Must Try

Laphroaig 18 Year

/ / Islay, Review, Scottish Whisky /

Laphroaig Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky Aged 18 Years
48%
$100
Website
Laphroaig 18
What the Distillery Says:
This 18 Year Old expression of Laphroaig is made in limited quantities each year and savoured by a fortunate few. A soft, sweet and spicy Islay peat smoke greets you when you first open the bottle. The immediate taste is an oak sweetness, from 18 years in the barrel. A faint hint of the sea can be detected, testimony to its time maturing on the remote island of Islay.

It is bottled at 48% ABV and is non-chill filtered for a depth of taste and texture.

COLOUR: Bright gold
NOSE: At bottling strength, a soft toffee sweet but faintly spicy flavour counterbalances the trace of delicate phenols and fruit. An all encompassing smoothness brings these together. A touch of water allows the seaweed and salt to come through but not enough to overpower the vanilla and honey sweetness with just a trace of new mown hay and peat at the finish.
BODY: An intense depth that is exceptionally balanced and warming.
PALATE: An instant warming tang of smoke fades into smooth floral scents, which blends seamlessly into an oaky nuttiness and leaves a lasting sweetness on the taste. With a touch of water, the peaty warmth fills the mouth but does not overshadow the sweet chocolate smoothness. This is balanced by the rich toffee taste and slowly fades into a delicate hint of heather and peat smoke.
FINISH: Full bodied, long with a luxurious oily smoothness.

What Richard Says:
Nose: Light on the peat, hints of sherry, more fruity, and hints of crushed peppercorns around back of the nose. Cucumber salad comes to mind. I have no idea why.
Palate: Creamy, with a nice initial smokiness. The floral sweetness takes time to develop.
Finish: Long and spicy.
Comments: When this replaced the 15 I was sad. I really liked the 15. Plus, soon after the replacement the price started creeping up too. That said, I’ve grown fond of the 18 over the years. The 15 was more subtle and showed a more mellow and integrated side to Laphroaig. However, the 18 is a much richer dram. Really, you can’t go wrong with either one. This is not a dram for the Islay peat-freaks out there. It’s more distinguished, less brash. Maybe that’s your thing or maybe it’s not. Personally, I’m digging it lately but it took me time to warm up to how different this is from the younger siblings.
Rating: Must Try

I would like to thank Ben and the team over at DBC Public Relations for providing us with bottles for review.

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Laphroaig 10 Year Cask Strength

/ / Islay, Review, Scottish Whisky /

Laphroaig Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky Aged 10 Years Original Cask Strength
Batch 005 Bottled February 2013
57.2%
$60 to $70
Website
Laphroaig 10CS
What the Distillery Says:
Original Cask Strength Laphroaig is bottled at natural distillery strength with all the depth of genuine taste and texture normally associated with sampling whisky at source.

We mature Laphroaig in seasoned oak barrels, charred before filling to impart a slight sweet vanilla nuttiness. Original Cask Strength Laphroaig is barrier-filtered only just, to remove the small char particles present. This means you will enjoy Laphroaig exactly as we made it.

In extremes of temperature and when you add water it may appear a little cloudy – this is the natural condition of a malt of such a peaty pungence and uncompromising purity. Adding a little water releases a rich aroma of peat smoke with some sweetness and strong hints of the sea.

Emphatic, full bodied and utterly unforgettable – we like to think it’s the purists choice.

COLOUR: Rich deep gold
NOSE: Very powerful, “medicine”, smoke, seaweed and ozone characters overlaying a sweetness
BODY: Full and strong
PALATE: A massive peated burst of flavour with hints of sweetness at the end
FINISH: Long and savoury

What Richard Says:
Nose: Oozing with fresh sea air, peat smoke, and seaweed. An almost minty medicinal note. Aggressive and in your face.
Palate: Nice initial toffee sweetness laying into a light brine.
Finish: Heavy on the peat with light pepper notes. The smokey finish lingers for quite some time.
Comments: Wow what a difference a little proof and less filtering makes. This is the better looking older brother who is captain of the football team compared to the standard 10 year old. Seriously delicious and surprisingly easy to drink at cask strength.
Rating: Must Try

I would like to thank Ben and the team over at DBC Public Relations for providing us with bottles for review.

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Glenlivet XXV

/ / Review, Scottish Whisky, Speyside /

The Glenlivet XXV Single Malt Scotch Whisky
46% ABV
$300 to $400
Website
glenlivet XXV
What the Distillery Says:
Character: The intense and opulent one
Colour: Rich amber with ripe gold hues
Nose: Dark chocolate with scents of dried sultanas
Palate: Silky, sweet and caressing with cinnamon notes
Finish: Incredibly long, rich and balanced

Craft facts
The XXV is a batch-produced whisky finished in individually selected ex-sherry butts.

The Oloroso-soaked oak imparts a nutty spiciness and enriches the flavour of the expression.

Each cask is individually monitored in the finishing process to ensure only the subtlest sherry tones are added to this intense, silky and elegant whisky.

