Whisky TAG – a blog all about whisky

I’m a big fan of whisky for special occasions. Both as presents to celebrate them (e.g. my 21 year old Springbank that was a present from my Mum when I graduated, aged 21, with a 2:1!) and to drink on the occasion (e.g. the SMWS 37 year old Glenfarclas I celebrated my engagement with).

The Glenfarclas was a present from my colleagues when I left my last job (before starting my own company, distilled). They had really paid attention when I talked about whisky!

Duncan has a spectacular 25 year old Bowmore that was a present from his family when he graduated, and one of my most special whiskies is the Port Ellen I got from my girlfriend for Christmas (one of the last bottles the distillery made before closing in the early 1980s).

I think whisky is great for special occasions both as a present and a celebration in itself. I’m already thinking about what whisky I’m going to have at my wedding even though it’s more than 18 months away. Suggestions (especially with the opportunity to sample them) gratefully received!

Whisky for your day-to-day occasions!

Having said all that, I realised today that I don’t currently really have any bog-standard whiskies for your average evening in… I’ve just finished eating a fantastic dinner of roast lamb (one of my all-time favourites) and now it’s time to settle down in front of a DVD with a wee dram. This evening I think I’m going to chill out with a 10 year old Springbank. I haven’t tried it yet (it was a birthday present) but I love the 21 year old – let’s hope the 10 year old doesn’t disappoint.

Oh – I nearly forgot, here’s my Technorati Profile.

So the BBC website reports that the world’s oldest surviving bottle of whisky is for sale.

Any whisky lover is going to be at least a little curious reading a headline like that; will it be drinkable? Will it be nice? Will the person who ends up buying it drink it? It’s a 150 years old. Whisky is supposed to improve with age (not universally true by any means, but an element of age does tend to help most whiskies, and so we want to know about this.

After clicking through to read the story with relish, it turns out that it is an old bottle of whisky rather than a bottle of old whisky. It was distilled by a company that closed its operations 150 years ago. The bottle is approximately that old. Whisky doesn’t improve in the bottle. Best case, it is in the same condition it was when it was bottled. I didn’t see any mention of how old the whisky was when it was bottled – how long it had matured since distillation.

With an expected selling price of around £10,000 (by no means the most expensive whisky ever), I imagine that what they aren’t telling us is that this would have been a pretty ordinary whisky in its day (and hence not likely to be special now!!). Its value comes from it being an antique and (as far as we know) unique, rather than from the quality of the whisky. Expensive whiskies often have their prices inflated through the ‘antique’ effect, but I imagine that whoever ends up buying this bottle isn’t really expecting to drink it – at least not expecting to enjoy drinking it!

Our final stop of the night at Whisky Live was at the Bowmore stand. As with Laphroaig and Caol Ila, we really couldn’t leave an event like this without seeing what Bowmore had to offer.

The Bowmore was lovely but not particularly memorable: the basic expressions, with all their soft smoothness, but whatever else we would have had to say about them was eclipsed by the staggering whisky we got our hands on when we tried the Ardbeg Very Young trick and got into conversation with the guys running the stall and asked them what they had under the counter.

The answer was a truly amazing bottle of whisky. Hand drawn from the cask that morning by the chief taster at Glen Garioch (who was there doling it out) they had a single small bottle from a single cask of 1971 Glen Garioch. His verdict was ‘this one’s ready’. Ours was ‘blimey!’. This was the single smoothest whisky I have ever tasted. It slipped down so easily that it practically only consisted of the nose and the finish. These were beautiful. If this ever hits the open market, I expect it will cost a lot of money, but if you ever get the chance to get your hands on a dram, take it, sit back and savour.

Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Just towards the end of the evening at Whisky Live, we were wondering how many more whiskies we wanted to sample (we didn’t want a repeat of the SMWS hangover as we both had sports games the next day). We realised at this point that we really couldn’t finish an event like this without having a Laphroaig and a Caol Ila – two Islay beauties that had to be a part of this evening.

Duncan had an 18 year old Caol Ila and I had a single cask Laphroaig of the same age. The Caol Ila was wonderful – less peaty than the standard expressions but a lot smoother. A real fireside whisky.

My Laphroaig, on the other hand, was a little disappointing. Whether it was something about that specific cask or a symptom of our tiring palates, we found it had a similar dodgy smell to the Black Bottle (a smell we haven’t managed to identify) and it really was something I would rate as ‘take it or leave it’. A shame, given that every other Laphroaig expression I have ever tasted has been right up there with my favourites.

As well as all the incredible old / rare whiskies we got our hands on at Whisky Live, we also took the opportunity to try out some of the whiskies that have had the most spent on their promotion recently. Monkey Shoulder is the new vatted malt from Glenfiddich (designed to be mixed, apparently) and Black Bottle is the blended whisky that has been getting all kinds of rave reviews (not least a great review from the whisky bible).

