Lark Distillery - Australia

Just been priveledged enough to get the chance to try the whisky from this cracking Tasmanian distillery would recommend that you try it!! Also visit their websire www.larkdistillery.com.au

They have a PURE MALT which I am sure that the SWA would have something to say about - but it is a mixture of new make spirits made at the distillery with 50% of it being heavily peated malt.

As a lover of new make spirit this is stunning lots of fruity notes but with a lot of peatiness coming through.

Quite simply - Stunning.

Long Time Not Here

Have been away for a while so not been able to post but back and at it again and have tasted some great whiskies so will post my opinions shortly.

Regards

Pete

Girvan Grain 1964

Got a chance to try this rare grain was really looking forward to it as I have tried a few grains of late that have been stunners - was a wee bit surprised to see this on the go as the bottling that I tried from was bottled in October 2001 and was bottled at 48%.

Nose: Sweet bannanas and cream, fudgey. Crushed buttered digestives.

Taste: Huge creaminess and quite bourbon like, fudgey again and slightlt bitter.

Finish: Lingering creaminess, slightly bitter again in the finish, I like this but a little one dimensional but in a good way!

Comment: I like it but surprised there is still some left I think that this has been well over priced at £240.00 a bottle there are better grains available for a lot less money. Good but would recommend checking out Duncan Taylor's Grains - some tasting notes of those to come shortly.

Score: 88/100

Allied No More!!!

Well its finally official! Allied has been sold to Pernod - never saw that one coming!

Tamnavulin 30 Year Old Stillmans Dram

I got the opportunity to try this the other day - it was voted best limirted edition cask strength or something like that at IWSC. I had to try it cause it reminded me of the Tamnavulin Club literature which advertised the Tamnavulin and Bruichladdich stillman drams as being at "NEAR" natural colour now can you imagine sitting round a meeting for the brochure and saying ok what will we say about the colour - "lovely golden colour" no - " or "will we not say anything" - or I know we will tell people that we add caramel colouring!!! but only a little.

Anyway here is my tasting notes:




Nose: Dry fresh and citrusy with a creamy background. Toffeeish.
Taste: Fruits and cream, drying and very easy to drink. Very Sweet.
Finish: Fairly soft and to be honest fairly soft and cirtusy.
Comment: Good but nothing exceptional maybe I am looking for it but think I can detect caramel. Anyway a decent dram but nothing to go over the top about.
Score: 82/100 Nae bad

Linlithgow 1973 30yo 59.6%

I love Lowland whiskies and Linlithgow is one of my faves so I was very pleased to get the chance to try this the other day.

Nose: Initially sweet, quite spirity, warm fruit pudding. Sweet liquorice with water.
Taste: Spicy lemon, but perhaps a little spirity. Water sooths things down into a nice citrusy zing.
Finish: A little bit thin but nice and pleasant with water which takes the alcohol away. I like it but just lacks a wee bit of the robustness of the Rare malts bottling
Comment: A good wee dram that I really like - I like the lemon and chilli flavours but it is a little bit expensive for what you get. A nice bottle but is it really worth £255.00 a bottle!!!!
Score: 89/100 could have scored more if slightly less spirity


PRICE CHECK
Loch Fyne Whiskies - £239.00
Royal Mile Whiskies - £244.49
The Whisky Exchange -£245.00
Single Malts Direct - Not Listed
The Whisky Shop -Not Listed

Ballantines 30 Year Old

Having been a fan of the DTC 35 year old blend I thought that I would try another aged blen to see if it stands up to the test. Things have been a bit quite on here of late but have tasted a few things lately so will get them added shortly.

Ballantines 30 Year Old Blend 43%

Nose: Rich, sweet vanilla with a touch of mint.
Taste: A touch of smoke, fairly light with a touch of citrus.
Finish: Fairly fresh, touch of smoke and light citrus notes and fairly dry.
Score: 85/100

A nice dram very well balanced just a little bit thin would have scored higher if it had a bit of ooommmppph!

