The Malt Cask

I have great colleagues who know me pretty well, so at the end of November, they treated me to a bottle of Balvenie 14 Caribbean Cask for my birthday. The Caribbean Cask label refers to the rum cask finish that this Balvenie has had before being bottled. This is the first bottle of Balvenie I own but also the first one I have tried. According to the Balvenie's website, their " Malt Master David Stewart, filled American oak casks with his own blend of select West Indian rums.  When he judged the casks to be ready, the rum was replaced with the 14 year old spirit and the wood was put to work adding the final touches." Therefore it seems to suggest that the spirit has spent more than 14 years in a cask (or that the finish was rather short). The Balvenie is located next door to the Glenfiddich distillery in Dufftown and is one of the rare distilleries to still grow and malt their own barley.  Both the presentation tube and the bottle look great but it's the golde

As I mentioned in my review of the Caol Ila 19, I attended another tasting session at the Whisky shop Manchester at the end of November. The theme: Old and Rare, and the £50 ticket (£40 if you are a member) gave you access to around £1,600 worth of whisky. On the list: 1. Glenlossie 17 Old Malt Cask (50%)                                       [£108]* 2. North British Distillery single grain 50 years old (42.9%)     [£300]* 3. Glen Garioch 1986 (distilled in 2011) (54.6%)                      [£350]* 4. Jura 37 Old and Rare (53.9%)                                                 [£545]* 5. Bowmore Devil's Casks 3 (56.7%)                                         [£190]* 6. Octomore Islay Barley 6.3 (64%)                                           [£150]* And it isn't on the picture but we were even treated to an extra dram with a bottle of Braeval 25 Old Malt Cask (50%, £155*). All the bottles we tried were unchill-filtered and natural colour (and very near cask

I have been watching quite a bit of Ralfy's videos lately on  Ralfy.com . For those of you who wouldn't know him, he is a Glasgow undertaker who has become a bit of a whisky phenomenon particularly through his youtube video blogs or "vlogs" as he calls them. He prides himself on being unbiased as he pretty much only reviews what he buys rather than sampling what distilleries could be sending him. He is very watchable, down to earth and rather knowledgeable in terms of spirits (in my opinion!) So go and watch a few of his vlogs to get your own opinion and for more information about him, have a look at the link at the end of the post. Now why mention Ralfy? Well I watched his whisky review 511 over a month ago in which he reviews his "whisky of the year 2014", the Benromach 10 years old. As I was looking to continue my whisky journey away from my peaty comfort zone, I thought I could give the Benromach 10  a try. I found a bottle in Astons of Manchester  fo