The Malt Cask

  Picture courtesy of  www.whiskyshop.com Distillery : Glen Scotia Bottler : Distillery for Callander Drinks Age : 11 years old Distilled : 03/2010 Bottled : 04/2021 Cask : Ex-bourbon finished in 1st fill PX Abv : 52.9% Unchillfiltered : Yes Natural Colour : Yes Nb of bottles : 292 Extra : Bottled by Callander Drinks My tasting notes Nose: PX hits you first, dark, rich, treacle, dried fruit, old oak, slight salted caramel, hints of smoke, cinnamon spice, pain d'épices. There is also a faint balsamic vinegar side to it. What a start!  Palate: Sweet and sticky, sticky toffee pudding, dates, molasses, brown sugar, christmas cake, treacle, rich caramel, not as spicy as I was expecting, prunes, nuts, a touch of salt and smoke. Super rich and decadent, like a boozy PX! And how is this 52.9%?! Finish: Mouth coating sweetness (like the PX itself) hints of earthy peat appear amongst the decadent richness, dark dried fruit, walnut, oak. What a dram! With water: Slightly fresher...

I popped into my local supermarket about a week ago and was very surprised to come across a bottle of Glen Scotia I had not seen or even heard of before. Its name, Campbeltown Harbour. A quick look online and apart from on the official Glen Scotia website, it is nowhere to be seen, so I guess this is a new release. Now what is it exactly? Well I guess it is a new entry point in the range as this is the first Glen Scotia I find which is bottled at 40%. Also, unlike the Double Cask -where it is clearly stated on the packaging- this one doesn't seem to be unchillfiltered, which makes for a slightly disappointing start.  The maturation of the spirit has been done using first fill Bourbon barrels so expect a decent amount of vanilla sweetness. As I have been rather blown away by all the bottles I have tried from the distillery in the last couple of years, I thought I would give it a go. So as I mentioned above, the Campbeltown Harbour is bottled at 40%, I suspect chillfilter...

Back into a more standard post today with a new review of a single malt, courtesy of Glen Scotia in Campbeltown. I have already reviewed another Glen Scotia before with the  Double Cask  on the 19/11/16, concluding it was a very worthy bottle to have in any collection. Since then, my interest for the distillery has grown quite a lot. I got to try their 15 years old as well as the Victoriana and the 25 years old which were all absolutely delicious (I actually bought a bottle of the 15 which will be for a future review). So when I heard they were releasing an 18 years old, I didn't think too long before having one on order, which is quite unusual for me as, when I go up in price, I like to try the bottles before buying them.  What I like with Glen Scotia is the fact that their whisky experience is pretty authentic. By authentic I mean it is bottled at higher strength (generally around 46%), it is non-chillfiltered, I doubt they use much if at all any colouring. They ar...

Some of you might remember a post I published in July which presented one of the tasting sessions I attended in Manchester. The Glen Scotia Double Cask was part of the line up and it left quite a positive impression on my taste buds. Even if, for me, Ardbeg Dark Cove was the star of the night, the Double Double was a solid contender. That is the reason why I decided to buy a bottle a few weeks later. Despite the fact that Campbeltown was once a booming whisky region, with nearly 30 different distilleries, it is now the smallest whisky-producing area in Scotland with only 3 working distilleries: Springbank (which also produce Longrow and Hazelburn), the newly re-opened Glengyle and Glen Scotia.  Glen Scotia is not a distillery I was too familiar with before tasting this bottle in July. I remember having seen some of the older bottles with the previous design, which presented some kind of Highland cow on the bottle and packaging... Not that appealing I must say. The Double Cask ...

Being on holidays allows me to attend a few more tasting sessions at the Whisky Shop Manchester. I was there last Saturday for their "new release" session, and on Wednesday again for their Japanese session, which I will present in a future post.  Today is about the 5 new releases that we got to try last Saturday, and here was the line-up: 1. The Loch Fyne Living Cask Batch 4 (43.6%) 2. Inchmurrin 12 years old (46%) 3. Glen Ord 11 years old Hepburn's choice single cask  (46%) 4. Glen Scotia Double Cask (46%) 5. Ardbeg Dark Cove (46.5%) Out of these 5, Dark Cove is the one I was most looking forward to as I got to try the Committee release at the distillery and really enjoyed it. We started with the Living Cask from Loch Fyne. The idea for the Living Cask is that the company started with a vat of single malts, took 1/2 to release as batch 1 and topped up the vat with fresh single malt, and repeated the process for batch 2, 3 and now 4. In case you ...