James MacArthur's Fine Malt Selection Caol Ila 14 Year

June 30, 2016

James MacArthur's Fine Malt Selection Caol Ila 14 Year

For a weekend in the country with friends and family we wanted a nice lightly peated malt for porch-top sipping at sunset. Digging through our bunker for something interesting, we found this independent bottling of Caol Ila from James MacArthur.

We couldn't find a lot of information about James MacArthur other than that they were founded in 1982 and produce uncolored and un-chill-filtered (yay!) limited release private case bottles.  This Caol Ila is from the lower proof line (43%) which seemed appropriate for our summer drinking plans, and comes from a sherry cask. Peated malt matured in sherry has always been a favorite. So far so good. 

Caol Ila is perhaps not as esteemed as some of their Islay neighbors like Laphoaig, Lagavulin, or Ardbeg, however they're one of our favorites. Perhaps it's this lack of acclaim that makes it a bit easier to track down interesting expressions and older releases. We picked this one up a few years ago for around $50. These independent bottlings of Caol Ila are pretty easy to come by if you keep an eye out and always fun to experiment with.

Tasting Notes

Nose: Simple and pleasant nose dominated by ocean scents. Sea air, mossy rocks, and light waves of peat. There's some sweet citrus - lemon meringue perhaps, and some vegetal notes like putty and hay. Very mellow nose with just the right amount of peat for sipping neat.

Palate: Very nice balance here with a mid-thick mouth-feel leaving a nice oil on the tongue. The peat fits in nicely with the sweetness and spirit warmth. More tropical fruits come out like a hint of mango and peach, and also some nice complexity of vanilla, white chocolate, and a little spice.

Finish: Mid-length finish, it's still a peater, but it's extremely smooth and leaves just a brush of smoke on the throat with honey and lemons lingering on the tongue.

Review

This was a totally pleasant if not altogether remarkable malt. We'd buy this bottle again. It's a great Islay for people who aren't committed peat junkies like us. You can pass this around to your relatives without worrying about scalding their palates with an assault of ashtray Islay goodness. It has enough age to show maturity, enough sherry to bring forward a good sweet balance to the smoke, and a very solid mouth-feel and finish to complete the package.  Should you go hunting after this bottle to the ends of the earth? No. Should you pick it up if you happen to see it around? Yes.

Happy Drinking!  Cheers/SB

The Best Tasting Ever. Period. Douglas Laing Old & Rare Platinum.

March 29, 2016

The Best Tasting Ever. Period. Douglas Laing Old & Rare Platinum.

Sweet Tube 

When I was in high school, the words "sweet tube" would conjure up images of an expensive Graffix glass bong. Now that I've just hit 40 and spent far too much time talking about whiskey on Facebook, "sweet tube" has the infinitely less cool and exponentially more pathetic connotation of the packaging for expensive whiskey. Case-in-point: when I picked up my first Willett gift shop rye and saw the classy off-white cylinder, the words "dude, sweet tube" escaped my lips. I promptly looked over my left shoulder to try and spot the douche bag. It was me.

Let's be honest, there's just something special about whiskey in a nice box. Of course it shouldn't matter. The juice is the juice is the juice. You're just paying more for packaging. Yada yada yada. Yes that's all true. Yet no matter how many bottles I buy, collect, and drink, my eyes always light up when I see a beautiful box. Like this one:

Emperor's Clothes

Sure, there are examples of lackluster whiskies parading around in ludicrously over-the-top packaging to fetch a preposterous price tag:

The Arran Devil's Punchbowl

Highland Park Ice

Artful Presentation

But when there's a brand you already love and they take the time to release a really special bottle and take great care in the packaging, sometimes you just know you're in for a treat. Such is the case with Douglas Laing, my favorite independent bottler.  Douglas Laing always does a nice presentation:

Douglas Laing Director's Cut

Douglas Laing Old Malt Cask

But they really go above and beyond with their flagship product, the Old & Rare Platinum Editions.  (Note, due to some recent reorg, OAR is now exclusively under Hunter Laing.)  These velvet-lined, antique-fastened cabinets would make a luxurious coffin for any small family pet. The wood must be cedar because the smell inside is pure bliss, even before you open the bottle. And it simply reeks of class that they don't identify the bottle on the outside of the box. 

The Old & Rare Platinum selections are all single cask releases, aged over twenty years, and bottled at cask strength with no chill-filtering or artificial color. In other words, they're close to heaven for malt whisky fanatics. I've never seen OAR selections on the shelf in the states, though there are some popping up at KL (though they don't seem to come with the box??!???).  Also they're not cheap, with the entry-level bottles fetching around $300 and the more sought-after brands (Ardbeg and Macallan for example) in the $700 range. Then again if you have seven hundred bucks burning a whole in your pocket, there's worse things you could do with it.

