2010 – A new whisky year, with an overview of the 2009 highlights

Adelphi has a good reputation as an independent bottler. Their Inchgower 26y 1980 won a gold medal at the 2008 Malt Maniacs Awards, and their undisclosed ‘Breath of Islay’ and ‘Breath of the Isles’ bottlings are also highly regarded.
Now they’re launching another undisclosed whisky named Fascadale (meaning “ship’s haven”). It’s a limited release of 3797 [...]

Advent Calendar 2008 by Magnus Fagerström

Will the next Ardbeg be called Ardbeg Rollercoaster?

A few months ago, Bruichladdich released a private batch of its Octomore at 80 ppm phenols. After that, the public batch of Bruichladdich Octomore was the heaviest peated whisky in the world at 131 ppm. A liquid ash tray.
 
Ardbeg Supernova
Yesterday, Ardbeg announced to launch its own peat monster: Ardbeg Supernova at “over 100 ppm”.
Some official [...]

Bruichladdich posted the line-up for this year on its blog.
We can expect a multi-vintage sherry bottling, the mature X4 (which can now be called true whisky), a new Octomore with even more peat than the current release (140ppm), the new Port Charlotte PC8 (in a black tin again), a new XVII, Infinity III [...]

Cadenhead’s is Scotland’s oldest independent bottler. Some of their ‘dumpy’ bottlings (in strangely shaped, dark-coloured glass) from the 1970’s and 1980’s are legendary. Nowadays, they’re still a very respected bottler.
In March 2009, for the seventh time already, Cadenhead’s launched its yearly Single Malt Nosing Challenge.
The concept is simple: in return for
€ 15, you get [...]

A couple of weeks ago, The Scottish Liqueur Centre launched Càrn Mòr, a series of 24 different vintages, one for each year between 1983 and 2006. They’re all from a different distillery and bottled in 20cl bottles. 
I like the idea of smaller bottles, because I’m more of a taster than a drinker and most of [...]

There’s a new Daily Dram bottling and it promises to be a very good one. Synch Elli is the anagram for Clynelish. It’s a 1982 vintage, matured for 27 years. The price is around € 100.
You may already know this whisky, because it’s actually the same cask as the Clynelish that The Perfect Dram released [...]

Tasting notes of the new Daily Dram Undercover bottlings:
Undercover n°1 – Lagavulin 14y 1994 (53,1%, Daily Dram 2008, 196 btl.)
Undercover n°2 – Talisker 24y 1984 (51,9%, Daily Dram 2008, 82 btl.)
Undercover n°3 – Ardbeg / Laphroaig / Bowmore vatting (57,5%, Daily Dram 2008, 320 btl.)

Last week,  I’ve had a sneak peek at the brand new Daily Dram whisky glass. I don’t have a photo so I decided to make an “artist’s impression”.
The bowl is closely related to a tulip / ISO glass, but there’s no stem, not even a foot. It’s rather small and comfortable to hold. I personally [...]

Good news: Daily Dram has three new bottlings named Undercover. The distilleries are undisclosed, but two of the whiskies are made on Islay (14y and 15y) and one on the Isle of Skye (24y – this should be Talisker because this is the only distillery on Skye). 
Let’s hope they bring some bottles to the Whisky [...]

Two new bottlings in the Daily Dram range: an 11 year-old Laphroaig ‘Philo Raga’ from 1998 (57,5%) and a 43 year-old Tomatin ‘Oat Mint’ from 1965 (48,1%).

It’s Sunday so let’s have a break from the Feis Ile bottlings and give you some news.
In celebration of their sixtieth anniversary since the launch in 1949, independent bottler Douglas Laing is releasing a series of 6 limited edition bottlings, one for each decade. They are single casks in a special retro version of the [...]

Three weeks ago, GlenDronach launched the new range of 12yo, 15yo and 18yo malts and already the first 3000-bottle consignment has sold out in Belgium.

A new range of Glenmorangie ”private expressions”. The Glenmorangie Sonnalta PX will be the first release in this series.

The Glenrothes recently announced two new expressions, a 20 year-old Glenrothes 1988 and a 10 year-old Glenrothes 1998. Both will be released in the Far East first, so no need to rush to your local supplier.
This is the official character description on the label of the 1988 vintage: “Rich candied orange peel, fruit compote”. [...]

Former Malt Maniac Luc Timmermans is one of the most active whisky personalities in Belgium. He has practically built his house around his huge collection, sells extraordinary bottles on www.whiskysamples.eu and selects interesting casks for his label Thosop. Yesterday he organized a tasting to celebrate his 42nd birthday.
 
As expected, the line-up was impressive. All [...]

If you thought the Highland Park 40yo was old (and expensive), think twice. The distillery announced a new Highland Park 50yo, the oldest bottling ever. In fact, not many distilleries can claim such old whisky in their core range. Expected in a few months.
Other news: there’s a new Highland Park 1997 vintage, sherry matured and [...]

Highland Park announced a new 12 years old bottling named Hjarta.

In June 2009, Jura Distillery launched a limited edition of 3 single malts inspired by the Paps of Jura mountains that dominate the skyline of the island.
The trio is 15 years old and finished in different types of wine casks.

Jura Paps ‘Beinn An Oir’ Mountain of Gold: [...]

The Laphroaig 15y will be replaced by an 18 year old. The Laphroaig 18y will be bottled at a higher strength of 48% alcohol (the same as the Laphroaig Quarter Cask). The price will remain the same (pretty uncommon considering the extra 3 years and today’s whisky marketing). Around € 50.

Malt Maniacs Awards 2009

Tasting notes for all of the Gold Award winners of the Malt Maniacs Awards 2009.

Introduction to the new independant bottler “Malts of Scotland”.

