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.

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So, what is it? Brewdog describe it as a ‘Deconstructed Blonde Imperial Stout’ which, as with many of the Abstrakt range’s descriptions doesn’t tell you very much. It started off as a made-up collaborative beer, Luciferin – the Light Bringer, in an April’s Fools day video recorded by James of Brewdog and Greg Koch of Stone that appeared in 2010, before I was paying attention to their website. Here it is:

Brewdog then decided to go ahead and make it. The final product is even the same strength as the Luciferin…

Now, the idea of a Blonde Imperial Stout doesn’t really work, as the flavours that you get in stouts are in a large part brought in to the mix (as far as I know) by the malt, which in turn makes the beer a dark colour. So to keep the beer as light as possible you need to get all the stouty flavours in some other way, hence the ‘deconstructed’ part of the name. They did this by making a list of the sorts of flavours you get in stouts and then adding things that would add them – simple…

So, they added in some smoked malt to the mash and then aged it for six month with cacao, coffee beans, liquorice root and oak chips to give it the dark and smoky flavours you get in stouts. They also added oats to the mash to thicken up the mouthfeel and further add to the sensation that you are drinking a dark stout. At the Brewdog Camden tasting where I first tried it they handed out blindfolds before we given the beer and asked us to think about what type it was. Unfortunately I already knew and my expectations weren’t smashed, but many others around the room were – if tried blind (and even if not) it’s not what you’d expect from its appearance.

There were 6500 bottles of it released and it sold out in the manner of the other Abstrakt’s – very quickly (about a day?). However 6500 bottles is double the run of the first few editions, with 3200 being the standard until AB:05, which did 3600. Since then there’s been a ramping up of numbers (although it looks to dip with AB:07, but as that was aged it was made before AB:06 and thus still fits the curve) which suggests that Brewdog are responding to the popularity. Add to the regular demand another few thousand shareholders from the latest Equity for Punks and the fact that AB:08 was released to them (us) before the hoi polloi and you can see why they’d want to up the numbers. Well done them for doing so. Now all they need is a new brewery so they can actually brew enough of their regular beers without contracting them out…

So, what is the AB:08 like? On the nose it has lots of vanilla and coffee, like Montezuma’s Bean Machine chocolate in a glass, as well as heavy honey syrupy sweetness. To taste it’s got lots of sweet fruit to start, the ‘Fruit!’ you get from randomly coloured gummi sweets, crunchy nut cornflakes, thick dark caramel, used coffee grounds, some green hoppiness and milk chocolate. As the taste fades it has some tropical fruit (banana and pineapple?) before going very bitter with burned coffee, but with a lingering syrupy sweetness fighting it. If you didn’t know what it was, and when I open my next bottle it will be served to blindfolded people to test this assertion, it can come across as a dark beer, although I think (having never having properly tasted it blind) that it’s not quite right.

It has all the elements of a dark beer, but each of them isn’t quite right: the mouthfeel is too glossily syrupy, rather than just thick; the dark roasty flavours are obviously coffee, chocolate and wood, rather than heavily roasted malt; the sweetness is just ‘wrong’ for a stout – not wine-like as I find in many, but more sticky and sugary. That said, it is an interesting experiment, although not one that I’m distressed won’t be reappearing.

Roll-on Abstrakt:09 – the first beer I should be receiving as part of my joining the Abstrakt Addicts club…

Brewdog Abstrakt AB:08
Deconstructed Blonde Imperial Stout, 11.8%. £10.99 a bottle, now sold out.

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I encountered these for the first time back in October while helping out at The Whisky Show, as Gerry Tosh, HP’s Global Marketing Manager, was down from Orkney to run a masterclass tasting through the three whiskies that were in the range at the time, along with two new whiskies that were to be released shortly after the show – the whiskies I was just sent, the 1971 and 1976. I helped set up the class, poured some of the whiskies (including the ’71 and ’76 which were transported in plastic sample bottles as the proper bottles weren’t ready at the time) and was then promptly called away to do something else, so missed out on tasting them. That has now been remedied.

