Tag Archives: Soapy

Arran, Let's celebrate!

Arran 15yr – Distillery Only, Open Day Dram

Islands region – 700ml bottle – £95.00 – Sold through the Arran website or at the Distillery only, 600 bottles in all!

Man-o-Maneschewitz, did I have a lot of fun opening this bottle or what!?  I did mentioned it in my post about WhiskyFest NYC — I was not planning on opening this bottle for a while but an opportunity presented itself and whisky is meant for enjoying and sharing in the right company.

Well, the opportunity was there – I had a bottle.  The company was there too – Andy Hogan of Arran, John Hansell of The Malt Advocate magazine and the What Does John Know? blog as well as Lew Bryson (managing editor of Malt Advocate).

The time was right — it was the night just before WhiskyFest; a very festive time… what better reason to open the bottle!?

What’s more is, I got to share this again later that night at Ward III with Michael Neff (one of the owners of the Ward III), a new friend Keith and the infamous World Traveler, Prankster & Ladies’ Man, Greenie D. McGee!

So, what is the Arran Open Day Whisky?  Not to be confused with the Arran 15yr Anniversary dram which is actually an 11yr old whisky finished in Amontillado Sherry casks — It’s a bottling of whisky (600 bottles in all) made of the first spirit fun from their stills back in 1995.  They vatted three casks from this run (all first-fill bourbon) to create this very limited bottling.

Here are my thoughts on the whisky (preview: great stuff!) —

On the nose — Big yummy bourbon nose!!

Hazelnuts – freshly cracked.

Coconut – freshly shredded and toasted.

Creamy and thick quality with over-ripened bananas.

Abundant vanilla and caramel.  Just a joy to nose.

Lychee nuts in syrup.

Some ocean breeze.

With a touch of water a really pleasant soapy quality is revealed.

Surgical soap and fruity taffy.

On the mouth — Apples, dowsed in caramel and nut laden.

Banana returns with a toasty feel to it.

Perfectly fresh mouth feel.

A touch of water brings out some pears.

But really, the water accentuates the apples and brings out a spiciness, also, the brine/salt that I got on the nose is now more pronounced.

Finish — A toasty & spicy finish, decent length.

Actually quite long with those lychee nuts just lingering about.

In sum — The balance is fantastic.  A wonderfully mature whisky but with enough spice to give you a “what for”.  A celebratory dram and one to enjoy on special occasions and with friends.  As you can see, I’ve done just that!

A World of Discovery, Autumn, Bowmore, Double Barrel, Highland Park, Need To Bundle Up

Double Barrel vatting of Highland Park & Bowmore

A vatting of Highland Park & Bowmore – 46% ABV – $60 | £34 |€39

Forging forward with reviews of  blended/vatted whiskies.  Today I present a Double Barrel expression by Douglas Laing.  A combination of Highland Park & Bowmore.

Douglas Laing is one of the more prominent independent bottlers who brings us the Old Malt Cask, Premium Barrel & Provenance bottlings.  They also are the masterminds behind Big Peat and, now, these Double Barrel expressions.

Similar to the Eades Double Malt expressions I recently reviewed, the Double Barrel whiskies are vattings (or blends) of two different single malts.  The difference being that these are not further matured in wine casks (like the Eades double malts are).  As far as I can tell, both the Highland Park & Bowmore are ex-bourbon casks with no extra finishing (very light in color!).

On the nose – A tricky nose here.  Bowmore whiskies are known for their soapy noses and I’ve found a few un-sherried Highland Parks to have the same quality.

So, at first sniff, it’s tough to tell which malt is stronger, or, which is which.

Let’s focus on the scents, shall we?

Garlic cloves and lemon zest.

Peachy, fruity handsoap.

Crispy tempura batter.

White pepper and turmeric.

On the mouth – Fresh lake water.

Orange zinger tea bags.

Exceedingly citrusy – vanilla notes are there but the citrus cuts right through.

Astro pop brand lollipops.

Very malty with traces of pears and honey.

Decent mouth feel, not thin, not oily.

Lingering smoke weaved throughout.

Finish – A lasting numbness on the back of the tongue.  Peppery finish.

In sum – A very enjoyable nose here.  Lots for the foodies out there.  While I enjoyed the flavor it seemed a bit off balance and the play by play between the vanilla notes and the citrus notes was uneven.  Overall, I did enjoy this expression and am curious to see what else the good folks at Douglas Laing will come up with next.   Perhaps it’s the mood I’m in now but, I’ like to sip on this again soon (in other words, this is a nice Autumnal whisky)

Special thanks goes out to Aron of the SMWSA for the sample!