Our experience of these two highly-marketed whiskies was not spectacular. The Monkey Shoulder is designed to be a mixer, and as such we can’t fairly review it straight up. I think it’ll make a perfectly good mixer and a handy thing to have in the cupboard for this purpose (the same reason I currently have a bottle of standard Jack Daniels).

The Black Bottle on the other hand is marketed as being a great whisky in its own right. I didn’t actually like it that much (it is possible our palates were becoming a little fatigued by this point in the evening, though there is at least one counter-example to that coming up in the shape of the last whisky of the night). There was a smell that we haven’t yet been able to identify (drop us a line if you have any guesses) that spoilt this whisky for me. It was somewhat medicinal (though as Laphroaig consistently comes among my favourite whiskies, I don’t have a problem with medicinal whiskies) and just put a bit of a downer on the experience.

I haven’t tried many Japanese whiskies. Up to this point, the sole contender was the whisky lovingly known to Duncan as ‘the Japanese one’ that has been in his collection for a year or so – since an SMWS tasting (that’s a story for another day). ‘The Japanese one’ is a nice whisky with a lot of Speyside about it. To be perfectly honest, it’s not one of my favourites, but it’s perfectly drinkable and Duncan likes it a lot. There is something about it that we haven’t identified yet – an unidentified element of the finish. Hmmm.

Anyway, at Whisky Live, we tried an 18 y.o. Suntory. Suntory is pretty much the definitive Japanese whisky and it was certainly distinctive. Incredibly sherried, it was a bit too sweet for my taste, but interestingly, it had something of ‘the Japanese one’ about it – we should really try to tie down this mysterious element to the finish of these Japanese whiskies. A challenge for another day.

Ardbeg Very Young was a shock the first time we tried it. I picked up a bottle for Duncan following the advice of Loch Fyne Whiskies (I asked for something different and special to knock the socks of an established whisky enthusiast. Boy did they deliver…). Very Young is 6 year old Ardbeg. It’s probably the smokiest thing you have ever tasted. If you see a bottle, grab it – there aren’t many left now as it was a limited run bottling and Ardbeg have moved onto a new range which is the real point of this story.

The same stock that created Very Young is now being bottled as a 7 or 8 year old under the moniker ‘Still Young’. I hadn’t heard about this before we got chatting to the Ardbeg people at Whisky Live and still haven’t had a taste yet, but based on the experience of Very Young and the general skills of those islanders, I’m salivating already.

At the same event where we heard about the Still Young, we got a taste of Lord of the Isles – a 25 year old Ardbeg described to us as the flagship by the Ardbeg experts on the stall. Crikey. It’s got peat (as you’d expect), it’s got smoke (again), it’s bleedin’ smooth. I think this has jumped straight into my top 5 all time whiskies (which include a 21 y.o. Springbank, 25 y.o. Bowmore, practically any Laphroaig and a gorgeous Glenlivet, since you asked – this may have changed next time I list them – I’m not terribly consistent).

There was something that wasn’t there on the nose but appeared in the taste and finish that we couldn’t quite identify at the time. When we got home from the event, I emailed them and got their tasting notes. Unfortunately I didn’t have another dram to hand when reading the notes, but they list marzipan and I think this could well be it. Certainly a good candidate – I like marzipan and I certainly liked Lord of the Isles.

Duncan and I went to London Whisky Live this year (it was his birthday present – way to get a present we both benefit from!). We played golf really badly at the Glenlivet stand but ‘won’ miniature bottles of that great Speyside nonetheless (I don’t think the standard required to win was particularly taxing…).

We had some fantastic whiskies that are going to be the subject of following posts, but before we get onto that, I wanted to share the secret we found out about halfway through the evening. We got into conversation with Emelie at the Ardbeg stand and mentioned our love of Ardbeg Very Young. Now the Very Young wasn’t out on display, so we marked ourselves out as at least a bit knowledgeable. Having got this far, we then played the masterstroke – ‘do you have any special whiskies here that you don’t have out on display?’.

Turns out the answer was ‘yes’ and we got some Lord of the Isles – a superb whisky.

We also picked up some news that we hadn’t heard yet about the next installment of Very Young…

This is brilliant: Bruichladdich are going to make a whisky with 92% alcohol content.

For fun! (apparently the MD, Mark Reynier said they are ‘doing it as a bit of fun’).

The world needs more of this kind of fun. It’s the same adventurous spirit (no pun intended) that brought us Ardbeg Very Young. This is a cracking whisky that we were introduced to by Loch Fyne Whiskies on a trip up north. Apparently released after the Ardbeg committee realised that they had something special on their hands when tasting an early sample, it’s the peatiest thing I’ve ever tasted and is absolutely guaranteed to knock your socks off.

There’s a lot of this spirit of fun here at whiskyTAG and we’re looking forward to the ride. Remember to email us if you want to be involved in early testing.