King Car, an all round food and drink company, decided in the mid/late-2000s (I can’t find an actual build date, but I’d guess that it’s after 2005) to branch out into producing a homegrown whisky. The popularity of whisky has been rising in the east for years and while part of the appeal is the status of buying imported drinks some of that was rubbing off on local produce as well. They enlisted the help of Dr Jim Swan, consulting distiller extraordinaire and also master distiller at Penderyn, amongst others, imported some stills from Scotland and built a distillery in Yilan City in the north of Taiwan. Taiwan is a fairly different environment to Scotland – it may rain a lot, but it does so while hovering around an average temperature of about 22ºc (with highs and lows generally ranging between 10ºC and 30ºC). This leads to much faster maturation, as the temperature aids the reaction between whisky and wood as well as causing much higher evaporation – about 10% per year as opposed to 2%. This in turn presents a dilemna – not only do you have to bottle a whisky before it gets too mature, you have to bottle it before it too much evaporates. In Scotland it takes a large number of years before either problem kicks in, with the evaporation generally leading to high prices that are accepted due to the long aging. However, with the active maturation and evaporation in Taiwan these dilemnas present themselves much earlier.

Currently they bottle their whisky at between 2 and 3 years old. In most markets in the world this means that they often can’t be called whisky (with 3 years being the minimum age before you can legally do so) but leaving it to mature for much longer isn’t possible due to accelerated process – an unideal situation. However, being a new distillery and having involved the right people they’ve put together a bit of a technological marvel and have produced whisky that has consistently shocked people who have drunk it. This recently came to a head with The Times slipping both Kavalan and St George’s English whisky into a tasting on Burns night in 2009, which led to the St George’s receiving favourable reviews but the Kavalan being crowned as ‘Best in Show’ for the evening, causing some consternation and a small flurry of column inches.

However, there is one further barrier in the way of us UK-bound folk who want to try out Taiwan’s finest – it’s not available over here. Currently, it’s available in Taiwan, some parts of China and in airport shops in some parts of East Asia. I only discovered the existence of Kavalan earlier this year (when it came up during the WhiskyCast Feis Ile series, as Dr Swan has been doing some work as Production Director at Kilchoman) and by the time I found out it was not readily available on this side of the globe my only Taiwanese connection had returned to the UK. I noticed that the folk at Whisky for Everyone had posted some reviews and when I asked them if they knew where I could get a bottle in the UK they unfortunately informed me that there was basically nowhere that I could. However, they sweetened that blow by asking if I wanted to try a bit of some Kavalan that they’d recently been sent – I of course jumped at the chance and said yes.

While they’ve also reviewed the regular Kavalan over on Whisky for Everyone, this one was a newer more special bottling – Kavalan Solist Sherry Cask. They use a variety of casks at the distillery for maturation but this is a single cask, cask strength release taken from sherry casks after three years of maturation. It’s very dark in colour, with a deep red glow to it, and at first it doesn’t really look or smell like a whisky. On the nose it has prunes and PX-like concentrated raisins as well as some sweet marzipanny pastry and a hint of liquorice. To taste it isn’t as sweet as the nose suggests, but brings in some more marzipan to start along with sour plums, more concentrated vine fruit and some menthol, all leading to a long woody finish. A drop of water seems to make it even bigger, softening the wood and adding some butter to the finish and a creaminess to the mouthfeel. My flowery tasting note reads ‘like a light custard with stewed plums and raisins (with a slug of amontillado in the pot) stirred through with a dark wooden spoon’.

An impressive dram which I rather liked, although the nose was incredible while the taste was ‘just’ very good, and one that I would recommend to anyone who likes heavily sherried whiskies – it’s at the end of the sherry spectrum where it stops tasting like a traditional whisky and starts resembling brandies and sherries, but that’s something that I can’t get enough of. I’ve started organising (in my head, at least) a trip to the far-east next year and along with trips to some Japanese distilleries I now definitely have ‘Find some Kavalan’ on my list.

Many thanks again to Matt of Whisky for Everyone for letting me have a taste of this and, indirectly, to Ian Chang, head distiller at Kavalan, for passing some on to Matt. It seems that the folk at Kavalan are currently speaking to importers so we might have their whisky appearing in our shops sometime in the vaguely near future.

Kavalan Solist Sherry Cask
Cask Strength Single Cask Taiwanese Whisky. Three years old. 58.2%. ~£65 in Taiwan and some areas of the far-east.

Taiwan map from Wikipedia by Ksiom and used under the GNU Free Documentation License

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One of the most recent ones of these to appear is their latest collaboration with Danish brewer Mikkeller – I Hardcore You.

Unlike their previous brew, Devine Rebel, this one isn’t a single beer collaboration but instead a blend of a beer from each brewer – BrewDog’s Hardcore IPA and Mikkeller’s I Beat yoU. After they’ve done the blending of the two breweries’ most hoppy ales they then dry hop it to make sure it’s hoppy enough. And then they dry hop it again. As they said on the blog post announcing the beer:

…a beer which has been dry hopped four times, or maybe even six times. We kinda lost count.

It’s a little bit of a cheat as I Beat yoU (with capitalised IBU) is made at BrewDog’s brewery to Mikkeller’s recipe, so they don’t have to ship it all that far before doing the blending. I’ve written about Hardcore IPA before (and still need to try another bottle of it, as my last one seems to have been duff) but I’ve yet to taste I Beat You on its own. From Mikkeller’s website it seems to be a beer with a simple mission – to be a really hoppy IPA. Based on my impression of this beer they seem to have done that.

The blend comes in at 9.5% and for a beer that strong it slips down way too easily – I’ve already seen reports of hangover misery the morning after The Rake had a cask of it on. It pours a nice orangey red and has a head that sticks around for a little bit. It smells of hop pellets and mulchy hops, a bit like being in a damp hop filled cellar (I imagine). I’ve tried two bottles, one cold and one at room temperature, and the flavour was quite different. At room temperature it was very hoppy with an underlying thick maltiness that reminded me of the best bits of the draught Hardcore IPA. When cold more of the maltiness came out than the hops, with it coming across as very sweet and fruity (mangos, pineapples and other tropical fruit, maybe) with a nice long bitter finish, becoming gradually more mulchy and hoppy as it warmed up.

