Anyways, January’s second session took us back to a previous venue, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society‘s London rooms. However, rather than just begging the space (and the lend of the glasses) we were joined by their Brand Ambassador John McCheyne who brought along a selection of drams, the ability to talk about said drams and the promise of 10% Off! if we bought any of the bottles.

I’ve been a member of the SWMS for about 3 years (I think I just paid my 4th yearly membership) and have often been a big fan of their whiskies, however part of the nature of the beast is their unpredictability: The Society bottle only single cask whiskies at cask strength. No finishes (although I was sure I remembered one, I think it was instead a/several Glen Moray wine cask matured whisky/ies…), no colouring, no chill-filtering and, until a couple of years back, no fancy bottles. The Society has had a bit of an overhaul in the last couple of years, with the new bottle livery, the revamping of the Society magazine, the upgrading of the London rooms to be prettier and the tweaking of their website to not be entirely hateful to techies. I miss the old bottles (as the 1978 Caledonian grain whisky that I almost bought in the most recent ScotchWhiskyAuction will attest…along with my love of grain whisky and the year of my birth) but things have become more shiny in recent times. Anyways, the whisky:

We tasted everything blind as usual, although as the Society bottlings are all numbered and given an ‘appropriate’ name rather than the distillery name it wouldn’t have helped too much. First up was Laurel, Meadowsweet and Honeysuckle. On the nose it had butter icing, stacked grass, lots of vanilla and coconut, and a hint of Hall’s Mentholyptus. To taste it kicked in with a lot of sugary sweetness, but with a charcoal burnt bitterness sitting behind everything. In between there was sour wood, toffee and green wood. It finished with more charcoal and some bitter wood. The number was revealed to be 97.21, showing it to be the 21st cask from Lowlander Littlemill and, by coincidence, also aged for 21 years. Littlemill is now closed and just to make sure it was not only dismantled in 1996/7 but the remains caught fire in 2004 (with the traditional rumours of dodginess) meaning that it’s very much gone. As far as I know this was my first dram from the distillery.

Next on the list was Church Pews and Hymnbooks. John made a few hints (concerning the Duke of Sutherland) which, along with the nose, gave away the distillery (and probably removed any chance of me properly tasting it blind). The nose started off thin but strong, getting heavier and initially smelling of dark cinder toffee. That subsided as it sat in the glass to give a familiar scent of wax, foam bananas and sweet apples. Along with that it slowly picked up some musky wet dog and some muddy vegetal notes – quite changeable in the glass. To taste it was creamy, with fake strawberries, honey and beeswax slowly turning to spicy dark wood and liquorice. A drop of water helped open it up a bit, bringing out more spice and some cloves. It finished quite long with some menthol, bananas and more beeswax. It was no surprise when the label showed it to be 26.77, as distillery 26 is one I remember – Clynelish. This was matured in a second fill bourbon cask for 27 years (rather beating my estimate of 18) and I rather liked it. But then again, I’ve not found a Clynelish I didn’t like. Yet. In other news I’m visiting the distillery in a few weeks and I’m rather excited, despite the 6.5 hours on trains and hour or so of walking it’ll take me to get there and back…

Dram three was called Old Friends Remembered. John’s hint this time of ‘this is a distillery that doesn’t bottle very much single malt’ wasn’t particularly helpful so I went into this one properly blind. On the nose it had meaty sherry, pine, swimming pools, caramel, fallen leaves and the edge of rancio savouriness. To taste it was hot & spicy, with vanilla, cherry, lemon butter and marzipan, although overall still quite savoury. Water brought out some sandalwood soap and more caramel. It finished with sweet butter and lingering pine. This was revealed to be 73.44, a 29 year old from Aultmore, distilled on the 21st of April 1982 and matured in a refill sherry cask. Most of their output goes into the Dewar’s blends, owned as they are by Dewar’s owners Bacardi, and as far as I can tell there aren’t any current official bottlings available, so you’ll need to look to the independents to try any. Which explains why this is the only 2nd whisky from Aultmore that I remember tasting.

Fourth on the list was Unusual and Highly Enjoyable, a statement that was quickly examined. Firstly, it was pink:

Jason and I tried to organise an evening of pink whisky once. We didn’t get very far.

So it fulfilled the first part – Unusual. Secondly: Highly Enjoyable. This was not universally agreed, with a number of exclamations around the room at its vileness, although there were also a good number of quiet “that’s nice”s. On the nose it was quite meaty and fruity, with stewed strawberries, raisins, cinnamon, and sweet peaches and plums. To taste it burst on to the tongue with a sweet but tannic port taste, giving away the cask it matured in, before moving on to fake fruity chews, cherry chocolate and a sherbet fizz at the end. Water balanced things out a bit more and brought out more of a berry sweet and sourness. It finishes with red boiled sweets, marzipan and a lingering sugary sweetness. Not one for me, thanks to the sweetness, but the label came off to reveal that it was 123.7 from Glengoyne. This was a bit of a shock for me and my more geeky brethren as Glengoyne is a fairly traditional distillery in its outlook as far as we knew and we didn’t expect any pink whisky shenanigans from them (although a bit of an internet search showed a comment from distillery that they’re playing with port casks). As The Society doesn’t do finishes this was completely matured in a port pipe, although at only 10 years old the spirit hadn’t be totally overcome with porty flavours. A Marmitey whisky around the room, with a fairly even split in the end.

The last whisky of the evening was Old Lace and Lavender Hand Cream. Again John dropped in some facts, although they confused more than helped – this distillery has the world’s shortest railway, at 30ft long; it also has the longest foreshots run of any distillery (the run of the spirit still before the spirit is saved for being filled into casks) at 45 minutes. On the nose it had tarred ropes (a bit of a classic Islay tasting note there, and one I’ve never felt the urge to use before now), sweet smoke, ash, freshly unwrapped bandages, pears and a touch of dentist’s surgery. To taste it was dry but with a fruity sweetness, as well as tarry peat and cracked stone. Water added some more sweetness and lemons, and the finish was initially sweet and floral, moving through liquorice and glazed ham to coal and tar. The label was peeled back to show that this was 29.106, a Laphroaig, not a great surprise but showing a different side to the distillery than the official bottlings.

And that’s that for another month. There are two more Squads arranged for February, both sold out, and there should soon be announcements of March’s sessions, all themed around the events of March 17th… Keep an eye on the site.

97.21: Laurel, Meadowsweet and Honeysuckle (Littlemill)
Lowland Single Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 54.7%. ~£80

26.77: Church Pews and Hymnbooks (Clynelish)
Highland Single Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 55.1%. ~£90

73.44: Old Friends Remembered (Aultmore)
Speyside Single Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 53.7%. ~£90

123.7: Unusual and Highly Enjoyable (Glengoyne)
Highland Single Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 59.6%. ~£40

29.106: Old Lace and Lavender Hand Cream (Laphroaig)
Islay Single Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 57.3%. ~£50

Anyways, this will be an abbreviated post as I was too busy waving my arms around to write tasting notes and my brain doesn’t store information anywhere near as well as my army of notebooks. So here are my speaking notes and some piccies.

Update: There are now also ‘tasting notes’ courtesy of Mr Matchett. Each whisky is also matched with a computer game…

First up Sullivan’s Cove Double Cask.

Aren’t Australians a happy bunch

Australian whisky matured in a mix of American and French oak.
Distillery was founded in 1994 in Hobart, Tasmania.

Chris says:
Game: Santa vs Super Mega Worm
Nose: Foam bananas
Taste: Gone off after a bit. Creamed corn

Next Three Ships 10 Year Old.

It’s very pretty there

Distilled at the James Sedgwick Distillery in Wellington, South Africa.

The whisky is named for the three ships in the exploratory fleet of Bartholemew Diaz, discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope.

The distillery is named for the founder of James Sedgwick & Co, a purveyor of fine boozes and cigars founded in 1850. It was purchased by the company in 1886, having formerly been a brandy distillery, and took its current name in 2003.

They also make some other Three Ships single malt expressions and Bain’s grain whisky, and Knight’s, Harrier and Three Ships Select Reserve which are Scotch/South African blends.

Chris says:
Game: Max & The Magic Marker
Nose: Brazil nuts covered in magic marker pen
Taste: Doing sherbet off an oak table through the liquorice straw
Comment: Very moreish

Dram 3 – Hammer Head.

This is the only attractive picture I’ve found of the distillery

Distilled at the Stock distillery in Pradlo, acquired by Stock Spirits in the last few years. It was distilled in 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet revolution (November/December 1989) which led to a democratic Czechoslovakia and the break up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The distillery was established in 1928 and was nationalised in the 1980s, seemingly making spirits for high ranking communist party members.

It’s made using Czech barley and matured in casks made of Czech wood.

The story is that it sat undisturbed until 2009 when someone from Stock spirits went to check on the contents of the warehouses they just bought and tried some, assuming it would be nasty. It wasn’t. It was released to travel retail in 2010 and is now on general sale, although not in large amounts.

