Sunday 26 October 2014

Inchgower 35yo (1975/2011) The Whisky Fair

Solid but Unimpressive


potstill.org/info/distilleries/3876/
Tonight's dram is from the Inchgower distillery: another workhorse  from the Diageo stable.
Even though it is an important ingredient of both Johnnie Walker and Bell's blends, it still is a fairly obscure distillery and remains uncharted territory even for most whisky drinkers.

Tuesday 21 October 2014

Braeval 22yo (1991/2013) Brachadair

Tropical Sensation


This week's dram is a sample from distillery #64 on the list: Braeval (or Braes of Glenlivet, if you please).
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1974453

As far as obscure distilleries go, Braeval is certainly one that perfectly fits the title. Build back in 1973 by Chivas Brothers, this distillery was designed as an highly efficient machine for the blends market. 
A product from the 70's and designed for low cost production: blend fodder you might think. Well you might be mistaken there, although Braeval has no official releases, many consider it to be one of the better Scottish distilleries with a high consistency of quality independent bottlings.

Saturday 18 October 2014

Dalmore 12yo (OB)

More than meets the eye ?


I'll admit at first I wasn't too impressed by the 12yo Dalmore. Granted, I never gave the Dalmore Distillery too much credit, in my mental ranking it was right there at Macallan-levels as an overpriced/overestimated snobbish brand. More than once I called the 12yo an overall bore in my reviews
http://www.whisky.de/archiv/dist/dalmore/dalmore.htm

But now that I got a bottle of the 12yo as a gift, I must admit that I find myself having a tiny sip almost every day of the week. It is just such an accessible whisky, nicely soft and smooth. The more I try, the more I like it, something I would never have acknowledged the first few times that I tried it.

Which begs the question of course, is there more than meets the eye here?

Tuesday 14 October 2014

Glenburgie Gordon & MacPhail 10yo

Blender's Fodder

http://blog.whivie.be/#post1589

The Gordon & Macphail bottling serves as a semi-official release of the obscure Glenburgie distillery. 
Glenburgie is ranked in one of the higher tiers when it comes to the annual production volume, due to the fact that, though the distillery may have had a long and interesting history, it was rebuild completely back in 2004.
Though many of you may never have tried the Glenburgie single malt, you probably drank it before, as it is one of the main components of the Ballentine's blends.

Wednesday 8 October 2014

Dalmore Cigar Malt Rerserve OB

Is Perfection Boring?

jamstudio.uk.com/projects/commercial/the-dalmore


On today's men, another whisky that seems to split the whisky community in half: time for yet another "love or hate" dram.

I'm talking of course about the 2012 re-release of the popular Cigar Malt, now called the Cigar Malt Reserve. This second coming of the crowd favorite got quite a lot of flak from the fans the old whisky.

Though I'm not sure why Dalmore withdrew this whisky in the first place at the dawn of the NAS single malt era. I'm guessing it had something to do with the name, propably due to the pc-environment or even pressure from the anti-tobacco lobby.
Anyhow popular outrage among the Dalmore crowd brought this whisky back from the dead, be it that the distillers tweaked the recipe a bit.

Sunday 5 October 2014

Tullibardine 1993 Vintage edition

Milk and Cardboard

wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullibardine_distillery#mediaviewer/File:Tullibardine_Distillery_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1801793.jpg

A new week, a new distillery. This week the Tullibardine distillery #62.
The Tullibardine distillery, proudly displays the year 1488 as its founding year, with the slight nuance that the distillery was only erected on former brewery grounds back in 1949.
As one of the few Scottish distilleries that was privately owned,  it ventured into the single malt market, though dare I say, fairly unsuccessful thus far. With a large portfolio featuring a wide range of  various whisky finishes on offering and unbound by the limitations of the blended whisky market, this could very well have been the next BenRiach.