Author: MaltKlaus | Page 2 | MaltKlaus' Daily Drams

August 14, 2019August 13, 2019

Tasting: Springbank 1994-2019 24-year-old by Cadenhead’s

Every year, independent bottler Cadenhead’s gets to select one cask of Springbank whisky to bottle under their own name – and they have to pay their parent company, which owns Springbank distillery, for it. This year, the winner out of apparently 37 casks was a 24-year old Springbank, distilled back in 1994 and matured in a refill ex-bourbon barrel. Must’ve been one heck of a barrel with an outturn of 312 bottles. Maybe it was married and re-racked at some point?
This whisky was featured as one of the drams in the “Director’s Cut” tasting at the Campbeltown Malts Festival this year as a preview and I brought the drample back home with me for a proper assessment.
So, what do you expect from this whisky? Nothing but the best, right? Let’s verify that…

Dram data:
Distillery: Springbank
Bottler: Cadenhead’s
Distilled: 1994
Bottled: 2019
Age: 24 years
Limitation: 312 bottles
Cask: refill barrel
Alcohol: 50,8%
no colouring added / not chill filtered
Whiskybase link

August 8, 2019August 7, 2019

Tasting: (Glen) Ord 14 yo 2005 – 2019 by Cadenhead’s

Ord – sometimes also referred to as “Glen Ord” is a rather unknown distillery. There are no official bottlings – well, almost. Owners Diageo bottle it in their very confusing (and mostly underwhelming) “Singleton” line of malts – the same branding is used for three different distilleries and each version is only available in a specific market. Way back when (Glen) Ord was bottled under its own name with an age statement it happened to be my first bottle of Single Malt. Now if I could only remember if it was the 8 or the 12 yo… Anyway, as my first proper single malt, this big – and since massively expanded – distillery has a special place in my heart. Cadenhead’s recently released a 14-year-old expression in their Summer 2019 batch 2 and the folks at the Vienna shop were kind enough to provide me with a miniature. Let’s give it a taste and see if I will part with some of my hard-earned money to pick up a full-size bottle!

(Glen) Ord 14 yo 2005 – 2019 by Cadenhead’s

Dram data:
Distillery: Ord
Bottler: Cadenhead’s
Distilled: 2005
Bottled: Summer 2019
Age: 14 yo
Limitation:
Cask: bourbon hogshead
Alcohol: 54,8%
no colouring added / not chill filtered
Whiskybase link

July 27, 2019September 10, 2019

We need to talk about perspective

Casks in a whisky warehouse at Springbank distillery, Scotland

Just the other day, a young lad sat next to me in my study, we were working on a movie project. On my table was a bottle of a single cask bottling I had received and “catalogued” that day – meaning the bottle got a hand-written neck tag with price, date of purchase and so on. “75€?” the young man asked me, seemingly in awe, as he inspected the bottle. To him, clearly used to buying spirits at a much lower price point, it looked like a very expensive bottle. To me it was just something I bought and would open at some point – rather casually too, having become used to whisky selling for triple figures, so that 75€ had become a rather ordinary price tag in my perception.

I had become so immersed in the whisky world that over the years my perspective had changed – and I didn’t even realize it until my friend pointed it out.
While it did take that experience to really drive the point home, this moment was indicative of a change I had noticed myself during the past couple of months.

April 24, 2019April 23, 2019

Tasting: Ardbeg 1993 25 years old by Cadenhead’s

Ardbeg. One of those distilleries I have a love/hate relationship with. I’m rather fond of the distillery itself and the base distillate they produce but I’m less than enthusiastic about the over-the-top branding with all the flannel and the special releases, it just doesn’t appeal to me. These days I might get a bottle of the still very good TEN every once in a blue moon when it’s on sale but I ignore the rest. That also includes independently bottled Ardbegs. At one point Ardbeg was a distillery you HAD to buy casks of if you wanted casks from one of the higher-valued distilleries in their owner’s portfolio. These days independently owned casks are rare, sought after and priced accordingly. In my opinion and experience, the only somewhat sanely priced bottler of Ardbeg remains Cadenhead’s – and even their current prices are above what I’m personally willing to pay. So I guess this is already sold out in most markets but thanks to the shop in Vienna (who miraculously still seem to have stock, according to their website, at the time of writing) I was sent a wee sample to have a wee nose and taste…

Dram data:
Distillery: Ardbeg
Bottler: Cadenhead’s
Distilled: 1993
Bottled: 2019
Age: 25 years
Limitation: 216 bottles
Cask: Hogshead
Alcohol: 51,6%
uncoloured / not chill filtered
Whiskybase link

