Tastes

Once briefly the Ledaig flame burned bright for me but now not really a fan. Very acetone nose which translates to the palate with metallic bitter quite acidic peat. The sherry casking is like a rider thrown off their horse with their foot still stuck in the stirrip being dragged along behind as the horse goes whatever way it wants...i.e. very much not in charge. It does impart a nice xmas cake type of flavour however. I initially thought it's very much a love or hate type of style of whisky but then I find myself both not liking the concept it delivers but still drinking it...it's force of character is definitely an attraction.

I was considering drinking it out of the sample bottle as due to our kitchen and dining area being torn apart I couldn't find a glass. I went rummaging through stored stuff and found one and away I went. It was definitely worth paying respect to the dram by serving it right, tasting straight and adding water and retrying. I wouldn't say i'm a huge fan of the profile these days preferring scotch style whisky but this is a rye done well. Nice spicey earthy notes, well balanced and handles water very well in fact even with liberal watering i couldn't really tell the difference. It seems to handle a wide abv range well.

I had bought celebratory bottles of whiskey for my decade birthday anniversaries; 40th, 50th but no further as I didn't want to tempt fate. However on the 1000th taste I thought screw it why wait to open the 50th celebratory bottle, who really knows what is coming for us. After a catch up with mates for a few drinks today reminiscing about good times I came home cracked open a Loch Gorm sample (2018 compared to 2019) then thought screw it...I said I was going to open it albeit in a moment of drunkenness so I will. All of the above flitted through my mind in a nanosecond as I hesitated, before I grabbed the bottle, then pulled it down from the shelf. The box was covered in builders dust from all the wholesale renovations we have going on and I opened the lid and cracked open the bottle. I've always thought blind tasting is the great leveler and it is. Showing up overpriced spirits for what they are. Not necessarily bad but not worth the price premium over other drams. So many times I catch myself rating something that I know I don't like and thinking but it's a xyz, everyone else thinks it's great and feel the pressure to moderate my score as I think maybe it's me, what i'm feeling now, not the right setting etc etc. But then by in large I try to stay true to what I feel. In saying all that, however, sometimes it is nice knowing what you are tasting, acknowledging and accepting it for what it is, in this case an elderly dram laid down to rest in a cask before I was born. Knowing what it is helps you appreciate how it's constructed. With all that in mind I enjoyed the dram for what it represented, an old whiskey laid dormant for more years I've been on earth. Is it great? Yes it's very nice, is it worth the price? Well am I clinically judging the spirit for what it is or what it represents...a celebration before I anticipated, of a great life and pushing through a recent bad batch. I don't regret what I paid but no one is missing out on a magical experience...it's a beautifully crafted dram but the experience is by in large the celebratory experience and sentiment i've attached to it. Normally I'd give it a very decent rating but in this instance I choose not to quantify it in those terms as what it represents to me will be experienced differently by someone else. For those that get to try this or similar special dram make it part of an experience that is meaningful to them, share it widely and don't judge it on what it is by itself... Update: Ok sentiment pushed aside I will rate it. I find it hard to stop drinking this stuff. Damn nice and solid 4.5 at least.

Ok 2018 head to head with the 2019 which wins? It's perhaps not a fair contest as the 2019 bottle has been open for several months whereas the 2018 sample is only open for a hour. The 2018 had water however the 2019 didn't. The 2019 is lighter creamer dram even without water. The 2018 is a bit more rugged with more bite, not quite as well integrated with the alcohol. It does have more distinct flavours coming out than the 2019 perhaps as the latter has been opened for a long time. I like different aspects of both but I'd say the 2019 does it for me at 4.25 the 2018 at 3.75 to 4. Close but no cigar (unfortunately for me!)

Our house is literally getting torn apart top to bottom at the moment and rebuilt so cooking is a bit hard so friends kindly invited us over and offered us a feed the day after lockdown was over and we were able to socialize. He cracked this open which was part of a triple 200ml set from the NZ Whiskey Company. It's a lighterstyle refill oak and you can pick the grain influence. Nice to taste a slice of history. Will have to break open my 21 year from this distillery one day.