Building Suspense

For my quarterly Beast Masters Club events, I always hide the identities of the whiskies to build suspense and then reveal the bottles one by one as we taste through them. And what better way to mask the goodies than to have four of these majestic Douglas Laing boxes on the table when everyone arrived? As we thumbed back the nautical looking hatches and opened each box, audible 'oooohs' and 'ahhhhhs' filled the room.  

The selections were as follows:

Rosebank 21 Year 1992/2013 52.3%

Lowland malts are generally not my thing. There are some perfectly fine brands out there like Auchentoshan and Glenkinchie, but they're just not the big flavor bombs that we smoky beast aficionados are looking for. Lowland malts tend to be grassy and floral and they are traditionally triple distilled (similar to most Irish whiskies) giving them a mellower taste.

This Rosebank on the other hand was incredibly delicious. It was an ideal starting point for the night. Fruits and flowers dominate the nose with explosions of apples, pears, violets, and lilies, beautiful overtones of perfume and white chocolate. This was so surprising, even some of the most committed beast masters in the room had to pick this malt as their favorite for the evening! The palate is thick and dreamy with more fruit and flowers, and the finish is sweet but extremely balanced and nuanced. You'd never in a million years guess this was over one hundred proof based on the presence of alcohol, but the incredible flavor might clue you in. Sadly only one hundred and twenty-two bottles were released from this cask, so we're unlikely to taste it again. Really a dream and definitely a gem of a lowland whisky that came out of left field for the surprise of the night.


Highland Park 27 Year 1984 / 2012 51.6%

This is without question the best Highland Park I've ever tasted and a magnificent second bottle for the tasting. Moving up in the flavor / boldness category from the Rosebank, we're into some more lush tastes here in the caramel and stone fruit category. The nose shows a slight sherry influence with peach and apricot wrapped in some caramel and pound cake. There's some nice maritime elements giving it a little bit of salt and punch, and maybe just a hint of smoke. Highland Park has never been a standout distillery for me but it's very hard to find anything not to like here. A straight forward delicious malt, sitting perfectly with strong spirit flavor sweetness, smoothness, and balance.

Caol Ila 27 Year 1984 / 2011 51.9%

Now we're headed into serious beast territory. This twenty seven year single cask sherry matured Caol Ila is absolutely the stuff of legend. A huge rush of ocean campfire greets the nose with salty sea air carrying deep smoldering embers. Deep deep peat with that signature Caol Ila nuttiness, like candied pecans heated over charcoal. Then we get the big sherry influence with plums and raisins and strawberry jam. The sweet and the peat wrap up into the most awesome palate. Just flavor going on for hours here with the smoke, the sweet, and the big spirit integrating together for such an amazing refined taste. This can only happen when a great cask is aged perfectly, in this case for almost three decades, and bottled at precisely the right time.  (Which of course is the beauty of independent bottlers who are not beholden to releasing the same aged spirit every year!).  This is a real desert island dram right here, the kind of thing I could happily drink every night for the rest of my life.

Ardbeg 22 Year 1991 / 2013 55.8%

To finish the night we cracked this eye-opening twenty-two year Ardbeg. Moving way up in the peat direction, and topping out the ABV of the night at over one hundred and ten proof, this was another superb gem. Very much your typical Ardbeg, this was all peat and fire with little pops of citrus and pears. Wonderfully dry, with almost none of the sweetness of the Caol Ila, this was all smoke versus power. As great old Islay malts can do, the smoke balanced out the super high alcohol content for a real peat lovers dream. Another wonderful cask choice, this was a real killer to end the night.

In Conclusion

All-in-all, I think this was the best tasting I've ever put on. The sweet boxes lined up on the table had everyone's mind racing the minute they walked in. Moving from a marvelous lowland malt to a highland and then showcasing both sherry and bourbon-aged Islay malts really highlighted the wonderful diversity of single malts across the various regions. But above all, the cask selections from Douglas Laing were simply phenomenal. Discovering how amazing Rosebank can be, and tasting the best Highland Park ever, and then getting two of the finest bottles ever from two of my favorite distilleries was the kind of night whisky maniacs live for.

New Chief(s) in Town! Ian Macleod's Chieftain's Bottling Run #9

March 1, 2016

New Chief(s) in Town! Ian Macleod's Chieftain's Bottling Run #9

Ian Macleod's Chieftain's independent bottlings of rare whiskies have put out some serious malts over the years.  We're talking about a thirty year Port Ellen, a 1969 Springbank, stuff like that. They've certainly set the bar pretty high with the declaration, "The Chieftain's collection's hallmark is that each bottling must be fit for a King, a Leader or in the Celtic world, a Chieftain." Guess today that's us! 