It takes its name from the nickname of the mill bought in shortly before making the whisky – a large and noisy hammer mill.

I’ve written about them before.

Chris says:
Game: Minecraft
Nose: Oily and muddy and fizzy
Taste: Herby and minty like absinthe
Comment: Like a thistle that grew underground

Number 4 – Kavalan Classic.

Ian Chang walks past some casks…

Very young Taiwanese whisky – aged for about 3 years in a mixture of 6 different cask types. The first whisky released by the distillery and hopefully typifying the style, with mango as the key fruity note.

The distillery was opened by the King Car group, run by Mr TT Lee (always referred to that way whenever I’ve spoken to people from Kavalan), in 2006 and is in the north east of Taiwan in an area that used to be called Kavalan, also the name of the native people of the area.

Dr Jim Swan, distilling consultant extraordinaire who helped set up Penderyn, took up the challenge of developing the spirit – made especially hard by the extreme temperatures which leads to 15-20% angel’s share per year. The spirit and short maturation work well in the environment, picking up a lot of ‘maturity’ in three or four years.

The distillery is open to visitors 365 days a year – they had 1 million visitors in 2010 and 2.6 million by October 2010. In comparison, Glenfiddich draw the most visitors of the Scottish distilleries and has about 100,000 per year.

Their whiskies are not currently available outside of south-east Asia, so we were rather lucky to get a sample bottle.

I’ve mentioned the Kavalan Classic previously.

Chris says:
Game: Wipeout Fusion. Taiwany so that would make it Leisure Suit Larry.
Nose: Curdled ice cream
Taste: Kim Basinger’s feet in 9 and a half weeks. Mild cheddar from Sainsbury’s

Whisky 5 – Millstone Peated

There’s not a lot of piccies of the Zuidam chaps. I hope this is them…

Made in The Netherlands, and matured for over 5 years in a mixture of new American oak, ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. The fermentation stage of production is much longer than for many whiskies, to which they attribute the fruity character of the spirit and finished whisky.

Made by Dutch distiller Zuidam in their facility on the Belgian border. More famous for their liqueurs and genever but increasingly known for their whiskies, especially their rye. A fairly young distillery, founded in 1975 by Fred van Zuidam, they aren’t doing bad for newbies.

Chris says:
Game: Dead Space or Heavy Rain (if you let Shaun Mars die [Despite Chris's assumptions I did not let Shaun die. Grab me in person and I will talk for a while about Heavy Rain... - Billy]). Davey says Chuckie Egg
Nose: Baby sick
Taste: Cheesy and wrong
Finish: Cheese omelette well done

The final whisky – Kornog Taouarc’h Trived.

There’s something beautifully mad about French distillers

Peated French whisky from the Glann ar Mor distillery. Peated to 35ppm (similar levels to Caol Ila & Lagavulin) and matured in American oak. Kornog means west and Taouarch’h means peat. I have no clue what Trived means, but they also do Pevared, which is matured in Sauternes casks.

Glan ar Mor means ‘by the sea’ in Breton and the distillery is on an old farm. The weather is a bit nicer than in Scotland and the whisky matures a bit faster thanks to that. It’s an old school distillery, with flame fired small stills, worm tubs and wooden washbacks.

Chris says:
Game: Rise of the Robots
Nose: Smoked pear
Taste: Lux soap
Rating: 39/100

The thing that most pleased me about the session was that while every whisky had at least one person who didn’t like it, they all also had at least one person who did. The Three Ships pretty much came out as top by the end of the night (with the empty bottle either being a sign of favour or a sign that we didn’t hide it as fast as the others) but all of the others were Good Whisky, dispelling at least some of the myths about the quality of whiskies from outside of the major producing regions.

And that’s that. There’ll be more sessions in March (along with the one tomorrow and the other two in February) and at least a few them should end up on here.

Many thanks to Cat and the folks at Albannach for looking after us and letting us have their shiny tasting room for the evening.

Sullivan’s Cove Double Cask
Australian Single Malt Whisky, 40%. ~£55.

Three Ships 10 Year Old
South African Single Malt Whisky, 43%. ~£45.

Hammer Head
Czech Single Malt Whisky, 40.7%. ~£40.

Kavalan Classic
Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky, 40%. Unavailable in Europe.

Millstone Peated
Dutch Single Malt Whisky, 40%. ~£55.

Kornog Taouarc’h Trived
French Single Malt Whisky, 46%. ~£65.

Anyways, #27. This was another evening in the hands of Berry Brothers and Rudd‘s Rob Whitehead, but this time with a big twist. We were were going to taste the whiskies more blind than usual: In the basement of Berry’s, two floors below the streets of St James’s, with the lights off.

The plan was simple – why stop at just covering the bottles? Why not remove the sense of sight all together? The BBR basement doesn’t have any natural light and with the closing of a few doors it was pitch black – the brightest thing I could see (apart from the red light on Jason’s night vision goggles that he’d borrowed for the evening) was the fluorescent dial on the watch of the person next to me, which was just visible through the sleeve of his shirt.

We started the evening upstairs with our first unnamed dram, which was pleasant but not particularly memorable. Annoyingly I didn’t write any notes on it as I’d left my notebook in my bag due to thinking that we’d be in the dark for the whole tasting, which wasn’t quite right – we’d try a couple of whiskies and then turn the lights on so we could have a look at them and see if our impressions matched up with reality. We wandered down into the cellars, sat at the table and waited as Jason looked for the light switch.

The first downstairs dram of the night had a nose of sweet chocolate, red fruit, hazelnuts and gummi sweets. In the mouth it had a silky texture, butter and custard up front to taste and an aniseed ball centre after that. It finished sweet and syrupy and was all in all a rather good dram. The next whisky had a nose of struck match, sour fruit and diesel, with a hint of old brandy rancio (autumn leaves and forests) and nuts. To taste it was thick and oily with vanilla, foam straberries and creamy spice. It finished with pine and old polished wood.

The first drams (humour)

The lights came up and the whiskies were revealed. The first one turned out to be Cutty Sark Imperial Kingdom, an export only blend that Rob had a bottle of squirreled away. It was discontinued about 5 years ago and never really sold in the UK anyway and this was much to the distress of the room, who rather liked it. The second was Glenrothes 1995, bottled in 2011, which was also the dram we tried upstairs. This was a bit of a shock to everyone, myself included, as noone would have picked it out as the same whisky. It seems that our eyes are slightly more important to tasting than we thought.

The lights went out again, Jason was molested in the dark and made occasional surprised noises and a new dram appeared. On the nose it seemed very young, with new spirit graininess, apple skins and a hint of creamy custard. To taste it had cream, light spiece, more apple skins and unripe melon, finishing with pine and some dry green wood.

The next whisky was much more fully flavoured and predicted around the room to be much darker. On the nose it had sour apples and spice, a hint of menthol, raisins, ginger snaps, molasses and soft brown sugar. To taste it was spicy and tannic, with marzipan, custard, liquorice and big sugared raisins. It finished long, with cinnamon, and dark and damp wood.

Again the lights came up and revealed that the first whisky was a Berry’s Own Selection Mannochmore 12 year old. The cask it was matured in was condemned (to a life probably involving a fire, flooring or decorative flower arranging) after this was bottled, due to it being a little on the tired side – that’s not something that’s done lightly but after 12 years it was obvious that the cask wasn’t giving much more to the whisky. The other dram was Berry’s Own Selection Macduff 2000. Macduff is a dram that you do see around, although more often under the name Glen Deveron, which the distillery use on their own bottlings. I’ve not been a fan of their OBs, but the independent’s I’ve tried in recent times have been interesting, although quite varied – the last one I had was a huge caramel coated fruitcake of a whisky which I was meant to pick up as a Christmas dram. Definitely a distillery to keep an eye on in the indies, especially if you can get a taste first.

The lights went down once more time and a final dram was passed down the table. On the nose it was pretty much what is currently my perfect dram – sweet shops and mud, sugar syrup, a hint of woody smoke and a light medicinal nature. To taste there was big waxed fruit, melons, passion fruit and fruit tinged sugar syrup. It finished long with smoke and tropical fruit. I predicted it was a Brora but I was (happily) wrong – it was the Talisker 25 2009 edition. I was happy as it’s a much more reasonable price than most Broras and there is some of it around still, as I may have to find a bottle to add to my birthday stash.

Rob made a slip at this point by starting something that might become a tradition – he did another competition. This time he got us to guess the ABV of the Talisker 25 before it was revealed, which in the end was won by our usual whisky wizard Mr Rook. Rather than the impressive whisky Rob rolled out last time he went instead for a cognac – the rather impressive Frapin Extra. Darren promptly cracked it open and shared it around the room. On the nose it had watermelon, sweet grape juice, peach, pomegranate and brown sugar. To taste it was classic old cognac, gentle and restrained with leaves and old wood, as well as some spiced apple. It finished long, green and fresh with sugary wood. A cognac to convert whisky drinkers, which was sort of the plan…

Anyways, that was that. The next tasting is sold out and I should probably get a move on as I need to write my notes as I’m running it. Keep an eye on the Whisky Squad website as the February session(s?) should be appearing soon.

