Archive For November 18, 2014
The only 13 year old in the bunch is the Madeira finished Maderensis Fumosus, presumably because it needed a longer time in the finishing. I’ll be short in my general comments today and get right to the tasting notes: BenRiach 13 Maderensis Fumosus, Madeira Finish (46% ABV, NCF, NC) Appearance: Light gold, thin and quick legs….
My good friend Manny sent me a few BenRiachs from his native Austria, and I looked froward with anticipation to tasting them. Four of them were the four 12-13 year old peated finish expressions, all bottled at 46%. I have had the 17 year old Solstice, which is outstanding. So I know the BenRiach peated…
BenRiach came back to life just over a decade ago, after being mothballed by Pernod Ricard following Seagram’s colossal implosion in 2001. Billy Walker bought the distillery in 2004 backed by South African business people Geoff Bell and Wayne Kieswetter. The distillery sells about 60% of it’s annual production to Chivas Bros. for their blends. Currently,…
My fascination with vatted malts is something I have written about before, and John Glaser at Compass Box has really taken malt vatting (or malt blending, as it should be officially called) to an art form, combining breakthrough production methods with tenacious talent (which in blending is probably 95% methodical experimentation an patience) and great whisky sourcing…
In Gaelic, taghta means “the chosen”, and they mean chosen by the people. It started out by Dr. Bill Lumsden choosing three casks: Grand Cru Burgundy, Grand Cru Bordeaux and Manzanilla sherry, opening a website with Bill Lumsden’s video tasting notes for the “Glenmorangie Cask Masters”, which is the distillery’s official fan club and membership…