Tag Archives: Spicy

Bowmore, Refreshed, Summertime

Islay distilleries explained thru Rock and Roll comparisons – Part 4 – Bowmore & my review of Dawn, their older Portwood bottling

 

Islay distilleries and their whiskies explained through Rock and Roll – Part IV (of VIII)

I started this series just four weeks ago and am just so pleased as to how well it’s being received.  Thank you all SO MUCH for tuning in (and commenting) to this series!

So, let’s tally up what’s happened so far.  Part one: Bruichladdich as The Sex Pistols, Part two: Ardbeg as Slayer, Part three: Caol Ila as The 80’s. (They get their very own decade!)

Today in part IV we will have a chance to discover Bowmore’s older “Dawn” bottling.

Whisky aficionado and co-author of the 6th edition of Michael Jackson’s Malt Whisky Companion, Bill Meyers, introduced me to this whisky not too long ago.  Thanks again, Bill!  It was one that wowed me at the time.  I liked it enough to seek out a bottle and below are my tasting notes.

My previous posts in this series started off with the whisky review first then the Rock band comparison just after.  I’ll run the entire series this way.  So’s you know…

Bowmore “Dawn” Portwood – 51.5% ABV – $|£ – ??

On the nose — Immediate blast of smoke upfront.  However, as quickly as it hits you, it’s overtaken…

While the smoke remains, it waits patiently in the background as red gem candies and grape soda take center stage.

Coming back — there’s an underlying dankness, or earthy quality, quite like a mix between potting soil and fresh lavender.  The lavender is actually massive here.

This whisky has a lovely sweet and floral nose that’s balanced quite well with the smoke and earthy tones.

On the mouth — Remember that grape soda I mentioned?  It’s here, it’s queer, get used to it!  Queer as in its flavor not being one you’d normally associate with a whisky; especially an Islay whisky.

That lavender is back as well.

The port casks make themselves known with touches of spice on the back of the tongue (plus more of that fresh potting soil – the taste of the smell of, that is).

Spider mums and other flower-like scents.  This is quite the feminine whisky.  Me likey.

Finish — Spicy (lightly so) and with red fruits and just a touch of smoke.

In sum —  Coming back to the nose after every sip and that (sweet) smoke returns in a very nice way.  This is a solid, solid whisky.  If you’ve stayed away from port casked whiskies in the past, this may be one to change your mind and one to search out (just save me a bottle or two…).  I think I’ve discovered why it’s called dawn — this would make a solid breakfast whisky!  Wake, pour, sip and invigorate.

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Bowmore – The Band!

I’ll get this one out in the open — I LOVE 70’s and 80’s Bowmore.  90’s Bowmore makes me happy too.  The variations of Bowmore released in the 2000’s+ seem to be a bit all over the place for me – a bit of a moving target.

However there have been some *solid* winners in my eyes.  The Bowmore Tempest releases come directly to mind.  As do Bowmore Dawn (reviewed above), Mariner, 25yo… heck, I really enjoy Bowmore Legend.  One of the most uniquely delicious whiskies I’ve had in years was the 26yo single cask Bowmore put out by Master of Malt (so G-d darned brilliant a whisky!!).

There are also Bowmore whiskies that I find to be ok but not overly thrilling – Bowmore 12, 15 and 18yos come to mind.  Decent whiskies but they don’t excite me like other Bowmores do…

While I may not be overly thrilled with that portion of their current standard range, I have a feeling that the addition of Rachel Barrie to the Bowmore team will put a shine upon their whiskies like we’ve not seen in a few years.  Alongside Dr. Bill Lumsden, Rachel Barrie has done some solidly good things during her time at Glenmorangie and Ardbeg.  Rachel, I can’t wait to taste all of the good whiskies that will come from Bowmore under your watch!

So, who are you, Bowmore??

I am actually reminded of David Bowie when I think of Bowmore.  With his every changing styles/fashion and outfit coupled with a good mixture of some of the best Rock and Rock to come out in the 70/80’s (followed by some albums later in his career, during the 90’s and 2000’s, that were not up to par with the his earlier work but still pretty damn good).  Not only am I a fan of 70’s glam, I’m a total Bowie Junkie.

Like Bowie, Bowmore is some something that others strive to be like but just can’t match.  Are you Hunky Dory or just Aladdin Sane?

High West, Summertime

High West Rocky Mountain Rye 16yo vs 21yo

Park City, Utah – Both bottled at 46%ABV (or 92 proof)

What do you think of when you hear “Utah?”

Some people think of the beautiful landscape.

 

 

 

 

Some think of Mormons.