March 26, 2019March 24, 2019

Tasting: Strathisla 1965 50 yo bottled 2016 by Gordon & MacPhail

Usually we as a human race like to have special drinks (Champagne, Wine, Whisky) to celebrate special events. And then there’s the opposite: Letting a fine drink create a special event. I’ve been holding on to this sample of 50 year-old, sherry-matured Strathisla from Speyside for quite a while now. Let’s see if will succeed at creating a special occasion …

Dram data:
Distillery: Strathisla
Bottler: Gordon & MacPhail
Distilled: 09.12.1965
Bottled: 20.01.2016
Age: 50 years
Limitation: 418 bottles
Cask: First Fill Sherry Puncheon
Alcohol: 43%
Uncoloured
Whiskybase link

March 22, 2019March 21, 2019

Tasting: Springbank 22 yo 1996 by Claxton’s

When I saw that Serge over at Whiskyfun HQ published a review of this whisky today, I remembered I still had half a sample from a tweet tasting in late 2018 sitting around waiting to be reviewed. So I didn’t read his notes beforehand in order not to influence myself too much and now it’s time to stick my nose in – taking my time to properly review this outside of the rush and typing frenzy that usually accompany tweet tastings. Men can’t multitask, ya know 😉

Dram data:
Distillery: Springbank
Bottler: Claxton’s
Distilled: 10.05.1996
Bottled: 04.09.2018
Age: 22
Limitation: 249 bottles
Cask: Bourbon Hogshead
Alcohol: 55%
uncoloured / not chill filtered
Whiskybase link

March 20, 2019March 20, 2019

Getting fooled by Glenfiddich – a blind tasting of three whiskies

Glenfiddich blind tasting by Peter Moser

I love blind tastings. They are a great way to make a huge fool of yourself. Ahem. Okay, let’s try this again. I love blind tastings. They are very educational and let you focus on the whisky without any preconceptions. A prime example of this was last year at a blind tasting at the Campbeltown whisky festival where I rated an Inchmurrin highest and a Littlemill lowest. Would I have scored them the same if I had known beforehand what the were? I hope so – but can’t say for sure!

Peter Moser, who runs the German-speaking whisky site fosm.de has invited me to take part in his blind tasting sets for the last few rounds – which have always yielded very interesting, sometimes sobering results. For round seven in his series, he sent us three samples, labelled #1-3 and with very little clues other than it being a big distillery in the process of reinventing itself and all of the samples being from the same distillery. In the end, the distillery turned out to be Glenfiddich. No, I did not guess that correctly but I was close-ish At least that’s what I tell myself… That has to count, right?

Now, for the full dose of public humiliation and poking fun at myself on my own site I’ll reveal the three drams – complete with translations of my original tasting notes:

March 19, 2019March 17, 2019

Jo’s corner: Tasting the Golani double wood matured two grain Israeli whisky

Produced from malted Concerto barley and local wheat, and distilled in small batches using traditional copper pot stills, at an elevation of 1300 feet above sea level, Golani is branded as Israel’s first whisky. It won bronze in the Whisky – Israel – Grain – NAS – 40% category at the IWSC 2018.

Dram data:
Distillery: The Golan Heights Distillery
Bottler: official bottling
Distilled: –
Bottled: –
Age: 36 months
Limitation: –
Cask: ex red wine (Cabernet) and new charred American oak
Alcohol: 40%
uncoloured

March 17, 2019March 16, 2019

Tasting: Tomatin 30 yo

Sometimes you open, enjoy and share a bottle and completely forget to review it. This alsmost happened with this 30-year-old Tomatin. Originally opened for my 30th birthday it has become better and better through oxidation over the years. I guess now is the time to finally officially review it before there’s nothing left – which should already give you a hint…

Dram data:
Distillery: Tomatin
Bottler: official bottling
Distilled: –
Bottled: 11.02.2014
Age: 30 years
Limitation: –
Cask: European and American Oak casks
Alcohol: 46%
uncoloured / not chill filtered
Whiskybase link

March 14, 2019March 15, 2019

Tasting: Paul John 5 year-old Indian Single Malt Whisky by Cadenhead’s (b.2017)

After the somewhat lackluster experience with the Rampur Select I tasted last week, let’s stay in India and look at this interesting bottling. Independently bottled Paul John, you say? How does that happen? Well, glad you asked! You buy some casks in India, have them bottled and shipped to Scotland, have some unlucky member of the warehouse staff empty all bottles into casks again, roll them into the warehouse for further maturation – and bottle the whisky once someone higher up in the food, err drink, chain decides to do it. Which didn’t take too long in the case of this 5-year-old whisky. Pretty easy, right? Let’s see if it was worth going through all that trouble…

Dram data:
Distillery: Paul John
Bottler: Cadenhead’s
Distilled: –
Bottled: Summer 2017
Age: 5 years
Limitation: 360 bottles
Cask: Bourbon Hogshead
Alcohol: 57,4%
uncoloured / not chill filtered
Whiskybase link