As with all of the BrewDog backed hoppy beers this isn’t one to have if you are not a big fan of bitter hops. Luckily for me I like the taste of chewing on a hop pellet, so the extra flavours that you get from the beer sitting behind the hops all count as bonuses. While this beer may not appear again (although the ease of BrewDog obtaining both Hardcore IPA and I Beat yoU combined with the favourable reviews this beer has got mean that it’s not impossible that it will) it certainly reinforces my need to try Hardcore IPA and kicks the Mikkeller range further up my to find list.

BrewDog and Mikkeller I Beat You
Double dry hopped blended of Hardcore IPA and I Beat yoU, 9.5%. No longer available.

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He initially posted up a picture on twitter and asked us what we thought of it, which led me to do a bit of digging about the name on the internet where the story is confused – this is what I’ve extracted from the sites that seemed to tally together.

Glen Flagler is a relatively new and very short lived brand in the whisky world, appearing sometime after 1965 when Inver House built a new distillery as part of a complex in Moffat, converting an old paper mill to spirit production purposes. There were two pairs of pot stills producing three different malts, Glen Flagler (a lightly peated but heavier than usual lowland), Islebrae (a peated version of Glen Flagler made in the same pair of stills that doesn’t seem to have been released as a single malt) and Killyloch (a traditionally lowland style whisky), as well as continuous stills producing Garnheath grain whisky and neutral spirit. The vast majority of the malt went into Inver House’s blends, with small amounts of Killyloch and Glen Flagler also bottled in their own right. The site grew with warehouses, a cooperage, bottling plant, maltings (the largest in Europe at one time) and blending facilities. However, Islebrae and Killyloch disappeared by the mid-70s and Glen Flagler was killed in 1985/6 with the closure and dismantling of the distillery. Some of the site’s facilities still remain, but the majority has now been dismantled. In total a lifetime of only 20 years, less than the age of some of the whiskies that have been released under the Glen Flagler banner.

However, the name of Glen Flagler lived on. Inver House had a management buy out and became an independent company with rights to the Glen Flagler name. As such it became one of their brands and was attached to a pure/vatted malt whisky (now officially called a Blended Malt Whisky – a whisky made of a blend of various single malts from different distilleries, but still only containing malt whisky) – Glen Flagler Special Reserve Pure Malt. This still appears from time to time and is not particularly expensive – the bottles I found online seem to come in at under €50. However, single malt Glen Flagler (and Killyloch) is a very different thing – there’s basically none of it left. In the mid 90s independent bottler Signatory found a few remaining casks of both and produced limited edition bottlings which now change hands for the prices you’d expect for the last bottles from a 25 year dead distillery – it looks like they even came with a miniature of the whisky in addition to the main bottle so that you could have a taste of your rather pricy investment as well as just looking at it. in 2003 Inver House themselves did a 30 year old release, Glen Flagler 1973 which comes in at about £600 per bottle, but is beaten by the 36 year old Killyloch 1967 released at the same time, which comes in at just over £1000.

The label on the bottle Keith has doesn’t match up with the Inver House Glen Flaglers that I’ve found online, listing the producer as Mason & Summers and giving the Moffat Distillery’s post code as their address. Mason & Summers are now Mason & Summers Alcobev and were acquired by an Indian company in the early 2000s to push whisky brands in India, but this was produced before the sale when, I assume, they were still exporting whisky around the world. This bottle is, as Keith pointed out from the neck label, an Italian import and with the postcode on the bottle I assume this is an Inver House bottling that was distributed by Mason & Summers overseas.

In the end we’re not sure what this whisky actually is, just like with most blends. It’s got the Glen Flagler name on the bottle but we have no idea whether it has anything inside that was produced by the distillery.

So, more importantly – what’s the whisky like? On the nose there was some sweet vanilla and maybe a touch of acetone (fake bananas and cuastard?), with blackjacks and fruit salads, a hint of mulchy grass and a bit of burned wood. To taste it was initially sweet but had a slab of tannic wood in the middle, with a prickly mouth feel and centrepiece of sour liquorice. The finish was dry and woody but with a hint of sweetness. A bit of water changed things with more vanilla on the nose, and the taste became custardy with the sour streak running through the middle. The finish kept some of its dry wood but added custard with spiced fruit. Quite nice, but maybe too much of that drying wood sensation for my liking at the moment. Both Keith and Mark Gillespie of WhiskyCast, another of the sample recipients and producer of one of my favourite weekly podcasts, reckoned it should have been bottled a bit stronger and drinksLink reckoned it lacked a bit of punch, but I think it’s fine where it is and preferred it with a slug of water to take the edge off the tannins and bring out the custardy vanilla.

Flavour-wise it fits the profile of the traditional Glen Flagler produced between the 60s and 80s, but we’ll probably never know which whiskies went into the blend in the bottle. However, I salute the blenders of Inver House and their efforts to recreate the flavours of their short lived whisky in blended malt form.

Keith’s tasting notes can be found on his site. Mark’s can be heard during the “What I’ve been tasting this week” department on WhiskyCast 275. DrinksLink’s article is up on their site. Many thanks to Keith for the sample and also the bottle picture above.

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Palinka has various descriptions ranging, depending on the opinions of the person doing the describing, from fruit brandy to schnapps to death in liquid form. It’s a clear spirit distilled from fruit and still retaining some of the fruity flavour of its ingredients. Palinka as a term has been pretty widely applied to a variety of fruit based booze over the years, but since 2002 it has been enshrined in EU law as coming from Hungary (and a few places in Austria in the case of apricot palinka) and restrictions have been placed on the definition. Only certain fruits can be used (Plum, apricot, pear, cherry, quince, grape and maybe chestnut) and there are also designations for various aging techniques (lengths of time, wood or steel containers, with fruit in or not). Unfortunately I didn’t get to taste much in the way of variety – one with some fruit in and the rest just clear, young (as far as I could tell) fiery palinka.

Pajor Mézes Ágyas Cigánymeggy (Cherry) Palinka – Mézes means honeyed and ágyas (literally ‘bedside’, according to Wikipedia) indicates that the palinka has been matured with fruit in for at least 3 months. This was the first that I tried and the least favourite on the table. Coloured red from the steeped fruit and tasting strongly of fresh cherry it was very sweet and cloying from the honey.

