The Malt Cask

For the last review, I tried a youngish (probably) sherried blended malt from Berry Bro's and Rudd. Today, a bit of the same but this time the sherried blended malt is a little old and it's from Chorlton Whisky. This is a bottle which was due to be released for Christmas but ended up being delayed and was finally out a couple of weeks ago. So what is it? First, where is it from? The bottle is produced by Chorlton Whisky a small independent bottler based in south Manchester. David, the owner is keen to present whisky he likes in the best way possible so his single casks bottles are offered at cask strength, in their original colour and without chill-filtration. A pretty good start. Next, the name? Còig Deicheadan means Five Decades in Gaelic so you get where this is heading.  The components? The information available for this bottle give us 4 names for this blended malt: Glenturret, Highland Park, Macallan and Bunnahabhain (looks like an Edrington mix!) T...

Something a little bit different today. I know the idea for the blog revolves around whisk(e)y but I thought I would also give other drinks a go. Now before you wonder, there is actually a whisky connection with the bottle I am about to write about. Most distilleries use ex-Bourbon barrels to age their new-make spirit but many of them also use different types of casks to "finish" their whisky, from ex-Port, to ex-Moscatel, to ex-wine... However, there is one type of cask that you will find more frequently used to finish a whisky if not used for the entire ageing process: ex-Sherry butts.  Sherry is a fortified wine made mainly in Southern Spain. "Fortified wine" means that we start with standard wine to which, once it has been fermented, we had some spirit to make them more stable and of course enjoyable. There are several types of Sherry produced, Fino (light, crisp and dry, best enjoyed chilled), Manzanilla, Amontadillo, Palo Cortado, Oloroso, Pedro Ximénez (PX...