The Chieftain's Run #9, 2016

Looking at the selections we were intrigued. Mortlach has recently come on to our radar and we've been pleasantly surprised. There is a 100% bourbon cask Glen Grant, which we've never tasted before (they're famous for their "sherry bomb" casks). Not to mention all these bottlings are 15+ years, unfiltered, and mostly served up at higher proofs. We invited our frequent guest reviewer @jakecahill to sit down and taste the whole line. Here's what we came up with.

Mortlach 18-Year PX Cask 46% 

Steve's Tasting Notes

Nose: Pineapple Jelly Beans, jammy fruity syrup, stone fruits (apricots).

Palate: Jake says “stewy” just as I take a sip and yes, it’s like chewing on a nice fruity stew of prunes and plums and raisins.

Finish: Smooth and short, with punchy berry fruitiness, a little white chocolate and a touch of tannin from the oak. Overall a very nice dram. This is not a flavor bomb, but very subtle and well crafted. A great pick for someone in the Macallan / Speyside fanfare category.

Jake's Tasting Notes

Nose: Beautiful golden color (bourbon cask before PX?) opens up with a dried pruney fruit. Dried pineapple and mango. Some slight vegetation that I cant quite pinpoint. Almost like compost while all the materials are still fresh. Slight hint of petroleum.

Palate: More of the dried fruit. leaning more toward the prune and date here. That soft vegetation comes back with a little earth and spice toward the back end. 

Finish: It sounds like an awful combination of ingredients (dried fruit, vegetation and petroleum??), but like a great chef can pull a dish together with complimentary flavors from opposing ingredients, this Mortlach comes together as a wonderful whisky with an inviting nose and interesting flavor wheel that delivers a new component every time you revisit it. 

Glen Grant 20-Year Bourbon Finish 55.1%

Steve's Tasting Notes

Nose: Heavy, big vanilla extract. Maybe this is from the bourbon cask? But it's way more vanilla than you'd typically get from barrel influence. More vanilla than in many bourbons! There has to be some very sweet vanilla influence coming through from the distillate, can't just be the barrel. There's a little light oak and some green grapes and figs.  It's a very mellow nose for over 110 proof.

Palate: Interesting palate. I was expecting mild flavor based on the smoothness of the nose, but it opens up with some pretty bold spirit warmth, fresh cream, an “almond milk smoothie” comes to mind, getting a lot more of the barley and wood on the tongue.

Finish: Being a fan of big flavors like Islay smoke and American whiskey, it’s usually tough to impress me with a Speyside bourbon cask, but this one at cask strength has some

power that separates it from the pack. Really sweet but in a nice flavorful way without being cloying. Surprisingly this was my favorite of the bunch, and definitely the one I found myself thinking about the next day.

Jake's Tasting Notes

Nose: Strong bourbon influence on the nose. Soft and light but an array of inviting aromas. You can really dig your nose into this one and get quite personal with it for a 110.2 proof. For me I got a lot of Vanilla malt shake, Dark Cherries, Dried Figs, Toasted oak and slight burnt out campfire. "Soda!" I said. "What kind of soda??"   "CREAM SODA," says Steve, "Dr. Brown's Cream Soda!" "YEEESSSSS! That's it exactly!"

Palate: Boom! Theres the Proof! It wasn't in the Pudding! It was in this Glen Grant. Creamy and spicy come crashing together here. Crème brûlée and apple cobbler. with 

Finish: A long nice finish with subtle malty and earthy elements dominating as the fruit and spice slowly taper off. This was my personal favorite.

Braeval 19-Year "The Red Beaune"

Steve's Tasting Notes

Nose: Not blowing me away on the nose. Kind of a jammy sickly sweetness bumping into the spirit in not such a good way.

Palate: Maybe like red licorice. Again this one’s not doing it for me. The wine finish feels a bit ham-fisted into what was not a very flavorful malt.

Finish: Honestly this was my least favorite of the bunch. Like I said I'm generally not a Speymalt guy, and I'm almost always underwhelmed by fancy wine finishes. Jake is much more knowledgeable about wine than I so I asked him what "Red Beaune" meant. "Probably Côte de Beaune" says Jake, which Google reveals is usually a combination of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes - neither of which being my favorite wine. So maybe this just isn't my cup of tea.

Jake's Tasting Notes

Nose: Kind of 'fumbly' and really out of whack. Overly fruity and medicinal in an unpleasant way.

Palate: I imagine the first experimental batches of Robitussin and Dimetapp tasted something like this. I just really don't have anything nice to say about this malt other than its... Interesting and unique I guess.

