Put simply, the boys head out with two fine whiskies and literally spread the good word. In this case they headed out into home city York with a Glenlivet 15 Year Old and a Bowmore Darkest 15 Year Old.
Check out the video for results and some choice encounters! Do not ask what happened to Whisky Mission #1 by the way…
Newcastle Fest 2012 – woohoo!!!!
No whisky festival is anything less than amazing in my opinion, but the people of Newcastle are a unique crowd and certainly add an extra layer of excitement that you don’t usually find in other, warmer climate events! A unique vibe if you like, and one thing’s for sure they certainly aren’t shy of a few drams – by 11:30 the queue already appeared to be a few hundred deep. The final head count for the day worked out at 555 which was a perfect result.
We actually limited numbers this year after comments that we perhaps had a few too many last year. See, we do listen!
This allowed for a balance between atmosphere and actually being able to get your glass filled, and not to mention still being able to hear all those whisky facts from the much-loved brand ambassadors and exhibitors.
A few facts about the day that you might find interesting:
Of the 206 of you that filled out the ‘Dram of the Day’ cards, 40% were women…
The much vaunted ‘Dram of the Day’ in question was Laphroaig Triple Wood, with joint 2nd place going to Old Pulteney 21yo and Bladnoch 21yo. Rolling into joint 3rd place were Balvenie 15 Single Barrel and Connemara Turf Mor. All very tasty drams I’m sure you’ll agree, and quite a diverse range of flavours. Great to see a peaty monster as your number 1 although not entirely surprising given the cold…
The Winner of ‘Stand of the Day’ (drum-roll):
Inverhouse – Congratulations! With 2nd place going to Bladnoch , and Berry Brothers & Rudd in 3rd.
As well as sold-out workshops by Colin Dunn of Diageo and Dr. Andrew Forrester of The Balvenie, the new ‘Speakeasy’ with a stunning array of premium drams, including the much talked about Highland Park ‘Thor’ proved extremely popular. Taking place in the mezzanine above the main hall, it offered a great view of the event and a chance to relax in a slightly more ‘chilled’ atmosphere.
The Hotel du Vin were on hand on the main stage to demonstrate some fantastic whisky cocktails and proved themselves extremely popular, particularly with the ladies…
For those of you reading this and who like whisky, if you haven’t been to one of our festivals, you are missing out in a major way. Put simply we will hands down beat any beer, wine or food festival you’ve ever been to, so don’t hang around and get some tickets booked to a festival or tasting near you.
Big thanks to all of you the people of Newcastle, the exhibitors and the Civic centre for making it a truly great start to The Whisky Lounge’s year.
Cheers, Joe
The Story
As tales of whisky go, The Tweeddale Blend is definitely up there in my top five. When most people decide to look at their family history the pursuit will generally end in the construction of a lovely family tree some old photos and maybe even a new relative or two, Not so usual is the re-creation of a blended whisky that hasn’t been made for over 70 years!
An example of true gumption (I think) in the pursuit of bringing satisfaction to one’s family but also heritage and not to forget us lot the great whisky drinking public of Britain. A whisky steeped in provenance and heritage something most companies would die for (in fact maybe even kill for). The story starts with the current owner of Tweeddale Blend, Alasdair Day, inheriting his great grandfather’s cellar book. As well as detailing the accounts of J & A Davidson from 1881 (where his Great-Grandfather worked), it happened to contain the recipe for a blended whisky which was made from 1820 up until 1940. To come across this information amongst all those old figures must have been an amazing feeling. I’d struggle to relate but imagine it must have felt something like finding a treasure map. Here’s the link for those who are intrigued and want to know more about the history of the Tweeddale Blend - http://tweeddalewhisky.com/story/
Right onto the whisky, but first…A swift rant about attitude toward blends.
Blends are often given bad press on the back of mass-volume and own-label products where seemingly no amount of thought and care has been imbued into the final whisky aside from what profit can be generated.
