Tag: speyside
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Ballindallochlea
Back at home after some days in Tuscany for a weeding. No whisky, but plenty of wine (from the Palagetto vineyard where the wedding was held). On the wedding night, some very boozy drinks. So tonight I’ll have the first drops of whisky in over a week. And why not get back into it with…
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Buy or pass?
Today I’ll try samples that acquired of two recently released bottles that have been on my potential-buy list. Let’s see if I’ll be convinced to pull the trigger… or put the gun away. Craigellachie • 15yo (2009) • 59.5% • Signatory Vintage Scotch Single Malt • First-fill bourbon barrel • Natural Colour & Unchillfiltered •…
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197119781984
The theme of today’s tasting is Some 2cl Samples of Old Vintage Speysiders That I Need to Drink Before They Go Bad. The first sample, a Tamdhu from Creative Whisky Company, I brought from the Limburg Whisky Festival 2025, and the other two, 1970s Cadenhead’s Benrinnes and Signatory Miltonduff, I got from Simple Sample as…
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Glorious Glen Elgin
If I was pressed to name a single distillery as my absolute favourite, it would have to be Glen Elgin. Fruitiness galore, with impeccable spirit quality. An important factor is my experience with two bottles, one from A.D Rattray and the other from Asta Morris, drawn from sister casks with the same 1995 distil date,…
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WC sniff & sip 2025 (Part 2/2)
We continue after Part 1 with the second batch of 12 secret samples. One can surely expect a special finale! Hercynian Whisky Co. | “The Alrik Limited Exclusive” | 55.1% | Official 🌐 German single malt 🪵 PX sherry quarter casks 💲 €130 (50cl) 🔗 whiskybase from a 2cl sample bottle tasted blindly 🗒️ Tasting…
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100th post / 100 proof
Historically in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, a spirit that was just at the threshold of being able to be set ablaze was defined as 100 proof, although the alcohol strength to which this threshold corresponds depends a lot on temperature. Less variable, though not precisely reproducible, is the strength of spirit that gunpowder can…
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Ghost Safari – Imperial strikes back
Today I’m back where it all started for me with the closed distilleries: Imperial. Nothing new to say, so I’ll just take chance in this intro to review my hitherto progress of the ghost safari tour. Distillery Region Closing year Safari status Caperdonich Speyside 2002 🟡 sample acquired Imperial Lowland 1998 🟢 tried & reviewed…
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Craigellachie x2, again
I became quite smitten with Craigellachie a few months back. A rather immediate consequence has been the hoarding of additional samples, of which I now have about six. Time to get to work and knock them down before they proliferate further! For a middle-of-the-week tasting, I’ll restrain myself to two non-CS samples… Craigellachie | 14yo…
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Glenwinnie
Elgin in Speyside, Scotland is home to a handful of distilleries, two of which are among my longtome favourites — Glen Elgin, and Linkwood, both owned by Diageo. The only regular official bottling is from the Flora & Fauna range (colored, chillfiltered, low ABV), but fortunately indie bottlers have me covered. Then there is Glenlossie,…
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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…
DuckDrams 