 

 

 

 
Some, Polygymists.

 

 

 

 

Me, I always thought of Crispin Glover’s character in Rubin and Ed.

(I effing LOVE that movie!)

 

 

 

 
I think it’s time to get a new image in our heads – WHISKEY!
Today I’m putting up two really nice Rye Whiskeys from Utah’s High West up against one another.  A 16yo vs a 21yo.

Who will be the victor?  Generally, I’ve always found that Victor remains the victor so let’s try to find a winner instead:

High West Rocky Mountain Rye – 16yo, 46%ABV – $80

Details on this whiskey from the High West Folks:

“This is one of the most intensely ryed rye whiskeys we’ve ever had the chance to taste. That’s because of its very unusual mash bill, which boasts 80% rye, 10% corn, and 10% barley malt. Almost all rye whiskeys on the market today contain just over 51% rye because that’s the minimum the U.S. government requires for the label to say “rye whiskey”. Distilleries today tend to use more corn because corn costs less and they think consumers don’t like rye’s spiciness. We disagree. With its high rye content, this 16-Year-Old gem is one of the most intensely flavored sipping whiskies out there.”

On the nose –  First impression? A wonderful mixture of blueberry tarts, dill weed and funyuns.

Quite the spicy drop yet honied nonetheless.

Model glue is in here too (along with the burn you get from huffing it. (Hey, I was young and impressionable.  Don’t judge me.)

Cinnamon and other, yet spices — anise seed, fennel seed & licorice.

On the mouth – Nice & satisfying mouthfeel.

Spicy… similar to what we get on the nose.

Lots of dill, honey and now some vanilla helping to balance it all out a bit.

Orange slices & clove powder.

There’s something a bit plastic & artificial feeling about this… in a good way. (Reminds me of old action figures.)

Warming and very easy going down.

Finish – Long & with orange spice toward the back of the tongue.

High West Rocky Mountain Rye – 21yo, 46%ABV – $118

Details on this whiskey from the High West Folks:

“The Federal Government term for this is “Whiskey Distilled from Rye Mash Stored 21 Years in Re-Used Cooperage.” Translation: This is very rare whiskey aged in — USED barrels. All were aged on the lower three tiers of the rickhouse. Mash bill is 53% rye, 37% corn, 10% barley malt.”

On the nose –  Much more of a shy guy as compared to the 16yo.  Lighter in color too. (Less active, refill casks here.)

After spending a bit more time with this whisky, I’m finding that the notes are similar to the 16yo.

Just a bit more subdued.

On the mouth – Some fresh yet dusty here, lively yet timid…

Fresh blueberries dance around the palate doing a two-step tinned fruits (heavy one the orange slices and pear).

After a few minutes, this one quite right up.

You know?  This is quite fantastic.

Fruits are massive and there’s a delicious underlying spice to this 21yo.

Finish – Wonderfully long & fruity with vanilla & cinnamon ribbon candies

In sum – Ding ding ding!!!  We have a winner!  The 21yo is glorious, through & through.  The 16yo is no schlub and it has retained its youthful spunk.  Both are great examples of great rye whiskey but dang, that 21yo is a cracker!!

**As a note: these older whiskeys from High West have not been distilled at their location. Rather, they have purchased this whiskey and, as you can see, are making some amazing blends from that stock. The good news for you is two fold: 1) They have a good deal of this older, purchased stock and 2) High West is also now a true distillery and has been for a few years so we should be seeing some younger stuff come from them very shortly!!**

Special thanks goes out to David Perkins and Erik Fitchett for the samples!!

Autumn, Kininvie, Need To Bundle Up

Kininvie Hazelwood Reserve 17yo bottled at 52.5%

Speyside region – 52.5%ABV – £650

Who in the who is Kininvie?!  If you’re an American, chances are, this is a very valid question.

Kininvie is a distillery owned by William Grant & Sons (same folks that own The Balvenie, Glenfiddich, Hudson Real American Whiskey, Tullamore Dew, Grant’s blend and a few other whiskies & spirits companies).  Kininvie is one of the key components in the Monkey Shoulder vatted malt, I mean, blended malt whisky.

It’s pretty rare that the Kininvie distillery releases a single malt.  In fact, I think there have only been about 3 or 4 bottlings to date (Mr. Sammy Simmons, if you see this post, feel free to correct me here…).  So, when they do release a single malt, being the rare birds that they are, you can imagine that they’d command a high price like the one given here (£650!!)

A big thanks goes out to Marshall N and a few others at the LASC for getting me this sample!  These guys are always treating me to some fine stuff and they need to be thanked.  So, consider yourselves thanked (and expect some more thanks down the road).

