Archive For The “Official Bottling” Category
Ardbeg is crazy to put out the Dark Cove. Or brilliant. Having previously posted about the marketing strategies they have mastered, it’s probably the latter. Drinking it feels like this a collection of the casks that didn’t make it into (the new, lesser sherried) Ardbeg Uigeadail. It’s not bad whisky, mind you. It’s just not stellar in any…
Happy bicentennial, Lagavulin!! Lagavulin kicked off the 200th anniversary festivities with an edition fully matured in bourbon casks – not unlike the annual 12 year old, but dialed down to 48%. The idea for this expression comes from Alfred Barnard’s seminal piece journaling his visit to all active distilleries in the United Kingdom (which included Ireland at…
Kilchoman have adopted, in their 10 year history, a pretty strict policy on selling casks. They essentially serve as their own independent bottler, and have numerous expressions out there for specialty retailers, but very few independently bottled single casks. This is, essentially, the strategy taken by Billy Walker’s BenRiach. The few independent bottlings that you…
With Passover finally over, lets get back to the enjoyable business of reviewing some whisky. Few distilleries have been a constant source of so much consternation to me as Auchentoshan (well, and Jura). It’s a distillery I want to like, but have just not been able to enjoy any of the regular bottlings I have…
With only a few exceptions, I like wine cask finishes and am usually intrigued by them. The evening I tasted this dram, I also tasted a Caol Ila matured in a Banyules wine cask, that I found not to my liking. Having mentioned that on social media, I seem to have somehow offended the wonderful people…