#BTC50 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

 These are my tasting notes and results from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 50th #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by Brian @MaltMusings and John @JWBassman

Side by side : Six Blended Malts

Blends and blended malts often get a bum wrap from whisky geeks but often they are as good as, if not better than, some single malts.

Blended Malts are just that a combination of single malts from different distilleries distilled from malted barley without any grain whisky. Here I try 6 different bottles.

Douglas Laing @TweetTasting

@DLaingWhisky Old Particular range features single cask malts and grains at a minimum of 6yo and 48.4%. 

A recent @TweetTastings took us through 4 of their latest releases.

BTC11 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 11th #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by @MaltMusings (Me!)

BTC10 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 10th #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by Sam @ReviewsWhisky and Mike @whiskyrover

BTC9 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 9th #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by Richard @MckWhisky

Old Malt Casks

The Old Malt Cask range was first released in 1999 by Douglas Laing & Co. Ltd. as single cask whisky usually bottled at 50% ABV.

Lets try a few of their releases.

Southport Whisky Festival

How do you organise a Whisky Festival during Lockdown? People aren't allowed to meet in large numbers, suppliers can't or won't get onboard...

You find an enthusiastic team... maybe an existing whisky club... with a leader with strong industry links.... and put a plan together!

BTC2 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 2nd #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by John @jwbassman_

Side by side : 5 Independent Grains

Good Scottish Single Grains tend to be on the older side - twenty something and you've got something rather nice, the other side of thirty and you're usually in for something special!

For this side by side I've selected 5 single grains from 4 different independent bottlers, ranging in age from 10yo to 39yo, lets see how they compare.

#MiniTasting - Cask Strength Night

Cask Strength Night - the #MiniTasting gang take on 3 cask strength drams for our 9th #MiniTasting.

#MiniTasting - SSMCD

So this time the #MiniTasting gang received an interesting surprise in the post from @WhiskynStuff: a pair of unnamed drams and a blue Glencairn tasting glass! @ScotchB78 & @jwbassman_ and myself were in for a true blind tasting!

#BlindTasting Series 5 - Review

Series 5 of #BlindTasting has recently finished and as usual I'll post a summary. This ended up being our longest series due to Christmas and pressures of work - it extended over 4 months!
This one, like all the rest, has brought up a few surprised with the five of us trying to identify 15 mystery drams through smell and taste, having #NoPreconceivedIdeas to sway our opinions.

#BlindTasting Series 5 - Part 3

Series 5 Part 3

We finally got around to completing Series 5, the team have swapped more drams and tonight we need to try and work out what they are, but more importantly tell us what we think of them without knowing where they are from. #NoPreconceivedIdeas! If you haven't followed us before you can catch up with all the previous series here.

Side by side: Ledaig from Mull & Glasgow?

Looking at three different drams from the peated Ledaig range, one from @DouglasMcgibbon and two from @TobDistillery, the 9yo, 10yo and 18yo - what differences are there?

Youtube clips

I've appeared in a few Youtube clips talking about whisky or doing reviews - here's an updated list of them!

The Whisky Family (Was Maltman Mike & Friends)

Glen Scotia Campbeltown 1832

Side by side: Christmas Sherry Teenagers

Rather than review drams by themselves I'm doing a little series comparing some 'side by side'.

There may be two or more, they may be from the same or different distilleries, similar ages, ABVs and types or not as I decide!

This time we are reviewing two teenage sherried drams ideal for Christmas Glenfarclas 15yo and Douglas Laing's Scallywag 13yo what differences are there?

Mini-reviews: Sherried Grain

This was a sample swap from @Maltman_Mike of DL's Strathclyde 2005 11yo

Mini Reviews (Updated 24th October)

Edradour Caledonia 12yo 46%

Date: 15th Jan '18
Sample: swap from @Maltman_Mike

Nose: sherry

Palate: honey and a little spice

Finish: short

Notes: disappointing....

DL Glenlossie 1997 19yo 50.9%

Date: 15th Jan '18
Sample: swap from @Maltman_Mike

Nose: pineapple with a hint of ginger - very tropical.

Palate: more of the pineapple with a little honey, big hit of spicy ginger

Finish: honey with the ginger

Notes: lovely sweet dram!











DL Glen Ord 2004 13yo 48.4%

Date: 15th Jan '18
Sample: swap from @Maltman_Mike

Nose: new make with some citrus tones.

Palate: lemon meringue, sweet honey with a spicy edge

Finish: spicy honey
Notes: OK but not great, my first disappointing dram from DL, improved slightly with the addition of some water - lots of vanilla notes but toned down the spices.










Clynelish 14yo 46%

Date: 7th Jan '18
Sample: swap from @AmateurDrammer

Nose: apples, honey, a little citrus, a little mown grass.

Palate: very smooth, slightly oily, loads of honey, a little vanilla followed by hot chilli - yummy!

Finish: a hint of smoke? milder chilli & the honey sweetness.
Notes: a lovely dram, honey and spice!

Should I join this Syndicate?

Now this is an independent, ad-free blog, where I normally review drams I have either bought myself or swapped with other enthusiasts, so this is a bit of a strange situation! An unexpected message on twitter and an exchange of address resulted in a parcel from @DLaingWhisky. But like most whisky bloggers out there I plan to be fair and honest in my review even though it was a 'freebie'.

Now I've bought, and swapped, a few Douglas Laing bottles in my time, at one end of my 'favourites scale' you have the delicious twenty-something single grains and the 13yo Scallywag, at the other end is The Gauldrons which is just not pleasant. As with all things whisky - these are my onions and yours and your palate will be different!

So where does this dram fit? More importantly what is it?

The parcel had the DL logo on it but the bottle and accompanying postcard don't mention them, the website doesn't even mention them - quite strange. The dram in question is the 12yo Syndicate 58/6 Export which is produced exclusively for Douglas Laing & Co. and widely available overseas but it's not a dram I'd heard of before.