1971 and 1976 samples hiding to the right

The Orcadian Vintages are part of Highland Park’s fairly scary range of premium whiskies, only being beaten in price by the £9000 a bottle 50 year old. Before these two most recent additions the line-up consisted of a 1964, 1968 and 1970, and these new ones extend the age range to whisky matured for ‘only’ about 35 years. They don’t mess about at Highland Park and have priced these drams appropriately, with each of the Orcadian Vintages coming in at over £2000 (and the 1964 now over £3000 at work).

As part of the justification for the silly money they’re charging for them they do present them rather well. The 50 year old beats everything, with its organic looking metal bottle sheath and hidden carvings, but the Orcadian Vintages do a pretty good job – oak boxes with carved text and heavy dark glass bottles (really heavy, as I discovered when trying to free pour 10cl samples for a room of 40 – my arm was shaking a bit by the end) with silver HP logo amulets. They are rather beautiful but the whisky inside is what’s important.

The one bit I did overhear in Gerry’s presentation of the Orcadian Vintages was about their smokiness. Highland Park use some peat in the drying of their barley, at least in the 20% that they produce themselves on their own malting floor by hand, and back in the 1960s and 70s the peating level was a bit more random than the 40ppm that they use in their homemade malt today. Gerry’s explanation, marketing story though it may be, is rather compelling – it’s to do with the wind. The traditional kiln used for drying malted barley is topped with a pagoda roof which not only looks pretty, and has become the sign of a distillery as you drive through the Highlands, it also affects the air flow. Now, Orkney is rather a windy place and the pagodas didn’t always help to keep things consistent and the amount of smoke that hung around in the kiln was increased or decreased as the wind rushed by, leading to the more inconsistent levels of peat in some of these older whiskies – a level of seasonality that you may not expect. I don’t particularly care whether it’s entirely true or not, but I rather like the idea and feel the urge to look up average windspeeds around Kirwall through the 60s and 70s…

Shaky arm alert

The 1971 is a medium/dark gold with a nose of salty caramel, butter and honey, apples and pears, sweet grapes, digestive biscuits, and hints of sticky cocktail cherries and musty cupboards. To taste it starts with a big sugary sweetness that fades through custard and apples to elegant but sour fruit (unripe mango?), with cinnamon and more butter. It has a medium long finish, with woody spice, apple skins and a hint of menthol. Really rather nice indeed – showing some of the fruitiness that you often find in 1970s whiskies and which is threatening to bankrupt me at whisky auctions.

The 1976 poured a lot paler and had a nose of light brine, fruit skins, vanilla cream, milk chocolate and almond paste. On the palate it was quite soft with a creamy mouthfeel – sweet apple turned into tannic apple skins with more sour fruit and fruity caramel keeping things just sweet enough. The finish was longer than the 1971 with apples and custard, cinnamon fireballs, dry wood and a lingering hint of fruity Garibaldi biscuits. This one wasn’t so much for me – a bit too much tannin and fire.

Anyways, the Orcadian Vintages aren’t the most accessible whiskies in terms of price, but they’re just an example of what the distillery has hiding in its old stock – great whiskies that people are willing to part with stonking amounts of money for. Luckily the expertise didn’t go anywhere and they’re still producing great whiskies today. Although I am currently waiting on a 1990s bottling of Highland Park 12 year old to arrive from an auction so I can do a comparison…

Highland Park 1971
Island Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 46.7%. ~£2300

Highland Park 1976
Island Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 49.1%. ~£2000

Photos shot by m’colleague Petras at The Whisky Show – there are a load more on our website.

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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

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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%.

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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%.

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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

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Alan has been working in the spirits industry for years, spending time in Asia before his more recent return to Europe and his immersion into the world of absinthe. He looks after the marketing and selling side of things (now working in 22 countries) while Claude-Alain Bugnon looks after the distillation back in Couvet, Switzerland, generally considered to be the birthplace of Absinthe. Claude-Alain worked in oil refining but returned home to Couvet and used his petroleum related knowledge to do some illicit distilling, moving into legitimate business when the Swiss absinthe ban was lifted in 2005. Since then he’s become one of the figureheads of traditional absinthe making, along with Jade‘s Ted Breaux.

