Sincere whisky reviews since 2008
Not so long ago we tried an excellent Kornog 2018 bottled for the Wu Dram Clan . Now there's a very similar cask in the Amateur Spirit range. You may remember their Armagnac Tuilerie 1984 . The concept is that Aurélien Tauzé selects every release with a different jury, this time including Serge Valentin, Gil Firth and Frederick Maitland.I had an extra sample of the WDC release so we'll pour a…
Three Armagnac houses that we haven't tried before. We start with Couzard-Lassalle , a Folle Blanche selected as the 5th anniversary release of Armagnac.de. It was selected from the warehouses of Darroze. The name isn't entirely new, as the same estate is also known under a 'code name' Lous Pibous. After production stopped in 2005, casks were split between Darroze and L'Encantada with the…
Certain whisky is so reliable that you can almost write the tasting notes beforehand. In my opinion this is also true for early 1990s Glen Keith . In our glass is a recent Archives release. Glen Keith 31 yo 1994 (52,2%, Archives 2025, first-fill bourbon barrel #166297, 109 btl.) Nose: quite waxy and fruity, just as we hoped. Apricots and bananas stand out, with green apple, grapes and lime. Hints…
The Quest Collection formed The Macallan's global travel retail range since 2018, until it was replaced by the Colour and Harmony collections. The Macallan Terra aged exclusively in first-fill sherry casks (from Tevasa and Vasyma). Together with The Macallan Enigma it was one of the expensive options in the range.
The Glendronach 12 Year Old used to come in dumpy green bottles until the late 1970s. In the early 1980s this was replaced by a clear tall bottle, first at 40% ABV and later at 43% ABV, which is the version we're trying today. It came with different mentions on the label, like The Original and later Matured in Sherry Casks.In the early 1990s this became The Glendronch - Traditional. They also…
Even though we're fully in summertime, there haven't been many rum session lately. Let's fix that with a selection of seven assorted rums . We'll have a pair of Foursquare and a pair of Caroni bottlings. Then there is St. Lucia, Savanna and an official Hampden Great House release.
The Bruges Whisky Company (or Brugse Whisky Company ) is the producer behind the Ryggia Belgian Single Malt. Founded in 2019 by father and son duo Peter and Thibaut De Meyer, they have been around for a while now. Check their website for more background information (and an online shop).They are doing a lot of experiments. I mean *a lot* of experiments, up to the point where you start wondering if…
We had a really nice Prunier 1989 from Pieter and Ysatis a few months ago, and now we're having one of their recent official bottlings. Last year Cognac Prunier underwent a visual makeover. This includes a modern logo, a new packaging design with orange accents and new bottle designs. Read more about the new collections on their website .The vintage releases now come in this ribbed bottle with…
Here's a slightly belated review. Every couple of weeks we dig our nose into the latest releases from Decadent Drinks , but sometimes the timing doesn't fit our schedule and then the review can be forgotten.This time we're mostly having bottlings from the more affordable Decadent Drams range.
Every year on November 23, Het Anker distillery launches a Gouden Carolus Anniversary Edition, honouring their first whisky release. Each edition starts as a mix of b ourbon casks and Het Anker casks , then finished in specific casks. In 2024 they launched Gouden Carolus Pedro , a nearly 2-year finish on American oak vermouth casks, made from Pedro Ximénez grapes. There's a nice link since the…
If you visited the Limburg Whisky Festival this year, then you probably know this particular bottle. It was one of the highlights at Michiel Wigman's stand (sold out on Sunday if I'm not mistaken). Gordon & MacPhail had several of these Longmorn 1973 casks but this is one of the lesser known releases.