Finish: Thank goodness its finished. NEXT!

(Even though we were drinking together, Jake and I wrote our notes separately so I guess we were pretty much on the same page!)


Linkwood 17 Year Oloroso Finish 55%

Steve's Tasting Notes

Nose: Hard apple cider for me on the nose.

Palate: Still in super green apple territory here. Sort of over the top sweet green Granny Smith apples. Was hoping for a little smoke on this one but apart from maybe a little barrel char there’s hardly any smoke here.

Finish: Comes together nicely between the fruit, sweetness, and a good amount of wood. This one’s
nice, would be very good standing up next to a stinky cheese! Taleggio anyone? Mmmm talegio!

Jake's Tasting Notes

Nose: Very fresh and lively. A good hit of vanilla bean and apple skin. Honeycomb.

Palate: That honey comes back but my apple has now turned mealy/slightly oxidized. Nutty almost. A bit of damp earth. A little bit of red fruit here like strawberry or cherry too. 

Finish: This has a little bit of heat to it. Which is interesting seeing as its lower proof. It isn't enough to distract it from its character and flavors though. A really lovely and enjoyable whisky.

Fettercairn 19-Year Oloroso 57.4%

Steve's Tasting Notes

Nose: Immediately digging this one. Medicinal nose. Not peaty but very herbal. The sweetness from the sherry is coalescing nicely with all this crazy menthol stuff. tart cherries, lemon meringue.

Palate: Holy black pepper. This is a punchy ballsy malt. Still mixing together nicely between the dry herbal stuff and the sweet grapes. Definitely the most interesting of the bunch so far. Really didn’t know what to expect from this one but really like it.

Finish: Wow it’s really strong but super drinkable for 114.8 proof! Not reaching for water. Really lovely strong mix of bitter, sweet, and warm wood.

Jake's Tasting Notes

Nose: This one wins most interesting in my mind. Really fun and exciting. Pronounced herbal and medicinal nose with a wonderful background of dried fruits, rosemary, and cornbread.

Palate: Super spicy with a waft of cough syrup (the good tasting cherry kind). A fresh sprinkle of dried herbs de provance into the pot and just a tad grapey.

Finish: Great playfulness between sweetness and Earth. Really fun to keep going back to again and again. 

Overall

This was a really fun line. The Grant and the Fettercairn were truly surprising and memorable, vanilla-bomb and pepper-bomb respectively. The Grant is a little pricey, coming in around $140-$160, but I find myself definitely contemplating picking up a bottle. Same with the Fettercairn which is on the shelves around $120-$130. but would be such a strong conversation starter. Particularly for real malt whisky fans, either of these would be a total stumper tasted blind, and a really interesting addition to any tasting. 

Cheers/SB

The Whisky Exchange Selection Signatory Laphroaig

February 22, 2016

The Whisky Exchange Selection Signatory Laphroaig

TWE

The Whisky Exchange is pretty much heaven for malt heads. They have one of the largest, if not the largest, selection of rare malts of any retail store. If you type "the" into any of the browsers on my phone, laptop, or work computer, www.thewhiskyexchange.com is the first suggested link. Which is basically the Internet telling me "dude, you have a problem".

Both Mr. and Mrs. Beast's birthdays are in June, so if you want to get a head start on shopping, here are some useful links:

Port Ellen Very Old Particular

Talisker 1957

We'll be here holding our breath. Anyway you can see the caliber of stuff that TWE has lying around. They're not cheap, as a matter of fact they tend to sit at the top of the market, but they've earned it. There's just about no other place in the world where you can shop for this kind of stuff!

Exclusive Bottlings

TWE also partners with both distilleries and independent bottlers to release TWE Exclusive single barrel picks. One of their favorites is to pick Signatory Cask Strength selections. If you know SmokyBeast, you know we're nuts for Signatory Cask Strength. They tend to pick monster bottles, serve them up with no coloring or chill-filtration, and (obviously by the name) at cask strength. You can rarely go wrong with the cask selections, they're usually some of the best reflections of each distillery. And the stunning presentation of their decanter bottles only heightens the effect for the whisky collector.

TWE Signatory Bottlings (Photo from TWE Blog)

So we've got two aces - Signatory and TWE coming together to release a private barrel. What could put us over the top here? Well of course choosing a nice old Laphroaig, and aging it in a sherry cask no less. This bottle was a total no-brainer for us.

We closed our eyes as we clicked the little currency conversion button and watched the dollar sign pop up. Some things can't be helped. Add to cart. Be smart, buy two. Checkout before we get cold feet. Anxiously await arrival of box. Tear open. Share with friends. Something like that...

