The Malt Cask

I am no rye expert but I remember trying this Woodford Reserve Rye a while back and really enjoying it. Having focused on scotch more than anything else from over the pond, I never pulled the trigger on a bottle of rye until a few months ago when I came across this very bottle in one of my local supermarkets. The bottle was incredibly good value and I thought why not. I already owned the standard Woodford bourbon which I really like and decided to open this rye straight away to see if it was still as good as I remembered it to be. Woodford state that their mashbill for this whiskey contains 53% rye (the minimum being 51% to be able to call it a rye) which I guess is not the highest rye content around (you'll find bottles with a 95% rye mashbill) In my (short) experience with rye whiskey, I tend to expect much 'greener' and spicier flavours than with bourbons.  Woodford Reserve tend to release their whiskey in batches with a batch/ bottle number. Mine is batch 00...

Springbank is one of these names you hear mentioned quite a few time when you start your whisky journey. It is not a name everyone knows like Glenfiddich, Macallan or Laphroaig, but it is one whisky enthusiasts tend to look for and recommend. Springbank is one of three distilleries in Campbeltown, alongside Glen Scotia and Glengyle. Springbank also make three different types of whisky all bottled under different names: Springbank is their slightly peated two-and-a-half times distilled single malt, Longrow is their peated twice distilled single malt and Hazelburn is their non-peated tripled distilled single malt. I didn't get to try any Springbank for a few years before I decided to purchase a bottle of the 10 years old. Strangely enough, I didn't open this bottle straight away as I had too many already opened and it has actually still been sitting on my shelves unopened since. The reviews I read online were very positive about the 10 but people's favourite seemed to be...

Since very early on in my whisky journey, I have been a big fan of Bunnahabhain, and as the 12 years old is the most affordable, I made sure never to run out of it. Last year, the company decided to revamp their packaging and dropped the Roman numerals and square black and gold boxes for grey tubes with different accents depending on the bottles. In terms of presentation, the whisky is still bottled at 46.3%, un-chillfiltered and in its natural colour. So surely, just a cosmetic change and no alteration to the juice in the bottle... I bought a new bottle for my dad as he was running low on his previous one and out of curiosity, we decided to compare both. Before telling you a little bit more about what I thought, I want to set things straight. The older bottling has been opened for over a year whereas the newer one has only been opened a couple of weeks. I have also found a little bit of batch variation in past with Bunnahabhain 12, from one bottle to an other. I will refer...

New presentation, black bottle, dragon scales embossed on the box and a bit of viking reference with the name, this recently released Dragon Legend did get all of my attention as soon as it hit the shelves. And this bottle is not the only new one to have come out of the Orkney distillery in the last year or so (think Walkyrie, Magnus, Full Volume, Voyage of the Raven, the Keystone series, the Dark, the Light etc. not to mention all the single cask releases that everyone seems to be going mad for!) but definitely one which is readily available in the UK. With a price tag of £40 (or £30 when on offer) it is quite reasonable even if there is no age statement on the bottle. So what is the deal with this Dragon Legend? Surely a pretty hot and spicy dram...! According to the packaging "this bold single malt accentuates the intense aromatic smokiness from [the] local Hobbister Moor peat melded with hints of warm spicy fruit cake which come from a long maturation in sherry seasoned oak...

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...

As a kid, I remember my dad's particular dislike for whisky, probably because the bottles he had -given to him as presents- were not quality spirit. However, when he started venturing into the world of single malt over 15 years ago, the first bottle he ever got was a Knockando 12 in a wooden presentation box, before moving to Talisker 10 and Laphroaig 10. I have no recollection of the taste of this Knockando 12, but it is a name which stayed with me. Knockando is a Speyside distillery founded in 1898 and the name means 'little black hill'. It is not to be confused with the Knockdhu distillery which produces anCnoc single malt. Knockando is used mainly in blended whisky such as J&D and tends to be aged using ex-Maker's Mark and Jack Daniels casks. It is owned by Diageo and seems to be widely available in Frence but not so much in the UK. Knockando is also one of the rare brands to release their single malt as vintages or 'seasons' as they call them. ...

It's been a while since I had some peat back on the blog so let's change that today with one of the last bottles I have opened: Ardbeg 10 years old. I actually bought this bottle one if not two years ago and never really got round to opening it. I must say with about 30 bottles opened in the cabinet, I had to establish a bit of rule: kill a bottle to be able to open another one. However, I am reaching the stage where a few of my bottles are running very low which means I can open some of those which have been on the shelves for a while. So why Ardbeg 10? The first reason is that I am running a little low on peat. I finished Caol Ila 12, Lagavulin 8 and when I pour the last dram of Kilchoman Machir Bay, I thought I needed to replenish some of the peat stock. Ardbeg 10 is also one I tried a couple of times in the past but it didn't leave a particularly strong impression on -me unlike the Uigeadail. It was therefore time to give it a proper chance, and boy did it not disa...