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 2^nd place going to Old Pulteney 21yo and Bladnoch 21yo. Rolling into joint 3^rd 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 2^nd place going to Bladnoch , and Berry Brothers & Rudd in 3^rd.

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

Check out the video for results and some choice encounters! Do not ask what happened to Whisky Mission #1 by the way…

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

]]> http://www.thewhiskylounge.com/blog/joes-whisky-review-3-highland-park-thor-2/feed/ 0 http://www.thewhiskylounge.com/blog/joes-whisky-review-2-the-tweed-dale-blend/ http://www.thewhiskylounge.com/blog/joes-whisky-review-2-the-tweed-dale-blend/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:19:29 +0000 Joe Clark http://www.thewhiskylounge.com/?p=398 Read more…]]> 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

Wow, feels like a ‘real’ company now, with real responsibilities and commitments! Scary stuff!

Seriously, Joe is what we have been looking for for sometime and we just had to find a way to afford him. But rather than wax on about him myself, here is a little about the man, by the man;

‘At the age of twenty I began my journey into the world of whisky through a simple part-time Christmas position in a Whisky Shop branch in York.

Within this initial period it soon became apparent how amazing, but also infectious (!) whisky could be. By the end of this short temporary period I was deemed by management to be a worthy asset and continued to work there for five years!

Over time my thirst for  knowledge and flavour grew stronger, along with the desire to encourage others to start their own whisky journey.

For the last two years, alongside being on the ground selling whisky, I have also been delivering specialist whisky presentations and tastings to both malt whisky fanatics of York and also language schools in the interest and expansion of British culture and heritage! You may have also seen me helping out at many whisky festivals with The Whisky Lounge and also ‘The Whisky Show’ with The Whisky Exchange.

With just over five years experience in whisky and a total of seven working within the drinks industry, I’m more enthusiastic than ever in a new position at The Whisky Lounge!’

So there you have it – Please join us in welcoming Joe aboard!

Joe will be hosting many of our tastings this year as well as working on some exciting projects we have come up with together, so watch this space…

If you would like to contact him, Joe can be found on Twitter @TWLJoe or email joe@thewhiskylounge.com.

It was a really ambitious project developed by Jonathan Cornthwaite of First Drinks, who approached me about it back in August. It was the first time something of this magnitude had been attempted as a live feed for a full hour from a distillery and the technical feats alone were mind-boggling and not the subject of this write-up!

The ‘talent’ as we were laughingly referred to as, arrived at the Robbie Dhu building at around 3pm and were told to entertain ourselves for a couple of hours before rehearsals.

Mmmm, what to do at a whisky distillery (or two) with a couple of hours to spare…

A quick tour of Glenfiddich just to brush-up and top-up courtesy of Jamie was first on the agenda. It doesn’t matter how many times I visit a distillery or distilleries, I am always reduced to a little boy in a sweet shop or chocolate factory more like. ‘Fiddich is well set up for visitors as you would imagine and they are also not shy of technical innovation at distillery level. However, I am sworn to secrecy for now and if you want to find out more, you’ll have to go yourself!

So off to the Balvenie warehouses Sam led us, with the intention of trying some of the finest whiskies available to humanity. No pressure then.

In the interests of preserving Sam’s employment, I won’t divulge exactly what we tasted, but needless to say they were fairly old (40+ years) and I am reasonably confident they will be sold for a bit more than the £50 Aldi 40 yo special. It was the perfect start to the afternoon and definitely took the ‘edge off’. I do remember trying what may have been the next batch of Tun 1401 and being pretty impressed…

Anyway, as you can imagine, this ‘warehouse tour’ and the Glenfiddich tour used up all of our time and made the afternoon speed by. So back to the ‘studio’…

We were late back and still had a lot of last minute tasting to do. We had decided that we should ‘re-taste’ all of the whiskies in order to re-familiarise ourselves in the case of the William Grant’s product and to familiarise with the  Sainsbury’s whiskies. By the time we came to rehearsal we were well warmed up and ready to rock!

None of us had done live TV before but the rehearsal went smoothly and naturally – almost too much so. I decided to re-write some of the auto-cue material 20 minutes before broadcast as I wasn’t happy with it. This was just the introduction and ‘outro’ but still very important to set the scene. 5 minutes before I had a touch of the butterflies, pulled myself together and go…

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Please feel free to watch the whole thing, although I do understand a full hour is a long time to spare! We taste 8 whiskies in total and the chat is very natural and flows quite nicely. See if you can spot the point at which the doors to my right blow open and are then closed by one of the studio guys!