Kecskeméti Barackpalinka – Apricot palinka from the Kecskemét region, one of the combinations of fruit and area that has been made a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO). I couldn’t make out the producer on the label and my internet searches weren’t helped by the fact that almost all kecskeméti apricot palinkas use a similarly shaped tall thin bottle. This one had a fantastic fresh apricot nose, with both sweet and sourness coming through. However, it tasted like rocket fuel, with the neat alcohol aquavit-like dryness swamping any fruity flavours that survived the distillation process.

Valódi Szilva (Plum) Palinka – This was the type of palinka that I was told was most common and popular, and I can both see why and not at the same time. On the nose it had very little plum, retaining a general sour fruit note and little else rather than alchohol. To taste it had a strong sour schnapps flavour which I rather liked, but which noone else at the table did. This was unfortunate as our waiter gave us a complimentary round of them at the end of the meal and being the most polite person at the table I felt compelled to drink them so as not to offend our hosts. Or so I claim. The evening is hazy from then on.

Gündel Birsalma (Quince) Palinka – The only other time I got to try some palinka, after a meal at Bagolyvar (the more downmarket sister restaurant to Gündel, one of Budapest’s oldest and most expensive restaurants). This was the best of the lot, with loads of quince on the nose and a nice combination of booze and fruit to taste.

In general Palinka was not my thing – smells like fruit, tastes like death. I pinned my hopes on the second spirit on the list – Unicum. Unicum is a brand name for a type of herby, bitter digestif produced by the Zwack family since 1790 and seemingly everywhere in Budapest. Along with the regular Unicum they also produce Unicum Next, a lighter sweeter version that I grabbed a bottle of to bring home. Zwack don’t only stick with Unicum, being also a producer of Palinka and other spirits, running tours around both the Unicum factory and their distillery in Kecskemét.

Regular Unicum is a thickish black liquid that looks rather worrying. It has quite a punch on the nose, with strong bitter herbs, liquorice and wood. To taste it’s, to me, almost unpalatable – very bitter indeed with a heavily tannic aftertaste behind the initial pleasant herbs that removes any enjoyment I might have had from it. It reminds me a bit of the bitters that I used to buy little bottles of at the supermarket checkouts when I lived in Vienna – easy for me to smuggle back to the UK as illicit booze for my 16 year old self to try and get drunk on. Filthy stuff with a flavour that stopped me from ever drinking enough to get tipsy.

The Unicum next is quite different – browny red in colour and much more liquid. On the nose it has the distinctive bitter herbs as well as a sugary sweetness and hint of citrus – a bit like candied orange and lemon cake decorations. To taste it removes the bitter punch of regular Unicum, keeps the spice and herbs, and adds a syrupy sweetness to the finish. The citrus peel, that I assume is in the bitter mix, comes out and adds a hint of bitterness to the aftertaste. It’s got an almost ‘Christmassy’ taste to it and a slug of it in a glass of red and you’d have instant mulled wine. A block of ice waters things down a bit too much, but a frozen bottle would be perfect – thickening up the spirit and adding a refreshing cold kick to the rather pleasant flavour.

Unicum
Keserü likör/bitter spirit – Hungarian herb bitters, 40%

Unicum Next
Citrosos gyógynövény-likör/citrus & herb infused spirit – Hungarian herb bitters, 30%

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My summer holidays this year were in three parts, and sandwiched between trips to the Great British Beer Festival and Edinburgh was a stag weekend in Budapest. Rather than the usual stag traditions of throwing the cheapest beer possible down our necks before stapling the groom-to-be to the nearest national monument we went more for the ‘drink interesting things before thinking about stapling the groom-to-be to the nearest national monument but then give up on that as too much effort’ approach. Part of my drinking mission was to try and find as many different beers as I could, which wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped due to there basically being only three different Hungarian beers on offer. Luckily the import market, mainly due to the breweries all being owned by international companies, is alive and well giving me a bunch more for my list.

Hungary has four main brewing companies: Dreher (owned by SABMiller), Borsod (InBev), Heineken Hungária (Heineken) and Pécs (Ottakringer). We managed to find beers from the first three, which was annoying as Ottakringer was my beer of choice when I used to live in Austria. Anyways, on to the beers:

Dreher Classic - The most common beer we found, mainly on Draught and occasionally in bottles. It was a good fall back beer if there wasn’t anything more interesting – a crisp lager with some actual flavour, a malty middle and sweet aftertaste that got more cloying the worse kept the pipes were.

Dreher Bak – One I only managed to get to on the last day – the Dreher dark beer, bottled. Burned toffee on the nose with a prickle of booze. Dry tasting finish (which my notes have ‘flinty?’ written beside) and a nice fruity malt body. Probably my favourite of the Hungarian beers and one that didn’t have the hollow middle that I’ve often found in dark continental beers.

Soproni – Brewed by Heineken, this was one that we first tried at pretty much the only bar we found open at 3am. Everyone else commented on how easily it slipped down, but it stuck in my throat a bit. It was musty with an unpleasant sweetness, which I initially put down to the dodgy bar that I first tried it in. However, I tried it again at another bar to be greeted with the same nasty taste.

Borsodi draught – Quite similar to Dreher but with a bit more of a grainy taste to it. ‘Crisp start, flabby behind’ my slightly wobbly notes read.

Borsodi bottled - I tried this one while sitting on a boat on the Danube, wearing sunglasses and talking crap. This may have had an effect on my appreciation of the beer, which I not only liked but wrote a lot about. From the notes: ‘A nice hoppy beer backed up with a rather flat body. Sweet start fading quickly to nothing. Improves in the glass with more flavour appearing – malt and a nice bitter hope turning soapy on the finish’. It was cold and the day was hot – what was needed.

Krusoviče Cerné – A dark imported Czech beer from an old brewery that is now part of the Radeberger group. I grabbed a bottle of this to accompany a plate of pork stew. A dry dark lager, quite light in the middle but with a burned treacle toffee finish.

Radeberger – The beer I chased the Krusovice with. A dry and grainy lager with a lingering sweetness.