However on the most part this is not the case (thankfully) and don’t forget blends are the backbone of an industry that provides us with so many amazing whiskies to enjoy, and without them we simply wouldn’t have malt whisky today as we know it. Making up a giant circa-90% of all whisky sold in the world, they deserve some respect, and when done well they allow a marriage of flavour that can be quite unique and truly amazing to drink.
(Editor – Much more could, and should, be written on blends, and it will be, but for now, enough Joe!)
Yes indeed blending is an art form in its own right and I take my hat off to all (most) blenders out there past and present. Right, blending rant over (for now).
The Whisky
This is the second release of Tweeddale. It’s a 12 year old which was released in June last year and follows the 10 year old first release bottling from 2010. Now, in keeping with the original recipe of Tweeddale, this is a 50-50 split of grain and malt. 9 whiskies in total are used from 9 individual casks, 8 malts covering each whisky-making region of Scotland and 1 grain whisky. The grain whisky originating from a single grain distillery in the Lowlands – it’s 15 years old and from a sherry butt – quite unusual. The malts, ranging from 12 years, all the way to 21 years of age, are from various cask-types including first-fill bourbon.
I’ll quickly point out now to anyone who doesn’t know;
The age statement on any bottle of whisky represents the youngest whisky in the bottle and this is true of all whisky bound by SWA (Scotch Whisky Association) law.
Where was I? Right, Sherry-casked grain whisky. This is more unusual these days as grain distilleries (as well as malt distilleries) will mostly use re-fill ex-Bourbon hogsheads made of American oak. Sherry-cask fills however would have been more common pre-war as sherry casks were in greater abundance than today for various reasons. Perhaps this is a nod back to the original blend…
Being a small batch process with only 9 casks being used, this whisky will vary slightly from batch to batch, in-keeping with the original Tweeddale blend. Another reason why this blend is intriguing and different to larger scale commercial operations…
It’s also bottled at a respectable 46% and un-chillfiltered – hurrah!
The Tasting
The nose reminds me of trifle with honey and toffee sauce drizzled over the top, served in a coal scuttle with just the slightest hint of some peat helping to balance the sweet dessert tones and suggesting a well rounded flavour.
The palate gives me a big lovely wedge of honey dew melon with a slight lemon sherbet quality in flavour and feel. It’s quite tingly, but then mellows out, becomes soft and creamy and descends into an oaky, malty, biscuit free-for-all with a mellowed-out old peaty referee keeping it all in check.
The Finish. Really clean, incredibly well rounded with a lovely citrusy biscuit flavour and the slightest trail of coal smoke.
The Conclusion
Overall I think this is a real winner. A very good, well rounded, well-balanced blend that at around £30 for 70cl is a good buy. You can really feel good grain whisky raising its head amongst those more hefty malts and that for me is key, and is where a lot of blends can struggle to deliver.
An old lesson in great whisky-making, blending and overflowing in provenance which should have those die-hard, ‘never drink a blend’ types looking for another glass full. A cracking dram!
Now any of you at the Newcastle fest that’s coming up will be able to meet Alasdair. He’ll be there along with his whisky and obviously will be able to tell his whiskies story far better, and do it more justice than I ever could.
Cheers and thanks for reading,
Joe
Note from the Ed(itor);
I sit here reading and editing this report as I enjoy my first sample of this little beauty. It is quite the dark horse. Extremely dark, spicy and intriguing. More than a little peat and very morish. For those of you who like the BNJ (Bailie Nicol Jarvie), this is almost a Director’s Cut of that excellent whisky… Might have to have a little more… Night, night.
So here it is – my first whisky review for The Whisky Lounge – wow, exciting!
Being paid to taste and write about whisky could be considered by most to be a dream job, however it’s full of many difficulties like wandering to the kitchen sink and having to wash nosing glasses regularly and also trying to explain to friends on an evening that this is work, and no I can’t come for a pint! They don’t understand the hardship…
We thought it would make sense to do a test run on our latest batch of single cask whiskies before the tasting room fills up with other stuff. Please note, these are all 20cl bottles.
