Tastes

No 2. Dram in the Old and Rare tasting. My birth year whiskey..nice! I'll do a lazy bit of plagiarism to introduce this one. The distillery itself despite being established on the crest of a whisky boom in 1898, was open for only a fraction of its existence. The Pattison Crisis and its seismic effects on the industry forced Caperdonich to close its doors in 1902. The distillery stood silent for a remarkably long period, until 1965 in reality when a surge in demand brought to life this silent distillery previously known as Glen Grant Number 2. Refurbished internally, the distillery was revived by Glenlivet Distillers and such an event heralded a new name thanks to its water source. At last Caperdonich was a working distillery and remained in production until the turn of the millennium, when a change in ownership prompted a culling of distilleries within the Pernod Ricard ranks. This ageing distillery with no real single malt presence or history, was an easy candidate for closure and sadly Caperdonich is no more. Xmas pudding, raisins, slightly astringent but water helps. 4.25 to 4.5 for this one.

Very nice dram. Top GD in the separate GD Dramfest tasting session. Preferred to the 24 year Grandeur.

Separate / Extra Dramfest Glendronach session Dram no. 1 Lovely dram but not as good as the 25.

Last dram of the night post dramfest.. all I remember is I drank it and it was nice..was to busy having a random conversation with a random dairy farmer...ah alcohol the social lubricant!

Dramfest Rare / Old tasting session. It was up against tough competition, '77 Benromach, '78 Caperdonich, and a 1980s 15 year Glenfarclas. This was the 2008 Edition i tried vs the 2015 last time. Light, sweet, maritime salty lemon. Nice dram but didn't hold a candle to the other drams.

Dramfest 2020 and dram number 3. This was part of a special rare / old tasting flight prior to the main event. Deep, rich calvados honey. Very well done.

I saw this on MoM and thought hmm. I haven't tried this distillery, or in fact any spirit from South Africa from memory even though I've spent a bit of time there, so I grabbed a sample. Now the distillery releases were average but if anyone can rescue a spirit, show it some love and help it reach its potential it's Boutique Whiskey. And they have very nicely, the first dram tonight I won't be tipping down the sink. Now they can't work miracles and they haven't, the scores given already seem slightly left eyebrow raising but definitely an improvement on what proceeded this tonight for me. My wife is South African and we are heading back there mid year (hopefully given the coronavirus). Although i'm not huge into wine these days I LOVE visiting wineries. I got married in a vineyard region and I love traveling the world and popping into various regions. We will be in stellenbosch for a bit and I see that this distillery isn't too far away. I'm in two minds whether to visit (i have a habit of visiting waaay to many vineyards and burning through all my brownie points so not sure I'll have any to extend to this but looks a pretty distillery). Anyhow it has the nose of a cherry bourbon but the palate has a fair bit more going on. Not to bad a balance on the alcohol versus flavor, not quite my style given the cherry flavors (must have spent a fair while in bourbon barrels) and slightly thin and you can tell the underlying spirit is a bit rough, but not to shabby at all. Right, off to renew my Typhoid and Hepatitis A vaccinations for the SA trip tomorrow morning so this will be the final dram for the night. Po marie!

Now I love cab sav, in fact it's my favorite grape varietal so whilst I was not expecting miracles with this one given the ratings I'd seen and the price range I was very curious to see if what would be an average making effort could be pulled up by it's socks somewhat. Now the casking can't work miracles given the lack of effort which seemingly went into this one but I really do like the flavor profile albeit this does have a detracting sour note on the finish. It gave me a glimpse of what cab sav could do to a great whiskey.. which this isn't. Underlying spirit is rough, casks to worn or been in to short a period but my thoughts were man I'd LOVE to try an appropriately aged Springbank with Cab sav aging. I've had one beautiful and one average Cab Franc from Longrow..anyone tried any good Cab Sav aging?

I'm with romiastar on this one. WTF is the sherry? Sweet, lovely and inoffensive. Middle of the road slightly above average. I knew it was going to be as it's bourbon brother (which to be honest the sherry casks this has been in have been used so many times I'm not sure in good conscience you could attach sherry to the name) wasn't anything special. Neither is this..if you want Taiwanese go Kavalan (top end as bottom is average). Pass on this distillery unless you are into mediocrity.

Ok i'm in the "right let's flush out the crap in my sample collection" mood tonight. Old Glenallachie..gives me more respect for what Billy Walker has done with his latest releases which I thought were either on just above average. This is below average so good to see he's making an improvement although he's still got a long road ahead and begs the question what did he see in this distillery? Plain sweet and inoffensive..no other taste descriptors.