There are interesting rumours that whisky giant Diageo will soon announce a new series of exclusive bottlings named The Manager’s Choice Single Cask Selection. They’ve selected one single cask from each of the 27 distilleries in their portfolio and the first six will be released in October 2009. A new Rare Malts series is [...]

Master of Malt – online whisky retailer with independent whisky bottlings

New website for The BenRiach

Three new releases in the Daily Dram series: High Dark Plan, Auk’s Choir and Ciao All.

Old Bothwell Port Ellen 1982 cask #2473 and Port Ellen 1982 cask # 2545.

With the current rate of the British Pound, I decided to place an order at The Whisky Exchange, which has a huge choice of current as well as older bottlings. Not to forget their excellent range of Single Malts of Scotland releases.

 
There is a new kid on the block: Port Askaig, a brand from Specialty Drinks (a sister company of The Whisky Exchange). A few weeks ago, the first three expressions were launched: a 17 year-old, a 25 year-old and a younger cask strength version.
They are single Islay malts, which means they’re produced at the same [...]

I will be on vacation until the end of this month. No worries, I have prepared a bunch of reviews that will be automatically published while I’m away:

The recent Jura Paps collection
The experimental Balvenie 14yo Roasted Malt
A new Glenugie release by Douglas Laing
A 12 year-old Laphroaig by Malts of Scotland
A new 39yo Glenfarclas by The Whisky Agency
Stay [...]

Yes, it was a surprise for me as well, but it seems TastToe opened a shop in Spain recently, near Valencia. Check this out: http://www.licoris.es
They stole the picture. I guess it proves Guy Boyen’s shop is world class…

Diageo releases 2009

Feis Ile is the yearly festival on Islay. It’s not all about whisky, but traditionally each of the distilleries presents a special bottling only available at that time. The festival is over and I’ve had a shipment with most of this year’s releases, so let’s get dramming.
Over the next ten days, I’ll be reviewing [...]

WhiskyNotes is 6 months old now, and still a few well-known brands never appeared (simply bad luck of course, every whisky deserves a review). Time to feature Orkney-based Highland Park, a distillery with many fans.
Highland Park had a major restyling in 2006, and the brand was supposed to become a top 10 single malt [...]

We’ve recently passed the 300 posts mark, and even then there are a bunch of distilleries which we’ve never reviewed on this blog. At this moment, there are whiskies from 73 distilleries but let’s take it to a higher level.
During the next ten days, we only allow “new” distilleries. A few names? Littlemill, Coleburn, Aultmore, [...]

A new series that I would like to introduce on this blog: “Ten days of…”. It will consist of 3 or 4 posts with tasting notes from a single distillery and / or with a common theme and spread over 10 days. I’ll start with a couple of peated Bruichladdich releases.
First, a word or two [...]

Diageo Rare Malts Selection – A collection of rare single malts.

Battle of the stunners, Gent 19/01/2010

Clydesdale – independent whisky bottler

Highland Park recently said that they can’t sustain the high strength of the current Highland Park 21 years old, because it was very popular and stocks at that alcohol level are limited (do they really have difficulty finding 20+ year old casks over 47,5% – hard to believe). They will be lowering the strength to [...]

Book announcement: Whiskey and Philosophy: A small batch of spirited ideas

The Whisky Agency – new bottlings

There are three Bunnahabhains in the 2009 range from The Whisky Agency. They’re all from the 1970’s and sherry matured, although they’ve used different types of sherry casks. I evaluated all three of them.

International Malt Whisky Festival Gent (Belgium) – 6 & 7 February 2010 – ICC building Gent

Remember that you can still win free tickets for the upcoming Whisky Festival in Gent. You can also grab one of the samples of the Connemara 10yo 1999 festival bottling.
The contest ends January 20.

Whiskyfestival Gent 2010 – summary and tasting report

Impressions of the 2009 whisky festival in Gent, with tasting notes of the following whiskies:

BenRiach 20y (43%, OB 2008)
BenRiach 13y Maderensis Fumosus (46%, OB 2008, Madeira finish)
Girvan 18y 1989 Raw Cask (56,7%, Blackadder 2008)
Bruichladdich X4 (50%, OB 2008, 6000 btl.)
Arran 12y
Arran sherry cask
Arran Pomerol finish
Arran 4y peated

A second set of impressions from the 2009 whisky festival in Gent, with tasting notes of the following whiskies:

Long Red – Glen Ord 12y 1996 (46%, Daily Dram 2008, 184 btl.)
Auchentoshan Three Wood (43%, OB 2008)
Bunnahabhain 38y 1970 (40,2%, Duncan Taylor Rare Auld 2008, cask 4075)
Caperdonich 36y 1972 (54,4%, Duncan Taylor Rare Auld 2008, cask 7219)
Connemara 16y 1992 (58,9%, 100° proof club bottling, cask K92/34 4185)

Whisky festival Gent, Belgium – 13-15 February 2009

Whisky festival Gent – contest winners

 
 
Exactly one year ago, the first whisky review was posted on this website, the Balvenie 30 Years Old. Since then, almost 200 other drams were published and more than 40 news item were covered. Let’s celebrate with a week of 90+ drams!

Whiskysamples.eu turns one year old today. Congratulations Luc!
To celebrate the anniversary, 50 new samples will be released in November which will increase the total number of samples from 200 to 250. Great! In the meantime, Whiskysamples released 60 relabeled bottles of the excellent Glenfarclas 1968 / 2009 Family Cask #699.

Win free tickets for the Whisky Festival Gent (6-7 February 2010) or a sample of this year’s festival bottling (a peated Connemara)

The results of this year’s WWA09 have been announced. Highland Park 21 years old is the best single malt whisky of this year.

World Whisky Awards 2010