What Matt Says:
Nose: Burnt sugar, candied orange zest, and an antiseptic note reminding me of an enclosed public pool.
Palate: Very smooth and elegant. Aged like a refined elder statesman. Vanilla, mint around the edges, and sherry stand out but the oak jumps forward first. A very strong woody flavor (very different from an aged bourbon) that is evident of the time spent in the barrel. The viscosity is very nice and in that “just right” zone that isn’t too viscous or too dry.
Finish: The finish is nice. This is where the sherry really asserts itself. The front half of my tongue is all sherry and the back half is all vanilla.
Comments: When you talk about a whisky being too easy to drink this is definitely what you’re talking about. You could easily go through this bottle and not notice.
Rating: Must Try

What Richard Says:
Nose: Nice sherry plays into caramel, vanilla, toffee crisps, a bit of licorice on the back end, and that luscious combination of aged tobacco and old leather you get from nowhere but old scotch.
Palate: Orange marmalade, more old leather, fine pipe tobacco, with a nice oily texture. It’s better mouth feel than I would expect from chill filtered scotch.
Finish: Dry and clean with a mild tannic and white pepper bite playing with the wood.
Comments: Regular readers will know the history of my bottle. Going through the notes again I can of course see how this disappeared off my shelf. This is a delicious dram and anyone fortunate to have the opportunity to try it most definitely should.
Rating: Must Try

Overall Rating: Must Try

For those keeping count this is our 300th review! We’re so happy to still be commenting on whiskey and having all of you take interest in our thoughts. We even managed to bring Matt out of semi-retirement to chime in on this one. Maybe it was offering up 25 year old Glenlivet that did the trick! 😉

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Compass Box Great King Street New York Blend

/ / Review, Scottish Whisky /

Compass Box Great King Street New York Blend Blended Scotch Whisky
46% ABV
$55 to $70
great king streetny_large_0
What the Blender Says:
GREAT KING STREET, the Blended Scotch whisky specialist brand launched by the Compass Box Whisky Company, has announced they will launch next month their NEW YORK BLEND, the first of the brand’s Limited Release regional blends.

Compass Box founder and Great King Street whiskymaker John Glaser explains: “We were approached by the New York WhiskyFest last year asking us to debut a new whisky at this year’s festival, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to start a series of regional blends, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. What better place to begin than New York?”

Glaser has long been inspired by the old Scotch whisky blending houses of 120 years ago who commonly made different blends for regional tastes. He has also been inspired by the ways in which blends were made in this period, delivering far more flavour than those of today. These things have formed the basis of his whiskymaking approach for the Great King Street brand.

For the New York Blend, Glaser made two key discoveries that inspired this one-off, limited edition bottling. One was an ancient New York Times article describing an 1890s bartender named Patrick Duffy who was responsible for instigating the importation of branded Scotch whisky in glass bottles for the first time into New York. Second, was an old Scotch blend recipe from a Glasgow blending house from the same era. Glaser fashioned a blend based on the old recipe and dedicated the bottling to Duffy, and the New York Blend was born.

What sets this Great King Street blend apart from Scotch whisky blends of today is flavour. The New York Blend uses lots of peaty single malts, plenty of sherry cask-aged single malts, and a much higher proportion of malt to grain whisky (80%/20%) than is typically used today (generally 30%/70%).

The Great King Street “New York Blend” was launched on Saturday, October 27th, 2012 at the New York Whisky Fest at the Marriot Marquis hotel in Manhattan. Only 1,840 bottles are being released and it will be available primarily in the New York metropolitan area and via the Compass Box Whisky Company web site. Glaser plans more Great King Street regional blends in the future, but for now he is mum about the details of where or when!

What Richard Says:
Nose: Big doses of peat and sherry. It’s like an Aberlour – Laphroaig love child.
Palate: Surprising sweet punch up front. Sherry, ripe stone fruit, and dark berries all served with brine.
Finish: A nice slow smokiness playing around the wood. A Broadway encore!
Comments: Bam! This resembles it’s Great King Street stablemate in name only. This is a large, arrogant, and muscular blend. It grabs your attention and gets in your face…not unlike some other New Yorkers. An answer to the Johnnie Walker blues? [wink] No doubt!
Rating: Must Try

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Glenmorangie Ealanta

/ / Highland, Review, Scottish Whisky /

Glenmorangie Ealanta Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky
46% ABV
$90 to $110
Website
Ealanta
What the Distillery Says:
Glenmorangie Ealanta is the fourth annual release in our award winning Private Edition range.
Scots Gaelic for ‘skilled and ingenious’, Ealanta is a 19 Years Old Glenmorangie, fully matured in virgin American white oak casks with a provenance that stretches all the way to the mountains of Missouri and the Mark Twain National Forest.

The porous oak wood, air-dried for over 2 years, but in this instance never seasoned with any other whisky, allows our precious spirit to extract maximum flavours as nature intended – producing a whisky of incredible taste and smoothness, with layers of vanilla and candied orange peel, interwoven with sugar coated almonds.

Non chill-filtered

Aroma: Toffee, butterscotch, vanilla, and a curious hint of stewed fruits. Classic Glenmorangie mentholic top-note, interwoven with an unusual nuttiness, reminiscent of Brazil nuts in toffee.
Taste: Candied orange peel, sugar coated almonds, sweet vanilla and marzipan.
Finish: The taste goes on and on, finally giving way to some oak-derived spices – clove, ginger and a hint of aniseed.
Colour: Burnt Ochre

What Richard Says:
Nose: Rich and fruity. This nose oozes vanilla cream soda.
Palate:Praline pecans, orange mints, and herbal. This beauty is aggressively viscous. It wraps around your tongue and won’t let go.
Finish:The woody dryness leaves quickly leaving you with malty pumpkin pie spices and a licorice like aftertaste of fennel seed or anise.
Comments: More please! Sadly, I only recently opened the bottle I purchased and this one time limited release (which came out last year) is getting harder to find. I would grab another one to squirrel away. This is one of my favorite Glenmorangies yet.
Rating: Must Try

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