Laddie and the Alcoholics

http://http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15699459%26method=full%26siteid=89488%26headline=whisky%2dbusiness%2d-name_page.html

A cracking post on the Daily Record - Bruichladdich have donated 100 casks to a charity for alcoholics slighty taking the piss I feel!!! Thats like a tobacco company sending cancer charities empty cigarrette boxes!!!

Does remind me though of Glen Garioch distillery. The old manse just outside Glen Garioch distillery in Old Meldrum has been converted into a drug and alcoholic rehabilitation centre - i suppose if you can give up drink whilst looking at a distillery you can give it up any where!

Duncan Taylor Glengarioch 1988 17yo

Tonights wee dram a DTC Glengarioch 1988 - 17 year old at a nice 54.6% ABV - I had heard that this was from a sherry cask but doesnt state it on the label. This is from cask number 1555 have tried some of these when they were at 16yo so lets see.

Nose: Initially sweet, bannanas and a touch of spice, cardammon. background hint of mint!
Taste: Warming, mmm, drying lots of spiciness again at cask strength, can take a wee splash helps it along. More rummy flavours come through with water.
Finish: Slight hint of parma violets quickly fades to leave a rummy finish.
Comment: A nice spicy wee dram, that takes a splash just to let the rich spicy flavours out. A nice dram but perhaps more one for a winter night than a hot stuff summer night!
Score: 87/100 If it didn't have such a hot spiciness it would perhaps score higher - or if i taste it in December.

Glenfiddich 12yo

Glenfiddich 12yo

I came across a mini of Glenfiddich 12yo that I have had lying around on my desk for several months now and thought hang on I'll give it a try tonight. Generally speaking Glenfiddich doesnt get much recognition as a single malt amongst "Connoisseur " - God I hate that word, but I will give it a go very open mindedly, I am one of those people who actually have a lot of time for Glenfiddich if it weren't for them would we have all of the great single malts we have today.

Here goes:

Nose: Light, grassy and a little bit malty, definate dry grassy with perhaps a faint hint of peppermint.
Taste: Dryness comes through, along with sweet grassy malty notes. Hint of citrus but in a slightly sour way.
Finish: Slightly sour, but not unpleasant, fairly short length nothing too complex.
Comment: Overall a descent malt, can see why it sells so well, easy enough to drink but with very little complexities to it. A decent session malt I think that this is a lot better than the old non-age statement malt - an everyday drinker but not for me everyday but for those with less access a good entry level malt.

It is when writing this that it made me laugh just how different this site is to the site that inspired me www.whiskyfun.com where as I am tasting Glenfiddich 12yo and the likes Serge is on Bruichladdich 1970, Bunnahabhain 1977 and Longmorn 1964. Fair play to him I can only live in hope.
Score: 80/100

Whisky Jobs

It would appear that there is several jobs in the whisky industry currently up for grabs! Fancy a job on Islay then how about joining Bowmore as their operations manager - http://www.s1jobs.com/job/73919420.html Or a brand managers position at Dalwhinnie - (Ok a head tour guide!) And then there is always the job at RMW london up for grabs. Maybe I will try and get myself one of them?

Glen Grant for Sale

For Sale

Just heard that Glen Grant distillery has been put up for sale, well it will be put up for sale oonce the Allied sale goes through. The workers at the distillery were told on Friday that the distillery would be put up for sale. Glen Grant is one of the best selling malts in the world so it seems like a strange decision for it to be sold! Just wonder who would buy it, who would be able to buy it?

Fancy A Shag! Not in Australia

Fancy a shag

Amazingly the Australians have taken offence to this Dutch lager called Shag, and have moved to ban it. The beer brewed as Alpha beer is distributed in Australia by a british euntreprenuer as Shag. A spokes person for the company could not see the problem stating that it was named after the bird that appears on the label - a member of the cormorant family and a comon site even on cold scottish beaches.