Cutty Sark Imperial Kingdom
Blended Scotch Whisky, 40%. ~£50 but now discontinued

Glenrothes 1995, bottled 2011
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 43%. ~£45

Berry’s Own Selection Mannochmore 12 year old
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 43%. ~£40

Berry’s Own Selection Macduff 2000 (UK exclusive to The Whisky Barrel)
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 46%. ~£40

Talisker 25 year old, bottled 2009
Island Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 54.8%. ~£150

I’ve written a bit about Kavalan before but haven’t had a chance to try any more of their whiskies since then, so when Eddie Ludlow announced that he’d achieved a bit of a coup and got the distillery to exhibit at his Manchester show plans began to be made. I booked cheap train tickets to Manchester, getting there bright and early, and had a ticket home all in place when Eddie announced part two of his plan – Kavalan Master Blender Ian Chang would also be leading a tasting of the Kavalan range. A new return ticket was bought, the previous one departing 10 minutes before the start of the tasting, and plans to fill in a long morning of wandering around Manchester before the afternoon whisky session started to foment.

In the end it all went rather well – I wandered the streets of Manchester, ate a greasy breakfast, bought some new shoes, leeched Apple store wifi and then propped up the bar at the Marble Arch in an act of long overdue pilgrimage until it was time for whisky. A hastily grabbed ‘meal’ of scotch pancakes and scotch eggs later and I was through the door and into the hall for a quick circuit before the tasting started.

Ian Chang is not this blurry in real life

Ian Chang is Kavalan’s Master Blender, having studied food science and technology at the University of Reading. His employer is King Car, owned by the much mentioned and fabled Mr TT Lee, one of the biggest food and drink companies in east Asia, based in Taiwan. Back in January 2002 they started planning their next project, building a distillery, buoyed along by Taiwan’s new membership of the World Trade Organisation and the relaxing of rules around brewing and distilling that had previously limited production to state owned companies.

They chose the location carefully, extending King Car’s mineral water bottling facility that sat near the junction of Taiwan’s Snow and Central mountain ranges. The distillery’s name comes from that of the indigenous people, who also leant their name to the area until 1809, which appealed to Mr TT Lee, who grew up nearby. They started construction in April 2005, finishing in December and then installing the distilling gear and doing production test runs until March 2006. The first proper run of new make spirit tok place at 3:30pm on March 11th 2006.

The distillery is now a bit of a tourist destination, opening up their tours on December 4th 2008, the same day that they released their Kavalan Classic. They operate 365 days per year, don’t charge for the tour and pull in between 2k and 5k people per day – 1million people in 2010 and 2.6million by October 2011. In comparison Glenfiddich, one of the busiest Scottish distilleries, has about 100k visitors per year…

All the production at Kavalan is single malt and the whole manufacturing process was put together in association with legendary whisky consultant Dr Jim Swan (who hid at the back of the room during the tasting, volunteering an occasional comment), also known for helping start Penderyn in Wales. They import their malt from Europe (predominantly Scandinavia at the moment) as it’s too hot in Taiwan to grow and malt grain, a theme which is repeated throughout the production process. Their mash tun was imported from Rothes, in Speyside, and they seem to do a fairly regular mash, although rather than feeding the draff (spent grains) to cattle or pigs they instead press it into crackers, which are sold by King Car as people-food. They use stainless steel fermentation tanks, double skinned to aid in temperature control as the sub-tropical climate of Taiwan is far from ideal for making beer.

Ian didn’t go into their distillation itself but the next, and potentially most interesting piece, is maturation. The biggest problem with making whisky in Taiwan is the heat, as it’s a rather different climate to Scotland where most of the whisky distilling expertise is centred and they had to do a lot of research to find out how to make whisky without fighting nature too much. With yearly temperatures ranging from 10°c to 38°c the Angel’s Share is rather higher than the 2-3% you get in Scotland, coming in instead at 15-20% of evaporation per year, meaning that they can’t keep the whisky in the cask for long simply as a matter of logistics – after 5 or 6 years there’s not all that much left in there. Luckily the legal minimum for whisky maturation in Taiwan is just 2 years.

The first whisky we tried was Kavalan Classic, their regular single malt. It picked up the IWSC Best in Class award in 2011, having won a silver for the previous few years. It uses six different cask types in its makeup – refill and first fill bourbon, sherry and a variety of wine casks. They don’t use much in the way of sherry in the Classic, as the heat brings out too much tannin from the casks, which could overpower the quite delicate whisky. On the nose it was floral and fruity, with plasticine and glue, mango (the tropical fruit note that is the distillery’s main characteristic flavour) and sour grape. To taste there was vanilla, butter, cinnamon and sweet sponge cake. The finish was short, with light sweet butter and some light sweet oak. Not a massively complicated dram but nice and easy to drink.

Next on the mat was Concertmaster, a 40% ABV mix of refill and first fill bourbon matured whisky that is finished in port barriques. It’s ‘only’ picked up silver medals so far, as well as a Malt Maniacs “Cask Innovation” award in 2010, but they’re still developing and tweaking the mix as they get more spirit maturing in the warehouses. On the nose there was pungent honey, candy floss, a rich sweetness, sugared raisins and vanilla sugar. To taste it started out with cloves, which led to a light and sugary liqueur-like body rounded out with sweet and sour fruit. It finished medium-long with sweet vanilla wood.

Third on the mat was the Solist Bourbon, the companion whisky to the one I wrote about last time, which is now sold out. The series is a range of single cask whiskies, unchillfiltered and released at cask strength, making for some more extreme drams than the regular output of the distillery (the Solist Sherry is still one of the most outrageous whiskies I’ve ever tried). They’ve got an eye on distributing their whiskies in Europe, but currently have some trademark issues to work through, and as such have been looking to push maturation to 3 years (the legal minimum as set by the SWA), difficult as it is in the Taiwanese climate – this is one of the first whiskies to hit that age. It was launched on 5th August 2009 and has since won a stack of awards, including an IWSC silver, ISC Gold and WWA Best of the Rest of the World. On the nose this is classic bourbon cask matured malt – vanilla, coconut, uncooked cake batter, cinnamon and caramelised bananas. To taste it’s quite drying and tannic, but also full of caramel, lemon sherbert, apples and custard. A drop of water knocks out some of the sweetness (and cask strength burn) and adds some more sour apple and a hint of menthol. The flavours hang around for a bit, with lemony air freshener and butter fading to dry and tannic wood.

Last whisky of the night was the Vinho, one of their more recent releases showing off their wood management. The casks are made from slow growing American oak (in a similar fashion to Glenmorangie’s Astar) and the planks are seasoned outside for 24 months, open to the elements. The casks are then assembled and used to mature a variety of wines before they are emptied and shipped to Taiwan ready for whisky. Before use the barrel staves are planed to remove most of the wine soaked wood, reassembled, toasted and then recharred, in a more extreme than usual dechar/rechar process. In theory with high temperatures the planing back of the wood should allow fruity flavours to develop without becoming overpowering, as well as giving some more first fill character. The whisky poured a deep reddy brown, more reminiscent of European oak and sherry casks, and had a nose of rich fruit, black liquorice, red wine, dried cherry, marzipan and apricot heavy tagine. To taste it had big sherry flavours, black liquorice and sticky sugared raisins leading into a long finish of more raisins, sweet red grapes and cinnamon. A successful experiment.

As yet there isn’t an importer for Kavalan outside of Asia, although they are working on it and I hope they sort something soon – their whiskies are pretty good and it’d be great to be able to taste them without finding an Asia bound whisky mule…

Kavalan Classic
Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky, 40%.

Kavalan Concertmaster
Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky, 40%.

Kavalan Solist Bourbon
Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky, ?%.

Kavalan Vinho
Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky, 40%.

We’ve been waiting for a while, along with rumours of incorrect licenses and general bureaucratic annoyance, but only a couple of months after it was expected BrewDog Camden has opened its doors. I went along a couple of times during the first week, including shareholder and bloggers tastings (accompanied by excellent chums Thom and Myk of the Thomyk podcast), and thought I’d better mention it up here. Spoiler alert: I really like BrewDog’s bars. If you want to ignore some gushing praise then skip forward a few paragraphs, as I also have tasting notes on some new beers that should feature slightly less gushing praise.

So, BrewDog Camden is very much a bar in the style of their Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen branches (now also announced as spreading to Nottingham and Leeds over the coming months), and is their first foray south of the border. There is exposed brickwork and beams, found materials cladding the walls (it looks like the floor of a school gym has been chopped up, multicoloured court/pitch/field markings and all) and a load of beer taps and bottles. The range is as you’d expect from BrewDog, with a load of their own brews as well as rarely seen beers from the USA and the obligatory Mikeller offerings. The bottle selection looks good and I need to return for some further investigation, including a bunch of very interesting Japanese beers that I hope last into the new year (Update: they did, and there’s a rumour that they’ll be having some of them on tap in the near future).

