Brian's Malt Musings: Review of my whisky Year

Wednesday, 31 December 2025

Review of my whisky Year - 2025

Firstly thanks to all of you who have read my blog (c437,000 up from 296,000 last year) and follow me on social media.

This blog has been going for 9 years now and this is the 810th blog post! In that time I've reviewed over 2,190 whiskies! Let's review 2025!

#Rant

Whisky price are shooting up and bottle ages are coming down - I've not got a problem with younger whiskies, as you will see at the bottom of this post by dram of the year was a 4yo! But prices are shooting up and it seems not an hour goes by without another marketing email from a whisky distillery, independent bottler or online shop arrives tempting me to buy another bottle.

The prices are shooting up as they clamber to shift stock and try to make a profit. Has the bottom dropped out of the whisky market? I don't think we're quite there yet, but 2026 is going to be very interesting.

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

#BlindDrams with the Blind Tasting Consortium

In to the 6th year of the Blind Tasting Consortium and we held a further 11 tastings, taking us up to #60! 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 299 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 now had over 149 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.

#DrivenByDramsTour
Highlight of the year was the #DrivenByDrams gang visiting Campbeltown. 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!

Cadenhead's 'Warehouse' Tasting

Glen Scotia Warehouse Tasting

Cadenhead's 'Warehouse' Tasting return visit

Kilkerran Warehouse Tasting

Loch Lomond Group's Bottling Plant

#WhiskySpreadsheet

There are now over 700 users of my whisky spreadsheet with new ideas and suggestions being embodies all the time. An updated version will be out soon for 2026 with a few more stats! More info here!

#TweetTasting

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

Dalmore
White Peak Wire Works
Brave New Spirits
Speyside Distillery
A.D. Rattray

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!

#SouthportWinterFestival

A great little festival with the chance to meet up with friends and distillery reps for probably the first show of the season!

#SouthportSummerWhiskyFestival

A great festival wandering around the pubs of Southport, in each you run into a distillery or indie bottler rep!

#Auchentoshan

The morning of the Glasgow Whisky festival and nothing to do... Sam & Mike suggested an Auchentoshan Distillery visit and we had a great time! More info here!

#GlasgowWhiskyFestival

Mrs MaltMusings and I paid another visit to Hamden to the brilliant, if very large Glasgow Whisky festival.

#KendalWhiskyFestival

The 5th year of the best festival in England, once again I was there for the weekend, as part of the Red Team, helping setup, welcome visitors, supporting masterclasses and of course tidying up afterwards! 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

In 2025 I tried 705 different whiskies of which 554 were new to me - the highest 'new drams' score I've ever had! The 554 were from 114 different distilleries from 15 different countries!

Loch Lomond, Glen Scotia and Bunnahabhain topped the distillery list, Cadenhead's and SMWS the Indie Bottler list. Three 50yo's from Bunnahabhain, Invergordon and a Decadent Drinks Blend topped the age chart.

Single Malt Single Casks topped the type of whisky I drank.

With 'plain' ex-bourbon topping the maturation type unless you add all the sherry types together!

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. It's interesting that I scored 14 drams with a 5 last year, this year there was only 5. So positions 6-10 are my best choice of those which scored a 4.

These are the top ten drams of the 554 I tried for the first time in 2025:

Holyrood 2021 4yo Single Cask #C25134 [CL]
Loch Lomond 2010 15yo Dist Edn #8
Glasgow 1770 2015 10yo Single Cask #15/10
Dailuaine 2009 15yo Single Cask #HL21215 [ED](Rioja)
Inchgower 2008 Single Cask [OMC]
Weetwood The Cheshire 5yo
Bunnahabhain 1975 50yo (Marsala)
London Distillery Embarque
White Peak Caduro CS
Spirit of Yorkshire 2016 4yo Single Cask #2767 (Marsala)

Some others worthy of mention include:

Lochlea Dark Briar
Bunnahabhain 1989 33yo Oloroso (Feis Ile '22)
Loch Lomond 2012 13yo Single Cask #60
Bunnahabhain 2003 20yo Single Cask #333 (Manzanilla)
Auchentoshan 2012 13yo Single Cask #468 (White Port)
London Distillery Renascence
Cù Bòcan 2006 15yo
Port Dundas 2005 20yo Single Cask #50092100 [SRM]
Ardnamurchan 2017 AD/09:17 CK.677
North British 2011 13yo Single Cask #248817/2011

These are the drams which rated a 0 this year :

Auchentoshan 1998 26yo Single Cask #980100161 [OCAT]
Caol Ila 1980 14yo [GM]

#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, including his 50th, and the Southport Whisky Festival in a few weeks!

#GeekyStuff

Whisky Stats

554 new drams tried this year, my total is now over 3,883 different whiskies
I've now tried whiskies from 32 different counties and 350 different distilleries