However the ozzies were up in arms against there marketing campaign which showed a bottle in the back seat of a car with the slogan "Fancy a shag".

I can't imagine why they would have a problem with this at all!!!!

JMRketing Bollocks

Had to laugh to day when I saw the most recent marketing bollocks from John Mark and Robbo - amazing how he was never know as Robbo when he worked at Macallan!!! Anyway fair play to them they are taking on America and the company that was started by three pals will no doubt do very well. http://http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=88737

I mean come on surely no one believes this tripe - the only reason Remy Amerique is looking at them is because they are the American distributors for the Edrington group in the USA. Oh and if you think JMR is just three boys that started a whisky company then you really have been sucked in. Fair play to them I really like there whiskies especially the smooth sweet one (or what ever its called) although have only tried the straight Irish one and not the Irish / Scotish mix. That was another heap of marketing bollocks that they fed us that they were the first people to mix whgisky from two countries - come on most people have been doing it for years - how much Macallan was shipped to Japan to be added to many Japanese blends - maybe Robbo missed that when he was working there!!!! Now that he is a free agent (yeah right) I am sure he doesnt have time to remember all these thinks.

But to hell with it for what there whiskies are - easy drinking whiskies I think that there pretty bloody good and thats what is all about after all.

Stills at Kininvie 

Kininvie Tasting Notes

After several requests for my "proper" tasting notes for Kininvie I thought I had best find them so here goes.

Kininvie 1990 - Cask Sample 62%- Tasted in September 2003.

Nose: Light, floral and sweet, quite spirity straight. With water sweeter and more grassy.
Taste: Creamy, grassy perfume, with water creamier, a little bit metallic just at the end.
Finish: smooth and short.
Comment: Rosebankish in style, a lot easier to drink with water buy not really fully mature.

Score 76/100

It was reported that this sample came from the first ever cask that had been filled from Kininvie, I think that it is a decent dram with a lot of potential to be a very easy drinking lowlandish style whisky. However I think that the cask management needs to be improved this was obviously a second or third fill bourbon cask. I have tried about three or four other samples and they all seemed to be from very tired casks!!! Very dissapointing would make you believe that they don't intend bottle this as a single in its own right for some time. Give it a good cask and I think it could be a good dram.

Green Spot 12 

Mitchells & Sons Green Spot

Green Spot was one of those whiskies that I kind of had to have a bottle of in my coollection a bit like Johnnie Walker blue Label - a classic of its kind something that in a way is a real cult classic. I had a bottle of the standard Green Spot for about a year - I had managed to source it from Mitchells in Dublin and was pretty pleased with myself for finding the bottle. This was in a time before www.royalmilewhiskies.com and www.potstill.com made it readily available. Anyway I bought another bottle and opened one of them with a bit of hesitation. Green Spot has got a great reputation and therefore my expectations had been raised quite high. Something that I was worried about as if your expectations are too high it can make a very good whisky decidedly average if it doesnt live up to scratch. Anyway I was far from disappointed by Green Spot and would now rate it as one of my favourite whiskiesof all time. Lovely and fresh and zesty with lots peppermint on the nose simply stunning - I need to get me another bottle soon.

What brought me to this point was that i descovered the Mitchells www.mitchellandson.com had brought out two limited edition Green Spots to mark there 200th anniversarry. Great news I though especially when i heard that it would be a 10 and a 12year old bottling - something I could afford. Think again. The 10 year old has came out at 250 Euros and the 12 year old at a staggering 850 euros per bottle. Taking the piss or what. When you consider that the non - age statement bottle (believed to be about an 8 year old) retails for £24.99 then it really does make you laugh. Sorry Mitchells Love your Green Spot but these Limited Editions are beyond a joke.