Matured in first fill sherry (type of sherry is unknown to me) casks – let’s taste this one…

On the nose — Here we have all things one might associate with autumn – roasted nuts right off the county fair nut kiosk.

Carrot cake less the cream cheese frosting.

Dried fruits (apricot, sugar dried dates) and brazil nuts (N.V.T.S., NVTS!).

French vanilla latte with a cinnamon dusting on the frothy head.

Very drying nose – some woody influence here as well.

On the mouth — Intensely drying entry that makes the mouth water to counteract the dry.

Fresh cocoa beans.  Spicy, woody and now even more spice.

A touch of orange peel and also a lot of what I got on the nose.

Creme brule, burnt sugary top and all.

Finish — A touch of clove, vanilla a sugared carrots

In sum —  Insanely lucky to have had a chance to taste this stuff.  All of the scents and flavors did a good job of playing to the yearly Fall-Fever I get (most people get Spring-Fever, I get Fall-Fever…).  The one detractor I found in it was the dry attack right from the get-go which affected the mouthfeel.  This aside, the smells and flavors were so, so nice.  Good luck finding a bottle!  I’ve found a source with The Whisky Exchange: they’re both rare & expensive (£650!!)

In the end, this made me really want some Balvenie 21 Portwood (one of my faves) so, I poured a bit, relaxed and discovered that life can be good.

A World of Discovery, Glen Grant, Glenglassaugh, Let's celebrate!

Two of the best “Thirty-Somethings” I’ve had in 2011 – One is a 35yo Glenglassaugh and the other a 37yo Glen Grant

Before the year is out, I wanted to make sure that I post up my reviews of two of my favorite whiskies I tasted this year.  Both are in their thirties and are from a single ex-sherry cask.  The Glen Grant was bottled by Duncan Taylor back in 2007 and the Glenglassaugh is an OB and is the first in a new set of releases entitled: “The Chosen Few“.

The first bottle in "The Chosen Few" series - Ronnie chose a damn fine cask of whisky - 35yo Sherry cask

You might my mentioning a little detail about Glenglassaugh’s “The Chosen Few” series a little while back.  As a reminder (and so as to toot my own horn):

When looking to name this series of single cask bottlings, Ronnie Routledge posted a contest on the Friends of Glenglassaugh Facebook page looking for a name for the range and yours truly (that’s me, Joshua Hatton, by the way) picked the winning name:  The Chosen Few.

Even if I hadn’t had the winning name I still would have chosen this whisky as one of my favorites for 2011:

Glenglassaugh – Highland region – The Chosen Few – Ronnie Routledge – 49.6%ABV – £290 | $450

On the nose –  There’s a good mix of interesting things going on in here.  A wood paneled pantry full of powdered sweets on a hot and humid summer’s day.

Lemony sugared pinwheels (or perhaps candied lemons – I love finding this note; you should try one sometime) as well as bruised, or perhaps, overripe peaches.

Tinned pineapple, walnut shells and huge notes of juicy mango.  More tropical that I expected.

Some wisps of smoke in the background (??).

My grandparent’s afghan from their finished basement storage somewhere around 1984.

You can smell the age here but it doesn’t smell old or tired in anyway.  All of those candied notes balance off the wood panel & stored afghan scents I got (which are not bad notes at all.  Left unbalanced by the sweetness well, then it’d be a different story…).  Lovely nose.

On the mouth – Fantastic attack with a great combination of youthful fizziness (a seeming effervescence) and a strong sweetness (light fruit compote) without being cloying in anyway.

Licorice and spiced dried fruit pastries.  This is yummy,yummy, yummy stuff!!

A second sip in and I notice that the tannins kick in pretty quickly but that dryness is accompanied by some of those powder sugar candies I got on the nose (as Spock would say, Fascinating).

Finish – Spicy and long on the finish.  Wow, really long with notes of spiced berries and even some cranberry/ginger relish in there.

In sum –  Complex, intriguing and so very balanced.  Ronnie Routledge chose insanely well.  I was so sad to see my sample go.  I took my sweet time with it.  If you have the funds, I suggest you pick up a bottle and start exploring.

Special thanks goes out to Iain over at dramperday.com for the sample.  You can read his thoughts on this fine whisky right here (you’ll see that he LOVED it too).

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Glen Grant – Speyside region – 51.5%ABV – Duncan Taylor Cask # 3480 1970/2007 – $299

On the nose — Forceful nose; like a high school senior boy after the prom.