It was a thoroughly enjoyable thing to do and I hope we can do some more as I do think it works well.

Anyway, enjoy and let me know what you think.

Cheers!

Okay, back in York after a few days in the ‘Smoke’ including the final two Blind Fury tastings.

The first of this series was in Newcastle Upon Tyne on the 18th November which was followed by Manchester on the 26th. We then had to put on an extra date in London due to high demand which we were really pleased with as it mitigates (at last!) what we are trying to do and achieve.

The whiskies were, as I explained at the tastings, probably the most intense collection of Islay whiskies I had ever assembled. It was a really challenging task to first of all choose the whiskies themselves – never being one to repeat a trick – but it was even more of one to come up with the order of play…

As it turns out, I think I got it right. What is certain is that everyone enjoyed it as they were taken on a mainly peaty roller coaster that never allowed anyone to get too comfortable!

The whiskies then were:

Auld Reekie 10 Years Old

46% ABV

Duncan Taylor Co.

£34.64(!) from www.masterofmalt.com

This was the perfect start to the evening(s) as far as I, and it seems most of the group were concerned. Fresh, sea-breezy, smoky but not over-powering with plenty of lemony citrus exploding out of the glass. A blend of two malts from Islay (Caol Ila must be one of the whiskies – I would lay someone’s life on it!), this is a ‘tip of the hat’ to the smoggy, peaty whiskies of Edinburgh’s past – ‘Auld Reekie’ being a reference to the now fair city that clearly had a shady past when it comes to illicit distilling… I loved it and it set us up for the rest of the tasting perfectly as well as hitting the spot in it’s own right.

Laphroaig Triple Cask

48% ABV

www.laphroaig.com

£38.95 from www.thewhiskyexchange.com

The most amazing thing about this little beauty – before we even tasted it – was that we were tasting a Laphroaig at position no.2 in the tasting – unheard of! The difference to the ‘Reekie started in the colour which as opposed to that whisky’s pale straw, was a rich and deep autumnal gold. The nose as perhaps expected then was brimming with sticky golden syrup, honeycomb and spice – a complete contrast the the freshness of no.1. This was born out in the palate, and particularly the mouthfeel which was/is luxurious and syrupy – the extra maturation in ex-Oloroso Sherry butts appears to have tamed the beast to a degree. Definitely a dessert Islay – probably sticky toffee pudding or similar I reckon.

Lg2 – Elements of Islay

58% ABV

www.specialitydrinks.com

£42.95 from www.thewhiskyexchange.com

Nobody was quite prepared for what came next. I actually think that very little could prepare you for this monster. The guys at Speciality are rightly secretive about what exactly goes into their highly-rated ‘Elements of Islay’ series of bottlings, aside from giving you a large clue to the distillery in terms of the ‘initials’. So we knew it was a Lagavulin, and if I was forced into a corner, I would hazard a guess at 6-8 years old. If you like your whiskies with a big peaty and vigorous punch then this is for you. To say it is spirited is an under-statement and adding water – which would calm most whiskies – actually amplified the peat to Fisherman’s Friend levels. Definitely for the Peat Freak – I would suggest caution to any newbies!

Bunnahabhain 1979 (bottled 2011)

54.7% ABV

Berry Brothers & Rudd

No longer available – Aghhhhhhh!

So on the roller coaster goes, where it goes next, nobody knows! Well happily for us it swooped into Bunnahabhain, courtesy of this now sold-out 32-year-old little beauty. I say little beauty as I have to confess that I quite like this. I would actually marry it if I weren’t already – although I suspect she may have had a few proposals already. Xmas pudding in a glass is a too often used phrase, but this just exemplified this. I also picked up some Hoisin sauce and aromatic duck, and, no, I hadn’t just been for a pre-event Chinese. So much sherry intensity, and no peat (Bunnahabhain is, along with Bruichladdich, mostly lightly or unpeated) and for some it was too much. A very specific style of whisky in itself due to the 32 years in the same ex-Sherry cask and therefore not to everyone’s taste, but that’s okay, there’s more for me then!

Kilchoman 100% Islay

50% ABV

www.kilchomandistillery.com

£68.95 from www.masterofmalt.com

So from the oh-so-sweet Sherry loveliness (sorry I can’t stop myself!) of the ‘Bunna’ we come to our next sojourn on this most crazy and mind-blowing of journeys. What greeted us next was 3-year-old spirit from the newest distillery (only by 120 years or so) on the island. Of course nobody new for sure of its origins due to the ‘blind’ nature of the tasting, but there were definite hints of its youthfulness. There was a wonderful innocent cereal and peat nose – almost like warm, smoky Weetabix. The amount of complexity and clarity in the spirit was and is astounding and bodes very well for the future. This, as the name suggests, is unusual in that all of the raw ingredients were harvested locally, including the barley – no mean feat as many of you will know. We all acknowledged that it was great to be tasting whisky from a new distillery rather than lamenting the loss of another one as was the case in the 1980s and 90s.