Expensive Bloody Whisky

Bloody Expensive Whisky Some punter from Surrey paid £32,000 for a bottle of the 62 year old Dalmore - Good news though he drunk it! Imagine having that kind of money to through away on one bottle!! Can you imagine the whisky collection you could build with 32 grand

It would be one of the best collections you could imagine!

http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/4095758.stm

Have to say that I do love whisky but I would imagine that you would have to be very very rich to afford this. Fair play that he opened it though just hope that he appreciated it!

Brora Old Malt Cask 1981 - 21 year Old

Enough of this foriegn malarky thought that I had best bring us back to Scotland with a wee dram of Brora This is an Old Malt Cask bottling from 1981 that was bottled in 2002. Bottled at the usual Douglas Laing 50% and the label states that it is from a sherry cask. This bottle was bottled for the American market.

Here goes:

Nose: Very sweet, a little perfumed chlorine, perhaps some chocolate.

Taste: Again very sweet but a light sweetness, some orangey notes and dry smokiness and a little bit spicy.

Finish: Decent length - strangely of smoky plasticene - the waxiness is the only real hint that this has seen a sherry cask - i would imagine that it is from at best a second fill sherry cask.

Comment: Pretty decent but nothing to go wild about, has a good smokiness to it but somehow appears a little flat as if something is missing - would say that selling this as a sherry cask is misleading perhaps - I have no problem with people putting refill sherry on the bottles. Overall a good dram but nothing majorly exciting, they have done better Broras.

Score: 85/100

Glann ar Mor - New Celtic Distillery

Yesterday It was the turn of the Pakastanis and today its the turn of the French. It turns out that the first spirit ran from Glann ar Mor distillery in Brittany on Sunday at 17:05. The distillery is the theresult of a lot of hard work from Jean Donnay who has given us some cracking whiskies through his Celtic Whisky Compagnie - several sauternes finished whiskies and I remember a particularly good vatted Islay. There website http://www.celtic-whisky.com is worth a look. This just shows how the whisky boom is taking off with whisky being produced in a variety of places such as in Belgium where they have the Whisky Pur.e which is just new make spirit with a some caramel in it at the moment but a whisky that may be of some worth in say 5 - 15 years time.
Worm Tub at Glann ar Mor

Hobgoblin

A great beer from wychwood brewery, one of my favourite breweries. Apart from the great taste of this strong ale - I love their advertising - "What's the matter Lagerboy, affraid you might taste something?" Sums things up nicely I think.

Anyway would reccomend that you try this, a beer with a hell of a lot of flavour. www.wychwood.co.uk
Whats the matter lager boy

Bushmills

Diageo have anounced that they are to go into cahoots with Pernod in the Allied purchase in a deal which would see Diageo get Bushmills off of Pernod. The whole slicing and dicing of Allied is begining to look very convienent for all involved. Although obviously they wouldn't really all be wanting to work together a lot of it does make sense. Diageo get Bushmills completing there set as they currently do not have any Irish influence and Pernod complete there whisky category buy getting an Islay in Laphroaig. Pernod will still be by far the biggest player in the Irish market with Jamesons accounting for three quarters of all Irish Whiskey Sales.

To be honest once the slicing and dicing is finished I wouldn't be suprised if Fortune brands get back into whisky by picking up the odd distillery that Diageo and Pernod can't be bothered with.


http://http://www.diageo.com/pageengine.asp?menu_id=0&site_id=1§ion_id=2&page_id=1220

Pakistani Whisky

http://http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=644642005

Staff at Muree distillery - Pakistan are trying to find a name for there new 18 year old Malt whisky - a task that shouldnt really be too challenging when you consider that their two existing malt whisky brands are called Vintage and Classic - hardly the most difficult names to come up with.

Sorry I've not been on for a while.