Giving this just a little time to air out will make a difference, methinks.

Bitter cherries, cherry skins & stones/pits, prunes and potpourri.

Floral and bitter and deep inside notes of heated, over-cinnamoned apple sauce.

Oak furniture, fresh potting soil and party balloons.

A nicely sherried nose showing depth and age but I’m afraid that all of those bitter notes will prove over oaken on the palate.  Let’s see…

On the mouth — I LOVE it when I’m wrong!  All sorts going on in here but let’s start off with the fact that this has a a nice oily mouthfeel from the outset.   Yes, it gets a bit dry but nowhere near as dry and oaky as I expected.  Thank G-d!

Now, on with the flavor:  Cherry Cola, honey reduction, Sweet cherry pie filling (minus the pie crust), the taste of the smell of potpourri, baked pear and solid rolled cinnamon bark.

No sign of sulphur, match sticks in this one.

Holiday brown bread and boozy raisins, walnuts and some dark chocolates.

Finish — Long, spiced, really long… warming and soothing, oak and warmed butter biscuits.

In sum — A fantastic single cask of whisky! This one surprised me.  I was truly expecting an over oaken old fuddy-duddy but no.  There’s a ton of personality and balance in here.  A well chosen cask!

Special thanks goes out to Mike W for the sample!!

Glenglassaugh, Let's celebrate!, Takin' It Easy

Sharing is caring – Glenglassaugh’s “The First Cask”

Highland region – 59.1% ABV – £90 – Distillery only bottling (though available through the distillery’s online store until it’s sold out) – 650 bottles.

Who does this?  Who reopens a distillery, gets it’s up and running (a long & difficult process), fills the first cask, and then instead of holding that cask for years and years to make major beau coup bucks/quid say… 18-30 years from now, he releases the whisky only three years into maturation.

Stuart Nickerson does, that’s who.

And while, truth be told, I initially thought the idea was a crazy one… I think the move did a really great job of saying “Thank You!” to all of us who have been supporting the distillery and waiting with baited breath for it to release its first whisky in about twenty-five years.

Thank you, Mr. Nickerson, for releasing Glenglassaugh’s first baby.

While the move to release the First Cask might have been a maverick one I would submit, too, that the make up of the cask is also a maverick move.  The “First Cask” is not just whisky that’s stayed in that single cask for 3 years to then be bottled.  No.  Instead, Mr. Nickerson concocted an interesting maturation recipe to help give this whisky its unusual flavor profile.  Here is the description straight from the distillery itself:

“The very first cask, a refill butt, that was filled on that “first cask filling day in 2008” was emptied and refilled into 2 smaller casks on the 16th December 2010. These smaller casks were a first fill ex-Pedro Ximenez (PX) sherry hogshead and a first-fill ex-Palo Cortado sherry hogshead. On the 16th September 2011 the whiskies were returned from these two casks into the original butt and are now marrying  for a period of exactly three months.”

That’s quite a journey in such a short period of time for this first distillate to be matured!  What it has done to the whisky is even more interesting…

On the nose –  Massive, massive waves of fruit and mostly of the tinned variety with a fairly clear focus on the halved cherries and the heavy syrup those fruits swim about in.

What seems to be evident is the natural fruitiness of the Glenglassaugh spirit is being amplified with the unusual choice of casks and maturation.

Pickled walnuts and perfumed tobacco leaves/cigars.

Yeah… all of the scents are, for lack of a better term, “chunked up” (and made moreish), I think, by the casking journey of the whisky.

On the mouth –  Vanilla cream soda and orange drink powder.

Sweet and fruity and now we’re back to those tinned fruits…

Clementine, cherries and papaya…  Puckering stuff.

Slightly oily yet quick to an effervescence and then over to a drying quality with ever increasing spice and powerful sweetness.

Tobacco floats over the tongue as do young mangoes.

Finish – Pickled walnuts (again), long and effervescent still.

In sum – So. Very. Drinkable.  Restraint is needed; it’s right up my alley.

Yes, this is young stuff but it’s got a depth beyond its 3 years.  So nice to see that the spirit quality shines through yet the wood influence (three different types of sherry influence) is so strong that it makes you think this is an older dram than what’s in your glass.  If you have a bottle or can get a bottle (they will ship to the USA, btw)… drink the stuff.  Yes, it’s the first cask from the new ownership but it was shared for a reason – to enjoy; not to lie dormant.

Other thoughts on the First Cask from Glenglassaugh:

Iain over at Dramperday.com seems to have enjoyed it.

Jason at guidscotchdrink.com clearly finds the stuff as drinkable as I do.