BenRiach/GlenDronach Tasting with Stewart Buchanan – 18/05/2012

Posted on May 20, 2012 by

A whisky tasting on a Friday night? Why didn’t we think of that sooner? Not having that little voice in your head reminding you that you’re working first thing the next day is great.

The Good Spirits Company on Bath Street were nice enough to host the evening and we had Stewart Buchanan, distillery manager at BenRiach to take us through the seven drams.

We started the night with the GlenDronach 12 Year Old at 43% ABV, a slightly smokey dram to start the night, but not overly so, sweet, fruity and soft, a nice dram with something for everyone.

GlenDronach 15 Year Old (46% ABV) was next, this one spent a lot of time in PX casks and you can tell with the initial big sherry hit, telltale sweetness, again there was a bit of smoke in there, but this was one for the sherry fans.

GlenDronach 21 Year Old (48% ABV) with whisky people often associate age with quality, with a lot of older whiskies you can be left disapointed, fortunately this was not one of them! This was most peoples dram of the night, deep, drark, complex, spicy with a lot of rich fruity flavours, an excellent dram.

Time to get onto the BenRiach’s, we started with the BenRiach 12 Year Old (40% ABV), a lot of us will often turn out nose up at 40% bottlings, but this one really worked, it may not have been complex, but it was good at what it did, very fresh and sweet, you could easily open a bottle and find yourself half way through it before you knew it.

The BenRiach 20 Year Old (43% ABV) shared a lot of the 12 Year Olds character, but had matured quite a lot, it was richer, more sophisticated and reminded me of apple crumble.

Time for one for the peat heads, BenRiach Curiositas, 10 Year Old (40% ABV), not a peat monster, but at 55PPM the peat was still rather prominent, this is highland peat though, not the costal, in your face peat associated with Islay malts. The peat here is a lot subtler, more floral and earthy and didn’t dominate the dram, although the bottle says 10 years old, the contents is closer to 17.

The first thing that strikes you about this dram is the colour, if it wasn’t for the nose you’d be foriven for thinking someone had put some Rosé in front of you rather than a single malt, that’s because the BenRiach Solstice 17 Year Old (2nd Edition – 50% ABV) was finished in port casks, you’ve still got the smokiness and a subtle peatiness, but the port finish adds a lot of sweetness and leaves you with an extremely well balanced dram.

Another amazing night and very educational as Stewart Buchanan really knew his stuff and an excellent introduction to the BenRiach and GlenDronach range for those who haven’t sampled it before.

David Carson

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Scraping the bottom of the barrel.. And the sides!

Posted on April 26, 2012 by

Tuesday’s round the barrel night has been and gone and hopefully everyone’s since recovered. It was one of those nights where I really had to force myself to leave the Bon Accord and I know there was a few other members who promised themselves an early night, but still had a dram in their hands when I left.

This round the barrel night was great as it sums up why I love the club so much, you get to try interesting drams and even if you don’t like them you’ve still had a chance to try them, there was a dram most people couldn’t afford, there was one most people wouldn’t buy and there was a couple of unusual ones, I’ll leave you to decide which is which.

We kicked off the evening with the cask strength, no age statement Clynelish Distillery only bottle, bottled at 57.3% this got most peoples attention and I found it needed a wee bit of water to calm it down.

The travel retail only Highland Park Leif Eriksson was next, I’d tried this dram before and while it’s nice no one voted this their dram of the evening, it has a great nose, but it’s palate is completely unremarkable and the finish leaves you wondering what happened to your whisky. The palate had some of the typical HP notes such as smoke, honey, a touch of fruit, but there was no finish to it at all and when I went back to it later in the evening it tasted like spring onions!

I think a number of us decided this was our dram of the evening before even trying it, I know I expected it to be, bottled at 46% and coming in somewhere in the region of £200 a bottle it’s the stunning Springbank 21, the age was really apparent with this one, but at the same time it was like drinking pick n mix, chocolate, foam sweets, millions and cherry liqueur, I really hope I get to try this one again!

So this is the dram they scraped the bottom of the barrel for, it’s the Blackadder Glenturret 17 year old, bottled at cask strength (53.7%) with bits of the cask floating in it. If you’ve ever had a dram straight from a cask or a dram from someone’s “bottle your own” distillery bottling you may have experienced this sediment before, it really adds something to the experience so it makes sense to try and replicate it. Every bottle in the Blackadder RAW cask range contains sediment despite passing through a filter to prevent splinters, posts on various forums speculate they scrape the inside of the casks to achieve this, but posts on various forums also speculate Elvis is still alive so I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Time for the oldest whisky of the evening, the 24 year old Glen Marnoch, anyone who knows anything about Glen Marnoch knows more than us! It’s bottled at a barely legal 40% ABV and is discount supermarket Aldi’s own brand single malt Speyside, it’s rumored to be Dalmore which  I personally find plausible enough as it reminded me straight away of Whyte & McKay!