A World of Discovery, Bowmore, Caol Ila, Eades, Takin' It Easy

Eades Double Malt – Islay

An Islay vatting of Coal Il & Bowmore – 46%ABV – 750ml – $70

A while back, during my last trip to Chicago, I was in Binny’s checking out their selection and these Eades bottles caught my attention.  Eades Double Malt.  What is a Double Malt?

We know what Single Malt means, right?  Malt whisky from a single distillery.  So, what’s double malt?  It’s the combination/marriage of two single malts by Jim McEwan of Bruichladdich for The Virginia Distilling Company.  For the Islay Double Malt he took an 18yr Caol Ila and a 10yr Bowmore, matured them further in a Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes & Grenache cask (respectively).  He then took 30% of that Caol Ila and 70% of the Bowmore, mixed them up, bottled them up and bam! – we have the Eades Double Malt – Islay.

Sounds interesting right? Right.

Before I go much further, I need to thank Pat J for the samples of this and the soon to be posted Speyside and Highland Double Malts.

Let’s see if this stuff is worth it’s weight in whisky:

On the nose — Big, thick nose filled with burning twigs and smoldering Birkenstocks (cork, rubber, leather – slightly charred).

Push this aside and now I’m confronted with royal jelly.

That classic Bowmore soapiness rears it’s head (you know, anytime I hear the term “rears it’s head” I get the impression of… well, think about it for a second… got it?  Good).

Tannins are there.

Indian summer – humid, damp… fresh rain on asphalt.

Cranberries.  What a nose!

On the mouth — Sweet smoke and a super succulent mouth feel.

Very smooth and silky.

The smoke now moves to the background as fall like flavors come to the fore.

Think of cloves and nutmeg.

Some nuttiness and apricots in there (the Sauternes influence for sure).

Drying leaves and honeyed herbal teas.

That fresh rain note is in the flavor as well.

Delicious!

Finish — Toasted apple peels.  Honey, subtle smoke.

In sum — Oooof!  What an interesting combination of aromas and flavors!  There is a lot happening here!  Insanely drinkable as an easy-goer but you can deconstruct the heck out of this too (if you want).  One to enjoy with friends.  Start it off as a conversation piece.  I guarantee you’ll be coming back to it no matter where the conversation goes.  For the academia folks out there – this is a back to school dram.

All You Need Is Love, Arran, Autumn, Cold Winter, Master of Malt, Need To Bundle Up, Springtime

Master of Malt – Drinks by the Drams plus one review – The Master of Malt 12yr Arran Single Cask

Master of Malt

In case you are not familiar, Master of Malt is a spirits shop based in East Sussex, UK.  “MoM” (as may people lovingly refer to them as) specializes in the sales of malt whisky (be it Scotch, Irish, American, Japanese, Swedish, Australian and Kiwi, Welsh, Indian or Canadian) – they do it all.  They’re also getting into other fine spirits such as Rums, Gin, Vodka, etc…

These men and women are true Masters!

Something new for Master of Malt, and the wide world of whisky sales in general, is their innovation of selling 3cl sized samples of many of their whiskies!  They now offer, not just for the distillery owned bottles, but samples of their exclusive bottlings as well.  Very smart on their part if’n you ask me.  The program is called “Drinks by the Dram” and they have many whisky expression available for you to try (for a small fee) before you buy the full bottle.  Click here to check out their offering.

I got my hands on some of their samples (mainly of their exclusive expressions) and… do these samples look cool or what?  Even my wife thought they were “cute”.

Being that I have about 10 or 12 of these samples sitting at home, I thought that I should start opening, tasting and reviewing these cuties.  So I will get them into my regular rotation and see if I can review a new Master of Malt expression every Tuesday (for the next 10-12 weeks).

Just a note here: when I refer to the “Master of Malt expressions”, I want you to know that these are not simply whisky blends that they concoct.  No, these (or, at least many of them) are single cask, cask strength whiskies.  So when they come out with a new bottle, chances are there’s 200-400 bottles per chosen cask, and once those bottles are gone, you’ll never see them again.  These MoM bottlings are truly unique.

Here is a review of their 26yr Bowmore I did a short while back – amazing stuff!