They’re also doing food, with pizzas and burgers, as designed by Masterchef winner and former Euston Tap manager Tim Anderson, on the menu. I tried a couple of slivers of pizza at the tastings, with both a seafood mix and nacho pizza being rather tasty (although not quite as good as the impressive spicy meat pizza I had at BrewDog Edinburgh), and have heard good things about the burgers, but more research is needed. Such painful research.

The staff are partly newbies and partly experienced bartenders shipped down from the Scottish bars, with bar manager Neil previously managing their debut bar in Aberdeen. As hoped they’ve brought along the same attitude to running a bar as they had up north, with a focus on education and getting people to try new and interesting beers rather than the snotty attitude towards stray Stella drinkers that you often find in ‘beer’ bars. Pete Brown wrote an article earlier this year about the Edinburgh bar that says it better than me, but in short: This is how to run a bar. I just hope they can keep it up and retain good staff.

They also have a door marked ‘Sex Dungeon’ downstairs.

Anyways, onto the beers. For the shareholders tasting they decided to run us through their current run of four prototypes, which they are currently asking for opinions on in an attempt to shake up their regular beer range next year. I’m fairly sure that the last time this happened, with Punk X, nothing happened, but I’m always pleased to try new and interesting beers so was up for a taste. They also ended on AB:08, the latest in the Abstrakt series, but more of that in a future post.

We started, after the regular Punk IPA and James’s usual Richard Paterson inspired greeting of the beer, with Blitz, the protoype that I was most interested to try. Recent changes in duty law not only mean that beers over 7.5% ABV now pay 125% of general beer duty but also that beers that are no more than 2.8% only pay 50% – Blitz is BrewDog’s 2.8% attempt at grabbing the tax break. While the duty changes will have, in my opinion, very little affect on public drunkenness and alcoholism (my soap box is stowed for the time being), the lower limit duty reduction has already inspired a few beers and as a fan of milds and low strength drinks of all kinds I’m very interested to see where this goes. Blitz is not BrewDog’s first foray into the arena, with their 1.1 and 0.5% Nanny State (which I don’t think even needs to have duty paid on it, as they’re less than 1.2%) produced as a response to the criticism of their ~15% Tokyo* beers, but this is the first attempt that might hit regular production and distribution. In an effort to get as much flavour in as possible they combine their usual ‘stick in so many hops that it can kill a goat at 20 paces’ approach with using 100% caramalt, a malt that is usually used as part of a mash to add body to a beer. On the nose it has the prickly smell of brewing beer, lots of malt, a hint of Marmite and stacked freshly cut grass. To taste it was quite thin, with sour tangerines, solid uncomplicated maltiness and a tea-like hop hit – not a big beer by any stretch, but a lot bigger than you’d think at such a low strength. I need to try this again to formulate a proper opinion, but there’s potential here for good low strength beer.

Next on the prototype list was Prototype 17, which I tried down at The Rake in the Summer. This is based on Trashy Blonde, usually a very nice golden ale and one of their only beers (maybe the only) to occasionally appear in a cask version as well as their regular ‘keg only’ dispense. The beer is brewed with Belgian beer yeast and a stack of New Zealand hops for lots of fruitiness, and to that they have added 150kg of raspberries to the conditioning tank. They also ran some CO2 through the tank while it sat to keep the raspberries moving and break them up a bit to extract even more fruity flavour. This is also a bit of a preview beer, as they didn’t empty the tank when bottling, leaving in some of the beer and fruit and then adding even more raspberries ready for a future release, potentially as an Abstrakt [Update: the Edinburgh announced that they had some 'Prototype 17.5' on tap in January 2012, so I suspect it's out in the wild already]. On the nose there was, as expected, lots of red fruit although it was quite crisp with some malt richness underneath. It also had the beginnings of pineapple and mango peeking in around the raspberries. To taste it was much drier than expected, with a burst of raspberry quickly fading, leaving leafy hops, a bit of pineapple, some juicy citrus and the sort-of-apricot flavour that I often get from Belgian beers. I reckon this would make a good summer beer, but I’m not entirely sure whether it’s one I’d want in the permanent line-up.

We moved on to another beer that I’ve tried before – Hops Kill Nazis. I’ve had a draft blog post hanging around for a while with some initial thoughts on the beer but in the end I haven’t got round to finishing it up, which pretty much sums up my feelings about it. The name was chosen through a poll on the BrewDog blog although I reckon that 5pm Sinner was the better choice, better reflecting the beer’s nature – a big red ale with lots of hop bitterness (80IBUs) bottled at 7.6%, rather than 5am Saint‘s relatively light 5% and 30IBUs. I picked up a few bottles when they released it originally and was surprised to see it in the prototype line-up as they already have Punk and Hardcore along similar lines, although it would sit between them in ABV, and was pleased to get another chance to try it. On the nose it was farmyardy, with mulchy hop lofts and straw, as well as rather fruity, with pine, tangerine and spicy mango that I assume come from the Chinook hops that they dry hop the beer with. To taste it was very malty with a load of sour fruit towards the end – pineapple, figs, grapefruit, passion fruit. It hung around a bit with some nice green hop bitterness and more fruit as the bitterness faded. Much nicer than I remember in bottle, but I’m still not sure whether it has a place in the crowded middle of the regular range.

Last was the other beer I hadn’t tried in the line-up – the Scotch Ale. The rather unassuming name is a bit misleading as this was, to me, the second most interesting beer on the card after the Blitz: a change from BrewDog’s usual hop led attack, instead using huge amounts of malt (10 different kinds including some smoked malt according to my notes from both tastings I attended, although the website says only 8), heather honey and nowhere near as much hops as they usually use, to produce a big and rich traditional ale. It was also, according to my notes, brewed using a lager yeast and fermented very slowly, due to it being quite cold up in Scotland. It looks to be a continuation of the ideas that popped up when making AB:07 (an oak aged Imperial Scotch Ale) but just toned down to a more easily repeatable level. On the nose it was dark and rich with a hint of porter, dry oloroso sherry, dried cherries, oats, fizzy jelly sweets and a lick of smoke. To taste it was thick in the mouth with lots of fruit, the expected slab of malt richness, cherries, pine needles, cocoa and some muddy smoke (almost peaty). This is the one that I think would be the best addition to the range, if the intention is to broaden it. It’s unlike their other beers, focusing much less on hops and going for big maltiness, and fills a gap that they have when it comes to catering to my tastes.

Anyways, in summary – go to BrewDog Camden. It’s ace. They might even still have some of the prototypes on tap. If not, they’ll have something else tasty…

Blitz
Low alcohol ale, 2.8%.

Prototype 17
Raspberry pale ale, 4.1%.

Hops Kill Nazis
Red ale, 7.6%.

Scotch Ale
Honeyed Scotch ale, 7.5%.

We were back in The Gunmakers, but in the back room for this, the second Whisky Squad Christmas dinner. Due to Mr Rook claiming that he had ‘work’ or ‘a small child to look after’ or some other rubbish excuse I stepped in to introduce the first few drams until he could make his way over. As such my notes were minimal as I was standing up and getting in the way of a room eating and drinking. Anyways – whiskies:

Hibiki 17 year old – the surprise hit of the Suntory session with Zoran Peric earlier this year, this is the first (that I remember) repeat dram at Whisky Squad and was chosen to go with the first course (soup, pate or smoked salmon). Here are my notes from last time: On the nose it had glue (naturally), maple syrup, apples and custard, and candied lemons – ‘Apple tart with cream’ my notes read. To taste it was generally sweet with butter, sweet apple, vanilla cream and perfumed wood. It’s finish was long and spicy, with green apples and a lightly tannic woodiness hanging around.

Balvenie 21 Port Wood – I’ve spent a lot of the last year drinking Balvenie, so this was quite a fitting next dram for me, matched with the main courses (beef stew, roast chicken or something vegematarian). Annoyingly I don’t have any notes on this, the peril of having drunk it enough that I always assume that I’ve already written them loads of times – here’s some stuff from my unreliable memory. On the nose it’s got the regular Balvenie spice but isn’t quite as heavy as you’d expect from something with 21 years in a port pipe under its belt. To taste it’s got balanced savoury and sweetness, with honey, a bit of sticky red fruit, liquorice and some elegant wood. It’s a tasty dram and works better as a digestif in my opinion, although it happily held up to the beef stew.

Glenisla 1977 / 28 Years Old / Cask #199599 – I think it was this specific single cask bottling, but I didn’t get a chance to note down all the details. However, as soon as I stuck my nose in the glass I sat down and started writing tasting notes – I was trying this one blind (unlike the last two, which I’d been given up heads-up about) and it was unlike anything else I’ve smelled in the world of whisky. Glenisla was an experimental whisky made (I think) just in 1977 at Glen Keith distillery. I’ve heard a few tales about what it actually is, but as far as I can tell it’s a peaty whisky that was made peaty by using heavily peated water in the mash rather than peaty barley. It’s rather rare and there are only a few independent bottlings of it in the wild, so I was rather pleased to get a taste, especially as I’d only learned of its existence about the previous week.