TWE Signatory Laphroaig 16 Year (Refill Sherry Butt)

Distilled in 1998 and bottled in 2015, this whopper of a 59.9% malt whisky spent its entire sixteen years in a sherry barrel, giving it a beautiful color.

Needless to say we were very excited to pop this puppy open. Jake joined us for a tasting to see what all the fuss was about. Somehow we guessed that we wouldn't be disappointed.

Tasting Notes (Beast)

Nose: It's got that very distinctive Laphroaig nose. Sort of like soaking cigar ash in salt water. You singe a few nose hairs on the way in. But quickly the big sweetness of the sherry kicks in and you're off to the races. Beautiful balance of peat and stone fruits, seaside barbecue and fruity jam. There's a medicinal undertone here of phenol and deeper herbals (sage, peppercorn, rock salt) cut with some bitter cherries and baking spice.

Palate: Nice oily mouthfeel, very smooth with the sweetness counterbalancing the smoke for a lovely drink. Almost an uncanny drinkability for almost 120 proof.

Finish: More like weeks than days on this one. The power of the ABV and the peat make this one to remember. Super strong smoke just lingers in your nose and throat for hours with the sweetness gradually dying off and leaving you with a perfect winter jacket.

Tasting Notes (Jake)

First of all Signatory Laphroaig hand picked by The Whisky Exchange? Are you kidding!? Any one of those names alone is a reputable source and deliverer of delicious drams. But all three collaborated on this one? My mouth started watering even the first time @smokybeast told me about this bottle. The Beast just wouldn't shut up about this bottle and from the moment he pulled the top of the other night (the bottles top, not his) I could tell exactly why. In general, Laphroaig is usually my least favorite if Islay malts. Never find myself thinking "I'm really in the mood for some Laphroaig right now", but this pour is absolutely one of the tastiest Islay malts I've come across.

Nose: Smoky as hell, fruity all the way through. It's like a bacon wrapped fig that was charred over a campfire, drizzled with olive oil and topped with fresh cracked black pepper.

Palate: De Lish! Oily as a jersey shore tanning bed and as dry as British "humour"..

Finish: And it just doesn't fade! I had this almost a week ago and I swear I can still taste a little smoke when I burp. Which I don't often because I'm a gentleman. This was a fantastic malt that will make it hard to enjoy my peaty section at home because this just towers over them all.



Review

This bottle is a slam dunk. While not cheap (one hundred pounds before you get into shipping / customs which can get expensive), it's super hard to find a 100% sherry cask Laphroaig these days. While some of the current Laphroaig releases contain sherry maturation (finishing and/or blending), they're really not in this league. This is definitely not a malt for beginners - you need to be way into the peat and cask strength spectrum of whisky drinking. That being said, for us this was a seriously amazing dram. Cheers to TWE for another great pick and keep up the noble work. /SB

Whiskey House

October 27, 2015

Whiskey House

We recently got invited to a private whiskey tasting at Manhattan's swanky Core Club.  "Whiskey House" is the creation of Rob Levin, a friend of ours from some epic whiskey nights and the former publisher of New York Enterprise Report.

The premise: An up-scale venue for networking among professionals who happen to also be whiskey aficionados.  Core Club offered a tasteful modernist setting with room for private conversation or hobnobbing with the group.

Norm spins a yarn over a glass of malt.

The subject: a tasting of the current line of independent bottlings from Gordon & MacPhail.  Chris Riesbeck was on hand from G&M to catch us up on the in's and out's of this year's barrel picks. 

Macallan 18-Year

Macallan 18-Year 1995: Though obviously here at SmokyBeast we're more into the outrageous firebomb side of malt whisky, it's hard to go wrong with a nice old Macallan. This one had the signature silky smooth Macallan glow with an emphasis on little hints of pepper, tobacco, leather, and a little sweet island fruitiness.

Caol Ila Cask Strength

Caol Ila Cask Strength 2004: We'd already tried this one, but what a mighty beast it is!  Caol Ila really shines at this young age of nine years at its full 59%. It's full of roast nuts, rolling with phenolic peat smoke, and layering in richness of honey and orange candies. The smoke absorbs the high ABV wonderfully and the result is a powerful, tasty, and warm whisky.

Mortlach 25

Mortlach 25: The surprise of the night was the chance to taste the new Mortlach 25 Year release. Mortlach came out of relative obscurity having been one of the principal blended components of Johnny Walker. It's all the rage right now and with good reason.  The 25-year was very subtle yet flavorful leading with baking spices, oozing into a warm chocolaty place, and closing with some interesting pepper and wood notes. We'd really need a full bottle to properly evaluate this one - good thing Whiskey House offers preferred prices to its members! 

