#BTC22 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 22nd #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by Ben @WhiskyWithMolly

#BTC21#BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 21st #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by John @jwbassman_

Waxhouse Whisky Releases 005 and 006

Waxhouse Whisky are a tiny, not for profit, indie bottler formed by members of the St. Albans Whisky Club in 2018.

I was invited to the launch of their 6th release where we also tried release 5.

TBWC Home Nations Series MMXXI

That Boutique-y Whisky have now switched to quarterly themed releases for their whisky. Led by their brand ambassador Dave Worthington @BoutiqueyDave you are taken through some amazing whiskies this time from the UK!

This Home Nations Series is a release of 12 bottles - 9 whiskies and 3 rums.

BTC6 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 6th #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by Chris @chris_f74

Whisky from...? England

Next in my little series on Whisky from...? is England. I've tried a few English whiskies in my time, most recently the new releases from Lakes, Bimber and Spirit of Yorkshire, this time I'm looking at the longest established distillery in England - The English Whisky Company at St. George's Distillery in Norfolk.

Some of these drams were part of a recent @TweetTastings that I wasn't selected for, but due to the generous sample sizes and my equally generous mate @jwbassman_ I'm able to try them! The others came from a drample swap with @BlackCountryWS

Three Blind Mice?

OK they're not mice they're drams, three blind samples I received from @WhiskyPilgrim as part of a recent sample swap.
Now, knowing Adam's love of bourbon, I'd suggest from the colours that 1 and 3 may be from the other side of the pond, but 2 looks decidedly Islay...
Let see if we can work them out!

#BlindTasting Series 2 - part 1

It's always hard for a band to come up with a good second album and the #BlindTasting team thought long and hard about what to do for the second series..... in the end we decided to change nothing and just do the same thing again, it worked really well - why change it?

Strange smoke from St. George's English Whisky

There are a number of English distilleries in operation at the moment, not all of them have started selling whisky yet.

Map : www.cooperkingdistillery.co.uk/blog/the-english-whisky-map

I'll cover off some of them in my new series "Newer Distilleries" but for now here's a review of two drams from The English Whisky Company and it's St George’s Distillery near Norwich.

Photo : English Whisky Company

Their whisky is batch made by hand with no computers, matured in fine casks, bottled on site using their own water and is non chill-filtered. In this review I'm looking at two of their basics drams The English Original and Smokey.

Original and Smokey

Whisky : The English Original (NAS)

Characteristics : 43% ABV, NCF, Non-coloured
Price : £36 widely available
Colour : Light Gold
Nose : Green apple and vanilla ice cream; a little alcohol burn, a sweet honey develops over time.
Palate : Nutty honey on the tongue, quite sweet and slightly drying.
Finish : Buttered popcorn and a little spiced orange.
Overall : A pleasant little dram, very sweet and youthful.
Link : Original

Whisky : The English Smokey (NAS)
Characteristics : 43% ABV, NCF, Non-coloured
Price : £36 widely available
Colour : Light Gold - the same as the Original so I'm assuming they share the same maturation methods.
Nose : Smoky baby puke - yes really - not pleasant at all. A little like Frazzles smokey bacon crisps?
Palate : Sweet honey on the palate with a little smoke - very drying.
Finish : Medium length smoky finish
Overall : Peated to 45ppm but it's not a touch on a decent Islay - just has the wrong find of "smokey" aroma.
Link : Smokey

Overall : I liked the original - a nice simple dram - typical bourbon cask vanilla and a little honey, the Smokey on the other hand just didn't do it for me - the nose was very strange and the indifferent finish just didn't cut it - give me an Islay dram instead. maybe it's the youthful NAS that's giving the strangeness and a few more years in the cask might help?