The Malt Cask

After 3 posts without any tasting notes, I thought it was time to get back to it. Today, no Scotch whisky, but something from the other side of the Atlantic, yes, a Bourbon. I have never been too attracted to Bourbons, purely because of a preconceived idea I had about it. Bourbon to me was a cheaper quality, less enjoyable drink compared to Scottish single malt. My dad might have influenced my opinion too as he never really liked the taste of Bourbon and despite having always had a decanter of Jack Daniels in the drinks cabinet, I was never really tempted. My opinion completely changed and my preconceived idea my shattered when I attended one of my first tasting sessions at the Whiskyshop Manchester. 1 of the 6 bottles we tried that night was a bottle of True Blue from the Balcones distillery. This is a Texan Bourbon made with blue corn and bottled at 50%, and it was absolutely fantastic, rich, buttery and sweet. I must actually try to get hold of a bottle at some point! That experien...

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 have mentioned in a previous post, despite the fact that I mainly buy whisky to drink it, I have also bought some bottles to keep for a while and see how prices evolve over time. If they end up rocketing up and I need the cash, I will sell them, if not, I will open them and enjoy them.  I have now been following auction results for the bottles I own since August 2015, mainly through the Scotch Whisky Auction (SWA) website and app and decided that after 7 different auctions, it was time for an update.  What I have witnessed so far is relatively close to what I had anticipated, in other words I have noticed different trends depending on different types of bottles. 1. Some of the "hype" bottles such as the Ardbeg Perpetuum (Standard release) or the Laphroaig 15 (200th anniversary release) went up in price just after their release before dropping after a few auctions. I would think the reason for this price change is that at first everybody wants to get hold of a bo...

After the tasting notes, the culinary tips, the feedback on tasting sessions, I thought I would include a "resource" section about whisky. I am a teacher after all! In that section I will present books or websites I use to get general information about whisky or to get more specific information about a bottle or a distillery before I decide to part with my hard-earned cash (I am now waiting for comments about teachers vs hard-earned cash...!) In this first post, I am not going to present the first book I bought about whisky (Dave Broom's The world atlas of Whisky ) but one many people consider the reference in terms of whisky: Jim Murray's Whisky Bible 2016. As its name indicates, this book is a bit of a reference for tasting notes of around 4,600 whiskies from around the world. I had never looked at one before the 2016 edition, but considering the fact that it comes up so frequently around the whisky industry, I thought I would order it. I am not goi...

Highland Park is a distillery located in the Orkney Islands, at the very North-East tip of Scotland, alongside the Scapa distillery. It is a malt that I never really considered at the beginning of my whisky adventure as it seemed to be readily available in supermarkets, often discounted (which to me suggested it wasn't anything special) and final nail in the coffin, the presentation didn't really shout quality in my opinion. After a couple of months investigating the whisky world, reading reviews of various distilleries and bottles, I realised Highland Park very often came out on top in terms of quality single malt for a very affordable price, so decided to wait for the next offer, and when it happened, I bought a bottle. And I haven't been disappointed indeed. The official packaging states the following: "A uniquely smooth, balanced single malt, with a rich full flavour and a gentle smoky finish" and I do fully agree with this statement. Highland Park 12...

A bit of a 'sherry monster' today, that is to say a heavily sherried whisky which has matured exclusively in ex-sherry casks, and for this particular one, it has been Oloroso casks all along. Aberlour A'bunadh is a name which has come back again and again when I have done some research about sherried whisky. Macallan has always seemed to be some kind of reference as far as sherried whisky go but I still haven't tried any of their bottling. To me, the Macallan hype added to the fact they have now discontinued their aged statement range to replace it by Non Aged Statements (NAS) have meant a serious bump in prices which I am not prepared to pay (for now at least). However, many other distilleries do produce more affordable sherry monsters, such as Glenfarclas (the 15 is on my list of bottles to buy) or Glendronach (which I have tried and will review when I manage to bring my bottles back from France!).  Aberlour is a Speyside distillerie I was already familiar as I hav...

Laphroaig (like many other peat power-houses) is like Marmite, either you love it or you hate it! Fortunately for me, I love it. I say fortunately because in my opinion they produce some excellent whisky. The 18 year-old I am about to review is a good example of this. I started with the Quarter Cask, which is still one of my favourite go-to dram (and I need to review it, yes!) before upgrading to the 18 when I realised how much a bottle would cost me if I bought it in France... The 18 replaced the 15 in 2009 in the standard range. The 15 re-appeared in 2015 as a "limited release" for the 200th anniversary but some sites mention that the 18 could potentially be discontinued by the end of 2016*. Other people told me that, in their opinion, Laphroaig might alternate between 15 and 18, which would allow them so preserve their stock for a longer period...  Keep an eye and an ear out and if any of you have any concrete info, let us know in the comment section. Anyway, back to the ...