Gruesome greetings, everybody! Today is October 31, which means that the ghosts of All Hallow’s Eve will pay us a visit and demand a tribute. Against contrary believe, the best gift you can get them is neither a chocolate bar nor a bag of sweets. It is a whisky! (more…)
The first-ever independent bottling from tiny Dutch craft distillery Cley is absolutely brilliant. The company responsible for it, The Barrel Baron, picked a top-notch cask and presented it in a very classy way! (more…)
The driving forces behind the new indie bottler The Liquid Madness are two well-known whisky mavens from Germany, namely Tilo “The Caskhound” Schnabel and Sebastian “The Spirits Alchemist” Büssing. The two self-proclaimed “spirit adventurers” have joint forces (more…)
Earlier this year, Glaswegian indie bottler North Star celebrated its fifth anniversary. So, before I continue, here is a little insert: “Happy Birthday, Iain and team! Keep up the stellar work!” And now, on with the text … For my latest review here at BarleyMania, I have spent some quality time (more…)
Over the years, Burg Scharfenstein – a medieval castle in the federal state of Thuringia in Germany – had many owners. Since most of them did not really know what to do with the place, they did not give it the attention it needed and deserved. Luckily, this changed in recent years (more…)
When I met Fary Lochan’s CCO and Chairman Thomas Smidt-Kjærby in Hamburg last Saturday, he told me something that really lightened up my heart: After a lengthy corona break, the distillery has meanwhile opened its doors to visitors again. And the drammers in Denmark (more…)
Often when I utter the term “fruit bomb”, I use it to describe a slightly older dram that has spent – let’s say – 16 or more years in the cask. That is because it usually takes a certain amount of time before those full-on fruit notes reached the climax of their development. (more…)
I love whisky, I love craft beer. And I love it when the two intertwine. One bottling, in which this happens, is the 10-years-old BenRiach from The Scotch Malt Whisky Society called “Hoppy madness”. After an initial maturation in ex-bourbon barrels, this crisp Speysider (more…)
On New Year’s Eve I am all for smoke – albeit in the glass and not in the air! One whisky brand that you can always count on in this regard is Octomore by Bruichladdich. Whenever a malt gets released under the Octomore banner, you can be sure that it is packed to the brim (more…)
At the end of each year, it becomes time for me to renew my membership to The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Here, I always pay a little extra to get a mystery bottle along with the prolonged club affiliation. I find it really exciting to wait for the package, open it and take out a surprise (more…)
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