On the nose it started off rhubarb-like, with stewed rhubarb and rhubarb & custard sweets, before moving into much more savoury territory with fresh celery, celery salt and the smell that I always associate with artichokes, despite not having any memory of what artichokes smell like. It went on with unripe figs, and grape juice before taking a weird turn through mushrooms, wet forest floors and rich compost. To taste it started out muddy before the artificial rhubarb from the nose made itself known. From there it went through artificial sweetener and sweet smoke to honey and cloying syrup. It finished with mint and aniseed balls, both hanging around for a little while. A totally strange whisky and one that after a single dram I couldn’t say whether I liked or not. It was also picked out as Gunmakers Landlord Jeff’s favourite whisky of all time. He is a man with strange tastes.

Glendronach 21 year old – ‘Parliament’ – this wasn’t in the originally published version of this post, but when Jason gave me a call to ask whether he had dreamed it or if I had left it out for editorial purposes I thought I’d better do a quick update. I forgot it as I was attempting to get Darren to eat his dinner at the time, although not in a ‘here comes the big airplane!’ style spoon to mouth faux-flying way, as I feel that he is probably a lot more qualified than I in that respect currently. Anyways, the whisky is named for the Parliament of rooks that live in the tree opposite the distillery and in short I rather like it. I even said so in the blog post I wrote for work when I went through a bunch of their whiskies. My tasting notes from then read:

Nose: Sticky black liquorice, dark chocolate, stewed raisins, spiced apple and hints of nuts and marzipan. It’s rich and fruitily sweet rather than syrupy, and it sits on the edge of cloying.

Palate: Rich and bitter sweet, with charcoal and raisins, soured PX and hard liquorice sticks. Water lightens the body and brings out some custard, but leaves the charcoal edge.

Finish: Menthol, ground almonds, woody liquorice root, dry fragrant wood and a lingering edge of marzipan.

The King’s Ginger – as donated by Whisky Squad presenting alumnus and regular attendee Rob Whitehead as a post-prandial dram, this was presented blind and with no comment on the fact that it’s a liqueur rather than a whisky. It was created in 1903 by Berry Brothers & Rudd on commission from King Edward VII, who required a drink to fortify him during his morning car rides. As such it’s sweet and spicy with lots of ginger to ‘keep the blood flowing’. It’s no longer a recommended driving aid but is incredibly popular, with Rob spending much of his time during December handing bottles over the counter at Berrys. On the nose you get a big sugar syrup hit as well as spicy ginger, but it’s not particularly heavy or cloying. To taste the ginger and sweetness is balanced by lemony citrus, although it does have the sticky syrupy finish of many liqueurs as well as a hint of sweet tea. A hit in the room and now on the Christmas list of a number of the attendees.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures of the food or whisky, but here’s the solitary snap I did get – landlord Jeff riding Squad regular (and Christmas fan, as his hat shows) Ross around the room…:

There was also a quiz with less questions than the previous year, winners who didn’t work in the whisky industry and a stack of whisky miniatures as prizes. A good night and a fitting end to the Whisky Squad year. Apart from the final ‘Whisky Surprise’ bring a bottle session, that is…although I suspect that will remain shrouded in mystery (my increasingly drunken notes peter out half way through).

Hibiki 17 year old
Japanese Blended Whisky,43%. ~£70

Balvenie 21 year old Port Wood
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 40%. ~£80

Glenisla 1977 Cask #19959
Experimental Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 50.7%. ~£140

The King’s Ginger
Bespoke Royal Liqueur, 41%. ~£18 for 50cl

Anyways, the second tasting of November was deliberately pushed towards the end of the month as it was in honour of Movember, and the extra couple of weeks meant that there were some moustaches on display, unlike during the Smoking Section tasting where MoSista Charly‘s stick on lip warmer was the only thing worthy of the name ‘Mo’. Anyways, we gathered upstairs at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society with bottles donated from a variety of sponsors and all the proceeds going straight to the Whisky4Movember fund raising efforts. Unfortunately we had some generous sponsors and even excluding the emergency bottle I had in my bag, just in case any of the whiskies didn’t arrive, we had eight drams to get through. It’s a hard life…

First up, tasted blind as usual, was a mid-golden dram. On the nose it had sour apple skins, butter, cream, light spice, and milky butter icing. To taste it was creamy up front, with fruit and woody spice down the middle. It was quite light in body and very easily drinkable, with a finish of spiced creme brulee. An excellent start to the evening and not particularly surprising when the paper was pulled off and it turned out to be the Great King Street Artist’s Blend from Compass Box. I’ve written about this before, both here in a post about the Compass Box twitter tasting and in a work post around release time, and my opinion stays the same – a versatile, tasty and easy drinking whisky, and a great place to push people who assume that all blends are rubbish. Thanks to Compass Box for donating the bottle.

Next on the list was the first of two drams donated by our hosts – the SMWS. On the nose it had spiced vinegar, pungent fruit, sweet and sour sauce, treacle toffee, Love Hearts and a touch of minty menthol. To taste it was big and meaty, with some drying tannic wood, spiced apples, sour grapes, apple wood and a hint of woody smoke. It finished very differently, with strawberries, coconut and tropical fruit, as well as some drying wood. A rather complex and interesting dram that turned out to be 123.6 – Rhubarb and Custard, matured for 10 years in a refill port pipe. While the society don’t officially give out what distillery each number goes with, 123 is Glengoyne, a distillery that until recently I’d almost entirely avoided but have become quite fond of in the last couple of weeks. They claim to be the only distillery to dry their barley with no peat whatsoever, using hot air instead, and have been running since 1833. They were taken over by Ian Macleod Distillers in 2003, as the company’s first only and currently only distillery, and since then have been making a lot of headway in the market. I need to try more of their whiskies…

Number three had a young and fruity nose, with some spirity alcohol, toffee, grapefruit and passion fruit – the last two flavours that I’ve been increasingly looking for in whisky. To taste there was fizzy sherbert, sweet lemons, cream and the caraway graininess of less mature whisky. It finished well, with lingering spiced wood, Tangfastic Haribo and more tropical fruit. A bit of a hit around the room and an annoyance when the label came of as it was Cask Strength and Carry On, a whisky from Arran bottled by the chaps at Caskstrength.net which sold out within a couple of days of release. I’ve still got a bit of the sample that Joel and Neil gave me when they released it, but annoyingly I didn’t try it until after they’d run out of bottles and didn’t get any myself. Luckily, Darren did acquire a few bottles (although whether that was by way of tax for his house being used as a staging point after the bottles were driven down from Arran is between Darren and the Caskstrength boys) and he donated one to the evening. There was even a Movember link with the Neil half of Caskstrength having been featured on one of the first Movember bottles. Well, his excellent moustache (now departed) was, at least.

Next up was one that I was fairly sure I’d guessed – a really dark and sticky dram. On the nose it was big and sherried – sugared raisins, the burnt edges from a beef joint, dark wood and rich fruit. To taste that continued, with lots of fruit – plums and stewed mixed winter berries – and some sticky liquorice at the back. The flavours hung around for a while with fruit and buttered wood. The label came off to show that I was right for once – it was the Movember 2011 bottling, a vatting of a couple of casks of 9 year old whisky from Glenfarclas. The barrels were chosen by Chris Hoban of the Edinburgh Whisky Blog and naturally there’s a post up over there about his visit to the distillery. It was sold exclusively by the chaps at Master of Malt (boo, hiss, etc) who donated all the profits to the Whisky4Movember fundraising effort (woo, yay, etc), picking up £6000 by the end of November. They are now sold out, but MoM do still have some samples left to buy.

Number five, the beginning of the second half, was a bit of a surprise at first, as after a run of three cask strength drams it was back to a normal 40%. On the nose it had Fry’s Turkish Delight, honey, red fruit and a touch of menthol. To taste it was creamy, with woody spic, some delicate polished wood flavours, and a lingering finish of wood and spice. A lot less powerful in alcohol than the last couple of drams but a nice contrast and very drinkable. A ripple of surprise spread around the room when the bottle turned out to be Balvenie Signature. I was rather pleased that my tasting notes match up with my usual take on Balvenie and it was impressive that it held up despite coming after some palate killing whiskies. Many thanks to Dr Andrew Forrester, Balvenie’s UK Brand Ambassador, for donating the bottle.

The next one was much lighter in colour and the first peaty whisky of the night – a nose of meaty smoke, dirty peat and mulched leaves all undercut by a young sweet spiritiness. To taste it had gritty smoke, sweet fruit and a metallic hint, finishing with tinned smoky fish and a lingering note of pineapple. A strange combination of flavours that made some sense when the whisky was revealed – Birnie Moss. This is a young peaty whisky from Benriach on Speyside, made with an eye towards the European market, especially Spain, Italy and France who love young fiery whisky and don’t mind a touch of smoke. Benriach don’t stop with Birnie Moss though, as their Curiositas is the same spirit left in the cask for a few extra years – an excellent peaty dram with some nice fruitiness underneath that the Birnie Moss shows some of the elegance of. This was a bit of a hit in the room, with at least a couple of bottles going on Christmas lists. Thanks to the Royal Mile Whiskies for the donation.