We ended the evening with a sherry bomb, Aberlour A’bunadh batch 37, cask strength at 59.6% and consistently great between casks you’re either going to love his dram or hate it. There’s no age statement on this bottle, but who cares, it’s great! It’s a mix of Aberlour casks aged 5 to 25 years old in Spanish Oloroso sherry butts which give it such a distinct flavor.

We went around the room and took votes on each members dram of the evening, coming in at first place it’s no surprise to me it’s the Springbank 21, in second place it’s the Blackadder Glenturret and 3rd was A’Bunadh. In the interests of transparency here’s the breakdown of the votes.

  1. Clynelish – 3 votes
  2. Highland Park – 0 votes
  3. Springbank – 14 votes
  4. Glenturret – 6 votes
  5. Glen Marnoch – 2 votes
  6. A’bunadh – 5 votes

The club being the club Julie made sure we didn’t end the night thirsty and brought along an Auchentoshan 3 wood and what was left of the Valinch from the previous club night.

David Carson

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Ardmore tasting with Alistair Longwell – 18/04/2011

Posted on April 22, 2012 by

Last night A few nights ago we were lucky enough to have distillery manager Alistair Longwell from Ardmore join us in The Iron Horse to present an amazing tasting demonstrating what Ardmore distillery is capable of.

For those who don’t know (I was amongst you until recently), Ardmore is a Highland malt that’s a major component of Teacher’s blend so the majority of it’s stock goes into a blend, which meant the question “why don’t you bottle this?!” was asked quite a bit a mixture of pure joy and sadness at the fact that we don’t get to go buy a bottle of some of the amazing malts we were privileged to try.

We started the night by snacking on handfuls of malted barley, one handful was unpeated, the other handful was slightly peated at 12-14 PPM, the peat Ardmore uses is nothing like the smack in the face you get from Islay peat, it’s a lot subtler (or that could be 12-14PPM), but it’s also a lot drier and not nearly as coastal, it reminded me a bit of a coal fire, but not in any sort of unpleasant way.

The first dram of the night was Ardlair a.k.a. Ardless, this is their unpeated malt which we tried at 46%, it’s 8 years young and the only bottlings ever made were the miniatures which we were lucky enough to get one of to take away. The sweet and fruity Ardless is generally traded or sold to other distilleries for use in blends which is a shame as this was quite an interesting dram to start the night.

The next dram was the Ardmore Traditional Cask bottled at 46% ABV, there was lots and lots of creamy vanilla in this one and a bit of smoke coming through with some coal fire notes and toffee, this is the only dram we tried this night that you could easily go out and buy.

Next was most peoples dram of the night, the Ardmore Triple Wood which was around 12 yeard old in total, is a completely experimental dram which I loved! Personally I thought it tasted of vanilla coke, with a bit of smoke and peat, but this was one of those drams that you could drink all day! The triple wood started it’s life in a bourbon cask for five years, the next three and a half were spend in a quarter cask then onto a European Puncheon for another three and a half years.

Another amazing dram was the Ardmore Port Wood, spicy, fruity, chewy, with a nose that reminds me of walking into a dunnage, both the Port Wood and the Triple Wood were somewhere in the high 50s strength wise as they were cask samples.

The 12 Year old Ardmore Centenary Edition was next, although it says 12 years on the bottle we were told it’s more like 14 by the time they got around to bottling it, personally I found it a bit sharp on the nose, but on the palate I found it quite chocolatey, milky while somehow reminding me of smoky bacon crisps at the same time.

The evening ended with style, 30 years worth of style! The Ardmore 30 Year old is what you get when someone forgets about a few hogsheads for 20 odd years, finds them, then matures the contents in bourbon casks before bottling them at 53.7%, despite the deep, woody nose and the age the wood didn’t dominate this dram, but it was still a heavy influence, there was liquorice and citrus notes, coconut and a bit of tannin in there that’s probably down to it’s age more than anything else.

This was an amazing night and I’d like to say a massive thanks to Alistair Longwell for taking such good care of us.

If you remember from the last club night and my last blog post, Natalia Capaldi-McKendrick is doing a sponsored skydive, so if you’ve not sponsored her there’s still a bit of time left.