Ardbeg Alligator

51.2% ABV

www.ardbeg.com

Around £80 – currently unavailable

As we pull into our final stop we can reflect on what has been an amazing ride and a great ad for the diversity to be found on what is in actuality, a small island. An island whose economy is forever linked to that of its distilleries. And perhaps nowhere is this exemplified more than at Ardbeg, on the far south-east corner of the island. Seemingly always in a state of flux to a degree or another, Ardbeg closed its doors in 1981 and it was feared would never re-open. Most of us know the story since then and if not, go have a look at their website.

This years limited release, the Alligator refers to the particularly heavy char applied to the inside of the four Bourbon casks that this whisky was gleaned from. The result is a far richer and spicier variant and – similar to the Laphroaig in this respect – a more tame beast than the 10 or Corryvreckan. No bad thing, and shows that this previously extremely traditional industry is not now afraid to play around and innovate. The effect these casks has on Ardbeg’s spirit, to my mind anyway, is to accelerate maturation as there are definite hints of far more mature Ardbegs that I have had the pleasure of trying previously.

So there you have it, 6 whiskies, 3 cities and over 100 tasters.

Not bad, not bad at all. See you next time.

…And now for a ‘rogues gallery’…

No less than 11 drams were nosed, tasted and enjoyed over the course of 3 hours.

The line up was as follows:

Clynelish 14yo

Compass Box Great Kings St.

Glen Garioch 12yo

Bruichladdich 10yo (new bottling)

Auchentoshan Bordeaux

Old Pulteney 17yo

Kavalan Classic

A break and a swift bite to eat then straight into:

Ardbeg Corryvreckan

Glenfarclas 17yo

Adelphi Glenrothes 20yo

…and a very special offering of cask strength Glenmorangie Signet, straight from the Vat!

Even to the most seasoned of whisky drinkers this was an absolute malt-a-thon and a pleasure from start to finish.

Highlights for me were:

The ‘Farclas 17 – Usually for export and just now making a splash in the UK. Really soft, silky stuff full of fruit and toffee and a bit of a range-breaker seemingly lighter than the 15 and 21. Some seriously tasty drammage from Glenfarclas.

Kavalan classic – This little beauty had the room totally stumped. Presented blind as a mystery dram and unavailable in Europe at the moment. Young and full of vanilla fudge and spice.

Glenmorangie cask strength Signet. This closed the night, was the party piece and a real show stealer. A cask sample that’s not available anywhere except as a special sample provided by Dr. Bill Lumsden to Eddie for a previous series of tastings for The Whisky Lounge. What a gem. A blast of mocha, followed  by full-on fruits with that extra % strength delivering a mouth-watering and full intensity. Pure class and what a treat! I’m trying to coax Eddie into letting me use the remainder of these samples for some tastings next year, so watch this space…

A big thank you to the generosity of all the companies who donated bottles, Brigantes for the venue and to those who attended and enjoyed themselves! With your help we raised over £300 for the Prostate Cancer Charity.

Special thanks to John Pitts of The Whisky Shop, York and Ollie of The Whisky Exchange for a truly memorable tasting. Look forward to more ridiculous moustaches and amazing drams next year.

Cheers! Joe

Editor’s note – Joe is the latest addition and first ‘employee’ of the Whisky Lounge outside of Eddie and Amanda. Meet him in tastings from 2012 – he is very much part of the future of whisky and The Whisky Lounge!

As you may have seen, I have been developing my video editing skills over the last 12 months or more. This has been born more out of necessity than anything else, given the costs of getting someone else to do it, but I have been getting into it more and more.

So I thought I would have a bash at something a little more ‘artistic’ than a Whisky Festival video – as worthwhile as these are too.

The result is the first and, I guess, an introduction to a potential new series of videos that try to get across a bit of what goes on in our heads. This maybe something specific about a certain whisky or it maybe an idea we have had about whisky and its place in the world as we see it. In this case it is literally a montage of thoughts and most of all, a bit of fun…

In all cases it will be OUR take on whisky and as always we intend to provoke thought and reaction, not offend or bore.

If you like it or even if you don’t, please leave a comment below – you may well be the first on the new site to do so!

Enjoy!

Eddie