The penultimate whisky of the night was a step away from peat again, with a nose of spiced cream, sour fruit and a hint of balsamic vinegar. To taste it had fruity toffee, bananas, sweet apples and pears, and a burst of spicy cinnamon. It finished bitter, with green wood and some woody spice. Another slightly random whisky, this time from Jason’s collection, it was Glenmorangie Astar. I’ve written about it before, back in the olden days of this blog, and it’s a concentration of Glenmorangie’s experiments with interesting casks, using barrels made from wood from a forest that they specially selected, before the usual filling with bourbon, emptying, and shipping over to Scotland to be used to mature the whisky.

Finally we reached whisky number eight, another donation from the SWMS and one that was definitely an evening ender. On the nose the first note, that dominated almost everything else, was pickled onions, both real ones and the overpowering (and very tasty) smell of pickled onion Monster Munch. Underneath that there was sour fruit, some gravelly smoke, soured sherry, shoe polish and tomato ketchup. To taste it was full of coal, ash and coal smoke, with a back-end of sweet and sour sauce, baked beans and damp seaweed. The flavours lingered, with the smoke giving way to ash, ketchup, and spicy sweet and sour sauce. A strange and divisive whisky that I really wasn’t sure about, although I happily sat and sniffed at my glass for ages. It was revealed to be 29.104 – Not For Wee Boys, from Laphroaig, matured for 20 years in a refill sherry butt. A beast of a dram and one that had lost a lot of the typical Laphroaig medicinal nature due to the influence of the sherry wood – interesting and one that I hope to be able to grab a dram of next time I visit.

That was it for another month, although despite there being eight whiskies on the mat there was a trip to the bar downstairs for some more drinks, and a few more people left as members of the SMWS than arrived. December also has two meetups, the Christmas dinner later this week and the ‘everyone brings a bottle’ Whisky Surprise night (still some spaces left), which didn’t get a blog post last year due to the horrific drunkenness I managed to inflict on myself. Keep an eye on the Whisky Squad website for the announcement of January’s sessions, one of which I may have something to do with…

Compass Box Great King Street – The Artists’ Blend
Blended Scotch Whisky, 43%. ~£25 for a 50cl bottle

SMWS 123.6 – Rhubarb and Custard
Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 59.5%. ~£60

Cask Strength and Carry On
Island Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 49.9%. ~£50

Movember 2011
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 53%. ~£40

Balvenie Signature
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 40%. ~£35

Birnie Moss
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 48%. ~£30

Glenmorangie Astar
Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 57.1%. ~£55

SMWS 29.104 – Not For Wee Boys
Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 58.2%. ~£70

Anyways, the first of November’s Squad meetups was to feature a topic that hasn’t really been broached since back in my first attendance, Whisky Squad #4 – Islay Malts. That session featured a range of whisky from the island, rather than focusing on the traditional peaty fare, so the chaps decided that a night for smoke heads was long overdue. Hence Whisky Squad #23 – The Smoking Section.

There was some mild confusion at first, as rather than our usual venue of The Gunmakers we had shifted to The Red Lion, tucked in behind Berry Brother’s and Rudd in St James, and usually better known in the whisky circuit as the venue for The Whisky Lounge tastings. However, Jeff, the landlord of The Gunmakers, has decided to refurbish our regular room causing us to be evicted for a couple of sessions while he and his regulars/cohorts/chums rip out the fixtures and throw the sofa out of the window. Hopefully we’ll be back in our spiritual home soon. Anyways, they’re having a Winter Ale and Food festival at the end of the week – you should go, it will be ace.

The plan was simple – try some whisky, all of which would be smoky. We were unfortunately not accompanied by our the traditional Whisky guide, Mr Rook, who claimed something about ‘having a small child to look after’, but he had popped in before we turned up and set the dram order. I mention this so that blame can be apportioned. Luckily, m’colleague Tim had come along and we had Rob from Berry Brothers on the other side of the room, so there was enough whisky know-how to spread around. Now, onto the blaming.

Whisky number one was poured and it was quite lightly coloured. On the nose it was savoury, with wine vinegar, burning pine needles, mud and malt, as well as a traditionally peaty medicinal scent with freshly unwrapped bandages. To taste it had predominantly the taste of young spirit – caraway, fire and alcohol. Along with that it had some salty liquorice, brine and lots of smoke – not so much peaty smoke, but just hot, fiery smoke. It finished quickly, with some creamy grain fading to nothing. This was a fairly brutal start to the evening and it wasn’t much of a shock to see that it was Octomore 4.1, the peatiest whisky ever made. Well, the whisky made with the most peated malt, at least, as I don’t know how peaty the spirit was when it came out of the still (distillation removes some of the elements of the wash including some of the phenols that make whisky ‘peaty’). Octomore is the name for the heavily peated malts that Bruichladdich have been making and which should continue as one of their brands now that they’ve released their first 10 year old made solely with spirit distilled since the distilleries reopening and are starting to calm down on releasing so many expressions. This was the ‘blame Darren’ dram, as starting off a tasting with Octomore could be seen as a hostile statement of intent. Luckily things calmed down from here on.

Whisky two was light gold and much calmer. The nose had some plasticine, wax, butter, a bit of fruit, some meatiness and a light hint of smoke. To taste it was bitter and minerally, with more butter, some mint and mulchy leaves – a muddy peat taste. Water added some cream, sweetness, lime citrus and more smoke and it finished a bit cardboardy, with charcoal and coal dust. The label was whipped off to show that this was Benromach Peat Smoke. From seeing the bottle I thought at first that it was Benromach’s Special Edition Organic, the only peaty whisky I knew they’d done, but it seems that they now produce this as a regular bottling – one of the few peated Speyside whiskies.

Next up was a whisky that Tim recognised immediately from the bottle shape and that I had no clue about. On the nose it was sweet, with a farmyardy edge that burned off quite quickly to leave pine, stone, mulchy grain, lime and hints of tropical fruit. To taste there was sweet pastry, menthol, pear drops, pear skin tannins, and musky wood smoke. Water brought out more fruit and more of the muskiness in the smoke, leading to a lingering wood smoke (burning green wood) and sweet woodiness. A tasty dram that I rather enjoyed and couldn’t place, which turned out to be Port Askaig 25 year old, as produced by my employers. Port Askaig is a range of whiskies from an unnamed Islay distillery that we bottle and sell, and which I’ve not tried many of yet. If you’re interested then the folks at Connosr did a rundown of the range that I’ve been using as crib notes when anyone asks me about them…

Whisky four was again light and had a nose of lemon, brine and shellfish – almost scampi and lemon Nik-Naks. Fresh and maritime with a woody smoke behind everything. To taste there was lemon butter, sweet syrup, pine and a lot of alcohol – this was definitely a cask strength whisky and needed some water. Dilution calmed it down a bit and brought out some more mineral notes. The finish was short and my notes simply say “Chocolate?”, the accuracy of which I question. The reveal showed it to be my first correct guess of the night – Chapter 11 Cask Strength from the English Whisky Company, although I will admit that the distinctive bottle shape helped rather a lot. I tried this when judging the World Whisky Masters this year and liked it then (we gave it a Master award, the top honours), and my opinion hasn’t changed – the finest whisky that EWC have produced, and by far my favourite young peated whisky I’ve tried to date.

Whisky five was again one that I probably should have guessed but didn’t. On the nose there were baked beans, kippers, grain, full ashtrays, leaves, fisherman’s friends, lime rind, fennel, stewed tea and charcoal – a lot of flavours. To taste it was simpler, lightly sweet with charcoal, lime leaves, nettles, tobacco and some prickly alcohol. The finish lingered with green leaves and some medicinal smoke. I rather liked it and was very please when Jason pulled off the paper to show that it was Elements of Islay Kh1. The Elements series is also bottled by my employers, with each different distillery being assigned a two letter ‘chemical symbol’ used in combination with a release number to name each bottling. I can’t possibly say which distillery Kh is, but this is the first bottling that we’ve done from them, it’s the first independent bottling of their whisky that they’ve allowed, and it was selected by Tim and I from a selection of samples from the distillery, the first whisky I’ve helped choose. I should probably have recognised it…

The last whisky of the night was then handed around and on the nose had fake butter, nail varnish remover, muddy peat, lots of stony minerality, pears, the ‘wet dog’ muskiness that Tim often talks about in his Islay whisky tasting notes, a spot of astringent Bruichladdich-a-like ‘baby sick’ and an underlying meatiness with peaty medicinal notes. To taste it was very sweet and grainy with some lime and minerality – a simple and young spirit. The finish hung around longer than I expected, with stone, sweet cereals and some peaty mulch. Label off, the whisky turned out to be Kilchoman 100% Islay. A Kilchoman at this point was unexpected (for reasons that the previous paragraph may make obvious) and even less expected was for Peter Wills, son of distillery owner Anthony Wills and their first brand ambassador, to stand up and say hello – I thought I recognised him from whisky shows. 100% Islay is fairly unique in that it is almost entirely local in nature – the barley was grown and malted at Kilchoman; it was then mashed, fermented, distilled and matured at the distillery and only left the island to be bottled, although they did do a limited edition cask strength version that was bottled by hand (using a teapot, it is rumoured).