Sailor Pils – We stopped one evening in the Sailor Inn, a riverside belgian beer bar with an awning that sprayed a fine watery mist over the drinkers, something that was rather nice in the ~35ºC heat. I think the Sailor branded beers were just rebadged Floris beers, but that’s merely based on a rogue beermat and the fact that they also had Delirium Tremens on tap. The pils was a solid belgian pils – light, refreshing and surprisingly malty.

Sailor Apple – Grabbed by someone trying to be adventurous this was the first active beer Fail of the trip. It was overpoweringly flavoured with apple syrup and smelled like an apple strudel. Cloying and sickly.

Sailor Dark – A sweet dark beer with a burnt caramel finish.

Liefman’s Fruit – We’re still not entirely sure if this was actually a beer. Ordered by the brave soul who also went for the Sailor Apple, this was like drinking strawberry and cherry cordial and the barman poured it over ice. Not beery at all, but quite pleasant if you like fruit cordial.

Delirium Tremens – One that I saved for my last drink at the Sailor Inn, not wanting to fall asleep too early due to its 9%. Rich and malty with an oily mouthfeel, and very good at hiding its 9%. One that I rather like but could lead to destruction way too easily.

Corsendonk Pater Noster – A few doors away from the Sailor Inn we found another Belgian bar that we saved for another day. They were unfortunately out of the Corsendonk Agnus Dei so I went for the dark Pater Noster instead. It had a big fruity nose and was a rich flavoursome beer. A sour start led to burned malt with a lightish body and lots of fruit, almost reminding me of some British strong milds.

Bellevue Kriek Low Alcohol – The potential curve ball beer, ordered to try and beat a lingering reminder of the previous night’s drinking. A good cherry nose led to a rather nice sour kriek. It didn’t have much on the finish and did go a bit musty in the middle, but was definitely beery. Maybe the best low alcohol beer I’ve tried.

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The guy on the shop stand told me that it’s a combination of all of the whiskies that Eddie, the man behind Whisky Lounge, liked from last year’s Whisky Lounge events, vatted together by Berry Brothers and then bottled in this limited edition of 250 20cl bottles. If true, this means it’s a blend of Scottish, Irish, Japanese, American and Indian whiskies, which may make it the most cosmopolitan blend that I’ve tried before.

On the nose there’s parma violets, fragrant wood, vanilla, oil, cinnamony spice and a light meatiness. To taste it’s generally sweet with apples, pears, a hint of mustardy burn, butter, linseed, sweet cream, dried fruit and a prickly sweet wood finish. Water brings out vanilla and biscuits, apple pie and victoria sponge with butter icing. The finish is slightly more bitter but with a touch of red fruit and drying vanilla wood that lingers for a while.

A bit of a random dram, but one that I quite like, especially with the sponge cakeyness that water adds.

The Whisky Lounge Festival Dram 2009
A potential world spanning blended whisk(e)y. 46%.
I think it was £12 for a 20cl bottle, but my memory is spotty. I suspect it’s sold out, but if you ask Eddie nicely he might have some bottles in his loft.

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Whisky Guy Darren took a back seat this month, chipping in when he found a gap in the proceedings, with the King of Whisky role being filled by Diageo’s Colin Dunn, who I encountered last year at a Burns night (ish) Talisker tasting. He is a man possessed by a strange energy and he filled the room with waving arms, enthusiasm and tasty whisky from his personal collection. He’d been given the brief of ‘Summer whiskies’ and interpreted it as those that he drinks during summer, hence the transfer of 6 bottles from his stash to the upstairs room at The Gunmakers.

We started off with a blind tasting of a pair of whiskies, described by Colin as what he would drink on getting home after a hard day at work. Without the usual paper wrappings to cover up the bottle labels Colin and Darren did the pouring while the rest of us dutifully faced away from the table and admired the pub’s wallpaper.

Whisky #1 was golden with some fruit, caramel and a hint of salt on the nose, along with an acetoney sweetness underneath everything else. To taste it had some spicy wood and lots of vanilla, and was quite sweet but with a dry woody finish that went on for quite a while. At this point, after holding the whisky in our mouths for a mandated second per year (about 15 seconds for this one, we were instructed), Colin revealed what we were drinking – Dimple 1890. Dimple isn’t readily available in the UK, although it’s very popular in overseas markets, and is the latest name for Haig’s blended whisky, a very old brand (with records showing a mention of John Haig naughtily brewing on the sabbath back in 1655) that is now owned by Diageo. It’s a premium blend with an age statement of 12 years on the regular bottling, but the 1890 is a special, now rather rare, bottling (that Colin managed to pick up on the cheap – a benefit of working for the maker). The bottle itself is distinctively three-sided, a design brought in during the 1890s (hence the focus on the date), and collectors pay scary amounts for the bottles, even when empty. I suspect the actual blend is quite complicated, as the logistics of large scale blending require, but it seems that Dimple contains at least Linkwood, Glenkinchie, Dalwhinnie and a hint of Lagavulin in addition to the grain base, which explains some of its character. Colin advised us to try the Dimple with a bit of ice in, something that I usually find kills the flavour of a scotch, and was rather surprised to find that it retained a lot of its flavour even when chilled – the sweet wood carried on, making this work rather well.

We switched back and forth between nosing the first two whiskies before we tasted #1 and learned what it was, and there was a massive difference between the two. Whisky #2 was very bourbon-like, with astringent wood, thick sour fruit and a caramel sweetness on the nose. It made the nostril hairs quiver as well, suggesting that it was a bit stronger than the Dimple. To taste it had concentrated raisin fruit and sherried wood, going from sweet wine to sour wood. It had hints of PX and was wonderfully rich. A bit of water knocked out the alcoholic burn, bringing out the raisin sweetness further and softening the wood in the finish. It reminded me of one of my whiskies and turned out to be from the same distillery – it was a Duncan Taylor bottling of 32 year old Port Dundas. I’ve got a 14 year old AD Rattray bottling which I rather like but this blew it out of the water. Port Dundas is the recently closed grain distillery in Glasgow whose whisky I liked so much at the blending class I did with John Glaser and this is a single cask bottling of sherried whisky from the Duncan Taylor ‘Rare Auld’ range. There aren’t many bottlings of Dundas, but I recommend you grab one if you see one.