David Carson

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Under new management…

Posted on March 29, 2012 by

So it’s been a while, almost a full year and there’s been changes along the way, members have come and a few have left, but we’re bigger and better than ever and even the blog itself is under new management (well sort of) and it’s back by popular demand. I can’t promise the posts will be anywhere near as well written as Toshie’s (I can promise you they won’t be), but I’ll do what I can and I’ll try and update it within a couple of days of every club event I attend.

At our usual venue of The Bon Accord on the 27th of March 2012 we had our first annual Round the barrel night. Why our first of the year? Well January was our Burns Night then Febuary was our AGM. We’re now up to almost 70 members so we have done a good job of taking over a large part of The Bon Accord. As always our hosts were very accommodating.

We started off the night with Inverarity Vaults’ own bottling Speyside single malt. While the bottle doesn’t give away which Speyside it is, we have it on good authority that it is in fact a 10 year old Linkwood, bottled at 40% ABV. Most Linkwoods never get to wear the name “single malt” as approximately 3.5 million litres of it a year go into Johnny Walker. This was a great dram to get the unseasonably warm night started. It was light, refreshing, lots of fruit influences in there, very very sweet, syrupy and I even heard someone comparing it to pancakes. Our newly elected committee member Ian Petrie called it a “goldfish whisky” due to its short finish.

Next up was the Auchentoshan Valinch, which was bottled at 57.5% ABV, and was one of the favourites of the night, with its initial hit of creamy vanilla, honey and cinnamon. Being bottled at cask strength (for a change!), there was a lot of interesting discussion going on surrounding some more of the unusual flavours that we were getting from this one such as rubber, chupa chups, burnt flapjacks and even home made playdough.

Then there was the Glengoyne Burnfoot, a 1 litre bottle that was original travel retail only, but we picked this 40% ABV bottling up from the distillery on a trip a few weeks prior. We’ve been told there’s some casks as old as 34 years old in this no age statement bottling, but whether there is or not it’s still an extremely drinkable dram even if one whisky author did describe it as “fresh paper towels”. There was quite a bit more vanilla with this dram, a good amount of butterscotch while at the same time being quite firey and spicy.

My personal dram of the night and a lot of other people’s favourites was a limited edition bottling from The Arran Malt – The Eagle, bottled at 46%. This could easily be mistaken for Tropicana – it was like drinking a tropical fruit salad with over-ripe pineapples, dried papya, guava and passion fruit. This dram was extremely easy to drink.

Onto another distiller that finds the majority of its whisky going into blends, Glen Garioch – Highland Tradition, this under-appreciated dram that we all poked a bit of fun at, is bottled at 40% ABV was admittedly rather one dimensional and all of the tasting notes I have seen included the worlds “caramel”, “toffee”, “caramel” and “caramel” and was quite similar to a Toffee Crisp. Not the best representation of the Glen Garioch range as there are many much better examples out there of what they’re capable of.

We (officially) ended the night with Tesco’s 12 Year Old Single Islay Malt, which of course was bottled at 40%, a non-remarkable dram, but a good example of a typical Islay malt which is what it’s designed to be,. There was your usual smoke, peat, iodine, but it didn’t go overboard with any of them, so this would be a good one to demonstrate an Islay malt to someone without scaring them off.

Our new chairman Bobby Banford brought along a bottle of Sheep Dip 1990 (40% ABV) to make a bit of an entrance into his new role. This dram apparently contains a 25 year old Ardbeg amongst other things, but it’s deep, rich, sherry notes really took the edge off what you’d expect from an Ardbeg.

Lastly, Glasgow’s Whisky Club’s very own Natalia Capaldi-McKendrick is doing a sponsored jump for Alzheimers on the 22nd of April. If you’ve put your name down to sponsor her and you haven’t already given her the money please make sure you get the money to her at the next tasting, it’s for an excellent cause! A massive thank you from Natalia and the club to everyone who’s sponsored her so far and good luck to Natalia on the jump!

David Carson

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Another classic from Wemyss – and not a Tomatin in sight *

Posted on May 21, 2011 by

The Gang at the Iron Horse

Some whisky-tasting nights leave you warm and fuzzy (effects of alcohol); others leave you warm and fuzzy (great host(ess), good friends). Wemyss Malts’ tastings do both.

We’ve come across these quirky whiskies at various whisky festivals, but had never had a tasting of our own until last year, when the worst winter weather in living memory (and Ian Black’s) decimated numbers and only a few hardy – or reckless – members braved the icy temperatures of the Iron Horse basement.

