Review of my whisky year - 2023

Firstly thanks to all of you who have read my blog (c228,000 up from 147,000 last year) and followed me on Twitter (c6,350 up from 5,300 last year).

This blog has been going for 7 years now and this is the 682nd blog post! In that time I've reviewed over 1,810 whiskies! Let's review 2023!

#Rant

One of the key things from 2023 for me was the price increases in the whisky industry - both for bottles and distillery visits. Don't even get me started on distillery bottle your owns... OK you did so I'll mention it: you've taken the time to go and visit a distillery, for some of us that's quite a commitment, most distillery's then have an exclusive or even a bottle your own as a kind of thank you. But when the bottle costs nearly £200 they are having a laugh. Benromach was £195, all of the Diageo distillery bottles went up to £130, Tullibardine was a more reasonable £95, Glen Moray are still the cheapest with a range from £60 to £99.

General bottle prices are going up in a lot of areas, my annual survey of 18yo  showed increases in many distilleries, the largest increase in the year 2022-2023 came from Dalmore: a whopping 140% increase from £125 to £300. Glenrothes and GlenDronach followed a little bit behind with increases of 53% and 44% respectively, both bottles now well north of £100.

I can understand some of the price increases, raw materials and staff costs have gone up, but some of these increases are ridiculous. What doesn't help is the huge discounting that's been happening from some larger retailers over that last few months and weeks - I can't believe they are cutting all of their profit margin, so either they have been making a huge profit, at our expense, for the rest of the year or are being supplied with whisky at more of a discount to smaller retailers. I'm a huge supporter of smaller retailers but they can't supply everything I want - so sometimes I need to use a large retailer - there should be a level playing field. 

There haven't been many distillery closures in recent years, the news is usually full of new ones opening, but one closure in particular really pissed me off - Bankhall. I was really 'invested' in them, a new distillery in Blackpool, a town I'd lived in for 25+ years. I managed to get a visit 2 years ago and was really impressed with their set up and the maturing spirit I tried. I bought a bottle of their first malt release - £99 was right at the top of my price bracket but as I said I was impressed. Then a few months later Halewood decided to / had to move the distillery, no reason given - it actually 'moved' up to South Cumbria - only 20 or so miles from where I live. Then a few months later all the staff were laid off and although not officially announced - the distillery is no more. Halewood will still have hundreds, if not thousands, of casks to bottle, sell on or blend. I for one won't be buying any. 

The other thing that's annoyed me this year is the huge increase in stories - whisky isn't being sold with the emphasis on the liquid anymore, it's now got to have a story, some of them have nothing to do with the distillery or even whisky. If you're into that kind of thing, fine but I'm not - all we are seeing is prices increases for the whisky - because the story makes it more valuable? Lakes and Fable have been doing this for a while but others are getting involved, even Glen Scotia have started with their Mermaid release. The Campbeltown festival release was £65, the old seasonal releases were c£75/80, the Mermaid replacement is £90. Why is there £25 difference between The festival and the story release? Crazy.

Final point: this year I've got over my FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), I may never get to try another Springbank but it doesn't matter, there are loads of other great bottles of whisky out there!

OK rant over - let's get on to the good stuff!

#BlindDrams with the Blind Tasting Consortium

In to the 4th year of the Blind Tasting Consortium and we held a further 11 tastings! As usual this took the format of one member of the group spending our £830 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 189 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 preconceived 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! Huge thanks to John @jwbassman_ for all the great ads.

#OnlineTastings

Loads of Zoom / Meet tasting this year with different groups including North East Whisky Appreciation Society, Callum & Kate, the BlindPack, Glencadam, The Attic and others.

#MeetingMates
It was also a great year for meeting mates in the flesh rather than just online! As well as at festivals we manages to meet up with the amazing Callum @glen_scotia & Kate @kccjf in SMWS Glasgow!

#DrivenByDramsTour

Highlight of the year was the #DrivenByDrams gang visiting Speyside. We visited a number distilleries, most for Warehouse Tastings, read all about it here!

Huge thanks to @jwbassman_, @mgilberties, @andy_watkinson & @mentaldrams for a great time and some of the photos below!

In particular the Balvenie one was amazing - definitely in my top 5 tours - get one booked if you are planning to visit the area.

#WhiskySpreadsheet

There are now over 500 users of my whisky spreadsheet with new ideas and suggestions being embodies all the time. An updated version will be out soon for 2024 with a few more stats! More info here!

#TweetTasting

I've been lucky enough to be selected to take part in a few @TweetTastings organised by the brilliant Steve Rush.

Bowmore Glasgow Tullibardine White Peak The Whisky Cellar Duncan Taylor Noble Rebel

AD Rattray Brave New Spirits Jura Torabhaig Hyde Spey

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!

#KendalWhiskyFestival

The 3rd year of the best festival in the North, this time I went for the weekend helping setup and staffing the middle session. There's nothing better than meeting up with friends old and new, draming with some of my favourite distilleries.

#My Top Ten Whiskies of the Year

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 usually publish my scores except as part of #BlindDrams. For my top ten list I've picked those which I rated 5 or a high 4.

These are the top ten drams of the 482 I tried for the first time in 2023:

1. Loch Lomond Single Grain - Cooper's Collection (Mizunara)
2. Milk & Honey 2018 3yo Single Cask #2018-0797 (Red Wine) Kendal WF
3. Bowmore Tempest (Small Batch Release No. 6)
4. Benriach 2011 11yo Single Cask #2372 (Port) [AWWC] #BlindDrams #29.3
5. Bunnahabhain 2008 15yo Single Cask #3838013 [DT] TweetTastings
6. Weetwood The Cheshire Fireside
7. Glen Scotia The Mermaid
8. Glencadam Reserva de Porto Tawny
9. White Peak Necessary Evil
10. Glasgow 1770 Peated Red Wine & Triple Distilled Ruby Port Finish

These are the drams which rated a 0 this year :

1. Walsh The Irishman The Harvest
2. Glen Garioch 2012 11yo Single Cask #4638243 [DT]
3. Ardmore 2008 13yo Single Cask #1900001 [MMD]
4. Ardmore 2003 12yo [SMWS] 66.231

Ok, so that's the top scores but which was the whisky I drunk most of in 2023? That is easily the Loch Lomond The Open Golf Special Release, a Rioja red wine finished dram - yummy! But I've also really enjoyed the 3 releases this year from Weetwood The Cheshire - their Fireside is definitely worth another purchase!

#Finally...

Finally a huge thanks to my best mate John @jwbassman_ for our regular online tastings, tours and his work creating the ads for #BlindDrams. Looking forward to more of the same next year and the Southport Whisky Festival in a few weeks!

#GeekyStuff

Whisky Stats

• 490 new drams tried this year, my total is now over 2,800 different whiskies
• I've now tried whiskies from 30 different counties and 312 different distilleries
• circa 5,500 tweets this year, total now of more than 56k
• just over 1,000 new followers on twitter, total now of c6,360

Worldwide distilleries tried.

Top distilleries tried

Blog stats

• 83 articles published on the blog this year, total now of 683!
• over 228,000 page reads of this blog

Top 10 blog posts in 2023

Visitor locations in 2023

#2024

Well - goodbye to 2023 and hello to 2024 - I'm sure it will be even better - some plans:

• Trip to Arran & Glasgow with the #DrivenByDrams gang
• More Blind Tasting Consortium #BlindDrams
• Get to a few more whisky festivals
• More discussions with you!

Sláinte!