The Malt Cask

As I mentioned in a previous post, I spent the last weekend on Islay with a few friends. It was obviously a whisky tour and the aim was to try to visit as many distilleries as possible, to experience a range of single malts and of course to discover a bit more of the island itself. So quite a programme for only 3 days! Out of the 8 distilleries currently operating on Islay (pronounce “i-la”) we managed to visit 6, Bruichladdich and Kilchoman on the Friday afternoon, Bowmore on the Saturday morning and Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Laphroaig on the Sunday. In this first post, I am going to focus on the Thursday journey and Bruichladdich on Friday. We left Manchester on Thursday afternoon at around 5pm and head up North. Our plan was to drive to Lochgair, which is about 30/40min away from Kennacraig and the ferry terminal, stay in the Lochgair hotel there and drive to the ferry on the Friday morning.  Lochgair Hotel We arrived at the hotel at around 11:15. The hotel was basi...

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%)                       ...