Tastes

I’m winding my way towards the end of our trade group’s fifth round of samples. Up next: Loch Lomond 12 year. Loch Lomond is one of the southern-most Highland distilleries in Scotland. They also produce single malt and single grain whisky. This single malt is 46%, isn’t chill filtered, but does have added color. Speaking of color, its a shiny new copper and it makes lots of legs while leaving a lot of droplets when you give it a spin. On the nose, it’s pretty malty with a healthy dose of vanilla extract. Some orchard fruits are present along with some hints of oak cask and alcohol. The palate is relatively similar with a nice bit of peaches coming out more than anything else. The maltyness leans more towards toffee than simple syrupy. It’s also relatively creamy. The finish winds down with more peaches before turning a bit dry. It’s medium length and the sweetness lingers on until you take another sip. Solid all the way around. A big thanks to my buddy @Generously_Paul for adding this one to our friendly little tour. This was a very enjoyable malt that I wouldn’t mind having more of this one. Perhaps I’ll search for an older bottle and see how well that one plays out. 3.75 stars. Cheers, my friends.

So, I found this bottle on the bottom shelf of the larger ABC stores in downtown Richmond a month or two ago. Since I haven’t had it, I had to buy it. The only other ‘kinchie I’ve had to this point was the 12 year. Glenkinchie is a Lowland distillery that’s just a few miles outside of Edinburgh. This DE was distilled in 2004 and bottled in 2016- making it at least 11 years old. It was double matured in Amontillado sherry casks. It’s light copper in color and makes tons of oily legs in the Glencairn. It’s bottled at 43% ABV. The nose is pretty exciting if you give it some time to open up. Light sherry and red berries mingle with interesting floral notes and a hint of spearmint. Oak spices hide in the background and come and go with each sniff. We’re off to an intriguing start... The palate is where things begin to weaken. It has a very light, but oily mouthfeel. All I got were some sherry notes and a restrained oak presence. It’s boring, for the most part. No heat either. The finish is almost non-existent. It’s short, blink and you’ll miss it. The oiliness isn’t there either- oddly enough, it’s dry. There’s a hint of the oak again, but like I said, it’s gone so fast. Overall, what started out so promising fell apart pretty quickly. Well, I shouldn’t say it fell apart- nothing materialized, I guess. It’s a serviceable dram and I believe I paid around $60 for the bottle. In my line of spending that’s cheap, but it’s not really a good deal for this bottle. I can’t say I recommend this one to a seasoned whisky drinker. It might be okay for a newbie. 2.75 stars. Cheers.

To kick off our third round of Scottish distillery samples in a more exciting way, I decided to try the official Invergordon sample. The 9 year old, independent bottling from Battlehill that comes in at a cask strength of 58%. It's a very pale yellow and smells of candle wax and cereal box marshmallows. There's hints of vanilla, figs and nutmeg. Even at 58% there's no evidence of ABV at all. The youthful, lightly charred oak provides an interesting backbone here, too. On the tongue, there's an initial blast of oak and pepper spice that's short lived and fades into a freshly opened box of Lucky Charms cereal, with the marshmallows! The vanilla and honey sweetness helps temper the burn as it fades into a sweet wheat and malty finish. It's more oily than I expected but rather short. I really expected a lengthy and hot finish because of the ABV, but I guess that's the joy of grain whisky. It's pretty smooth overall. It's really non-offensive, but with little to no depth, which is why it's mainly used for blending I suppose, but it's still surprisingly enjoyable. Liquified, Saturday morning cereal- with a kick. 3.75 stars. I like this more than I probably should, haha.

Transferred from Barreled (12/2017): It’s time for a review of another Scottish grain distillery. This is North British Distillery’s 18 year old offering. This grain is heavily used in blends and most, if not all, of their single grain bottles are only available by independent bottlers. This one is provided by Berry Bros. It’s a cask strength that comes in at a hefty 57% ABV. It’s non-chill filtered and doesn’t have any color added. It was distilled in 1996 and bottled in 2015. It’s a typical yellow gold in color and has a heavy cereal note on the nose. If you can get past the ABV burn you may be able to detect vanilla and lighter orchard fruits like pears and apricots. They are hard to pick up and require way too much work, actually. The palate is obviously hot, but a bit of water does allow some honey sweetness and red berries to shine- even if it only lasts a few seconds. The harshness of the grain along with some oak pepper leads to a bitter bite around mid sip and make for a difficult finish. Speaking of finish, it’s heavy on the oak and heat and leaves a lingering bitterness that really turns it into a mess. I provided this sample as we are trying to get samples from every active distillery in Scotland. I’m starting to wish that we had crossed off grain distilleries from the goal because they just aren’t very good on their own. They need a master blender to make them work any magic they have or they should just be used in conjunction with single malts. It cost me around $90 to get this bottle and I could’ve spent that money in so many better ways. I don’t recommend this- or any single grain bottles- at all. Stick with the single malts or blends, my friends. 2 stars. Cheers.