Pete

Old Potrero Essay 8-rw-arm-8-b

Have had this bottle for a couple of years but decided to open it today! Always a difficult decision as to when to open a bottle but I thought that I would watch the cup final with a dram! Anyway this id a cracking whisky you can tell its young - 3yo by the label can you imagine a single malt putting 3yo on the label - but wow what a dram.

Nose: Very sweet, wow the rye comes through big style! Like crushed digestive biscuits with lots of butter on it! yum
Flavour: Sweet, lots of richness, a little bit of sweet perfume but in a good way, wow rye coming through full on biscuity!! yum yum yum!!
Finish: very much like melted butter! I like this a lot, a spicy finish that lasts and lasts!
Comments: Wow wow wow at 62.1% this is huge! but the alcohol doesnt over power!

Normally not a huge fan of American whisky - but this is great - love it heaps! Have to say was inspired to try this by martin roberts www.mproberts.co.uk a good lad but this is a great whisky.

Duncan Taylor 35 Year Old Blend

35 Year Old Blend Duncan Taylor

With all the recent talk on various places about home vatting I thought that I would crack open my bottle of 35 year old blend from Duncan Taylor. I tried this at whisky live London and ended up having to get a bottle. So we all know that blends are dull and boring or stupidly overly priced! - (Johnnie Blue anyone!) Ok I don't mean this at all (well I do about the Johnnie Blue bit) but this is the impression that a lot of people get when they hear the word blend - Well this is a cracking wee dram, lots of sherry cask influence but also a great creaminess coming through in the finish. Lots of spiciness and good to see that they have had the balls to bottle this at 46% rather than dumbing it down at 40%.

This blend was put together about 20 years ago, the malt and the grain was married together when the whisky was about 15 years old and then placed into sherry butts and left to mature for a further 20 years. I think that this is fairly unique I believe that most blends are only given about 6 months to marry together if that ( I had heard that some blends marry the grains and the malts separately before marrying the two together - but I have no definitive examples).

The result is a cracking whisky and at about £50 a bottle it is great value for money something that we often forget about when getting caught up in the latest extra expensive bottling.

Anyway enough waffling on here are my tasting notes:

Nose: Rich, lots of sherry - but balanced. Bitter chocolates and sweet creamy fruits.
Taste: Creamy oakiness in background, Vanilla. Really velvety and chewy, with lots of heavy fruits and glazed cherries. There is also a coastal saltiness that comes through.
Finish: Long, initially fruity and then the soft creaminess builds up along with a spiciness.
Comments: This is very well put together difficult to describe with no one flavour overpowering the whisky. A great blend but more importantly a cracking whisky.
Score: 93/100 Scores extra marks for value for money.

The label says that this is made up of four speyside malts, an islay and a highland malt and obviously some grain. I don't know which ones but the islay certainly adds a salty character.

For an alternative view (and a better written view!) check out http://mproberts.co.uk A fellow fan of the Duncan Taylor Blend.

Newsletter

I was thinking about starting a wee newsletter - nothing fancy but just everynow and again about once every 4-5 weeks focusing on distillery focus, new releases, maybe a wee quiz and stuff like that. If anyone has any ideas let me know.

If you would like to recieve the newsletter send me an email at petelamb1970@aol.com

Cheers

Pete

Yamazaki 50 Year Old

Yamazaki 50

Was impressed to see the Yamazaki 50 year old was launched this week. At 1million Yen a bottle it is pretty expensive (roughly £5000 a bottle) The thing is there was only 50 bottles of this produced so I would imagine that it is probably worth it! Ok ok no whisky is worth that but if I had five grand and i had to spend it on one bottle it would be this one! Why because all the 50 bottles sold out in two hours and these are bound to soar in value very quickly.

The thing is though I love Yamazaki they have produced some great whiskies and us westerners are just beginning to catch on! I was privaledged enough to visit Japan last year and got the chance to go to Yamazaki, what an amazing distillery - believe me they could make any style of whisky they want there. They have tall still, short stills, fat stills etc etc even a still in the shape of a wigwam which I am particularly intrigued by.