A nice bit of peaty whisky, despite my current tastes being for more ‘boring’ unpeated bourbon casks and a definite reminder that I need to get myself some Kh1 before it runs out.

Next time – the Movember tasting. Hopefully before the end of the year…

I was beaten to the write-up this month by Pooja over on her Table For One blog. I will not be beaten again! Until next time.

Octomore 4.1
Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 62.5%. ~£80

Benromach Peat Smoke
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 46%. ~£35

Port Askaig 25 year old
Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 45.8%. ~£100

English Whisky Chapter 11 Cask Strength
Single Malt English Whisky, 59.7%. ~£70

Elements of Islay Kh1
Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 59.7%. ~£50 for a 50cl bottle

Kilchoman 100% Islay
Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 50%. ~£70

The Squad is getting a bit popular, with the tickets zooming out of the door at quite a scary speed. As such Messrs Standing and Tate have bribed even more people and started putting on second sessions, and this saving grace meant I got to have an October visit to the Whisky Squad after all. They roped in Whisky Squad drinker Jonny McMillan (for values of ‘roped in’ where Jonny said ‘Can I do a session’) and October part two was born – Now There’s Something You Don’t See Every Day…

Jonny works, when he isn’t selling his soul to the world of non-whisky, at Cadenhead’s whisky shop in London as well as appearing around the country at whisky shows, including the recent Manchester Whisky Show (more of which in a future post) and on the Glenglassaugh stand at the aforementioned Whisky Show (where I was on the stand next door and he fed me some tasty whisky). His theme for the night was elegantly simple – a group of whiskies from distilleries where less than 1% of their output goes to single malt. Apart from one, because Jonny really liked it. Luckily Cadenhead’s are an excellent independent bottler who have lots of interesting whiskies from such places. Anyways – whisky.

Dram #1 poured a light gold and had a nose dominated at first by chocolate caramel digestives, one of the finest biscuits of all time. That was followed up by creamy vanilla, green melon, fizzy Refreshers, lemon, baked beans and some minted peas. The lemon came through on the palate with some lime, spicy wood, apple and more vanilla, with water cranking up the apples and adding some tannic apple skin. The apple skin note continued on into the finish along with some green wood – quite fresh but tannic. As usual the guesses as to what it was were fairly inaccurate, helped by the fact that it was from Glenburgie, which isn’t particularly well known. It was a Glenburgie 1993 bottled in 2004 at 11 years old, one of an outturn of 288 bottles. Cadenhead’s still use the old name of the spirit, Glenburgie-Glenlivet, with the theory floated around the table that they’ve been bottling it long enough that their naming has been grandfathered in by being around longer than the current case law that restricts the use of the Glenlivet suffix. Glenburgie is owned by Pernod Ricard and usually goes into the Ballantine’s blends, although I suspect that there’s a bit in the various Chivas whiskies as well. It’s one that seems to do very well as a single malt (as a recent sell out of the SMWS’s latest bottling at The Whisky Show, along with people randomly grabbing me and asking me if I’d tried it can attest) but still it rarely sees the light of day.

At first I got confused and started nosing whisky #1 again when we moved on and was quite pleased that I got the same things again, and was about to comment that we had two rather similar whiskies, at which point I realised that I was just stupid – dram 2 was quite different. On the nose it started out quite dirty with a chunk of diesel and rubber plimsoll soles, but quickly moved on to sweeter things with icing sugar, vanilla cream and strawberries. To taste there was cooling mint and menthol up front, followed by lemon and lime, chocolate and sea salt. Water added some nice spiciness and more citrus. It finished with sherbert lemons and lots of liquorice. Jonny told us this had an interesting cask but noone guessed either its nature of the distillery – it was a Duthies Ben Nevis 14 year old, matured entirely in a rum cask. While finishing in rum casks is fairly common this is the first one that I’ve tried matured for all of its time in one. Jonny was rather keen on this one and it was quickly (and accidentally, ruining Jonny’s plan of giving a prize to the person who guessed) outed as the distillery who has more than 1% going into single malt releases. Ben Nevis is owned by Nikka and I assume that a lot of their spirit goes overseas, but they also produce some interesting whisky locally as they have a column still onsite that they use to make grain spirit. As such they’re one of the only distilleries left in Scotland (if not the only one) that can still make single blends – whisky made from combining grain and malt spirit at the same distillery. We tried one of their single cask single blends (made by filling a cask with a mixture of new make grain and malt whisky and leaving them to mature together before bottling) before at Whisky Squad and this one was similarly strange in flavour – I liked this one a lot more, though.

Number 3 had a nose of red wine gums (although Jonny thought it more strawberry Chewits), grass, aniseed, floral honeysuckle and a hint of savoury celery. To taste it was sweet and floral, with a strangely vegetal back-end, almost liked buttered green veg. The finish had green grass and wood, lemon and lime, and a light menthol tinge. Again we had no clue what it was and to the surprise of those who had tried whisky from the distillery before, including m’colleague Tim, this was an Aultmore 1997, bottled at 11 years old in 2008. I’ve not had a good record with Aultmore, and neither has Tim, and this was quite different in that we both quite enjoyed it. Most of the spirit from the distillery goes into the Dewar’s blends, also owned by Bacardi, but it was once owned by United Distillers and Vintners (UDV) and there was a 12 year old single malt released as part of the Flora & Fauna range. That is now a rather expensive and rare bottling, as UDV is now part of Diageo and the distillery sold on, but independent bottlings of Aultmore do appear from time to time.

We swiftly moved on to the penultimate dram. On the nose it had sweet rhubarb, berries, green leaves and flowers, with an astringent sweetness isolated by the room as a ‘balsamic drizzle’. To taste there was furniture polish, ginger, more leaves, apples and custard, and a hint of floral air freshener (one of my least favourite notes in a whisky, although subdued here). It finished quite tannic, with apple skins and a pot pourri mix of wood and air freshener (again). This was another surprise, being a Fettercairn 1993, bottled this year at 17 years old. Fettercairn is the quiet distillery from Whyte & Mackay’s portfolio, with their old single malt not particularly well thought of. Their older expressions have turned heads more recently but the vast majority still goes into blending. I’ve found Fettercairn to have a bit leafiness when I’ve tried it before and was happy to find that it’s also in a younger whisky (not that 17 years is that young). This one continued Jonny’s love of strange casks, having been matured entirely in a claret barrel. Red wine finishes are often a bit hit and miss, and this is only the second whisky I’ve tried that spent it’s entire life in a red wine cask – I declare this experiment to be at least a partial success.

We then moved onto the final dram of the night. It had a nose of fruit leaves and berry jam (I rather like leafy whisky at the moment so that recurring note was a good thing for me, at least) with an unexpected of hit pine floor cleaner. It had a rather oily mouthfeel with mint, menthol, woody liquorice root, a bit of soft liquorice pastille, raspberry and victoria sponge cake. It finished with mulchy fruit leaves, dark wood and lingering dark chocolate. A strange combination of flavours and one that yet again noone got near – it was a Craigellachie 1994 (again with a -Glenlivet on the end on the label) bottled at 12 years of age in 2007. Craigellachie sits slap bang in the middle of Speyside, near the Speyside cooperage, and I’ve been driven past it a number of times when up on holiday in Scotland. However, from the road it’s not the picturesque pagoda roofed thing you might expect from seeing distillery photos and looks very much like a chemical plant, which in essence it is. Like Aultmore they’re now owned by Bacardi, having been acquired from UDV when they sold Dewar’s, but they didn’t get a look in to the Flora and Fauna range, changing ownership before UDV got a chance to release one. Diageo, as successors to UDV, have released a Rare Malts expression from their stocks, but in general independent bottlers are the only place to find Craigellachie as a single malt. I’ve only tried a couple and so far they’ve been entirely different to each other, the previous one being a light stereotypical bourbon cask whisky…

Anyways, my missing of a Whisky Squad seems to have started a trend – I am most probably missing the next one as well (although hope has sprung today with a move to a new venue). There are another two in November and the first one (#23, The Smoking Section) flew off the shelves in the usual tiny amount of time. However, there are still a few left for session two of the month, which I will be going to – Whisky 4 Movember. I suspect its fear of bad moustaches that has kept the tickets from selling out, but worry not facial hair is not mandatory.

Glenburgie 1993, 11 years old
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 59.8%

Ben Nevis 14 years old
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 58.1%

Aultmore 1997, 11 years old
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 57.5%.