With regards to the samples in question, and in the “spirit” of full disclosure, I will tell you that these 3cl sweeties were gifted to me by Master of Malt for analytical and reviewing purposes.  My guess is that most of these whiskies are going to be quite nice but, if I find one I don’t care for, I will say so (heck, just look at the first Bruichladdich review I did).  These are unbiased and independent reviews.

Master of Malt Arran 12yr

Without further ado, I now begin my weekly review of the Master of Malt exclusive bottlings (or the samples thereof):

Islands region – Master of Malt Exclusive Single Cask Arran 12yr – 54.7%ABV –  700ml bottle – £45 (as stated above, you can also get a 3cl sample of this one)

On the nose — Big nose, soapy (not like Bowmore but soapy still, castile?), apples, sandalwood and ocean breeze, tamarind juice and a touch of smoke (my imagination?)


On the mouth — Big chewy caramels!  A touch of chocolate (milk), orange, fantastic.

Can’t get past the caramels; I don’t want to actually (this reminds me as to why I seek out the caramel squares in a box of chocolates).

Finish — Decent length, the milky caramel goodness remains, you’d never know this is a cask strength Arran, warming but not burning in any way.

In sum –– The palate and finish are delectably delicious, the balance is slightly off (from the nose to the palate/finish) but the palate and finish by themselves make up for it in ways you would not believe!

This would be a nice springtime whisky but could also warm you up in the Autumn and winter seasons.

All You Need Is Love, Autumn, Blind Tastings, Bowmore, Springtime, Summertime, Takin' It Easy

La-la-la, The Magical Mystery Tour!

Did you know that all of us Jews know one another?  Oh sure, it’s mostly true!  And if we don’t know them, we came pick them out of a crowd – I call it “Jewdar”.  “Jewdar” is a radar for Jews just as Gaydar is a radar for Gay folk.

Ok, I’m really just kidding.  It is true, however, that Gal Granov from Whisky Israel and I do know each other.  He and I are good whisky buddies (even though we’re thousands of miles away from one another).  Gal and I started doing some whisk(e)y sample trading and on our last trade we thought it’d be a good idea if we each sent over a “Mystery Dram”.

A dram that A) didn’t cost a whole lot of money and B) is something that neither of us have had before.  The idea is to try and figure out, at the very least, who distilled the mystery dram in question.  No hints, no nothing.  We had to uncover the mystery using only two tools – our nose and tongue.

As you can see below, we tried to make this as mysterious as possible (you’ll note that the Glencairn shown below has a Glenmorangie logo on it.  This is not giving away and hints.  It’s not a Glenmo.  I just love Glenmorangie whiskies so much, I had to have my very own Glenmorangie Glencairn glass.  Seriously.):

So again, no hints, no nothing.  Let’s see how I did:

On the nose — A very floral nose, house-planty if you will… Soapy scents and some orange, perhaps a little strawberry too.  There’s a nice little peat backbone here but it’s not overwhelming by any means…  Some curried tomatoes (man… now I want some Indian food!).

Well, I already have an inkling as to what it is but I may want a to chose a Life Line before I blurt out my answer, I better taste it…

On the mouth — The peat is much larger here and it’s a bit dirty.  The mouth feel is quite nice.  Oily, just as I like it.  Sweet.  Simple syrup, salty, green tea… I’m not sure of the ABV but, the attack is not huge here so I’m guessing 43%.

Finish — Sort of a short and thin finish with some orange soapiness coming back.

In sum — Well, my guess on this (which is mostly based on the nose with some of the palate elements to help me fill in the some of the clues) is that this is a Bowmore.  It’s not the 12.  This I know.  But it’s got to be a Bowmore.

I liked it but didn’t love it.  This, to me, is the type of whisky that I’d keep on my shelf (and yes, I’d like to have a bottle of this on my shelf – at all times really) for those moments when you just didn’t know what to pour.  “It’s just a Thursday night so, I’m not going to pour my Glenmorangie Quarter Century” or, “It’s way too hot out, there’s no way I’m breaking out my Lagavulin 16yr DE”, etc…  This is that whisky that can always fill the void.  You don’t need to decide to grab it.  You just grab, open, pour, sniff, sip, swallow, repeat.

I did contact Gal to see if I was right about it being a Bowmore.  Lo and behold, I was right (Woo Hoo!!).  So, which one is it?

The Bowmore Legend.

You should check and see how Gal fared with the mystery dram I sent him – here’s the link.