Next we moved on to tasting individual whiskies rather than immediate comparisons, with Colin hiding the lable on the rather distinctive square bottle with his hand as he poured. He started with a brief hint that this whisky was only available in Dubai airport’s duty free shop but quickly gave in and announced what it was – Johnnie Walker Double Black. This is a new blend from the Johnnie Walker stable, complimenting the range by being a premium version of the regular Black (with a 15-20% price premium). Whisky tastes very much change over time, with the 80s and 90s being hard for the Islay distilleries due to the fashion of drinking less peaty spirit causing a reduction of production (including the intermittent operation and eventual closing of Ardbeg). This has now come back to haunt the industry as old peated spirit is rarer and the modern taste for peaty whisky is hitting the stocks quite heavily. This new bottling is a modification of the regular black to appeal to those current taste, with more whisky matured in heavily charred casks and more peaty whisky (including Caol Ila and Lagavulin) for the smoke and peat sought after by many whisky drinkers today. On the nose it’s quite light with a hint of smoke and dry wood. To taste it’s a bit more interesting, with both wood and peat smoke, some fresh cracked stone, a hint of sweet alcohol and a dry burnt wood finish. It feels like a more refined version of Black Bottle (the blend made with whisky from each of the Islay distilleries), which seems to be precisely what the whisky’s intention is. It should be available in the UK later this year.

Next up was another one with the label obscured by Colin’s hand that we tasted blind. On the nose it had a hint of grain (wheat?) and perfumed sandalwood. It developed in the glass bringing in lightly prickly spice, meatiness, nuts and fruitiness – dried pineapple, citrus and fruity haribo chews. Water brought out more wood and more of the perfumed nature, with flowers and wood polish. It was really rather impressive and quite an intense flavour, which led to the reveal being a bit of a shock – it was a Rosebank. The distillery is now closed, shut down in 1993 in favour of Glenkinchie, the other lowland in United Distillers’ portfolio. These days United Distillers are part of Diageo (who also own the name, which is bad news for the builders of the new distillery on almost the same site) and the Rosebank distillery is some building-in-progress flats and a Beefeater. The regular bottling used to be an 8 year old and it was famed for being light and perfumed, but this one is both older and rather a lot bigger than that version. In addition to its age it was also put into the cask at a much  higher strength than usual, about 80% instead of the regular 62ish%. Whisky is often watered down before being put in the cask, with low 60%s being common and generally accepted as the level at which the whisky matures best. This upping in initial strength has led in turn to less alcohol evaporating and its cask strength bottling at a rather strong 62.3%, despite the 20 years of maturation. For me this was the most impressive whisky of the night, even if it wasn’t my favourite.

We then moved onto the final pair of the night, part of the Classic Malts Distiller’s Editions range. Originally started by United Distillers in the late 80s, The Classic Malts collection is a range of whiskies that helped to popularise the now commonly known whisky regions (although they didn’t have a Campbelltown distillery and brought in Oban as a ‘West Highland’ instead). Along with the regular expressions they also produced premium bottlings, making up The Distiller’s Editions range, made from casks selected by the distillery managers. I’ve tried a few of them, with the Cragganmore one being my favourite whisky during my university days.

First of the pair was the Dalwhinnie Distiller’s Edition, taking the regular 15 year expression and finishing it for a couple of years in olosoro sherry casks. On the nose it was fruity with vanilla, digestive biscuits (milk chocolate ones), maybe with a hint of fruity shortbread. To taste it had thick custard, sweet sherry wood, juicy sultanas and an oily mouth feel. Water lightened things, bringing out more wood and giving a thick custardy finish. While the Port Dundas was my favourite of the night, this was a close runner up and one that I have much more chance of finding. I’ve been a fan of the regular Dalwhinnie for a while (I’ve been to the distillery a few times and have recommended it as an introductory dram for many people) but I’ve somehow managed to miss this until now – it’s on the ‘to buy’ list.

Darren grabbed a bit of video of Colin talking about the Dalwhinnie, somehow managing to keep him in the frame, so for more enlightenment:

Drawing the night to a close we moved to the lightest whisky – the Glenkinchie Distiller’s Edition. Glenkinchie is The Classic Malts’ lowland member, based just outside of Edinburgh. It survived where Rosebank didn’t due to the possibility of expanding the distillery, adding more capacity as well as a visitors centre, which was not possible on the space constrained Rosebank site. It now sits in the portfolio as the light and floral lowland whisky and this definitely comes across in the flavour. Building on the regular 12 year old this is a 15 year old finished in amontillado casks. On the nose it was light, with coconut, vanilla, hints of wood and a few raisins. To taste it was perfumed with flowers and wood polish joining the custard and woodiness, softening to an almost sherberty finish. Water simplified things, bringing out the vanilla wood flavours over everything else. It was a step up in oomph from the other Glenkinchie that I’ve tried and a worthy part of the Distiller’s Edition stable.

The night ended with the traditional descending into the bar for a couple of beers, with Colin running away into the night with his whisky case, leaving a couple of bottles for us to continue sampling. Again, a rather good tasting with Colin’s “Force of Nature” presentation style calming over the evening and keeping everyone drinking, entertained and informed.

Whisky Squad #6 is almost full already, despite not being open to the general public yet, so keep an eye on the website if you want to come and play – next month’s theme is Brilliant Blends. I’ve had a sneaky preview of some of the ideas for what we’ll be drinking and there’s something quite special in there if the plans come to fruition…

Dimple 1890
Blended scotch malt whisky. 40%. Not generally available.

Glenkinchie Distiller’s Edition
Single malt lowland scotch whisky. 43%. ~£40 from Master of Malt

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On day one I was coming from work so wasn’t able to join the queue of CAMRA members who bought their tickets in advance and take part in the traditional scramble for tables when the doors opened (after a trek through the tunnels beneath Earl’s Court so as to keep the main doors opened for the queue of people who still needed to part with cash). I turned up at about 1:30pm to find a table and chair already saved for me by drinking buddy Bob, which was nice. It does seem that CAMRA have noticed the seating issue, with a question on their yearly questionnaire asking if we’d be willing to pay for guaranteed seating. I would, but that’s because I am a) lazy and b) old before my time. The last time I volunteered at the festival, the last year at Olympia, I helped put out all of the tables and chairs and despite their scarceness later in the day I can vouch for the fact that there are a lot of them.

