The Malt Cask

  The last one from Claxton's Spirits and The Dalswinton’s Series second edition is maybe the one I’ve been excited the most: a 30 year-old Bowmore! It was distilled in 1992, aged in an Oloroso Sherry cask and bottled at 43.5%. Distillery:  Bowmore Bottler:  Claxton's Age:  30 years old Distilled:  17/09/1992 Bottled:  2024 Cask:  Oloroso Sherry cask Abv:  43.5% Unchillfiltered:  Yes Natural Colour:  Yes Nb of bottles:   Price:  £ Extra:  Part of the Dalswinton Series - Second Edition My tasting notes: Nose:  The nose is coastal, gently peaty and wrapped in tropical fruit sweetness. There is seaweed and iodine, camphor, slight BBQ meat (smoked bacon), grassy/earthy smoke, lemon, a touch of toasted oak and some vanilla. On the nose, the Oloroso cask is not the most obvious. It smells more like a bourbon cask. I’m a fan! Palate:  The palate is sweeter than the nose let on, with some chewy caramel, more Bowmore trop...

  After Clynelish 30, let’s have a look at the Bunnahabhain 33 years old from The Dalswinton’s Series second edition from the folks at Claxton's Spirits. This Bunnahabhain was distilled in 1990, aged in an Oloroso sherry cask and bottled at 48.6%. Distillery:  Bunnahabhain Bottler:  Claxton's Age:  33 years old Distilled:  24/10/1990 Bottled:  2024 Cask:  Oloroso Sherry cask Abv:  48.6% Unchillfiltered:  Yes Natural Colour:  Yes Nb of bottles:   Price:  £ Extra:  Part of the Dalswinton Series - Second Edition My tasting notes: Nose:  The nose is warming and luxurious, leather, chocolate, tobacco leaves, slight wood char, prunes and hazelnuts, brown sugar and a hint of citrus. Palate:  The palate is oily, thick and mouth coating, it’s rich and chewy, with a moreish mix of oak spice, dried fruit (raisins, figs) dark chocolate and more leather. What a dram! Finish:  The finish is long and quite drying with some...

Probably one of my favourite collaboration today, linking Islay whisky with Aston Martin. And this is courtesy of the Bowmore team, who sent me the bottle for free! I have had a mixed experience with Bowmore and I put this down to one main key factor, the presentation of the whisky. Not the box and label, but the abv and filtration. The standard bottles released at low abv (40%) have not really been that great, butI have really loved the 48%+ releases. Now this 10 year-old is part of a new Travel Retail range that Bowmore have released in conjunction with Aston Martin. You’ll find a 10, 15 and 18 year-old, The 10 years old is aged in a mix of sherry cask and bourbon casks (40%), the 15 in first-fill bourbon casks (43%) and the 18 in a mix of Oloroso and PX casks (43%). The whisky has also probably been coloured and chill-filtered. So let's get stuck in and see what this one is like... My tasting notes Nose: Sweet and smoky, dried fruit, ash, smoke, tropical notes, mango, caramel, ...

Bowmore is the very first bottle of single malt I have ever bought for myself. It was Bowmore small batch from my local supermarket and it got me straight into whisky and particularly peated Islay. With time and experience, I have moved away from Bowmore's main range. The NAS from supermarkets are great for a summer high-ball I have found but the 12 tastes too manufactured for me, the 18 I tried at the distillery was disappointing, the 15 is probably the best of the bunch. However, I have also realised that cask strength releases were way more to my taste. The 10 Tempest was very good, the Devil's casks were good but got quickly overpriced and the 15 Laimrig was superb, just now discontinued as well. More recently, I tried the Vault Edition, which was decent (but a little overpriced...) and some of the Vitner's series which I really enjoyed. So when the PR company Hope and Glory got in touch with me on behalf of Edrington Beam-Suntory, offering to send me a bottle of the...

You buy bottles of whisky and you get to know them. Before long, you have bought new ones, some with the same flavour profile as the previous one, some with a completely different taste. It is a truly fascinating thing to be able to try such a varied and extensive range of flavours coming from the malted barley, the distillation process, the length of maturation, the type of wood used, whether it is a full maturation or only a finish... And you reach the stage when you actually start thinking about experimenting yourself. Of course, I have no control whatsoever on any of these parameters, but I can still play with the end result.  It is not the first time I give this a go (as per my previously created A'bunadh 16 or Caol Dronach) and it sometimes works a treat and sometimes leaves me rather disappointed. Today I have decided to follow on in the Sherried/Peated area with a mix of Aberlour A'bunadh and Bowmore No1. Unlike with the previous experiments, I let both malt marry in...