While shopping online at Ace Spirits, out of Minnesota, I stumbled across another port barrel finished bourbon that caught my attention. Crooked Water Spirits, in Minneapolis, has taken contract distilled bourbon made at Yahara Bay Distillers (Fitchburg, WI) and placed it into port wine casks. As a relatively new craft distillery they are following a pattern of augmenting contracted whiskey through short term “finishes” while they wait for their own spirit to mature enough for bottling. Gotta pay those bills, kid. This particular release, called King’s Point, is an award winning whiskey that is bottled at 90 proof. It a reddish, caramel in color and produces some skinny, long legs when you give it a twirl in your tasting glass. There’s no indication on the bottle or their website about the duration of the finishing casks, but if the nose is any indication, it wasn’t very long. I would guess 6-9 months. The nose is softly sweet with a nice bit of green apple and vanilla, along with some ripened vine fruits like grapes and dark berries. There’s not much hint of wood or any heat from the spirit itself. The palate is traditional bourbon with a nice, initial blast of charred oak and vanilla. The port finish is well hidden and takes some time and effort to extract it, but it’s there. It just takes time. The finish is long, warm and oaky with a final blast of heat just before it fades away with a sweet, smooth aftertaste. It’s a pretty solid bourbon even though you can tell it’s very youthful. Overall, it’s a nice entry and beginner bourbon that is well crafted and presented. The website and label talks about the distillery being women owned and operated, so I’m assuming that means it’s almost an entire facility staffed by female employees and managers, and it just goes to show that with the right passion and energy anyone can make a quality whiskey for the masses. It will be interesting to see what these ladies can do once their own stuff is available to be tinkered with and sold. I will definitely keep an eye out for more from them, especially when I’m shopping online at Ace Spirits. 3.5-3.75 stars. Cheers, my friends.

I picked up a bottle of this for $30 while shopping for bottom shelf bourbons in Richmond a couple of weeks ago. This is the newest Crown Royal release that mimics American bourbon’s mash bill. It has become somewhat controversial in Canada, though, because of the name and I’ve even heard it’s being pulled from shelves up there. Let the hating of America continue, I guess... Anyways, this one is at the industry standard of 40%, is copper and gold in the glass and makes lots of super thin legs when you spin it. The nose has a little pepper, weaker than expected vanilla and the faintest, fresh barrel. Smells more like bourbon and less like the typical Crown. That’s a plus. The palate is all sweet corn and oak but it’s ridiculously watery. That’s where this one turns gimmick-y IMO. Instead of focusing on adding depth and flavor they obviously chose to stretch the liquid and make it even thinner than it should be. The finish is medium length and mostly oak and tannins. There’s nothing that lingers here. Overall, it mixed really well with Coca Cola, which was the primary reason I bought a bottle. At $30, it isn’t bad but I don’t think I’d buy it again. I guess the Canucks should be buying it up since it’ll be a banned bottle very soon. That’s as good of a reason as any to not drink it, lol. 2.25-2.5 stars. Cheers.

I picked this bottle up directly from the distillery in Maxwelton, WV. This is their Single Barrel, cask strength version of their Old Scout bourbon line. This batch is 11 years old and comes in at a healthy 56.1% ABV. It's a beautiful, shimmering Amber in the tasting glass and smells of strong vanilla, charred oak with a slight herbal hit. It's 75% corn, 21% rye and 4% fairy dust. I drank it until it made me smile and giggle and feel good about life in general- that must've been the magic contained inside. So, I can verify that. On the palate, there's a fantastic and creamy vanilla that washes over your tongue and leaves behind a nice, charred oak residue. Some sweet, red berries round this thing out quite well. It's surprisingly smooth for such a high proof. The finish has more red berry fruitiness, vanilla and a bit of leather tannins that hang around for a bit, leaving you wanting another sip. Overall, a fantastic bourbon from a small, mountain distillery. If you see it at a bar or store near you give it a try. It was $54 at the distillery, but I think it's a bit cheaper if you spot it elsewhere. Good stuff. 4.25 stars. Cheers, my friends.

Review transferred from Barreled (12/2016): Another great sample from last night's impromptu bourbon tasting. This review isn't just for the normal 10 year Old Scout bourbon, this is a single barrel, barrel strength that was bottled exclusively for the online whiskey retailer, Binny's. The regular 10 year old comes in at an even 100 proof, while this single barrel is just over 117 proof. I did try a small pour of the regular 7 year old to establish a baseline and to see how well the extra 3 years goes towards improving this lower-to-bottom shelf bourbon. I gotta say, the extra 3 years works wonders here. The nose was still heavy corn, but that's where the similarities to the 7 year stopped. The palate was very impressive: there's vanilla, oak, toffee and even a bit of dark berry and cherries. It was substantially sweeter and incredibly smoother, too. The 7 year old was harsh and kind of uninviting. The finish was a bit short, but pleasant. I'm not sure how difficult this bottle is to find, or even the price point, but damn it was unexpectedly a highlight of the evening. I have to keep my eye out for more from these guys. Good stuff and I recommend you guys to do the same. If this stuff is around $30-40 a bottle I would consider it a steal. Cheers.

