Tag: 10-14yo
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Ghost safari #1

I have been trying a lot of newbie distilleries recently (Newbies Pt I, II, III) with the aim of getting through all of them eventually — a task that will take years for the simple fact that new distilleries still keep popping up like malty mushrooms in the ground! Of the 28 distilleries founded in…
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Son of a bad bottom

“Isn’t particularly of any interest… let’s move on.” So said Ralfy recently of Macduff in his overview of Scotch malt distilleries A-Z on his Patreon channel. To the contrary, in the Bad Homburg whisky festival 2023 I tried two Macduffs that were both were really interesting. One was relatively young but had a very distinguished…
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Bushy Irish diamond lady

Irish whiskey has thus far been nearly absent from this blog. Time to give a chance to the green island in the west. Irish whiskey was once the most popular spirit in the world. Then it crashed in the 20th century following domestic and world wars, trade wars with the UK, and whatnot, with only…
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Remarkable rocky hill hooch

Craigellachie — ‘rocky hill’ — distillery, is a Speyside distillery dating back to the 19th century. It’s gained a following among afficionados for it’s traditional and ‘dirty’ style. Despite being owned by drinks giant Bacardi via the Dewar’s subsidiary, the entire single malt core range is integrity bottled — 46%, non-chillfiltered, natural colour — and…
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Try before you buy

Today I will implement the ancient wisdom of trying before buying. Two bottles on the German market have caught my attention recently, and I’ve contemplated a buy but thought I could maybe wait for a sale before I took the chance. Then I found both in 5cl tasting samples, so I ordered them (along with…
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The Jingle Malts of Scotland

It’s been many weeks of hard work, and no whisky tasting. Now I finally have a day off, and what a grand tasting I shall have as a reward for my toil! A 14yo Lowland, 13yo Highland, 31yo Speyside, and 28yo Islay, all single casks with 51-54% ABV. These are the samples from undisclosed distilleries…
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Three Deanies

For no very particular reason, I’m doing a Deanston tasting with the samples I’ve got. Two were thrown in with with other stuff in online shop purchases, and the third one I actually picked up at the distillery last year. Without further ado… Deanston | 11yo (2009) | 46% | Home of Malts 🌐 Scotch…
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Springtime

Springbank call themselves “The whisky drinker’s whisky”. It is indeed a whisky that’s for very long been highly regarded among whisky enthusiasts, and certainly among many of my more whisky-seasoned friends in WOLS who in large part inducted me into the whiskyverse. Springbank is the stalwart of the Campbeltown style of single malt, and family-owned…
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Christmas calendar 2023: second half

It’s time to finish the calendar. One might say, what’s the rush, I missed the Christmas season anyways? Well, I’ve had some bad experiences of whisky samples deteriorating rapidly with time, causing cardboardy off-notes. My hypothesis is that this is mainly related to over-oxidization and that it happens faster in samples bottles in general, and…