Fettercairn 1993, 17 years old
Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 51.5%.

Craigellachie 1994, 12 years old
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 58.3%.

While we went through the range Jenny filled us in on some more bits of absinthe history that I didn’t know, fleshing out the tales of the ban with a bit of intrigue and politics. One of the big drivers to absinthe’s popularity was the phylloxera epidemic that hit French vineyards in the late 1860s. With the grape vines being eaten by this rather destructive bug both wine and brandy production ground to a relative halt leaving a gap in the market for other spirits, which led to the rise of Scotch whisky elsewhere overseas and absinthe in France. Absinthe’s arrival in the cities was preceded by its use by a rather surprising group – the French army. During the Algerian campaigns of the 1840s the spirit was used to dose water rations to guard against malaria and when the soldiers came home they brought with them a love of absinthe. Over the next couple of decades its popularity grew and by the time that phylloxera hit it was popular enough to start replacing brandy and wine as the supplies of grapey beverages failed. The absinthe producers were mainly using grape based spirit to make their absinthe, but they switched over to sugar beet, which makes good neutral spirit but fairly awful rum, and kept on distilling.

Post-phylloxera, absinthe was entrenched as a popular spirit and while The Temperance Movement was the face of the people against booze in general they were backed by rather strange bedfellows – the grape producers, winemakers and brandy distillers. Between them spurious scientific ‘evidence’ for the perils of absinthe was circulated and by the time of Jean Lanfray‘s murders enough doubt had been raised in the minds of the public that a ban was popular. In addition to this the French were at war again, this time the First World War, and absinthe was yet again on the medic’s menu. However, this time there wasn’t so much of a good public reception after the war, and absinthe was included in the bad press.

After the ban absinthe didn’t entirely disappear, with blanche becoming more popular due to the difficulty in identifying its nature from colour alone. Absinthe makers bought neutral spirit rather than making their own, macerated the ingredients and then redistilled it without the final colouring infusion stage, keeping it clear. This happened a lot in Switzerland, leading to ‘Suisse’ absinthe as a term becoming almost homogenous with blanche.

The ban has been breaking down over the last 10-20 years, with the 1990s seeing the introduction of a number of so-called Czech absinth(e)s. These are in the main neutral spirit flavoured with oils and macerated botanicals without redistillation, the so-called cold compound method also used for many cheaper gins, and in an effort to jazz it up the fire ritual of absinthe drinking was popularised. Setting fire to an absinthe soaked sugar cube before dumping into your glass of spirit and damping it with water won’t improve the flavour of a decent absinthe, but can hide the rough edges of a cheaper product.

After the turn of the millennium a New Orleans analytical scientist by the name of Ted Breaux started looking into absinthe. He uncovered some old bottles and via reverse engineering and studying old books on the spirit he started recreating pre-ban absinthe recipes. His research showed that contrary to a lot of the received wisdom about old absinthe the levels of thujone, the substance that was claimed to be the active hallucination causing ingredient of wormwood, were not as high as once thought. The came in at between 0.5mg and 48mg/l with an average of about 25mg/l, rather than the 100s that were often postulated, whereas the legal limit these days is between 10 and 35mg/l depending on country – all quite similar. Further research into thujone has shown that while its molecular structure is similar to THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, it isn’t the same and doesn’t seem to have the effects often ascribed to it. Research continues into the makeup of absinthe and further compounds are being isolated as potential active ingredients, but most traditional absinthe makers are ignoring it.

Ted continued his recipe recreations and came up with the recipe for his first Jade absinthe in 2004. He also developed Lucid absinthe for Viridian Spirits and on March 5th 2007 they got approval to sell it in the USA, one of the first (if not the first) approval since the 1912 ban, and continued to expand his range with the Jade bottlings.

We tasted our way through the Jade range with Jenny and the next weekend I tasted them again at home, thanks to a set of samples sent to my by the excellent Stu Robson, who chose them independently as some of his favourite absinthes on the market today. Both tastings were done at a ratio of about 1 part absinthe to 3 parts water, poured slowly from a jug at 22 Below (as the fountain was broken) and with a pipette at home, dripping iced water over a sugar cube sat on an absinthe spoon above the glass. I used the equivalent of about 1 cube of sugar per 30ml of absinthe.

First in the range is the PF 1901, with the PF standing for Pernod Fils, the original absinthe brand. This was reverse engineered from a pre-ban bottle and I only tried it with Jenny as I’m saving my sample at home for a side by side tasting of a small amount of original pre-ban Pernod Fils that Mr Robson has given me. I owe him all the beers in the world… On the nose it was aniseedy – the actual seeds, rather than the sweet flavour we often associate with the term. It was also slightly green and grassy, a bit like the fluffy edges of the fennel plant. To taste it was initially bitter and green, the Wormwood coming through strongly, with musty wood and a sweetly anis finish.

Next up is VS 1898 (prefixed with ‘Berger’ in the USA, although due to an existing European trademark they can’t use the name over here), 65% and as with the others based on an old bottle – in this case the absinthe from the CF Berger distillery that closed due to the ban in 1910. As Suisse mainly refers to blanches these days the VS here stands for Verte Suisse – Green Swiss. The nose was very sweet and creamy, and the taste was very interesting – a burst of fruity boiled sweets, followed by bitter wormwood, marzipan, black liquorice and pungent tingling aniseed. With sugar it became really sweet, as you’d expect from an absinthe that started fairly sweet, with strong aniseed ball flavours and underlying bitterness. To taste it had sweet butter and cream, hints of spice and softened liquorice flavours. A nice and full on absinthe that really didn’t benefit from the sugar.

Third was Nouvelle Orleans, named for New Orleans where absinthe was popular before the US ban, thanks to the French links, and based on the work of the bartenders and distillers of the area before absinthe was banned in the USA. The fact that it’s also Ted’s stomping grounds may also have something to do with it. The nose was quite pungent, with spice and hints of smoke and rubber – almost swimming pool chlorine. To taste there was lots of herb and spice, with cinnamon and mint creams coming on strong. It finished long with musky wormood, cinnamon fireballs and a tannic end. Sugar took out some of the bitter wormwood, but otherwise left everything else pretty much the same, maybe enhancing the cinnamon a little bit towards sweet cinnamon toast. This was probably my favourite of the bunch, reminding me of the whisky-like spices that I often look for in brown spirits while providing a mint & anise contrast.

The last of the Jades was Espirit Edouard (aka ‘Eddie’), bottled at 72%. A recreation of early 20th century Edouard Pernod absinthe, distilled by one of the branches of Henri Louis Pernod’s family who branched out on their own before being reacquired by the family around the time of the French ban. On the nose this was massively creamy, with sweet liquorice from the anis and fennel, and wormwood led bitter green herbs. To taste the cream reappeared up front, followed by a sweet and grassy middle and finished with a lingering oily mouthfeel.

Jenny finished off our tasting with La Maison Fontaine. It is distilled in Pontarlier in the Emile Pernot distillery, which claims to be have been distilling absinthe since 1890 (although I suspect there was a bit of a gap in there for legal reasons) in their old absinthe still, the oldest working one in the world. It’s a blanche absinthe in the Swiss “it’s clear, so it can’t be absinthe!” style that was popular after the ban. Here’s Ted Breaux having a bit of a taste and a chat in front of Jenny’s camera:

As Ted says the Swiss style is for less strong absinthes and this one sits in that niche at a ‘mere’ 56% (and when he says “it tastes of absinthe” he’s not stating the obvious, he’s talking about Artemisia Absinthium – Wormwood). After my liking the Blanche de Fougerolles, aka Enigma Blanche, my first blanche absinthe, I had high hopes for Fontaine and wasn’t disappointed. On those nose it had spearmint, sweet butter and a rich egg custard. It was thick in the mouth with sweet cream, mint & anis, a touch of sweet pastry, butter, grain and floury spice. All in all a rather tasty proposition.

With more absinthes under my belt I’ve realised quite how little I know about the flavours and ingredients involved. As such I’ve started to gather various herbs from a number of hippy shops to try and expand my palate and vocabulary. Expect some more green fairy related posts in the future…

In related news, I’m working out the absinthe bottle share I mentioned at the beginning of this post at the moment. It’s basically splitting a number of absinthes between 14 to give us all 50ml samples to have a go at rather than having to buy a whole bottle of each. If you’re interested then either drop a comment under this post or email me on billy@cowfish.org.uk. If you’re on Google+ then there’s even a thread to say hello on.

Many thanks to Jenny and Stuart for being my absinthe pimps. I see much wormwood related danger in my future, but at least it’ll now be well made danger.

Jade PF1901
Distilled verte absinthe, 68%. ~£65

Jade (Berger) VS 1898
Distilled verte absinthe, 65%. ~£65

Jade Nouvelle Orleans
Distilled verte absinthe, 68%. ~£65

Jade Esprit Edouard
Distilled verte absinthe, 72%. ~£70

La Maison Fontaine
Distilled blanche absinthe, 56%. ~£55