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  • Inchmurrin 1997

    Inchmurrin 1997

    Loch Lomond distillery in west Highlands, near Glasgow, is a chameleon of a distillery. It sports no less than 11 stills of four different kinds, allowing them to produce a variety of styles, from both malted barley and grain. This means they can make their own blend, in-house. The most well-known and -selling product is…

  • Jura, again

    Jura, again

    Not only have I moved past my aversion to Jura, but I’ve fallen in love with it. Or rather with the idea of what a Jura could be if properly matured and respectfully bottled, but that I have yet to fully experience. Actually, I went ahead of myself and bought a 30yo Jura when I…

  • The Beast of Dufftown

    The Beast of Dufftown

    Another “character distillery”. Mortlach, by their own marketing, is the Beast of Dufftown. I presume, because contrary to the classical easy-going Speyside style, Mortlach is famed for a substantive, meaty, pungent quality. I believe I have experienced this profile on a couple of occasions. Last was at Whisky Fringe 2022, where I tried the 25yo…

  • A comparison of Cambi

    A comparison of Cambi

    Cambus is one of those 19th century scotch distilleries with a long an history of being opened and closed, bought and sold. Then in 1993 the stills went still, forever. But the spirit lives on… and today shall be drunk! Cambus made grain whisky, what some consider the ugly stepsister of malt whisky. In the…

  • A last (?) tweak to the scoring system

    A last (?) tweak to the scoring system

    In May I wrote about my trials and tribulations with inventing a custom scoring system. In short, it’s gone from rather complicated to rather simple. Now, it’s about to get even simpler. Perhaps as simple as it will ever get. And then maybe I’ll start to make it complicated again. Until I change my mind…

  • Dr. Tobermory and Mr. Ledaig

    Dr. Tobermory and Mr. Ledaig

    Some distilleries have a dual a nature. A normal side… and a dark side, if you will. I’m talking about the unpeated versus the peated incarnation. Peat really makes for a radically different whisky, so it’s no surprise that distilleries bottle their unpeated / peated spirits under different names, so as not to create chock…

  • Tokyo whisky mission

    Tokyo whisky mission

    One of the great perks of being a research scientist is that I get to travel the world for workshops and conferences. Often these are held in attractive locations. The first workshop I attended as a PhD candidate was held at a castle owned by the Montepulciano wine consortium, in the Italian town of the…

  • Unleash the Clynelish

    Unleash the Clynelish

    Clynelish — a whisky with a cult following owing to its characterful coastal and waxy profile. But alas! Some say the wax has waned. Wax on, wax off. As intricately described in this reddit post there are a number of factors in the production process contributing to the waxiness, including long fermentation times for the…

  • Littlemill for little Emil

    Littlemill for little Emil

    This venerable distillery is one I don’t have any personal history with. I’d barely heard about it until this year. Interestingly, Littlemill has a claim on being the oldest licensed scotch whisky distillery, founded 1772 or at least 1773, but due to the uncertainty of the evidence Glenturret (1775), Bowmore (1779) and Strathisla (1786) are…

Hej, hiya, moin!

I’m Emil, a Swedish ex-resident of Scotland now living in northern Germany. This blog is my virtual memory for all things related to whisky (and other fine spirits) in my life: I write reviews, report on trips and events, contemplate the results of my own experimentations, and scribble down un-/semi-/quasi-qualified opinions and perspectives. Welcome to a taste of my whisky world!

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