Firstly thanks to all of you who have read my blog (c147,000 up from 114,000 last year) and followed me on Twitter (c5,300 up from 3,800 last year).
In to the 3rd year of the Blind Tasting Consortium and we held a further 10 tastings! As usual this took the format of one member of the group spending our £800 on 10 bottles of whisky (5 sets of 2) bottling them up and sending them to the other 27 people for a Blind Tasting - opinions are then shared before the bottles are revealed!
We've now tried 140 different whiskies from all over the world, some very good, some not so good, the benefits of blind tasting is that we don't get to see the packaging, the bottle or any marketing so there's to pre-conceived ideas as to what the whisky is like - we taste it blind and give honest opinions. We've not had over 100 people take part in our tastings - sometimes our regulars can't make it so we pull in reserves. More info here!
Loads of Zoom / Meet tasting this year with different groups including North East Whisky Appreciation Society, Callum & Kate, the BlindPack, That Boutique-y Whisky Company, The Euro Gang, The Attic and others.
Southport Whisky Club held their Winter festival. It was brilliant to be able to meet up with friends old and new and the distillery brand ambassadors again.
#Hatch,Match&Dispatch
My mate Max got married this year, a great chance to meet up with some whisky mates!
My mate Max got married this year, a great chance to meet up with some whisky mates!
We also lost some good friends and family RIP
#BlindTastingOnTour
Highlight of the year was the #BlindTastingOnTour gang visiting Islay. We visited all of the distilleries on the island and did Warehouse Tastings at four, read all about it here!
Huge thanks to @jwbassman_, @mgilberties, @andy_watkinson & @mentaldrams for a great time and some of the photos below!
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| Islay |
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| Bunnahabhain Warehouse #9 Tasting |
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| Bowmore No.1 Vaults Warehouse Tasting |
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| Laphroaig Warehouse Tasting |
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| Bruichladdich Warehouse Tasting |
#WhiskySpreadsheet
There are now over 350 users of my whisky spreadsheet with new ideas and suggestions being embodies all the time. An updated version will be out soon for 2023 with a few more stats! More info here!
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#TweetTasting
I've been lucky enough to be selected to take part in a few @TweetTastings organised by the brilliant Steve Rush.
These have been a brilliant way to try new drams and more importantly share your thoughts about them in real time with others - it's like sitting in a room of 20 people enjoying a dram or two and talking about them - but you can hear what everyone else is saying and join in every conversation!
#Kendal Whisky Festival
A return visit to the best festival in the North, 4 hours of draming with some of my favourite distilleries and great to meet friends old and new! An amazing Masterclass from Michael Henry of Loch Lomond.
#My Top Ten Whiskies of the Year
I've been lucky enough to be selected to take part in a few @TweetTastings organised by the brilliant Steve Rush.
| Bowmore Dalmore The whisky Cellar Glen Moray Jura | Whyte & Mackay Glenturret Brave New Spirits Limestone Branch Distillery Lindores Abbey |
These have been a brilliant way to try new drams and more importantly share your thoughts about them in real time with others - it's like sitting in a room of 20 people enjoying a dram or two and talking about them - but you can hear what everyone else is saying and join in every conversation!
A return visit to the best festival in the North, 4 hours of draming with some of my favourite distilleries and great to meet friends old and new! An amazing Masterclass from Michael Henry of Loch Lomond.
#My Top Ten Whiskies of the Year
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How do you pick your top whiskies? It's really difficult! But as I've said before I use a scoring method from @TomsWhisky But #EveryPalateIsDifferent and whisky is very subjective so my scoring is private - I don't publish any scores. For my top ten list I've picked those which I rated 5.
These are the top ten drams of the 550 I tried for the first time in 2022:
- Laphroaig 2004 18yo Single Cask #101 PX
- Loch Lomond 2010 12yo Single Cask #120
- Glen Scotia 12yo Amontillado Finish Festival Release
- Isle of Raasay 2019 3yo Single Cask #19/232 (Chinquapin)
- Loch Lomond 2010 9yo Single Cask #119 CWY - Distillery Edition #1
- Bains 10yo Shiraz
- Bimber Peated Virgin Oak
- Milk & Honey Apex Batch 010 : Dead Sea
- Ben Nevis 2015 7yo [MSWD]
- Bushmills 1991 Madeira Casks
These are the drams which rated a 0 this year (7 more than last year...):
- Wambrechies Sherry Cask
- Bowmore 10yo Dark & Intense - Aston Martin GTR
- Copper Rivet Masthouse Single Malt (Double Pot Distilled)
- Miltonduff 1997 20yo Single Cask #9179 [GM]
- Irish Blend Kinahan's The Kasc Project [B]
- Scottish Blend Aberdour Piper
- Jim Beam Repeal Batch
- Scottish Blended Malt Rock Island 21yo [DL]
- Dalmore 12yo Sherry Cask
- Dalmore King Alexander III
- Bruichladdich 2011 10yo [TFR] (Viognier)
- Broger Batch 1 6yo [TBWC]
Ok, so that's the top scores but which was the whisky I drunk most of in 2022? That is easily the Loch Lomond The Open Golf Special Release, a burgundy red wine finished dram - yummy!
#GeekyStuff
- 550 new drams tried this year, my total is now over 2,330 different whiskies
- I've now tried whiskies from 29 different counties and 303 different distilleries
- circa 7,600 tweets this year, total now of more than 50.9k
- just over 1,500 new followers on twitter, total now of c5,300
- 100 articles published on the blog this year, total now of 600!
- over 147,000 page reads of this blog
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| World Distilleries Tried |
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| Bottom & Top % of where my whisky has come from |
Blog stats
Top 10 blog posts in 2022
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Visitor locations in 2022
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#2023
Well - goodbye to 2022 and hello to 2023 - I'm sure it will be even better - some plans:
- Trip to Speyside with the #BlindTastingOnTour gang
- More Blind Tasting Consortium #BlindDrams
- Get to a few more whisky festivals
- More discussions with you!
Sláinte!
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