Edradour is still one of those distilleries that I can't really put my finger on. Sometimes excellent, sometimes just a little too weird. Today we're opening the first release of their 12 Years Oloroso Sherry Butts series, a 2011 vintage. In early 2026 they released Batch #8. Edradour 12 yo 2011 - Oloroso Sherry Butts (57,8%, OB 2023, Batch #1, casks #144, 168, 169, 173-176, 4663 btl.) Nose:…
Domaine de la Pèze is located in the Aveyron (France). On the ancient estate they have a deer farm . For this they already harvested grains, so in 2019 they decided to also move into whisky distillation.La Pèze seems to mention the harvest on the label, rather than the vintage of the spirit. In this case it says Moisson 2021 . Two-row Calypso barley was harvested in 2021 from their Mas de Costes…
The Wealth Spirit is the independent bottling business started by Eric Dang . He's been sourcing whisky from Duncan Taylor and Milroy's of Soho. Among his early bottlings there was some Ben Nevis and old Strathclyde grain whisky. Now we're looking at two new bottlings, a middle-aged Linkwood and Secret Speyside .
Another oldie, if you don't mind. It's an 18 year old Ardbeg 1991 in Douglas Laing 's Old Malt Cask series. Now chances are low that it will end up in your glass, but anyway, there aren't too many reviews of this whisky.
Two of my favourite distilleries: Ben Nevis and Clynelish. They come in the series called Time's Telling, made by Lucky Choice and Oxhead Whisky. The labels feature interpretations of historical arts and crafts from around the world. They try to offer them at accesible prices.
In my opinion Bowmore has a good track record of distillery bottlings, especially if you like the combination of sherry and peat. I remember a very good hand-filled cask for Feis Ile 2017 among others.Recent distillery exclusives are now labelled Crafted by Hand by the way, and not hand-filled . Bowmore 26 yo 1999 'Crafted by Hand' (56,4%, OB 2025, Pedro Ximénez sherry cask #13, distillery…
In the past few months Fruitful Spirits released a series of new casks in their series called Exceptional Cask Selection. We start with a Highland Park from a refill hogshead. After that there will be more pressure-cooked whiskies from all sorts of cask types, including some that we haven't had before...
In August I will head for México , cabrones! While spirits are certainly not my primary objective there, I will pass through the Oaxaca region so I'd really like to visit one or two artisan palenques where they produce mezcal the old way.I realized there were some samples on my desk of agave distillates . They're not using the names mezcal or tequila due to regional protection and/or technical…
Piacere Rinato is the Belgian spirits shop of former lawyer Niels Volckaert . He is focusing on cask strength cognac and armagnac, with some aceto balsamico, calvados and other interesting things on the side.There's one well-known name Vallein Tercinier, as well as Michelet which I hadn't tried before. Each of these cognacs is a whole lot younger than what we usually review, so it's good to note…
This is an assorted selection of recent Decadent Drinks releases. There's a bit of everything, spanning all the ranges. Fancy an affordable young Ben Nevis , or would you rather go for a 38 year old Glenburgie ?
Not so long ago a parcel of Cask of Distinction samples were dropped off at my door. Occasionally they also end up in Europe, but most of these exclusive bottles go to Asia where some facilitators (not bottlers of course) specialize in this programme. Check out other prestigious casks that we've tried in the past.In this case the casks were facilitated by The Whisky Firm. Established in 2020 in…
Impossible to keep up with the 100 Proof series from Signatory Vintage , especially these undisclosed (M) single malts. Here we have another cask #13, an Oloroso sherry butt bottled in the premium Exceptional Cask range.
Gordon & MacPhail unveiled an ultra-rare 39-year-old single malt as part of its Connoisseurs Choice Heritage Range .This release honours George Urquhart, 'the father of single malt' by reimaging the iconic black label that adorned his Connoisseurs Choice range in the 1970s, before the brown labels . There was already a Longmorn 1968 with the same design.Mind that this was the last Talisker cask…
A good friend got me these samples of Kwun Cheung , a Chinese single malt whisky. It is a fairly young brand from Guangzhou which attracted some attention through its use of indigenous Chinese wood types and good results at the 2025 World Whiskies Awards. Apparently the name 觀橡 means something like observing oak. Especially the Mongolian oak from the Changbai Mountains in northeastern China is…
Two cognac releases that just arrived on my desk...The numbered Ancestral series from François Voyer holds some of the best cognac I've had. It is a range of very old assemblages from the historic reserves of the house. Now there's a bit of a spin-off called Réserve Ancestrale , exclusively bottled for the 50th anniversary of Kirsch Import.
