Review of my whisky year - 2021

Firstly thanks to all of you who have read my blog (c114,000 up from 78,000 last year) and followed me on Twitter (c3,800 up from 3,570 last year).

This blog has been going for 5 years now and this is the 500th blog post! In that time I've reviewed over 1,300 whiskies! Let's review 2021!

Side by side : Tamdhu maturation

Tamdhu say that every bottle of whisky which they release has been matured "exclusively in the finest Oloroso sherry casks", but... 

...they also fill bourbon and PX casks for indie bottlers, here I explain what this means and compare Ex-bourbon, Oloroso and PX drams from Tamdhu.

Newer Distilleries : Bankhall

This is the latest in an occasional series about newer distilleries, this entry is about the Bankhall Distillery in Blackpool.

I lived in Blackpool for 20 years and never could I have imagined it having it's own distillery in amongst all the kiss-me-quick hats, roller-coasters and fish & chips!

Side by side: Glen Scotia back in time...

@GlenScotiaMalts has been distilling since 1832 but has had at least 5 periods of closure in it's history.

Callum @glen_scotia & Kate @kccjf have built up a collection of older bottlings and decided to do a bottle split of some of them!

Side by side : A Ballantine's flight

@Ballantines is the second biggest-selling Scotch whisky brand, produced by Pernod Ricard, the Ballantine's flavour is dependent on fingerprint malts from Miltonduff and Glenburgie, blended with 50 single malts and 4 single grains.

Here I get to try 6 of the range.

#BTC17 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

 These are my tasting notes from the Blind Tasting Consortium 17 #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by Billy @BillyCowan

Glen Scotia @TweetTastings

@GlenScotiaMalts Distillery recently held a @TweetTastings with @TheWhiskyWire

I was lucky enough to be picked - here's my thoughts and those of a few friends!

J.G. Thompson @TweetTastings

@JG_Thomson recently held a @TweetTastings with @TheWhiskyWire to launch their new range!

I was lucky enough to be picked - here's my thoughts and those of a few friends!

TBWC Advent Calendar 2021 - Dram reviews

Those great people at @DrinksByTheDram sent me an Advent Calendar for the run up to Christmas! For the whisky fans amongst us this makes much more sense than a chocolate one!

Now the idea with an Advent Calendar is that you open 1 door each day from the 1st December through to Christmas Eve... But please enjoy your whisky responsibly! Sometimes it may not possible to open a dram each day, you could share with mates or save a couple to enjoy at the weekend?

The Octave Project

I've tried a few Octave releases before but this is the first time I've tried them as an experiment. 

This A.D. Rattray set of 5 x 30ml bottles of 2007 Pulteney whisky, has been sitting on my shelf for a few years now so I decided to open it and try them.