My first attempt at adding a bottle to Distiller. I figure I need to be ready to review it once I created it. I don’t usually like to review something that I have a full bottle of until after I’ve tried it several times, but I was kind of anxious to add a bottle. So, here we go... Most scotch drinkers have certainly heard of Compass Box. They may have also heard of their entry level blends they created several years ago under their London street address: Great King St. The Artist’s Blend and the Glasgow Blend still remain cheap and popular today. This bottle was a limited run that John Glaser created in honor of the American city of New York. The idea sprung from a story in the late 1800’s when a local, New York bartender asked for branded bottles of malt whisky to use for cocktails instead of having to stick with bulk shipped casks that were the norm of the day. By doing so, he was able to acquire some smoked malts along with the typical sweeter malts of the day. This is Compass Box’s tribute to that forward thinking bartender. The specs: 20% of this blend utilizes Lowland grain and the remaining 80% is Highland, Speyside and Islay single malts. About a quarter of the entire blend is made up of heavily peated, Islay malt. Most of the malts used are from first fill American oak, with some refill bourbon and sherry casks thrown in to add some complexity. This bottle was released in the summer of 2012, with a paltry 1,840 bottles available for sale. Rare alert! It’s bottled at 46% and like all CBW whiskies it is natural color and non-chill filtered. The nose is nicely perfumed and sweet. There’s dried orchard fruits in abundance here. The Islay smoke mingles softly and doesn’t overpower anything. The seemingly ever present waxiness from most Compass Box releases is faintly in the background, as well. Very nice on the nose. The palate is velvety smooth. There’s a nice complexity between sweet apples, pears and other hanging fruit. The smoke adds a subtle depth to this that really lifts this bottle closer to some of the more expensive bottle releases that CBW has done recently. There’s an excellent, oily mouth coat that keeps all the flavors hanging around well into the finish. Speaking of finish, it’s not overly long. The heavier than usual mouthfeel keeps the sweetness in place while the smoke rises as you exhale. It’s fantastic. Overall, my initial thought is that this is what CBW’s Lost Blend or This Is Not A Luxury Whisky would be like with a little bit of Peat Monster blended in. I want to give this 4.5 stars. I’m not sure if the $70 I paid for this bottle is simply because retailers have realized this one has disappeared from shelves, and it’s time to capitalize on that, or if this one has been that price all along. If this one was on par with Artist’s and Glasgow blends and offered at $40 initially, then its truly a masterpiece deserving of 5 stars because of price for value. Either way, this is a wonderful blended whisky that proves John Glaser and his team’s brilliance when it comes to blending. If you can find a bottle or a pour at a bar I highly recommend taking the plunge. It’s truly a remarkable dram. Cheers, folks.

This was probably one of the better Tomatin bottles I’ve had at this point- and I’ve had quite a few. This is a NAS whisky, but not in the same terms as what we’ve grown to expect from a non-age statement: young whisky. This bottling takes Tomatin stock from 5 successive decades to make a truly memorable dram in honor of Tomatin’s master distiller/blender. There’s bits of whisky from the rebellious 60’s, disco 70’s, new wave 80’s, angst-ridden 90’s and the crapfest of music that was the 00’s in this bottle. And they collaborate to make beautiful music together. It was bottled at the 46% sweet spot, is NCF’d and has no added color. I believe my buddy Jason paid around $110 for this bottle. What a steal! The nose starts out with traditional sherry cask sweetness, but then a heavy dose of orchard and tropical fruits waft in along with a slight hint of peat and smoke. There’s that crazy bit of candle wax if you let it sit too long, but it doesn’t ruin anything. The palate reminds me of a sugary, chocolate breakfast cereal with a warm toffee and alcohol backbone. It’s that slight hit from the younger stock and ABV that keep this from being a 5-star dram, but damn it’s still close. This is still dessert in a glass. The finish is medium length, unfortunately, and that’s disappointing simply from the standpoint that I wanted this to keep going. It’s tropical and sweet, oily at first before turning a tad dry. It just needed to be longer. Either that, or I needed another dram to relive it all. Send more, @telex! Overall, I think I need to search this one out just to have a bottle on hand. This stuff is fantastic and I could finish off a hearty meal with a dram or two every day and be thoroughly satisfied. 4.75 stars, all day long. Great stuff. Cheers.