Here are two of the latest releases from The Duchess in The Netherlands. Two middle-aged whiskies from Longmorn and Dalmore, both matured (or finished?) in casks from Southern Spain.
The packaging of this Tomintoul 8 Year Old screams 1970s and disco glitter to me. The bottle is commonly referred to as the perfume bottle with its uncommon shape and shiny closure. Those were the days when a lot of distilleries were still using the 'Glenlivet' suffix to their name, including Tomintoul.
A new package with samples from the Thompson Brothers arrived. It includes a variety of releases from the past few months and we'll start with some of the older whiskies: an undisclosed Highland Malt 1976 , as well as Old Rhosdhu 1994 and a teaspooned Side-burn 1989 .I'm not sure any of them are still available: the Thompsons seem to be more comfortable with supplying review samples well after the…
Under the microscope here is a Kavalan Solist, this time from a Fino sherry cask . Solist is the distillery's range which focuses on specific types of casks , ranging from Colheita Port over virgin oak to basically every type of sherry cask, including Oloroso , Amontillado and Palo Cortado.As the driest of all sherry types, Fino is always a bit difficult and almost impossible to detect in a blind…
Elixir Distillers acquired Tormore distillery in 2022, while building a new Portintruan distillery on Islay and not long after The Whisky Exchange was sold to Pernod. They started production under the eye of distillery manager Polly Logan and inheritated a large stock of aged casks.A lot of the existing casks were second- or third-fill casks, presumably showing a shy character. The team took three…
We're still in the aftermath of the heatwave, so one whisky at a time is the most we can handle right now. Here's the Strathmill 1988 that was recently bottled by The Whisky Agency, as a joint bottling with Sansibar.
The Antelope is one of the leading retailers in Macau, especially for the type of whisky we're most interested in. As we'll find out in this session, they have an ongoing series with Kanpaikai in Japan and good connections with Elixir Distillers and Casky in Hong Kong.
Malternative Belgium just released two cognacs from Laurichesse, a house they more or less discovered back in 2022. This is a royal diptych, in a way, featuring a lioness and a lion on the labels, facing each other. These are not accidental symbols: they also appear in the official coat of arms of Laurichesse.We've had 19.75 and 19.76 from this house before and they were among the best cognacs…
The WhiskyNerds have been quiet in the past couple of years. The last I know of was a French Brandy and a Secret Islay but that was back in 2023 already. I think it's simple: their bar stays high, so if nothing crosses their path, they don't have to bottle anything.Now they're back with a Ben Nevis 2003 . A year that we have never tried before, as far as I know. There's only a dozen of releases in…
Behold the oldest whisky ever bottled from Glen Garioch distillery. It is the 33rd chapter in the Whiskyland series from Decadent Drinks . It represents a lost style of production: peat from Pitsligo Moss, in-house floor-malted barley, directly gas-fired stills and worm tub condensers. And last but not least: an ancient sherry cask unlike those of today.