First up in their range is La Clandestine, the absinthe that Claude-Alain became known for in the pre-2005 days and which became his first commercial product. It’s what I’d refer to as a blanche absinthe, as it has no post-distillation colouring step, and is described as a ‘bleue’ absinthe, as is the Swiss style. It isn’t actually blue, the blue bottle just playing on the name, but is a traditional Swiss styled absinthe – as Alan pointed out, you can’t get a verte absinthe without first producing a blanche to swish some herbs around in. The Swiss were making Les Bleues before the ban and continued to do so afterwards, the lack of colour making it easier to conceal amongst other less illegal spirits, abandoning the ‘more modern’ verte style. Clandestine is made to a recipe from the 1930s that Claude-Alain bought and is produced using proper maceration and distillation, like all of the range. I tasted all of the absinthes at about 3-1 dilution water-spirit, although as it was dark in Montgomery Place and I was aiming a fountain from above it was all fairly rough and ready (as it should be). On the nose it was sweet and spicy, with a bit of vegetal wormwood, anis and some peppermint. To taste it was very minty with cream, fennel, a light sugariness and some bitter herbs, with a lingering spicy aniseed ball warmth on the palate. One thing I really noticed was quite how sticky it was – after adding water it still stuck to the sides of the glass as I drank, giving a milky sheen.

Next we tried Angelique, a verte which Alan describes as their aperitif absinthe. It’s named after Claude-Alain’s daughter Angelica, also giving a nod towards angelic/demonic nature of the pre-ban attitudes to absinthe. The recipe has changed since it was first introduced in 2007, with one key alteration being the reduction in how much Grande Wormwood is used in the post-distillation maceration. Grande Wormwood is very pungent and mainly used in the initial steeping, allowing the bitter flavours to stay behind in the still during distillation, and its influence is quite noticeable in the Angelique – in order to appeal to a wider range of palates they’ve slowly reduced the amount, settling on today’s balanced bitterness. On the nose it is quite spirity, with noticeable bitter wood, lots of leafy greenness, fennel tops, sweet pastry and maybe a hint of apple. To taste it starts with a big hit of aniseed followed up by a punch of bitter green and woody wormwood. Once that fades mint and aniseed balls linger with a bit of a spicy tingle on the tongue.

On its own I was initially sceptical, but Alan gave me a small bottle to take home and I’ve been experimenting with it since. A bit of sugar takes the edge off the bitterness, but I’ve found that I rather like the more bitter edge from time to time. It’s also my favourite absinthe to use in Sazerac cocktails – I recently obtained a copy of the Savoy Cocktail Book and have taken to using Harry Craddock’s method of putting a few drops of absinthe into the cocktail rather than rinsing the glass with it. This works very well with Angelique, with the bitterness happily offsetting the sweetness of the rest of the cocktail and adding some interesting herbal notes that help the sweetshop aroma of the drink come alive.

It was  also Angelique that the bartender used in creating our next drink – Death in the Afternoon, a favourite of Ernest Hemingway. It’s a simple cocktail, and Hemingway’s original recipe tells it best:

“Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.”

It was an interesting and quite tasty combination, but Angelique didn’t work all that well as the sole balancing ingredient to the champagne, which was rather dry leading to a generally tart and bitter drink. A dash or two of simple syrup, or a sweeter absinthe, would have taken the edge off of the bitterness and dryness and opened up more of the flavours. Next time I’m near an open bottle of champagne and have some absinthe to hand experimentation will be done.

The third absinthe in their range is Butterfly, different to the other two in that it is made to an American recipe. At the turn of the 20th century absinthe was quite popular in the USA, with a good number of distillers producing it across the country, but in 1912 laws were passed banning its importation and interstate transport, leading to an eventual ban in 1916 along with all alcoholic drinks thanks to the Volstead Act and the start of Prohibition. A few bottles of the original Butterfly, a Boston brand from the early 1900s, have been found but they’ve generally been empty, which hasn’t allowed a deconstruction and recreation, as has been done with other absinthes of the era. However a hand written recipe was unearthed by the owner of Absinthe Devil, an absinthe equipment website, and he approached Claude-Alain with the idea of producing absinthe under the Butterfly name again. Unfortunately noone knows if the recipe is the one used to make the original, but it’s from the right era and has some differences to it that mark it out as apart from the European styles, noticeably the inclusion of citrus peel as a botanical. On the nose there was the expected citrus peel, leafy mint, and musky wood with an earthy bitterness. To taste there was pine, butter and spice, a building bitterness which cut off with bitter anis and a hint of soap. A nice balance of sweet and bitter, with an un-traditional (for Europe, at least) citrus edge, that appeals to the stereotypical American palate, which prefers a sweeter drink as opposed to the bitter loving European tongue.