The thing is that us Scots used to think we were invincible when it came to whisky - ok there is American stuff (I love a lot of it) but it is generally very different to Scotch (Christ i hate that word - Scotch!) where as a lot of the Japanese stuff is more like scotch but most importantly it is bloody good whisky.

Ok this 50yo is way way way out of my price league but you can guarantee that it will be an excellent whisky. Would love to say that I would add some tasting notes but it is never going to happen!!!

But that said I have not had a whisky from Yamazaki that I don't like. A lot of people think that Japanese whisky is a new thing this 50 proves not. Yamazaki was founder over 80 years ago something like 1923 (in fact it was 1923) but when you visit the distillery you could be any where in Scotland. I get the feeling that Single Malt Scotch Whisky may have to worry about Japanese whisky if people actually paid attention - but in away Single malts are lucky by the fact that most people know feck all - they all say - oh i don't drink blends, or i stopped drinking blends 10 years ago or those people that refuse to drink anything that is not single malt. Basically i think these people are all full of crap. To know whisky all you need to know is that you like something
or you don't. If you like it great!!! If not move on to something else.

Ok so this started of as Yamazaki 50 you (which i hope to try some day - i have tried 40yo which was sublime from a Japanese oak cask) but it started out as my wee rant against whisky snobs!!

Oh well people who love whisky and flavour will know what I am on about!

Macallan 1979 Gran Reserva

Cracked open a bottle of this tonight - this was the original gran reserva bottling all of the first fill sherry casks and was bottled in 1997. Now I have a theory that off all the recent vintages of Macallan 1979 was one of the best years (although prior vintages were far superior - however for all the Macallan Gran Reserva bottlings I feel that the 1979 bottling was far better than the 1980 and 1981 bottling). This bottling has now been stopped by Macallan - probably due to the fact that they don't have enough sherry casks!! Ok so maybe that's just me being skeptical.

Anyway I am a big fan of sherry cask whisky but feel that the Gran Reserva is just on the level of as big sherry as you can go without the whisky being over powered by the sherry. Anyway well here goes the tasting notes!

Nose: Intense Sherry, bitter chocolate,meaty with an oily orange back ground and marzipan.
Taste: Again rich sherry, lots of heavy fruits figs and dates very oily and coating.
Finish: Very long and lingering, oily and with a long dry finish that leaves a real richness in the mouth.
Comment: If you like sherry cask whiskies then you will love this - just wish that they had bottled this at a minimum of 46% it could have been a really huge whisky but at 40% it is only big.
Score: 90/100 could have been a lot higher if it had been bottled at 46%

William Grants Monkey Shoulder

A new Blended (Vatted) malt from William Grant's called Monkey Shoulder named after the injury often picked up by maltmen from traditional floor maltings from the continual turning of the barley on the malt floor. This whisky is predominantly Kininvie and has a small amount of Glenfiddich and Balvenie added to it. The whisky carries no age statement but is believed to be around six years old. The number 27 on the label refers to the fact that it is a "limited" edition of only 27 bourbon casks so limited to roughly 11,000 bottles. - A lot more limited than William Grant's recent 1991 Glenfiddich that was limited to a mere 225 casks - Wow now that's limited.

The idea behind the whisky according to the marketing spiel is to make scotch whisky more appealing to a more fashionable audience and try and claw back some of the market share lost to Jack Daniels. They are hoping that people will be happy to order a "Monkey and Coke". A novel idea and at least the are trying to get more people drinking rather than going with the laird by the fire with the bloodhound by his side type imagery.

