Richard and I participated in the Chivas Live online tasting recently.  I attempted to tweet along (quite unsuccessfully) and Richard signed in remotely.  Here are our notes.

Matt:

I love events like this.  Deconstructing a blend, vertical tastings, or anything of that nature revs my whisky engine like nothing else.  I’m not sure the comparison with Johnnie Walker Blue at the end actually did anything for them, but the lead up was great.

Dram #1:  Strath Isla 18 is quite good and everyone at the tasting (and in the blogospere) asked what it would take to get this bottled as a single malt.  My note to Twitter was “maple bacon wrapped around aged goat cheese with a side of green apples.”  I stand by this note.  Green apples and maple on the nose with a hint of smoke.  One of the other bloggers came up with the bacon note and everyone in the room jumped on it.  There is this aged goat cheese that I get at the Green Market in Union Square that is hard and creamy and leaves a very grassy taste in the mouth.  This is the goat cheese I refer to.

Dram #2:  18yo Grain blend.  This dram is quite good if a little simple.  It’s like salted caramel covered in milk chocolate on the nose and palate.  Please bottle this too.

Dram #3:  Islay blend.  This a great Islay blend that I would drink on it’s own.  The nose is a little peat heavy, but the palate has some great dark berry and sherry notes lurking under the smoke and earth.

Dram #4:  18yo Longmorn.  This is great.  Like sour cherry strudel.  Long finish.  I need to revisit this.  To bad they do not bottle this one.

Lastly, we compared Chivas 18yo to Johnnie Walker Blue Label.  Ultimately, we came to the same conclusions as when we did this exercise last Christmas.  Chivas tastes like green apples wrapped in Toblerone and JW Blue is over blended and boring.  The revelation came with the component tastings.  I already liked the Chivas 18yo.  Tasting the components just gave me a greater appreciation for the blend.  Note to all other blenders.  DO EVENTS LIKE THIS.  I want to be at a JW tasting next month and a Ballentine’s tasting the month after.  Cutty Sark, Old Parr, Whyte & McKay, Grant’s, this is what I want.  Our hosts were excellent and I hope to see them all again.

Richard

The deconstruction of a blend by components is something I haven’t been able to do before. I found it incredibly interesting. Obviously, we only tasted four components and Chivas uses quite few more than that for Chivas 18.

Dram #1: Strathisla 18 was the crowd favorite. This particular distillery is the heart of every Chivas blend. I found it heathery and smoky with a long dry finish. Very approachable. I absolutely loved it! We all seemed to love this even more than the Chivas and begged to get this bottled. Seriously, to everyone out there reading this, we need to launch an email/phone/letter campaign to Pernod Ricard to get this bottled. They will try to tell you that they already bottle a 12 but it’s not even in the same league.

Dram #2: Grain 18 took a lot of people by surprise. I was surprised by the number of people (mind you these were bloggers and drink aficionados of one type or another) that initially thought it was silly to age grain like this. They soon changed their tune. Three words for the rest of you…Compass…Box…Hedonism if there are any lingering doubts about grain scotch. I thought this one had a sweet nose and was very grassy and buttery on the palate with hints of salt. Very enjoyable.

Dram #3: Islay 18 was and odd duck. Everyone tried to peg it. I used to think it must be Laphroaig because Pernod used to own them and probably had a reciprocity or sourcing agreement coming out of the divestiture. Finally, Alex with Chivas broke down and told us it was a blend of multiple Islay distilleries. This blended/vatted Islay malt was nice too. I wasn’t as enamored with it as everyone else. It was very delicate and approachable for an Islay with hints of sweetness but I also got a strong taste of Chloraseptic throat spray that I didn’t like. I was in the minority opinion on this and it was my least favorite.

Dram #4: Longmorn 18 is another unbottled gem that should be. It had a very quite nose that opened up to lots of berries and dark fruit on the palate ending with a woody finish. Very nice indeed.

As Matt said, we finished with the Chivas/JW Blue comparison. My opinion of both didn’t change from last year. They are both nice drams but I think they are really for different target markets. I’m still not sold on the angle Chivas is selling putting the two up next to each other. That was more the opinion of the online group than the folks in the room. The people in the room all seemed to gush over Chivas like a little school girl. Maybe free booze will do that to you. (I kid because I love) I was in the definite minority on this one. Everyone tried to make the value argument which I find amusing because you have to be careful or it can backfire on you. They went on about “JW Blue is three times the price of Chivas 18, is it three times better?” No it’s not. It’s different. I don’t think Chivas 18 is three times better than Buffalo Trace either but the price is. They are different. I don’t like the “this is better than that” argument at all. That’s partly why we rate the way we do on Whisk(e)y Apostle.

I’ll close by saying that I couldn’t agree more that I absolutely loved this event. Even doing it remotely via webcam and chat room it was great. I also really enjoyed chatting with some of the other bloggers out there. We don’t really get to do that very often. We should do it more (hint hint). Many thanks to Stephanie and Alex for their time.

Oh…I almost forgot. They were serving the Crooner Fizz at the event and singing it’s praises. I got the recipe for you if you’re interested:

Crooner Fizz
– 2 ounces Chivas 12
– 1/2 ounce Rum
– 1/2 ounce lemon juice
– 1/2 ounce raising syrup (made by muddling equal parts raisins and boiling water)