We followed this up with a final cocktail, a speciality of the house showcasing their love of Absinthe – The Clandestino, a Caipirinha with the Cachaça switched out for absinthe: Muddle lime wedges and granulated sugar, add crushed ice and top up with absinthe. I was slightly wary but very surprised at how very well it worked. The citrus edge of the Butterfly should have warned me that it would come together, but it was sour and sweet, and had a nice aniseed punch running through it, along with some vegetal flavours.

All three absinthes in the Artemesia range are quite readily available and you’ll find them in pretty much every bar that has real absinthe (Alan is a busy man) as well as at most decent specialist spirits retailers. At the moment they do 70cl bottles in the UK, as weights and measures regs stop them from distributing the smaller 25cl bottles they produce for other markets over here, but hopefully they’ll get that sorted out soon so that people can do some more comparing and contrasting of their absinthes.

Many thanks to Alan and Francis from Distillnation for organising the evening and telling me tales of the drinks industry, as well as the takeaway bottle of Angelique and sample of Clandestine for further ‘work’ at home.

La Clandestine
Bleue Suisse Absinthe, 53%. ~£45

Angelique
Verte Suisse Absinthe, 68%. ~£55

Butterfly
American Verte Absinthe, 65%. ~£60

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One thing you can definitely accuse Brewdog of is playing with beer. From the high strength Sink the Bismarck and the crazy packaged End of History and Ghost Deer to the recipe tweaking of the Abstrakts and IPA is Dead series, they like to do things which are both silly and interesting and Sunk Punk is no different. In short – it was brewed underwater.

There is, of course, a framing story, with tales of a fisherman cursed to wander the waves forever due to his drinking habits, but the idea for the beer was simple – fill a fermenter with the ingredients, get it going and then kick it off the end of a pier. There is, naturally, a blog post and video:

Recipe-wise it’s infused with sea buckthorn, and contains some fresh sea salt made from local sea water (based on the amount you can see James shaking into the wort in the video above, which I guesstimate at two 250g boxes of the poncey salt I cook with, and a sea water salinity of 3.5%, the middle of Wikipedia’s range, they would have needed to distill 14kg of water, which is much less than my cynical ‘they bought it in the supermarket’ thinking mind thought before starting this set of parentheses) and rum (added while wearing an eyepatch).

While I often get a bit ranty about booze packaging generally I give Brewdog a bit of free pass, in part because of labels like the one on this bottle. It’s a beautiful bit of black and white work by the excellent Johanna Basford, who also did the art for the Bashah Reserve that I have maturing on the side as well as several other Brewdog beers and a few t-shirts. I am tempted to perfect the art of removing labels intact and use this one to start a scrap book. She also sells prints (and has a Christmas shop) and I have some blank walls…

However, that is all secondary – what’s the beer like? On the nose it was very vegetal, with the usual Brewdog hoppiness, but very green – piles of fresh leaves, a hint of mulch, a bit of the ‘swampiness’ that I ranted on about recently as being the key ingredient of the old King & Barnes Sussex’s flavour. Balancing out the green-ness was a bit of malt and toffee sweetness and some, potentially psychosomatic, brine. To taste it was disappointingly flat, with sour green hops, some digestive biscuit malt and a bit of pineapple sweetening it up towards a very bitter end. All in all a disappointment – a not particularly interesting tasting beer with an overly bitter finish that hung around a little bit too long. At £10 a bottle it’s not cheap and unfortunately isn’t one that I’d count as a success. Ho hum, roll on the next marketing gimmick…

Sunk Punk
Scottish IPA, 7.1%. It was £9.99 a bottle, but sold out quickly.

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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

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