The Malt Cask

After my post from September last year in which I reviewed the first bottle of Rozelieures I brought back from France, I have finally managed to come round to reviewing the second bottle I bought at the same time. This one is the Tourbé Collection. Tourbé means peated in French, and being a peaty whisky enthusiast, I thought I had to buy that bottle. This is also the single malt which won a gold medal in the 2015 Paris Concours Général Agricole.  The Tourbé Collection sits at the top of the Rozelieures range in terms of peatiness. You will also find a Fumé Collection (smoky) peated at around 20ppm and a Rare Collection, slightly peated and aged in ex-Sauterne casks. I have already reviewed a French peated single malt with the Kornog from the Breton distillery Glann ar Mor, so was curious to see how the Rozelieures compared to it (probably the focus of a future post) So let's have a closer look at the whisky itself. Unlike their standard release bottled at 40%, the Tourb

Today, I am going to look at something a little bit different. A couple of weeks ago, I collected a few samples from a friend of mine and one of them is what I am going to review now: a dram of Rosebank 21 years old. It was distilled in 1992 and bottled in 2014 as part of Diageo's Special Releases. Only 4,530 bottles were available. So what is so special about this whisky apart from the fact that it is a 21 year-old malt sold at the time for about £300. Well, Rosebank is actually a silent distillery, that is to say it is no longer operational. It was mothballed (stopped production) in 1993 because of the cost of investment needed for the distillery to comply with European standard. Parts of the distillery were sold and made way for residential developments and the stills were stolen in late 2000s so I pretty much doubt we will get some new-make Rosebank spirit anytime soon. With that in mind, you now realise that any drams you can get are going to become not only rarer and rarer b