Spirit-wise, one of my favorite parts of the festive season is sipping the annual X-mas bottling from Big Peat. This year, Douglas Laing’s bearded Ileach will again delight us with a heavily peated blended malt encompassing some of Islay’s most popular distilleries. (more…)
In the context of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, the number 66 is a lot more than just two digits clinging to each other. In The Society’s distillery code system it refers to the Beam Suntory-owned Highlands unit Ardmore. And at least in my opinion, this busy production site is always worth checking out. Traditionally, The SMWS has a particularly good nose (more…)
A few weeks ago, I introduced the three grain whiskies from North Star Spirits’ recent Series 008 here on my blog. Today, I follow up with the malts. All in all, company owner Iain Croucher bottled four exquisite casks that fall into this category. They are between 8 and 13 years old (more…)
When I stumbled upon this bottling in The Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s outturn catalogue, it struck all the right notes with me: The number 58 stands for a renowned distillery that rarely finds its way into an independent release (namely Strathisla from Speyside). (more…)
The northern vikings surely love their whisky. And these days, they not only buy good bottlings from abroad, but also produce them domestically. In 2019 each of the five nations of Scandinavia has at least one operating whisky distillery. (more…)
I had cast an eye on the Laphroaig expression of Ovenbird’s “Whisky Coffee Collection” for quite some time. The idea und story behind it sounded super-intriguing to me. However, there was one hurdle to take: as I am based in Germany, I had to purchase it from abroad. (more…)
The recently released Summer Wit Barrel Aged marks ÜberQuell’s second craft beer with extra maturation in a cask from Bulleit Bourbon. Before, the Hamburg-based mirco brewery already gave one of their annual Julebryg expressions a similar treatment. (more…)
No grain, no glory! With three out of seven expressions being made from other ingredients than malted barley, Series 008 of North Star Spirits grants grain whisky a prominent spot in the limelight. And the bottlings that Iain Croucher and his team picked for their latest line (more…)
In mystery shows like “Supernatural“, shape-shifters often fill the roles of sly and devious antagonists that use their transformation abilities to mislead the heroes and perform their vile deeds unnoticed. This special breed of shape-shifter, which hails from Craigellachie Distillery (more…)
Last week, I introduced a trio of Rock Island expressions (namely Regular, 10yo and 21yo) here on my blog. Today, I am happy to dive even deeper in the matter and share with you some first-hand information on the latest developments from the Rock Island camp. (more…)
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