A little bit of the festival…

Me, Bob and the rest of the gang who floated in over the days have fallen into a fairly predictable GBBF routine – find a table, obtain many pork scratchings from The Crusty Pie Company, buy rounds of halves from a bar chosen by whoever’s round it is, go home later than planned. The only break in that this year was that it took until Thursday for Bob to make use of the ‘Five bags of scratchings for £5′ offer and Friday for me, something that usually happens within minutes of arriving. As usual the pies from The Crusty Pie lot were good and my main sustenance for the latter half of the week, something I am now rectifying with a diet of carrots, peas, potatoes, limes and assorted botanicals (although those last two are mainly being delivered in mixed drink form along with quinine).

The biggest change this year was that instead of the bars being ordered by region, with each bar grouping together local breweries, they instead alphabetised by subregion, with West Sussex, West Yorkshire and Worcestershire all sitting on the same bar rather than by their more geographic neighbours. At first I was rather against this, with my forcefully put across opinion of ‘Change is Bad’ being echoed by many of my bearded CAMRA brethren, but after the first few rounds I realised that it didn’t really matter – with regional beer styles gradually going out of fashion and with breweries producing interesting brews wherever they are in the country, the groupings on each bar didn’t really make any difference unless there were specific breweries that you were looking for, and as we had a programme that wasn’t particularly difficult. The naming of each bar after a military commander may not have helped change CAMRA’s usual olde-worldy image, but at least this time we didn’t have scantily clad women as the mascots, even if they were chosen ‘to empower female drinkers’ in previous years.

One thing that especially interested me this year was the doubling of the number of American beers, growing the Bières sans Frontières foreign beer bar to half as big again (maybe double) and providing us with a load of interesting beers straight from the cask, in some cases beers that don’t really get a cask release in the US, as well as in bottles or from the pump. Unfortunately I didn’t make it over there much until the Friday, at which point they had pretty much sold out of everything – even with the increased number of casks the hassles of importing the beer and the difficulty in obtaining much of it still meant that stocks weren’t as high as could have been sold. That said, there was still a vast quantity of British beer to try and I’ll just have to make sure to shift my bar patronage to be more heavily American earlier in the week next time.

So, the important bit – the beers. I didn’t write everything down and these were not all mine, as being the caring and sharing types we passed each beer around the table. Better for our ticky-lists of beers, better for our increasingly fragile livers.

Left Hand Milk Stout – my first beer and one from the USA, picked up on my way to find Bob on arriving. It was a very dark beer with a hint of orangey brown and was very sweet. Behind the initial condensed milk burst there was burned caramel and a creamy mouthfeel. A good set up for the day.

Salopian Shropshire Gold – moving on to my normal style of beer for the festival, a solid golden ale with citrus hops throughout and a floral hop hint on the finish. The deal is that normally I drink the golden beers and Bob has the dark ones. Unfortunately for Bob I also rather like the dark beers and he’s not much of a fan of the golden ones…

Nottingham Rock Ale Mild – a dry dark mild with a biscuity/nutty character.

Highland Dark Munro – an intense dark chocolate malt to start, fading to a sweeter mid. It looks and smells dark and heavy, but is much lighter and more quaffable than it looks.

Arbor Oyster Stout – totally opaque with a rich stouty nose. Very bitter indeed with burned coffee grounds, but became creamy after some time sitting in the glass.

Amber Chocolate Orange – Very chocolatey and orangey on the nose but not so much on the flavour – dark malt and a hint of cocoa.

Ashover Liquorice Alesort – dark and bitter with a slight liquorice astringency and sweetness in the finish.

Ballards Golden Bine – a dry golden ale with a hint of grapefruit.

Purity Gold – rounded, golden and hoppy.

Blindmans Golden Spring – a musty, dry golden ale.

Milestone Raspberry Wheat – a pleasantly sour raspberry beer. Light and refreshing with a bitter finish.

Vale Black Beauty Porter – A dark porter with a graing heavy flavour – maybe even a hint of wheatiness? Bread fading to a bitter finish.

Iceni Fen Tiger – I normally know Iceni from trying to taste their Raspberry Wheat beer each year, only to find that it had sold out. I finally tasted it last year and didn’t like it, so was quite please to try one of their others. This was a very fresh citrusy pint with the coriander in the brew adding only popping in the finish – rather nice.

Breconshire Ysbrid y Ddraig – we think this is ‘Spirit of the Dragon’ and it’s a whisky cask aged beer. Lots of whisky on the nose leading to fruit and smoke to taste. Really interesting and worth it’s bronze medal in the speciality beer category.

Hogs Back Slovenian Rhapsody – smelled of cabbagey farts and tasted of lemony sweat. Maybe not one for everybody…

Bob’s Brewing Chardonayle – thick and syrupy to start leading to a hint of citrusy hops to finish.

Cannon Royall Fruiterer’s Mild – Fruity smell – almost like making a fruit cup with beer (Pimm’s but not Pimm’s…). Maybe a hint of ham. Buttery mouthfeel with fruity malt.

Arran Dark – thick and malty with a hint of fruit and a very dry finish.

Fuller’s Brewers Reserve #2 – the scarce beer of the festival, with only one or two barrels going on each day – the second release of their oak cask aged barley wine, on tap rather than in bottles like usual. There was a 15 minute queue on Wednesday evening when I got to it and all in all they served 216 1/3rd pints in 45 minutes before it was all gone. I’m not sure if it was worth the wait but it was quite tasty – a bit like Golden Pride but with a bit of vanilla and smoke from the barrel aging, thick with malt and fruit. It was smoother and less alcoholic tasting than Golden Pride is on tap and definitely one to try if you see it without too much of a queue…

Forge Hartland Blonde – dry golden ale with strong bitter hops and a touch of nuttiness.

Goachers Fine Light Ale – a beer made just down the road from my old school and one that I used to see, if the romantic memory isn’t a false one, delivered in a hlaf-timbered Morris Traveller. This was a deep golden light ale with a touch of hops and biscuits.