Anyway, I hope you find this interesting and maybe even entertaining! Please leave your comments below on what you think.
Longmorn 1997, Ex Bourbon Hogshead, 56.7%, TWL Bottling
£27.50 inc. Delivery – click here
The name of this distillery once inspired the name of a band I used to play with – “The Long Mornings”. Good name for a band I always thought.
Longmorn is a great Speysider and anyone who has had the old 15yr distillery bottling will know just how good this whisky can be. Aside from the official 16 yo bottling, Longmorn is light in style but full of flavour – all too often I try light styles (and being a massive Islay fan) they don’t seem to deliver the depth of flavour that I’m so fond of. This isn’t just peat I’m talking about, it’s the guts and backbone of a whisky that that keep it interesting in your glass.
The first Longmorn I tried was a Douglas Laing ‘Provenance’ bottling – think it was a 10yr – anyway it imprinted in my mind of this buttery, cakey, sweet style that for some reason now I always expect but don’t always find. This bottling is full cask strength, and got some guts!
The nose on this Longmorn screams out vanilla custard, butterscotch honey and lemon and a hint of green fruit. There is even a slight fresh-cut, moist grassy thing – very clean and fresh. Like a vanilla slice and an apple turnover on a freshly milled oak skewer.
On the palate it coats and tingles its way to the back of your tongue, leaving citrusy toffee like lemon bonbons and hints of ripe mandarin. This is when the benefits of that extra strength really come into play. The lemon toffee and vanillas are carried and intensify, as the whisky begins to dissipate across your tongue the vanilla slice with custard and lemon icing begins to emerge.
The finish is clean and mouth puckeringly (if that’s a word) crisp with a very subtle trail of Jamaican ginger cake.
Light whisky with guts, a backbone and depth of flavour, though would still make a great aperitif whisky and perfect for sunny day dramming.
Macduff 2000, Ex-Sherry Butt, 60%, TWL bottling
£25 inc. delivery – click here
Never been a fan I have to admit. I’ve tried had a handful of independent bottlings in the past, all from refill hogs heads – a drinkable whisky for sure, but it never made the ground move for me. A whisky owned by Dewars and on the most part used in blending for a blend called William Lawson. Never tried the official bottling myself so if anyone has tell us about it or better still, send us some to try! This Macduff has been aged for 11yrs in Oloroso sherry casks so should be quite different to what I have previously tried.
Big fruit nose like hot apple and blackberry strudel. Conjuring images of the dish in the restaurant scene in ‘Inglourious Basterds’, and yes a big dollop of clotted cream. And yes, I do have a keen eye for a quality strudel…
Soft and creamy on the palate even at cask strength, with plenty of jumbled up macerated fruits all happily mingling away, cherries and the little glazed sugared bits of orange peel, rich golden syrup cake with little flutters of coco.
Finishes up well in the famous big sherry cask way with fruit cake in spades, moving all across your tongue and creeping into every part of your very being…
This has totally removed all my preconceptions of Macduff (just one of many reasons malt whisky is amazing – the surprises and variations from cask to cask) an excellent sherried speysider – nice choice Eddie.
Bunnahabhain 1990, Ex-Sherry Butt, 54.1%, TWL bottling
£32.50 inc. delivery – click here
21yr old Bunnahabhain from a sherry cask! Nice. Every sherry casked Bunna I seem to try, across official and independent bottlings, the old and the young – they have all been awesome. If you’ve ever had a bad one let me know. Maybe their spirit just reacts really well with European oak or maybe whoever was or is in charge of wood management there is very good at his or her job – maybe it’s both. Who knows – whatever it is it works for me, so keep it up!
Something deep, dark and ultimately delicious is lurking in this glass – it’s almost sticking to the glass! Turkish delight in dark chocolate, the intense sweet, slightly sharp blackcurrant syrup/jam/sauce that you find on the top of cheesecake with the signature earthy Bunnahbhain undertones just fighting through all that sweet fruit.