Fast forward to our May 2011 tasting and the warm and snugly upstairs of the Iron Horse was the perfect venue for a second outing. As whisky tastings go, it got off to a strange start – gin! Darnley’s View, to be precise, the London Gin Wemyss has brought out to its specifications. Containing six botanicals, it is four times distilled in the usual way, with a fifth in a pot still. Choc full of citrus, elderflower, coriander and some other stuff, it was actually very refreshing.

But the main business of the evening was whisky and our first dram was a curious concoction; a new blended product for the UK duty free market, which hostess Susan Colville wanted us to try. The Spice King is a blend of 12-year-old malts, at 40% and heavy on the Talisker and Highland Park.

Carrying on from the company’s habit of giving their whiskies names that resemble the taste of the ingredients, we next had Honey Pot, a 15-year-old Glen Moray, bottled at 46%. Orange Tree was next, a 22-year-old Glen Garioch, followed by Ginger Compote, a 1996 Benrinnes.

Treasurer Ian Black remarked that the drams seemed to be improving by the pour, and wondered if that was because they were improving by the pour, or if he was just getting mildly pissed! Answers on an email please.

But the fact is that the choice of drams by Susan did seem to lead to an appreciating in quality, and certainly the Dalmore 21, masquerading as Mocha Spice, was very pleasant. The Islay Smoke Stack delivered a 15-year-old Caol Ila with all that dram has to offer.

Facebook birthday boys Erik Burgess and your humble chairman were surprised by a couple of great bottles from Susan. Mine will featured Round the Barrel at the end of the month, along with another couple of birthday specials.

* A reference to one guess at the provenance of a dram which proved to be in an entirely different region. Thereafter every guess at the identity of the whisky being tasted inevitably led to a tentative: Is it Tomatin? Until Ms Colville broke ALL her mum’s rules and used a rather rude word to suggest there were very few, if any, Tomatins on taste this evening.

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Movin’ On Up

Posted on April 15, 2011 by

At home in our new venue

It looks like our search for a city centre venue for Glasgow’s Whisky Club’s tutored tasting may finally be over. The Springbank tasting was moved upstairs in the Iron Horse, and it proved to be near-perfect venue. Previously consigned to the basement bar, which was not really suitable due to ‘sight line issues’ (apparently), the upstairs room was just what we needed. A bit of space to spread out and a dance floor for those so inclined. Indeed, we had to tarry a while at the main bar while the ladies’ Zumba class was finishing up, treasurer Ian Black becoming a willing volunteer to check on the girls’ progress.

That our Springbank night was the first in the club’s history remains a mystery – it’s a distillery that is a bit like the club itself. It goes its own way, does things at its own pace and is quite proud of its slightly shambolic, slightly eccentric way of doing things. Oh, and it makes great drams. It also has Iain Scott, its UK sales chappie who pours an excellent drappie while spinning some extremely entertaining tales, few of which could be repeated outside the libel courts.

Iain Scott, pourer of drams, spinner of stories

We began the evening blind tasting three whiskies; the Kilkerran Work in Progress, the quite sublime Hazelburn 12 and the new Hazelburn Sauterne finish. I’m not normally a fan of finishes, but this was a cracking dram. The Kilkerran was the second release and will see continuing WiP until 2014 when a 10 year old will become the label’s standard. The Hazelburn 12 is Springbank’s unpeated whisky. Initially houses in bourbon casks, it spends the last three years in sherry. I first sampled it at Whisky Fringe last year and was blown away. A second tasting just reinforced my opinion that this is a great whisky.

Next was Springbank’s sister company, Cadenhead, which bottles other whiskies under its Duthie’s label. This was about as far away from Campbeltown as you could get – a 14-year-old Clynelish. Full of cream and honey.

Often a distillery’s core bottling gets overlooked at these tastings, but the Springbank 10 is well able to hold its own in any company. A quality whisky that underpins everything else the company does. The tarry biler Longrow 10, with its heavy peat and thick, oily presence, completed the ‘ordinary’ offerings, but we had a couple of surprises in store.

First was club member Peter Allen’s own cask, distilled in September 1999 and bottled at nine years old. It sits at a healthy 57.62% and was a big, beefy dram. We may get Peter to do a tasting for us next!

Peter talks us through his cask selection

Our final dram was donated by club member Niall Woods and provided much mystery. A Murray McDavid bottling from 1967, it boldly stated it was 31 years in oak casks, but the figures on the label suggested it was a youngster at a mere 21 years! However old, it was a cracker to end the evening.

Next up is a Wemyss tasting on May 11. Get your names in to Julie ASAP please. Susan’s nights are always a barrel of laughs.

