The Malt Cask

Before starting with today's whisky, I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year, hoping 2018 is full of good things for us all! I would also like to thank you for following my whisky journey on the blog as well as on my Instagram page @themaltcask. My resolution for this year is fewer bottles but more from independent bottlers and older ones if I can! So let's start the first post of the year with a slightly older whisky from a distillery I have not really reviewed on the blog: Glenfarclas and its 21 year-old single malt. Glenfarclas have got quite a following as it is one of the only distilleries in Scotland still family run. They also focus essentially on ex-Sherry casks for the maturation of their single malt and these casks are laid to rest in one of their 28 on-site warehouses.  I have tried a few Glenfarclas in the last few years, but none really struck me apart from the 15 years old which I really enjoyed. The 12 wasn't bad, the 105 was okay too but th...

Still keen to pursue my whisky journey, I decided to celebrate my birthday a couple of weeks ago with this bottle of French whisky, bought by my parents last summer. Even if this bottle comes from a French company, it is actually not the most French thing you can drink. The reason why is very simple, Michel Couvreur was a Belgian whisky enthusiast who used to source barley distillate from Scottish distilleries as well as quality sherry casks from southern Spain, and ended up combining both in his man-made cellar in Burgundy where the end product would be left to age for a while. Michel Couvreur started his career in the wine business. He bought the cellars in Bouze-lès-Beaune in 1956 before moving his business to Scotland in 1964 as he was mainly selling Burgundy wine to English and Scottish wealthy customers. His initiation to whisky happened courtesy of a Scottish soldier, owner of the Glenlivet distillery at the time. This newly found passion took him back to his cellars in Bur...

I have not reviewed a blend for a while, so here is one. Black Bottle is a blend I have heard mentioned several times in the last few years but never really managed to cross path with until about a month ago. My local supermarket decided to have a bit of a shuffle with several aisles, and the wine and spirits moved. I did not think too much about it until I actually found myself standing in from of the whiskies, realising a few new things had appeared on the shelves, and that included Black Bottle. Wait a couple of weeks and the already decent £18 price tag dropped to £14 so I had to buy one and open it straight away. However, the Black Bottle so many people rave about is the pre-2013 version, when the blend was much peatier with a lot of Islay malts at its core. The old version was also available as a 10 years old as well as a much rare 15 years old. In 2013 the Burn Stewart brand had a bit of a relaunch and did something a bit unusual in changing quite drastically the flavour pr...

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...

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...

I have not really had the opportunity to drink much Aberfeldy since I set off on my whisky journey. The first reason is probably the fact that it isn't a peated whisky, and peat was the main component I was looking for at the beginning. Aberfeldy 12 is a highland single malt known for its gentle honeyed and spicy character and again, this has never featured very high up on my priority list. It is one of the main components of the Dewar's blend as the distillery was created by John Dewar and Sons Ltd in 1898 and still belongs to the Dewar's group today. I have tried the 12 year-old once before, during a food and whisky pairing session I attended last year in Manchester ( find the review here ). It was paired with fresh pineapple and I must say the experience was very enjoyable. As I concluded: "a good alternative to rum with tropical fruit!"  I have also tried a single cask Aberfeldy and a bottle from an independent bottler but nothing mesmerizing in my opin...