Rogue St Rogue Red – I started the second day similarly to my first, with a trip to the USA bar. This one was very cloudy, although I was assured that was fine, and reddy brown. It smelled of dry hop pellets and was sweet, quickly travelling through thick maltiness to a bitter hoppy finish. A refreshing start to the day.

Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen – a beer that I know I like and obtained for Bob because he asked for something ’smoky’. This was a new barrel and rather lively, with the glass when I took it away containing 1/3rd of a pint of beer and 2/3rds of foam. It settled down into a generous half, with an ungenerous half a pint of foam on top, and was exactly what you’d expect – overpoweringly smoky with bacon and a sweetcorn sweetness. It’s a bit smoother and less fizzy on cask (despite the foamy head) and definitely worth a try whenever it appears.

Whitewater Crown and Glory – chosen at it was the Northern Irish beer I could see. Crisp and biscuity with a light hoppiness.

Townhouse Flowerdew – my terse tasting note says ‘Grapefruit’.

St Peter’s Grapefruit – by coincidence this one was bought at the same time as the Flowerdew (and not mixed up – it was my round and I made sure) and my equally terse tasting note says ‘Grapefruity’. I really like this beer – it’s got a strong grapefruit flavour to it, with the mouth puckering sourness sanded away by the underlying wheat beer. It’s one I always grab when I see it on.

Stewarts Edinburgh No. 3 – an old fashioned malty best bitter, with a chunk of musty sweetness.

Saltaire Triple Chocolate – the most chocolatey of the chocolate beers I’ve tried, although significantly lighter than you might think. In the end it reminded us all of a dark chocolate mousse.

Thornbridge Jaipur – a big chunk of citrus hoppiness with a central malty sweetness and a bitter finish. A solid and rather tasty IPA.

Thornbridge Craven Silk – one of the most interesting beers I tried at the festival, with a finishing flavour that I couldn’t identify until I read the tasting notes – elderflower. However, rather than the usual sweet syrup elderflower that is sometimes added to beers this was a sour and floral flavour that really added to the overall taste.

Thwaites Nutty Black – a mild that tastes very strongly of hazelnuts.

Adur Black William – a dry dark beer with both bitter chocolate malt and dark chocolate.

Blue Monkey BG Sips – Thick with citrus hops and a syrupy sweetness. One I tried to get a couple of times and was rather pleased to eventually get a taste of, although it did almost taste as if they’d stopped it brewing a bit early.

Fyne Jarl – A refreshing golden ale that my notes just list as ‘Lemon biscuits’. Really tasty.

Camerons 6th Sense – Big sweet fizzy malt with a thick mouth feel.

Amnesia Desolation IPA – my  last beer, so I ran over to the American bar to find that they only had 3 beers left on – the Rogue from earlier, Sierra Nevada Porter (nice, but I’ve had it on cask before) and this. It wasn’t bad – charred malt, light hops and a rounded smoothness.

Jacobi Original Bitter – Bob’s last beer and the last one I tried – it was for both of us the worst of the festival. A touch of citrus but overwhelmed with a stale sweaty flavour. Not good.

I then ran away via the Real Ale in a Bottle bar (where I’d worked the day beforehand – I managed to grab one of the last bottles of Chocolate Marble then, as well as the almost as popular Marble Lagonda IPA [which I have waiting in the fridge], both of which sold out by Friday), where I picked up an Otley O8 and a Harveys Double Imperial Stout, and the USA bottled beer bar, where I grabbed a Rogue Morimoto Soba Ale and a Shipyard XXXX IPA. They are now sitting on the side waiting for an excuse to be drunk…

A good festival and I will, of course be returning next year.

There’s a complete list of all the beers that they had on at the festival, with ABVs and tasting notes, over on the GBBF website.

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I will, naturally, be writing overly wordily and obsessively about the festival later this week, but for now suffice to say that I’m going to be there on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, having a few beverages, and will be working there during the day on Thursday. If you are around and want to say hello please ping me on twitter or drop a comment here if you want to meet up for a swift half. Or five.

Tickets are available on the door for £8 for CAMRA members and £10 for non-members. There’s a £2 discount if you buy online in advance (although they charge a £1 transaction fee per order, no matter how many tickets you buy) and you can print your tickets out or pick them up on the door.

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Ardbeg’s had a spotty recent history but started officially started out in 1815, distilling on Ardbeg farm on the south coast of Islay. They produced whisky right through until the start of the 80s, when production started to slow until the distillery was mothballed in 1981. Allied Distillers, owners at the time, also owned Laphroaig and felt they had enough ongoing production from there, along with stored whisky from Ardbeg to meet their needs. It started producing small amounts of spirit again in 1989 but closed its doors seemingly finally in 1996, after several years of uncertainty. Allied put the distillery on the market, to great interest, with Glenmorangie buying it and reopening production in 1997. In 2004 Glenmorangie was acquired by the LVMH group (Moet Hennesy – Louis Vuitton) and Ardbeg went along as part of the package, giving it a big corporate backing. Glenmorangie and Ardbeg are generally left alone by the group, although they do get the backing money needed to push their increasingly well known brands. In addition they pool their technical resources, with Glenmorangie’s Bill Lumsden also acting as Ardbeg’s master distiller.

The whisky’s style is quite simple – very peaty. Using malt peated to 50ppm they are one of the peatier on the island and they relish in this distinction, pushing themselves as a peat lover’s dram.

Along with the reopening of the distillery Ardbeg also formed The Committee, a distillery ‘club’ with a bit more to it than many. Starting with the Very Young, their 6 year old bottling released in 2004, many of the releases have first been made available to the members of The Committee first, with their comments being solicited before general release. They go further than many distillery clubs with a members room at the distillery and all members receiving a book of Rules and Regulations, with special attention brought to paragraph 17:

17. The office of a member shall be vacated if:
He becomes of unsound mind to the extent that he develops a preference for a different spirit; or
He is directly or indirectly connected with the dilution of any dram of Ardbeg Islay Single Malt Whisky with any substance other than water.