The palate is an intense burst of sherried sweetness. Good clean sherry casking, very full bodied, mouth coating and incredibly rich. Big fruit pudding flavours slowly moving into darker dirtier tones of black jacks which start to work at balancing out all that sherry sweetness.
The finish is big just like everything else about this whisky. Reminds me of really over the top, massively indulgent tiffin – full of biscuit, raisins and slightly burnt.
A real heavyweight fighting in the unpeated corner of Islay, and going the full 12 rounds. If you like your whisky well-aged, big, rich and intense then this is right up your street.
Caol Ila 2000, Ex-Bourbon Hogshead, 56.9%, TWL bottling
£25 inc. delivery – click here
A long term favourite of mine, and of most of my whisky-drinking brethren. If you’ve never tried a Caol Ila, whether it’s a distillery bottling or independent (doesn’t matter, most are good) you are seriously missing out in a big way. Providing you like peaty whisky that is. Those in the know will be aware that this distilleries main job is making vast amounts of peated whisky for Diageo’s famous Johnnie Walker blends. Its spirit quality in my opinion is top draw, which I guess is why so many bottlings are consistently tasty and satisfying. I wish I had a fiver for every Laphroaig and Lagavulin drinker I convinced to try this whisky and loved it – although lighter in style, and not so in your face, it’s a peaty delight – I’d be able to buy a cask of the incredible stuff!
The second you raise the glass to your nose the unmistakable Islay peat is waiting there to greet you, inviting you to delve your nose deeper into the glass. Not to attack you with some kind of peaty ambush, but to gently fill your senses with soft ripples of sweet peat intermingled with creamy vanilla ice cream and those little pink wafer biscuits you find in selection boxes at Christmas.
As expected the signature light delivery of Caol Ila on the palate with the peat working with the vanillas and oaky notes, salty butter on smoky kippers with a touch of lemon sorbet.
The finish is where the smoke really comes into play with loads of smoke and salt and real BBQ on the beach kind of a finish.
Yet another on a very long list of thoroughly enjoyable Caol Ilas.
Laphroaig 1998, Ex-Bourbon Hogshead, 56.2%, TWL bottling
£30 inc. delivery – click here
Big, massively peaty Laphroaig – love it or hate it, there’s no denying that this is one of the most loved whiskies in the world and possibly the most iconic of all Islay’s distilleries. Famous for the peat, iodine, tar, salt – the kind of tasting notes that lesser mortals have nightmares about. If you’ve never been and you’re a fan go to Islay, get there, drink some of their fantastic cask strength and just watch the sea lapping up against the distillery walls – amazing. Think I received the warmest welcome at Laphroaig at all distilleries I’ve visited.
In this bottling the peat on the nose appears to have mellowed, unlike that in younger, official expressions when it smacks you straight in the face. It’s backed off here, allowing some of the caramels, toffees and vanillas from the American oak to really shine through.
At first its deceptively light. The peat and vanillas in a well paired harmony, then spice, Kellogg’s Fruit and Fibre, then a tingling as the cask strength gets to work on peppering your tongue with more peat, more spice, more caramel and plenty of smoke. The longer you hold it on your palate, the more that smoke starts to dominate, then the saltiness kicks in and you know your drinking Laphroaig!
The finish is a real medley of signature Laphroaig – the salty seaweed, the medicinal edge of some Germolene spread over a Hob-Nob biscuit and of course plenty of peat.
Love it! If you hadn’t already guessed I am most definitely of a peaty persuasion (at the moment! – ed) and suffer greatly from an Islay disposition. However even with this in mind I think between old Laphroaig and Caol Ila, eventually any whisky drinker could learn to love this style. If you disagree then we’ll track you down and post a video of you being hosed down with Quarter-Cask. Only kidding. None of these whiskies will give any whisky drinker anything other than enjoyment. I tasted all these without water – I’m sure if you play around all kinds of flavours would be revealed. Hope to see you all at some festivals throughout the year.
Cheers,
Joe
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