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The Weetabix Man, Eddie the Pole and Mario the Conductor

Posted on April 4, 2011 by

All larger than life characters on Glasgow’s Whisky Club’s first outing of the year to Ben Nevis Distillery in Fort William. They were joined by Burt Lancaster, David Puttnam, Braveheart and Highlander. Not forgetting our own characters, who made the trip so enjoyable, my cheeks were sore at the end. From laughing, you reprobates!

Train trips with GWC have a certain similarity. There’s the One Who Almost Misses The Train, The One Who Brings The Cake and The Rest Who Bring The Booze. And so, as 9am was approaching, the first bottle came out, courtesy of Big Andy. We continued munching, sipping, enjoying the stunning scenery for the long haul to Fort William, where the distillery had laid on transport to get us the final 1.8 miles (thank you Duncan).

Fabulous setting for Ben Nevis Distillery

Visitor Centre Manager John Carmichael welcomed us with mushroom soup (with real mushrooms) and a couple of piles of sandwiches. Suitably replenished, the dozen and a half of us began the guided tour. First surprise was the appearance of managing director Colin Ross, who made us welcome with a few remarks. Both he and John were candid about the state of the distillery, which is looking rundown and sad. They’ve been promised investment by the Japanese owners Nikka, and it can’t come soon enough.

A distillery in the prime heart of Scotland’s tourist industry, and sitting under the mighty shoulders of Ben Nevis, should be a showpiece for tourists and whisky aficionados alike. Sadly the air of neglect tells a different story. We don’t normally get political or controversial here at GWC, but some times you just have to call it: Nikka should be ashamed of themselves for allowing the distillery to fall into such a state of disrepair that people apologised for it every step of the way.

Time to splash the cash

Rant over and on to the positives. It’s a great, accessible distillery for the able-bodied, but obviously there are steep stairs to climb. However, there were no restrictions to us clambering all over the still house and the tun room, getting up close and very personal.

Still House

John is a witty and extremely knowledgeable host and had us in knots with stories of distillery life, some of which I’d need to run past the club’s lawyers before I published them here. Suffice to say, the image of the very hirsute Big Jim emerging naked from a mash tun looking as if he was a walking Weetabix will remain with me for a very long time. Sadly, libel laws prevent me writing about Eddie the Pole and his expertise with a (supposedly) tamper-proof Spirit Safe. Eddie came to the Distillery from war-ravaged Europe, having been helped to escape by a certain Roman Catholic priest who became Pope John Paul II.

John Carmichael with new member Matthew, while John looks on and Blackie looks away

After the tour, we repaired to the visitor centre (possibly being replaced as part of a promised multi-million pound investment) for a handful of drams and a plethora of tales so tall, none of us were really sure where fact and fiction went their separate ways.

One of the warehouses was used for interior shots for Local Hero, Braveheart and Highlander. The prequel of Ridley Scott’s Alien is also going to be shot there. We heard candid observations about Burt Lancaster and David Puttnam, high praise for new music sensations Mumford and Sons, who held a surprise gig for 200 then carried on in one of the local pubs.

But the drams were left to speak for themselves. First up was a youngster, barely four years old, then a 12-year-old De Luxe Blend, the rival to Chivas Regal, which has won awards. The familiar 10-year-old was next. This is the expression that won an international whisky event three years in a row. The first and only time this has happened, that prompted the distillery to never enter it again!

Next was a world exclusive – a dram so rare it doesn’t even have a name. John called it “their equivalent of a cat barking” so out of character with the distillery’s usual offerings. Very, very young and heavily peated, it came close to the original whisky Long John McDonald, the founder of the distillery, started with. Restricted to three casks only, it will never be for sale, so we were privileged to try it.

Blended at Birth

Straight from the cask we had a very dark, treacle and creosote offering with a fabulous nose, but sadly a bitter, woody taste and no finish. This was the 40 year Blended at Birth 50/50 single malt and single grain. I fear it spent too long in the wood. Matthew, one of our new members, described it as being like a stew with no stock.

Last up was a 25-year-old from a single cask and single maturation that was a gold winner in the Scottish Field awards. A cracking dram to end the day. Many thanks to Colin and John for their generosity. I hope their hard work gets the rewards it deserves.

And Mario?  A complete character from Portugal who shared our trip home as our train conductor. He refused drink after drink until he signed off at Crianlarich (I think), then availed himself of a Bowmore which he promptly elevated into his top ten. He got off the train, returned two carriages down sporting a huge pair of Sophia Loren sunglasses and sprinted back up to the club’s mobile HQ to up pick a wee cairry oot, before dashing into the night to huge cheers! Bonkers!

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