Category: Review
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Three Indris
India, incredible India. This melodically sung slogan for Indian tourism got etched into my brain over a decade ago. Will it be Indi, incredible Indri next? Indri is the single malt brand from Indian distiller Piccadily, seemingly named after the location of the distillery. A company long in the Indian spirits industry but a relative…
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Waiter, there’s a fly in my Balmenach!
I had never heard about Balmenach until 2021 when an independently bottled version for Royal Mile Whiskies appeared on their website. And no wonder, because this Speyside distillery has no official expression as a single malt since about twenty years, and is seen rather rarely among the indie bottlers. I bought the bottle from RMW…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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An empire lost
Imperial is like a poet whose work did not become appreciated until after their untimely death. In modern times a workhorse malt distillery for blends, it was mothballed in 1985, a difficult decade for the industry. Under new ownership it was running again between 1991-1998 but was then silenced, sold, and eventually scrapped in 2013…
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