautiful and old school; charred, smoky and medicinal, reminiscent of cigars and old leather armchairs, but also bright and spicy, with candied pineapple, crystallized ginger and Bananas Foster.  There’s almost some furriness to the texture too (from the wood tannin of the aging barrels, I would guess), which adds to the whole sensory experience.  The priciest whisky to date at $120, it’s worth every penny.  Currently in the calendar pole position, without question.


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 2

2 12 2015

Yesssssss!!!  I have literally been waiting a year for this day.  In my closing comments about the 2014 KWM Whisky Advent Calendar, I humbly suggested that the 2015 edition include more international whiskies:  “I’d love to see Japan, Taiwan, and even India show up in next year’s edition.”  Day 2, 2015?  Bam.  Amrut.  That’s what I’m talking about.  Amrut is a brand (basically THE brand) of single malt whisky from India, home of the very first malt whisky ever made in that country.  The name Amrut comes from a Sanskrit word meaning “nectar of the gods”, which, I mean, exactly, right?  This particular bottling from Amrut, called Fusion, is the first intercontinental whisky I have ever come across:  it’s made from a mixture of barley from India and peated barley from Scotland, which is separately distilled in Amrut’s facilities in Bangalore, aged in American oak barrels and then blended for bottling.  If you’re wondering, it can still be called a single malt whisky despite its multinational origins because the “single” in “single malt” refers to a single distillery rather than a single site, grain or production year.  The “west west west” and “east east east” emanating out of opposite sides of the word “fusion” on the label and tube is just priceless.

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Amrut Fusion gained some fame and notoriety in 2010 when Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible named it the 3rd best whisky in the world.  Of course, that same publication just named Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye the best whisky in the world this year, so do with that as you will.  There is something to be said for this Fusion, however.  It is a beautifully deep, lush golden colour and smells undeniably pleasant, mixing honey, wheat, blood orange, apple crisp and toffee beneath a slight whiff of mossiness.  At 50% abv, it is immediately fiery on the palate and needs a few drops of water to open it up, after which it comes out rich, round and spicy, even peppery, but bursting with vanilla, lemon drop, pineapple and almonds.  I didn’t get as much peat as I was expecting from the Scottish half of the Fusion equation, just a lingering sense of smoke after I swallowed.  At a bargain $76, I could definitely see myself buying this.  Cross Amrut off the bucket list!


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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015: Day 1

1 12 2015

Alright team, let’s do this.  December 1st has arrived, and that means a daily invasion of whisky on this blog until Christmas.  For those of you who frequent Pop & Pour for wine reviews and insights, (1) thank you!, and (2) I am so, so sorry…it’s about to get a little spirit-y up in here for most of the rest of 2015.  Yes, it’s KWM Whisky Advent Calendar time, my second year in a row partaking in the magnificent scotch-soaked creation of Kensington Wine Market and its resident whisky guru (and now owner!) Andrew Ferguson.  Every night you count one more day closer to Christmas, open a little cardboard door, pull out a new and exciting mini-bottle of distilled glory (all different from last year’s calendar, I might add), and turn to drink – the true essence of the holidays.

Bring on December.

Bring on December.

This year’s calendar starts on a note of intrigue:  a scotch I have never heard of before.  Balblair Distillery, based in the Highlands, was established in 1790 but has successfully escaped my notice for 225 years.  Their signature move appears to be releasing vintage-dated scotches, so instead of seeing a more general age designation on the bottle (10 Year, 12 Year, etc., which number indicates the age of the youngest whisky in the bottle’s multi-vintage blend) you get wine-style labels with single calendar years on them, presumably meaning that all of the whisky in the bottle was distilled in that same year.  Tonight’s lead-off bottle is the Balblair 2003 Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky, a 12 year old malt that Balblair’s distiller released concurrently with the 1990 and 1993 – no whisky goes out to market until he says it’s ready.

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I would call this highly pleasant (I just finished my glass and I immediately want more) without being highly memorable (I just finished my glass and if I hadn’t written tasting notes I wouldn’t be able to tell you what this tasted like).  It’s an interesting greenish lemon-straw colour, not overly deep, and initially smelled predominantly of spice — and not just cinnamon and baking spice, but cayenne and other savoury spices — before calming down and opening up to more approachable salted caramel, vanilla bean and candy corn peeking through the grainy, mealy, grassy surface.  This same contrast of restraint and generosity continued on the palate, which starts out green celery and spearmint before blooming to melon, orange peel and honey and finishing soft and sweet.  At $88, I could see this being somebody’s house scotch.  Not sure I’ll remember much about it come Day 7 or 8 though.  Onward!


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Whisky Advent Calendar: Day 24

24 12 2014

Well, the stockings have been hung by the natural gas fireplace with care, and I have officially completed whisky Advent.  Thanks to all those of you who have read along to date – I can quite confidently say that you will not be seeing a post on PnP tomorrow, so enjoy this one!  The KWM Whisky Advent Calendar comes to a close with a bang, delivering the promised 40 year old dram in the form of Glenfarclas’ 40 Year Highland Single Malt.  This scotch comes with a $720 price tag (actually a strong value for the age of the whisky involved) and with a number of critical accolades, having been hailed Whisky of the Year by Malt Advocate.  It’s Glenfarclas’ second appearance in the calendar; it previously tried to destroy your mind with its 60% abv bottling Glenfarclas 105 on Day 6.

The one you've been waiting for. First calendar whisky older than me.

The one you’ve been waiting for. First calendar whisky older than me.

The GF 40 certainly delivers, albeit not in a way that will embed itself on your psyche for years (or even weeks) afterward.  It is a deep amber in colour, although not deep enough to immediately give away that it has spent four decades in a barrel.  The aromas are mellow and meandering, maple syrup and marzipan, smoke, apple cider and Meyer lemon.  It is soft and warming on the palate, opening up discernibly with a couple drops of water and featuring a complex yet subtle array of flavours:  honey, vanilla and florals, orange zest, green grapes, dark rum and a dry heated wood note I can best describe as “sauna”.  It isn’t life-changing, but it’s extremely well put-together, an experience to drink if not a lasting memory. Read the rest of this entry »


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