Shopping cart

The Skinny: Robert is a buddy of ours and so we're not doing any type of impartial review here. But if you are looking for a high-end club to join, bring clients, enjoy a whiskey, and get to hang out in some of NYC's exclusive spots, Whiskey House does a classy job.  Thanks Rob and everyone and see you soon!  

Rob and the Whiskey House crew

Cheers/SB

Malts of Scotland Laphroaig Sherry Cask - Oh Yeah!!!

September 16, 2015

Malts of Scotland Laphroaig Sherry Cask - Oh Yeah!!!

Indie Indie Indie

If you've seen our whiskey collection, you know that we're big fans of independent bottlers.

Quick definitions: "OB" or "official bottlings" are whiskies released directly by the distillery or by companies like Diageo who own the distilleries. Lagavulin 16-year and Laphroaig 10-year are official bottlings. There are also limited release OB bottles like Lagavulin 37-year and Laphroaig 25-year.

"IB" or "independent bottlings" are released by third party companies like Douglas Laing, Signatory, McGibbon's, A.D. Rattray, and so on.  These are independent bottlers who purchase stocks of whiskey (hundreds of barrels in many cases), age them, and release them in smaller batches, usually single casks. 

These are not the most collectible bottles. Official bottlings always fetch the most at retail or auction, and are usually the big fish in high priced whiskey collections. But indie bottles can be very special. Third party bottlers have the luxury of releasing one cask at a time. They don't have the burden of always having to put out big quantities of the same age malt every year. This means that they can really pay attention to each barrel. They can age it in the type of wood they feel best suits the malt, taste it every year until it's perfect, and release it whenever they feel it's at its prime. There are gems and bargains to be found in indie bottles.

Case in point: try to find an age-stated, sherry cask Laphroaig these days. Sure, there are releases like Cairdeas and PX Cask that are Non-Age-Stated Laphroaigs finished for a year or two in sherry barrels. But we're talking about 100% sherry cask matured goodness, over 10-years old. You know what, don't try. Take our word for it: it's impossible.

But in the indie world, you can sometimes find a gem like this:

MOS

Malts of Scotland is a German bottler that specializes in Islay malts. They have great taste in barrel-picking, and they really know how whiskey-philes like their product: cask strength, un-filtered, un-colored. Basically straight from the barrel. 

Check out the details on this one: 15 year Laphroaig aged in a Sherry Hogshead, bottled at 56.8% ABV. This one was bottled for the occasion of Aquavitae, an annual German whiskey festival. Malts of Scotland puts out tons of special releases like this, available all over Europe. Keep an eye out if you travel through Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, etc. They're not expensive and this is just the type of thing you want to grab at a liquor store on your next vacation or business trip oversees.

Tasting Notes

Nose:  Rock & roll nose of cantaloupe and peat. Oh this one's gonna be good. 'Phroaig's signature phenol and campfire rocks (some people say ashtray) are there, but so subdued and 'in the pocket'. Hiding behind it is rose water and chocolate covered cherries. The nose is maybe not incredibly different from some of the modern sherry finishes, but there's a subtlety to it that hints to great things ahead.

Palate: The peat hides from the tongue and drinking white chocolate, green grapes, and sweet cream. Really lush mouthfeel that coats your palate with honeyed fruits.

Finish: The prodigal smoke makes a most welcome return on the finish. Big peat smoke, but so well balanced against the big proof and all the sweetness. The sherry comes to the fore here but it's not cloying, just blends wonderfully with the other tastes. More grapes, perfume, honey, and lots of smoke.


Review

No wonder it's so hard to find a cask strength, age-stated, 100% sherry cask Laphroaig. They're incredibly delicious!  Full power, super smooth, big mouthfeel, lots of smoke, beautiful sherry finish, everything comes together here. Brilliant stuff.

Review: Smokehead 18 Extra Black

June 15, 2015

Review: Smokehead 18 Extra Black

A few months ago we reviewed Smokehead Skull, a private label Islay single malt that we guessed to be a young Ardbeg or Laphroaig. Depending on your tolerance for marketing insanity, the preponderance of smoking skulls, custom designed Les Paul guitars, and packaging that looks like a Metallica album cover, the booze was pretty good.  The no age statement thing, along with the 43% ABV thing, along with the somewhat thin mouthfeel and finish put a bit of a damper on it, though we still enjoyed it.  But lo and behold we finally got our hands on the big brother, the Smokehead Extra Black 18-Year.  We're excited... in a Mad Max kind of way.

Tasting Notes

Nose:  Yowza!  Peat explosion!  Giving it a few minutes (and singeing nasal hairs on the peat) it becomes a menthol circus of mint oil with smoky meats.  Like well-charred lamb chops slathered in mint jelly.  There are rich herbals of thyme and cardamon.  Underneath all that is a deep honeycomb sweetness.