I have realised I have not posted anything on the blog for a month now, so it is about time I do something about it. As I attended a tasting session yesterday evening, I thought that would be a good way to get back into it. As usual, the tasting took place at the Whisky Shop Manchester and the theme for the night was "Peated whisky". Now for people who say they don't like peated whisky, they should really say they don't like noticeably peated whisky as pretty much every single whisky is peated to a certain extend (unless clearly labelled "unpeated" on the bottle) Of course in lots of single malts, it is barely noticeable. We had 6 bottles on the line up and tasted them as follow: 1.   Inchgower 2008 , single cask bottled in 2016 by Hunter Laing, First Editions series, 46%. Nose and palate were very spirit driven in my mind, I could really tell it was quite a young whisky, lots of fresh citrus, spices and biscuit notes. Not my favourite o...

For people who are relatively new to whisky and want to try some peaty single malt without being hit by the full power of a Laphroaig or an Ardbeg, Bowmore seems like a pretty good choice. I might have mentioned that Bowmore Small Batch is the bottle which initiated me to the peaty stuff. It is reasonably peated for an Islay whisky, which allowed me to enjoy the taste without being completely overwhelmed. It also made me curious to try more peaty whiskies, progressing to Caol Ila 12 before jumping into Laphroaig Quarter Cask, Kilchoman Machir Bay or Lagavulin 16. So at the time, Bowmore was a great dram in my mind. I was desperate to try the rest of the Bowmore range too, which actually took quite a while before it happened. My first go at the 12 was last Easter whilst on Islay with a few friends. We visited the distillery and thought we had to buy a bottle to have a few drams in the evening, and so we purchased a 12 year-old. However, despite being a pleasant enough drink, I cannot s...

To some people, peaty whiskies are disgusting and they all taste the same. So tonight I decided to have a closer look at peaty whisky, Islay drams in particular, to see if the peat taste is the same in the many different bottles available. I therefore tasted 5 (small) drams one after the other so see how they compared. I have personally always enjoyed peat but I do tend to take my time with each dram and do not always spend an evening solely with peaty whiskies, hence the idea of sampling several whiskies side by side. I went for 5 bottles which are pretty much the entry dram from each of the 5 distilleries: Bowmore -  12 , 40% Caol Ila -  12 , 43% Kilchoman -  Machir Bay , 46% Lagavulin -  16 , 43% Laphroaig -  Quarter Cask , 48% Here is what I found out after my 5 samples: Bowmore : The peat is quite sweet and fruity with hints of exotic fruit. Caol Ila : The peat is warmer and saltier (the saltiness of the dram is what struck me since ope...

After a busy first afternoon on Islay, we were ready for Bowmore on Saturday morning. As we had our own driver for the first couple of visit and he therefore had to miss any tasting (Bruichladdich offered to give him a dram if he had his own container but as he didn’t have one they swapped his £5 off-a-bottle visit ticket for a miniature of their Botanist gin, Kilchoman however did not give him anything…) we decided to make the journey from Port Ellen to Bowmore by bus. I had booked the tour for 9:30 so we had to catch the 8:19 bus which arrived in Bowmore at 8:43. The return ticket cost £5. You can’t really afford to miss your bus on Islay as they are not that frequent (only 5 leaving from Port Ellen for the day). Bowmore the “main town” on Islay with the tourist information office, a bank (and probably the only ATM), a Coop and a few shops including the best Spar ever if you like rare whisky bottles! There is a small harbour too and the famous round church (the fact it ...

Last November, we decided with a few friends to organise a whisky trip to Islay during the Easter weekend. Even if I will have the two weeks following that weekend off, some of the people I am going with will be back at work on the Tuesday, so we decided to head North on the Thursday afternoon, hop on the ferry Friday morning and head back to Manchester on the Monday. This means our trip will be rather short, and it left me the tricky task of organising our time as best as possible. Looking on several websites and forums, I have found some information about people who have already been, but often, it tended to be answers to specific questions, that is why I thought I would share my experience. Today is therefore going to be about the organisation of the trip and I will update you on the actual visit probably when I am back after Easter. So as I mentioned before, our starting point was as follow: -5 people going to Islay  -leaving Manchester on the Thursday afternoon  ...

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%)                       ...