I have yet to try this but have had Kininvie in the past and have found it to be fairly light and inoffensive with perhaps a slight metallic edge - I would need to look up my notes for more accurate description. I imagine that this is a very easy drinking dram and I'm sure the chance to try a near Kininvie single malt will prove tempting for many.
Monkey Shoulder

Doctor Prescribes Whisky - Foo Fighters Star Saved by Whisky

Well at a time where all the papers are going mad because of Dr Jim Swans claims that whisky can prevent cancer (although cancer research etc - completely deny that there is any scientific evidence) I found it very "Rock and Roll" that Dave Grohl states that he was prescribed whisky by his doctor. This was in order to save his throat for Radio ones big weekend in Sunderland. By all accounts the Foo Fighters (fronted by Grohl) set was a huge success especially there performance of monkey wrench (thats wrench not Monkey Shoulder as in William Grants new Vatted Malt). http://www.wokr13.tv/entertainment/music/story.aspx?content_id=C8EFB252-AB3F-47FB-9677-B6111A2798D5

What I want to know is where can you find a Doctor that will prescribe you whisky, and would you have a choice of what whisky you are prescribed or would it depend on what it is being described for. Perhaps a slight cold a nice gentle Rosebank, A chesty cough something like a Brora and for anything really serious some new make Ardbeg!!

Magnetic Aging!!!

I saw a link to this website today http://http://www.sylves.com/shooterbuddy/index.htm what an amazing product !!! Not! Imagine if it can mature a glass of spirit by ten years in ten seconds imagine what a super dooper set of magnets could do if the surrounded a cask. Whisky would be come like vodka in that you could distill it in the morning, sell it in the afternoon and drink it in the evening - only to vomit it up again in the morning!!This reminds me of a story that i heard about a year or two ago about a bunch of German scientists who said that they had developed the perfect whisky powder. All you had to do was add water - give it a stir and hey presto you have instant aged malt whisky. All accounts that I have heard that it was pretty dodgy!!I'm all for modern technology - hey I'm even writing this blog thingy in the hope that some one will read it but when it comes to whisky well I think that its great that we don't know everything and like things to be done in the more traditional manner.

Under Rated Malts - Glenallachie

I find it fun to find malts that are totally under rated, there are so many great whiskies out there that never really get mentioned just because the distillers don't market them properly! And its a real shame, there are to many to list but I find nothing better than discovering a new whisky that blows you away.

Some classic examples have been Glenallachie - this is a cracking dram and I know Alan Winchester manager at Aberlour rates it very highly - but the only place you can get an official bottling is in Belgium!!! Although I believe that there has been a cask strength bottling released by Pernod at the Spirit of speyside whisky festival. Signatory have been doing some great Glenallachies and there usually under £20.00 a bottle.

Really fresh and appley a real summer whisky or a breakfast whisky as I have heard it described often. But as its not a very well known distillery many people refuse to take it seriously.

Then there is the Douglas Laing Bottling of 1971 31 year old bottling as part of there platinum selection which is an absoloute stunner - every whisky I have had from Glenallachie before has been young - well with the distillery being built only in 1967 theres not been much time to build up older stocks - but this is a cracking dram lots of richness without being woody as you might expect from a whisky that is so old and still at a decent strength. Will put in decent tasting notes shortly.

If anyone knows of any good bottlings of Glenallachie please let me know.

Pete

Jim Murray

I saw on some one elses blog today www.maltresistance.blogspot.com (excellent site by the way) that they were taking the mickey from Jim Murray and his love of himself. The blog mentions three whiskies that are all the same product and he gives them different scores and different ratings.

In fairness this could be because they were tasted at different times of the day etc - or it could be that he is full of bull? Who knows!!! I know of a few other whiskies that are exactly the same and he gives them completely different scores and reviews.

Now I am sure that the average punter amongst us could make these mistakes but as for someone who is the "God" (Self declared) of whisky then surely he couldn't make these mistakes!

So who is going to try and knock Murray of his perch!

I'm sure a few could but try telling Jim that!

Whisky News

Hi All,

Hope you enjoy my blog - I am new to this but will post all my rants here!! And the stuff I like.

Cheers

Malthead