Body:  Here we go.  It's like Caol Ila cubed.  Layer after layer of deep peat smoke.  Wild spice, now we're beyond herbals and into the exotic - Vindaloo, liquid smoke, cracked pepper.  Coming back to the nose, it has really opened up now after ten minues with citrus bombs, like grilling lemon with the peel on.  Some deep aloe vera and tropical greens.

Finish:  It pretty much says it all when wifey exclaims  "Yeeaaaaaahhh!  Whoa Nelly! THAT'S what we're looking for!"  The finish lasts about a week.  It's surprisingly well-balanced for this much peat.  It's a nice end result.  The peat is great, but like we've said time and again, it's not just the peat.  There has to be a balance of flavor so that the peat isn't raw and throaty.  This has that with big big flavor and also some nice nuance of sweet and rich layers.

Review

Clearly this dude drinks Smokehead Extra Black

Well-named, a smokehead dream dram.  It's really fun for peat freaks like us.  We'd still like to see the ABV picked up a few points (this one is 46%), particularly given the cost/rarity of this bottle ($150 or so and good luck finding one).  The super black bottle is pretty awesome though.    Definitely a fun piece if you're a collector.

And by the way MM in 3D is a two-hour long dystopian car chase out of hell.  What did you expect???

Cheers/SB

Laphroaig Douglas of Drumlanrig

June 9, 2015

Laphroaig Douglas of Drumlanrig

Quality Control

From now on we're only going to drink scotch that's personally selected and certified by nobility. How else are we going to ensure the proper quality of our malt beverages? We think this is a pretty reasonable measure. 

Luckily the Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry takes some time away from the goings-on at Drumlanrig castle every year to do just that. He visits the good folks at Hunter Laing and puts his seal upon a few choice barrels, which are bottled under the winged heart sigil of Douglas of Drumlanrig. The winged heart (FYI we're pronouncing that like "wing-ed" because it sounds cool), commemorates the bravery of Sir James Douglas "The Good" who was killed during the crusades. 

The good duke likes his Islay malts, and he likes them un-chill-filtered and free from artificial colouring, so he seems like a pretty stand-up guy.  

Douglas of Drumlanrig Laphroaig 15 Year

This Laphroaig was a limited release of 150 bottles distilled in 1993 and bottled in 2008...   

Tasting Notes

Nose:  Equal parts extra virgin olive oil, salt water, and peat smoke.  It has a lovely vegetal entry and then moves slowly into hearts of palm, some little hints of white grapes & citrus, and then builds into the smoldering salt water campfire rocks.  It's very subtle though and never overwhelms, it just sits there in the nose in an immensely approachable and enjoyable way.

Palate:  Some sweetness comes out in the palate with little lemon candies and honey. The olive oil sensation continues in flavor though the mouth feel is rather thin.

Finish:  A very well-balanced, if slightly forgettable finish. The 46% abv choice is noticeable and so mellow it borders on weak.  Mild peat smoke drifts across the nostrils and the garden theme continues with some fresh eggplant (? weird tasting note but that's what we got), florals (daisies?), and light ocean salt.  It's super drinkable, that's for sure, but by no means a beastly dram.

Review

Duke of Queensberry's Crib - Drumlanrig Castle

This is a very nice bottle.  It would be the perfect introductory Islay malt for someone who does not have taste for peat smoke yet. It's delicate and has a lot of subtle things going on in addition to the smoke like farm vegetables and flowers.  On the down side it's a little watery, as the very pale color would suggest, and definitely isn't showing bold flavors. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes a nice mellow Islay malt is just the ticket when you don't want to burn your throat with a killer peat-head bottle.

The only issue here is the price point / value. Over $100 is a lot to spend for an introductory dram, so this one is a little tough. For that coinage we'd probably veer towards buying a nice cask strength Laphroaig, and then if you're feeling like something more mellow just adding water yourself. You'd probably end up in a similar place. Some of these bottles were done at cask strength, but we didn't manage to track one down, so those may have been more up our alley.  Or maybe we've just been drinking too much barrel proof whiskey lately and we're jaded.  A few years ago we may have had a very different opinion.

Anyway if we put the cost out of our minds, this one is a very lovely malt. Good for some outdoor action on a warm day when you want something very drinkable and soft. A treat fit for...  well evidently for a Duke. It must be nice being a Duke.