I was thinking 1000, what to taste? A closed distillery? An older aged statement of an open one? Something obscure? There are still a few of those tucked away but then I thought conceptually wise what really makes them special? You see those shows where top chefs are driven to experiment further, wider more wildly more creatively and then one day for whatever reason, often disillusionment or burn out or feeling like they want to get off the treadmill, they step away go back to where it all started, often literally by walking around their garden and try to remember what made it special for them in the beginning, often stripping everything back to the basics. I'm definitely not a top chef (my cooking is barely edible) and i'm not a top anything but the concept resonated with me. Where did it all begin, what were the moments at the beginning where my mind was expanded in a big way, my eyes opened. There were a few but whisky wise 6ish so years ago when i started my journey it would have been one of the Glendronach's, my memory is a bit crap so whilst positive it was one of the earliest was it the first...not sure but it was an eye opener even after a year open. Glendronach 15 the Original...man that was a special dram..and selling for around $60USD at the time..... those were the days.. Now I ran a tasting which included this a Glendronach 12 year Sauternes and a Glendronach 14 year Virgin Oak...yeah a long time ago it was. It blew a few people's minds who like me were also getting into whisky. One of them ran out and bought ever single last bottle of the 15 year he could find (literally)..which at the time was a single retailer in our city Wellington. After that it was gone....I searched later...none left in the whole country (there is one now selling for $350USD!)...Now several weeks ago after extensive horse trading I managed to get one of those bottles from him (he got an 18 yr plus loads of other goodies). The top was rusted (no idea where he was storing it) but it was mine...along with the one last bottle of the 14 year virgin oak I saved. Now in addition I got hold of the new Glendronach 15 Revival Version 2. So you see where this is going.. yes ladies and gentlemen..a head to head old verses new...at the danger of degrading my old memories is it still awesome? Is the new version a pale imitation or a faithful recreation? Now it dawned on me that there may not be any scenario which results in a happy ending out of this experience. Either the new isn't as good as the old or it is but then I get burnt at the stake as a heretic as people swear it isn't or it is initially but with time open the old bottle gets better and the new fades away. Or even the old isn't as good as I remember so I've tarnished my memories. Or maybe I let bias creep in and I get someone else to pour them and I taste blind. Arggghhhh the overcomplication of it all... I then thought back to the concept...keeping stuff simple..taste both, enjoy one or the other or both (or not as the case maybe) and make a call based on what I know about what I have at the moment I tasted it. And so I did....now as you may have spotted there was no rating. I couldn't give the ending away now could I :-). I gave both time and then took a sniff. Straight away you could tell the difference..pure caramelized toffee deep rich on the old whiskey; you could deeply inhale and drown your nasal cavities in its depth. The newer edition you could tell had the red berried fruitier px influence. You could tell it's relevative youth but still lovely. I generally am an Oloroso man through and through so I did have prejudices going into this but I liked both on the nose but the old variant definitely captured my heart. My memory is often faulty but the thing I remembered about the old held true..that smell..it took me back years. On the palate the nose translated similarly..younger spicier and more ethanol fwd with water. The old... man that rich caramelized toffee. Slightly shorter finish then I remember but the bottle had been open all of a hour so I know what is coming over the months and years I savor this.. usually I give bottles away this I will hold onto..eeking out a dram here and there every so often over time. I knew I shouldn't spoil the moment and compare but I busted out a sample of the old 18 as well. As great as ever but oddly despite also being pure oloroso a lot spicier than the old 15 yr. So what do I prefer. Sadly the old 15 year is just an amazing dram better even than the old stock 18. The new 15 whilst showing it's youth is also a great dram I'd be saying 4.25 to 4.5 easily and makes me question the old 18...the old 15 however ah man why oh dear god why did I not stock up. I'd like to thank everyone i've interacted with on my journey on this site. The notes I've enjoyed reading, the comments and banter I've had and despite the tens of thousands of kilometers distance between some of us the 'aromatherapy samples' we have managed to sneak past customs :-). mo bhuíochas is doimhne

You can generally tell whether a limited run whiskey is a great dram at the right price point..if its sold out. 2 years later this still hasn't. At $130 there are probably a couple of hundred drams (literally) I'd buy over this. Similar to the Juveniles release I'm picking a price drop. CB has been just too detached from reality over the last couple of years in their special releases. No doubt COIVD-19 may put paid to that. Sometimes when they do something special it really is hard to put a price on greatness and it's hard to argue if it's overpriced or not. There is no hesitation with this one..it is. Peat monster is 40% of the price and not to far off this one (albeit a different dram). I heard this was a pale imitation of the original and that seems correct. Simple Caol Ila style dram, higher abv and lighter style wrapped in expensive clothing and priced accordingly. Move on folks nothing to recommend purchasing hear unless you see it 50% off. Even then just go for the real deal Caol Ila 18

The most interesting thing about this whisky is the official review. Thijs Klaverstijn is a master at dissecting and describing whisky. Their description word for word sums up my experience and end result. Hard pass. But I will google more on Thijs a man to know more about I think...

Ah man such high hopes for Billy Walker's new endeavors. I've been (with 1 exception) disappointed so far and it's not just been me. We did a blind Glendronch 7 dram tasting and the mystery dram was one of his offerings the 12 year...it came last even after a shockingly bad Glendronach 26 year (which they again served up to me at another tasting but that's another story about the decline of that distillery...). Anyhow maybe he can turn things around as the youngest of his offerings the Cask Strength 10 ys Batch #3 was a great dram, better than Adelph's efforts with this distillery. It's a bit like a star football coach who moves to another team and stuff never fires but you see glimpses of the future...usually you never get to realize the vision as they are out on their ear within a few years. Billy owns the place so he has longer to prove himself and cleanse the crap of the past. Anyhow that's a long winded way of saying don't waste your money with this one. Tired casking, averagely construsted and zero soul, character or identity. I'm not even going to describe it as not worth the effort.