The Malt Cask

  Distillery:  Unknown Bottler:  Curious Whiskies Age:  NAS Distilled:  n/a Bottled:  2025 Cask:  ex-Port Casks Abv:  46% Unchillfiltered:  Yes Natural Colour:  Yes Nb of bottles:  200 Price:  £80 Extra:  Port and Smoke Christmas Islay Blended Malt Is it Christmas already? Not quite, even if this treat from @curiouswhiskies makes me feel like it! And what is this Cask Na Nollaig? It’s an Islay Blended Malt aged in Port cask, bottled at 46%, without chillfiltration or colour added, and with only 200 bottles available, you’d better be quick! So what is it like? My tasting notes: Nose: Sweet and fruity, peaty, slightly medicinal, toffee, red fruit, strawberry coulis, hints of honey glazed barbecued meat and a pinch of salt. Palate: Quite medicinal, a little acrid, fruity too, red currant, blackcurrant, dry wood smoke, oak spice, ash, samphire and a touch of pepper. Finish: Ashtray vibes, ash, smoke, quite drying, sea breeze...

A bit of value for money today with this Blended Malt Schotch Whisky Distillery:  n/a Bottler:  Mackinlay Age:  n/a Distilled:  n/a Bottled:  n'a Cask:  oak Abv:  40% Unchillfiltered:  No Natural Colour: No Nb of bottles:  n'a Price:  £35 (£18 paid) Extra:  Blended Malt Scotch My tasting notes: Nose:  Sweet and fruity, vanilla, brown sugar, ginger, lemon, oak spice, green apple, a little yeast and hints of minerality too. Palate:  Sweet and gently woody, creamy, vanilla cream, oak spice, barley sugar, almond, bitter grapefruit, black pepper, slightly earthy and with a nice little caramel undertone! Super pleasant for £18! Finish:  Malty, warming & slightly industrial, digestive biscuits, pebbles, bitter grapefruit again, brine, slight cocoa. With water:  Fresher nose with more citrus and less oak / minerality.  The palate loses in flavour, mostly sweet & malty.  The finish becomes a little smoky...

  First of two 40 year-old blended Scotch bottles released recently. And the first one is from a new bottler called Living Souls. It is one of their first four bottlings, alongside a 19yo Islay (Ardbeg), an 18yo Ledaig/Tobermory and a 15yo Blended Scotch. It is bottled with no added colouring or chillfiltration, and at 41.2%. It also looks like this blend was laid down to marry in a sherry butt in 1998 so over 25 years ago! Distillery:  Blended Scotch Bottler:  Living Souls Age:  40 years old Distilled:  n/a Bottled:  2024 Cask:  n/a Abv:  41.2% Unchillfiltered:  Yes Natural Colour:  Yes Nb of bottles:  n/a Price:  £125 Extra:   My tasting notes: Nose:  Fruity, malty with almonds/marzipan notes, dried apricots and figs, roast peach, slight orange blossom, old oak bookcase, vanilla, some crème caramel, some wood spice and hints of smoke. This is fantastic! Palate:  Fruity and creamy, tropical fruit, mango, passion...

I have not reviewed a blend for a while, so here is one. Black Bottle is a blend I have heard mentioned several times in the last few years but never really managed to cross path with until about a month ago. My local supermarket decided to have a bit of a shuffle with several aisles, and the wine and spirits moved. I did not think too much about it until I actually found myself standing in from of the whiskies, realising a few new things had appeared on the shelves, and that included Black Bottle. Wait a couple of weeks and the already decent £18 price tag dropped to £14 so I had to buy one and open it straight away. However, the Black Bottle so many people rave about is the pre-2013 version, when the blend was much peatier with a lot of Islay malts at its core. The old version was also available as a 10 years old as well as a much rare 15 years old. In 2013 the Burn Stewart brand had a bit of a relaunch and did something a bit unusual in changing quite drastically the flavour pr...