I recently joined The Committee having heard that they were holding their 10th anniversary celebrations. I’d not tried any of their recent bottlings, but had a sample of one of their new releases and had been occasionally delving into SWMS bottlings when they appeared, so didn’t feel too bad about jumping on a free drink bandwagon a little late. The celebrations also showed me how they’ve upped their game online – the venue for both Edinburgh and London parties was revealed slowly via cryptic clues on twitter, with a goody bag going to the first person to guess -  annoyingly I didn’t have enough of a clue to even guess the London location and was about 2 minutes walk away with my guess as to the Edinburgh one.

In the end the London party was held at The Worx, on Heathman’s Road, near The White Horse in Parson’s Green (from the clues: ‘on the Ardbeg tube line’, ‘down south, however didn’t dare cross the river’, ‘Wretched Rector after a bumpy sail through Corryvreckan‘, ‘Poor Shortie [the Ardbeg dog and mascot] nearly got trampled by a fair stallion on the way’, ‘where the peat cutters of the heath reside’…obvious once you know the answer). The format of the evening was simple – turn up, have a cocktail and wander around the venue playing fairground games (I won a nice cashmere scarf on the hoop-la), eating food and drinking copious amounts of whisky.

The initial cocktail of the evening was simple and remarkably effective, especially as peaty whisky is a very difficult thing to mix effectively (and that act against paragraph 17, above). It was a combination of Ardbeg 10, crushed ice, simple syrup and bruised mint leaves. It was a bit like a sticky mojito with a slab of peat, but was also very refreshing and a great palate cleanser.

On the bar they had a selection of Ardbeg whiskies and I started off with the Ardbeg 10. On the nose there was a touch of acetone with the inevitable peat, along with a strong alcoholic sweetness,  a touch of woodsmoke and some butterscotch. To taste it was buttery with a sweet orangey peatiness and coal dust. Water dropped out a lot of the sweetness, compacted the coal dust into briquettes and brought out a woodsmoke finish. Not a subtle dram, but a good smoky, peaty whisky for those who like it quite sweet.

Next I tried the Rollercoaster, the most recent Committee bottling, bottled for the 10th anniversary, and one that won’t hit the general public because it’ll sell out before it has a chance. It’s a vatting of 10 casks, one from each year between 1997 and 2006 – Chris and Lucas have a complete list of the casks over on The Edinburgh Whisky blog. This was the one that I was most wanting to try, as I suspected it’d disappear before I got another chance. On the nose it had sulphur, sea salt, sea weed, oranges and a very hard edged peatiness, almost stony. To taste it had wood ash, eggs, more stony peat, coal smoke and a smokey sweetness. A bit of water toned everything down a bit and brought out more sweetness, with a hint of smoky bacon and sweet butter. I really rather liked it and have worryingly found that you can still buy it from the Ardbeg shop. I must resist.

Next I went for the Corryvreckan, another former Committee bottling that was brought in to replace Airgh name Beist, their previous top cask strength whisky. On the nose it had the BBQ chicken smell that I’m starting to think is my brain’s interpretation of woody wine/sherry influence, as well as white sherry, eggs and sea weed. To taste it was spicy with apples, burnt toffee, raisins and a lingering smoky peaty finish. Another good’un and one that deserved its win as best single malt whisky in this year’s World Whisky Awards, as well as numerous other gongs.

Finally, as I’d missed the last of the Supernova, Ardbeg’s super peaty whisky, that they had on the bar, I went for the Blasda. This one was described to me as “a lady’s dram”, with only 20ppm of phenols in the malt and a move to a lighter style. On the nose it was light and sweet with a hint of fruit that might have been cherry. To taste it was buttery and prickly, with sour peat and red berries. Most of all it was surprisingly light for a peaty whisky, especially an Ardbeg, even though this is the intention. Water brought out both cream and a bitterness from the wood as well as touch of cardboard and some struck matches. An interesting experiment, but not one that really grabbed my attention.

Overall it was rather a good night, although the free flowing whisky (there were tokens for some drinks, but by the end of the night the giant bottle of Rollercoaster they had on a smaller bar was being tipped into any glass that came near) meant that there was some drunkenness. If Jerry, the nice Glaswegian chap who tried (unsuccessfully) to teach me some Scottish toasts, is reading this then please drop me an email – I owe you a beer or two and I have the glasses you won, you left them in the pub. Yes, there was a pub after, which was probably a mistake.

Some gorillas. It was safer not to ask.

While I may have missed the previous release of Supernova, I added a sample of this year’s one to my most recent Master of Malt order and thought I’d add it on the end here. Supernova is intended to be the peatiest whisky that the distillery produces, using 100+ppm malt, and the last release had a hint of the Marmite effect to it – many people didn’t seem to rate it, but those who liked it really liked it. After the success of the last bottling they’ve rolled out a new one for this year – Supernova 2010. It’s pale gold and has no age statement, but with the intensity of flavour I would guess it has a good range of whisky in it. On the nose it has (as expected) lots of peat, along with salted butter, fresh mulch and some wet grass. To taste it’s spicy and every bit of its 60.1%. It starts with a big burst of sherried caramel sweetness and then moves through coal dust to a bitter burnt wood finish. In the middle there’s a bit of a fizzy citrus flavour which the chaps at Master of Malt describe as being like Starburst chews. I see what they mean but a) still reckon they should be called Opal Fruits and b) reckon that the flavour is more like fizzy orange and lemon Chewits. Water kills a lot of the bitterness as well as bringing out more of the fizzy fruit. This release has generally been considered inferior to the last one from what I’ve read, but as I didn’t get to taste the old one I can only assume it was really good (it does now change hands for about £125 a bottle) – I rather liked this one, with its peatiness being mellowed, but not too much, by some of the younger flavours and with a depth that I didn’t necessarily expect.

Ardbeg 10
Single malt Islay Scotch whisky, 46%. ~£35

Ardbeg Rollercoaster
Single malt Islay Scotch whisky, 57.4%. £50 from the Ardbeg shop

Ardbeg Corryvreckan
No age statement
Single malt Islay Scotch whisky, 57.1%. ~£60

Ardbeg Blasda
No age statement
Single malt Islay Scotch whisky, 40%. ~£45

Ardbeg Supernova 2010
No age statement
Single malt Islay Scotch whisky, 60.1%. ~£80

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