Posts Tagged “Islay”

Best of Independent Bottlers: Part 6 – A Great 1975 Ardbeg from a Great Bottler

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Best of Independent Bottlers: Part 6 – A Great 1975 Ardbeg from a Great Bottler

The Douglas Laing firm needs no introductions, and while today the Old Malt Cask brand is held by Hunter Laing, it was the mainstay of the older bottlings made by the pre-division Douglas Laing Company. A bit of history: Fredrick Douglas Laing founded his independent whisky bottling company in 1948, and raised his two sons,…

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Best of Independent Bottlers: Part 2 – Signatory’s Rare Bowmore

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Best of Independent Bottlers: Part 2 – Signatory’s Rare Bowmore

To the utter delight of the blogger sitting across from me at this tasting, I’m not a Bowmore fan…. But let me back up to the start of this story. The Jewish holidays come out consistently on the same weekend as The Whisky Show in London (yup, ’tis the season…), thus, I’m the only one…

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Port Charlotte at 12 – And A Single Cask At That

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Port Charlotte at 12 – And A Single Cask At That

Bruichladdich’s Port Charlotte line of heavily peated whiskys is a favorite of peat heads. Keeping with the rather unique emphasis on terroir, the core expressions include the Scottish Barley and the Islay Barley (reviewed here), with the PC series serving an annual release which has migrated into travel retail specials in recent years (currently up…

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Caol Ila 25 – Maturity Suits this Dram Well!

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Caol Ila 25 – Maturity Suits this Dram Well!

Caol Ila (which means “The sound of Islay” in Gaelic) is one of the main signature malts in the Diageo blends, but not only as a peated whisky. We all know that Caol Ila produces unpeated whisky, as there’s a (now) annual release of this unpeated whisky as part of the annual Special Releases by…

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The Islands come together in the Rock Oyster Vatted Malt

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The Islands come together in the Rock Oyster Vatted Malt

It’s no secret that I’m curious about vatted malts (and no secret that I’m somewhat of a holdout on calling them “blended malts”, in compliance with the SWA’s decree). While this category was completely abandoned by the big corporations, the independent bottlers have definitely come into this category, and are in the midst of an…

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