Halcyon Spirits has been following a slow path since 2023, with just one or two bottlings per year, released one-by-one. They set the bar high with old (expensive) Macallan and Clynelish . Subsequent releases became more affordable, mostly around the £ 200 mark.Their seventh release is this Bruichladdich 2008 . It is 18 years old and it spent the last three in a fresh Oloroso hogshead.…
Benromach 's innovative Contrasts series has a new member: a 12 Year Old single malt matured in first-fill bourbon casks before 26 months finishing in Côte-Rôtie wine casks . Wine casks are always popular, says the distillery team, but they're generally not our favourites.Côte-Rôtie brings us to the terraces of the Northern Rhône, just south of Lyon, where Syrah grapes are common, sometimes…
Wait, another 52 year-old after Angus' Glen Garioch? That's right. This Ben Nevis 1973 was bottled some time ago by the guys at Dornoch Castle.I met the Thompson Brothers at the Limburg Whisky Fair a couple of weeks ago. Lovely chaps. First they brought me down to earth with a random blind tasting of their Mystery Malt series (if you hadn't heard about the concept yet - it's very interesting). It…
Although we never get enough of the recent wave of Bowmore releases, this one arrived exactly when I just published two or three others. So I postponed it a little. Anyway this Bowmore 18 Year Old gets the title Gentle Giant , because Stefan from Passion for Whisky is tall and looks a bit like a gentle giant. He chose this cask to celebrate his anniversary. Bowmore 18 yo 2007 (50,3%, Boogieman…
Pineau des Charentes is a blend of grape must with grape distillate – typically Cognac eau-de-vie. The cognac part prevents further fermentation and must be between 60% and 72%. This blend is then aged in casks for a number of years.After 5 years in barrel it can be called Vieux Pineau and after 10 years it becomes Très Vieux Pineau. However in this session we'll try a few that far exceed these…
The next one is a classic, at least among my friends. It's a Tomatin 1976 bottled by The Whisky Agency . They had five of these casks, which they distributed (seemingly at random) over different series. In this case it's the cornerstone series The Perfect Dram, but I already tried a sister cask from the Grotesque Crocs series. I'm sure they also passed on many sister casks to friendly bottlers.
Heather (or heather honey) is one of the most common tasting notes in Highland Park whisky. The island of Orkney has no trees so the local peat has abundant heather at its base. It's no surprise the distillery named an expression after it.This new packaging is fairly modest and refreshing. No viking elements, just graphical things and a pink / purple colour scheme that doesn't seem to aim for the…
We have two more whiskies from the Connoisseurs Choice Heritage Collection , the latest (stunning) range from Gordon & MacPhail . The series comes with a revived old map label and consists of old single malts from very, very rare distilleries. Check out our review of the first three whiskies. Today we look at the Rosebank 1991 and Port Ellen 1980 .You can now register your interest to buy volume 1…
Turntable Blending is releasing affordable small-batch whisky with high value for money. One of their latest offerings is this Turntable Unplugged .This core expression is a blended Scotch whisky, with over 80% malt content. It includes distillates from Linkwood, Ballindalloch and Benrinnes, from first and second fill bourbon casks and sherry casks. They also add a dash of peated Ledaig to make it…
In case you don't recognize these names immediately: all of these are (smaller) Belgian bottlers or clubs .You may know Buds & Barrels as a whisky shop, but they also have their own range. Then there's Double-V who bottled the 25th anniversary bottling of whisky club The Green Door . Last but not least: a bottling by Klubb23 for Crann Whisky Club.
We've tried a large range of bottlings from Hogshead Imports (or rather Hogshead Indie) in the past two years or so. Some have been really good, but other were sometimes marred by weird cask choices. Today we're trying a couple of older releases, mostly from refill casks.
LMK is Leung Man King (aka Brian) who lives in Hong Kong / Taiwan. A very relaxed guy who is well related to the Asian whisky scene. You may remember his name from my Macau festival article. Recently he came over to Europe for several weeks, visiting Limburg, Feis Ile, Scotland and other parts of Europe. Dedication! There's no website yet, so follow him on Instagram for now.One of his series is…
We may have missed some kind of outlet sale at a Portuguese cooperage recently. The 2025 outturn from The Whisky Agency already included a series of Port casks, and the Spring 2026 batch also has a surprising proportion of these casks. A lot of them are made for friends, as they say on the label.All of the whiskies have this typical rosehip tea colour. It's clear they are very cask-forward, and by…
Some time ago we already had a series of new whiskies from Maltbarn, that had been presented at the Limburg festival. Issues with logistics caused some others to be delayed, but here they are now.It seems to be fairly modest selection for this bottler. They're all young or middle-aged whiskies - the older releases were in the previous review.