Cheers/SB

Review: Kilchoman PX Finish

April 7, 2015

Review: Kilchoman PX Finish

We have a thing for Kilchoman.  Besides being the first new Islay distillery in a hundred and fifty years, they've been doing really interesting things with young peaty malts.  We brought a bottle of Machir Bay to a party last week and it was a huge hit.  People who had never tried Kilchoman before became fans, and even some folks who weren't fans of peated whisky got into it.  The most common reaction was that the smoke was so prevalent on the nose, but then the malt was so smooth, that they were presently surprised.

So when Impex announced that they were releasing a Pedro Ximenez sherry finished Kilchoman, we got excited.  From Lagavulin to Laphroaig to Benriach, you rarely go wrong combining a heavily peated scotch with finishing in a PX barrel.  The sweet raisin-y richness of the sherry barrel brings out something special in the smoldering peat of the whisky.  We got a sample from Impex and poured it next to their single cask sherry matured release which was already a favorite.

Kilchoman PX Finish Single Cask 118.4 proof

Nose: Heavy heavy butterscotch.  There's some phenol/rubber peat mixing in with a cake-y syrupy sweetness.  Lemon cake and olive oil.  White grapes and apples come out at the end.

Palate: Wow kind of a burner here.  Sort of the opposite of what we've come to expect from Kilchoman, the nose is super smooth and the palate is hot and spicy with tons of smoke.

Finish: Very rough on the throat.  Hate to say it but this one is just not working for us.  The elements aren't really coming together here.  On paper it's got all the things we like: Kilchoman's peaty young fiery malt with PX finish at cask strength.  But it's sort of like all the worst qualities of all these things.  Not much of the classic Kilchoman white chocolate smoothness, with a really harsh ashtray peat thing going on, and the sherry influence is very sweet but kind of floating over the peat and disconnected.  Perhaps this was a quick sherry finish that didn't have time to integrate with the malt?  Unclear but this one's a pass.

Kilchoman Sherry Finish Single Cask 115.8 Proof

Nose: More in the pocket here with grassy farmy herbals, lots of smoke, some of those roasted nuts, chocolate and nougat. 

Palate: Definitely digging the straight sherry finish.  Very smooth with some nice red grapes, ripe fall fruits, and little pops of hot spicy chiles.  

Finish: Nice, long, and incredibly drinkable at cask strength.  Like most of the Kilchoman single casks we've tried, this is a real treat.  Definitely one to check out.

Conclusions

Ok so... weird... we really didn't dig the PX.  Maybe it's an age thing, most of the PX cask whiskies we've tried have been much older.  Maybe it takes some time for that pairing to work.  In any case, if you still haven't tried Kilchoman you definitely need to dive in.  The Machir Bay or the 100% Islay (home grown, "farm-to-bottle" barley grown right on Islay!) are awesome places to start.  The Loch Gorm sherry finish is delicious, and if you can find some of the cask strength single barrels definitely pick one up.  Maybe skip the PX finish, kind of disappointing, but grab the straight sherry finish and enjoy.  The perfect young malt for a chilly spring evening to enjoy with old friends.  

Cheers/SB

SMOKEHEAD SKULL! Oh yeah that's actually what it's called...

February 24, 2015

SMOKEHEAD SKULL! Oh yeah that's actually what it's called...

POWERFUL, PEATY, SMOKY, OUTRAGEOUS, BOISTEROUS, DEEP, RICH, INTENSE...

These are words written in bone on a human skull with plumes of smoke pouring off of it.  Oh yeah, that's some serious beastly marketing madness right there.  We dig it.

What is it?

Smokehead is an independent Islay bottling from Ian Macleod Distillers.  Despite the name, Ian Macleod is not a distillery, rather an importer who supplies a range of spirits to European supermarkets.  There's not a lot of information given, such as no age statement on the bottle, and no clue as to the actual distillery except that it's Islay.  Most people seem to think it's a young Ardbeg which sounds about right.

Tasting Notes

Nose:  Good & smoky. Nice coastal smoke like a young and fiery Ardbeg or Laphroaig. A lot of salt. Some little chocolates, chocolate covered peanuts maybe. Little bit of wood and tiny bit of leather.

Palate: Smoky, but overall pretty light with a thin mouthfeel.

Finish:  Drifting, light to medium smoke, no burn, generally a nice finish.

Also makes a pretty sweet Les Paul...

Review

Great bottle, good whisky. We share a soft spot for smoke heads.  This one comes in around $50 which may be a little high considering that Ardbeg 10 is around the same price, and it's... well... ten years old.  But hey this is a fun little whiskey that comes in a bad-ass bottle in a sweet tube and will impress your friends.  Like for example, if someone gave Mr. & Mrs. SmokyBeast a bottle of this, or better yet a bottle of their "extra black" 18 Year, we'd be very happy.  The more smoking skulls on the shelf at our place the better.