#BTC56 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes and results from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 56th #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by Duncan @socialdrammer.bsky.social

#BTC53 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes and results from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 53rd #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by Andrew @whiskypad.bsky.social

#BTC39 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes and results from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 39th #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by Paul @pswhisky

Virtual tasting : Laphroaig with NEWAS

The North East Whisky Appreciate Society @eastwhisky is a great little group based in the north east of England who organise regular virtual tastings, this one featured @Laphroaig

The tasting was hosted by Caroline the Assistant Visitor Centre Manager at Laphroaig.

Review of my whisky year - 2022

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).

This blog has been going for 6 years now and this is the 600th blog post! In that time I've reviewed over 1,620 whiskies! Let's review 2022!

Whisky Advent Calendar 2022 - Dram reviews

Those great people at @DrinksByTheDram sent me an Advent Calendar for the run up to Christmas! For the whisky fans amongst us this makes much more sense than a chocolate one!

Now the idea with an Advent Calendar is that you open 1 door each day from the 1st December through to Christmas Eve... But please enjoy your whisky responsibly! Sometimes it may not possible to open a dram each day, you could share with mates or save a couple to enjoy at the weekend?

Islay - Branded Glencairns

As well as distillery tours, warehouse tastings, meetings friends old and new and buying whisky there's one more thing you need to do on a whisky road trip...

Buy branded @GlencairnGlass glasses!

Islay - Laphroaig Distillery

The third distillery tour and tasting on our trip was @Laphroaig

Where Marc led us on a tour and No. 1 Warehouse Tasting!

Islay - Planning

Each year our little gang gets permission from our wives for a few days away. This year, delayed by two due to Covid, we managed to get to Islay!

Our great logo designed by John @JWBassman_

As with any kind of road trip planning is very important...

#BTC15 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

 These are my tasting notes from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 15th #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by John @jwbassman_

Scotch Whisky Advent Calendar

I was lucky enough to receive a whisky advent calendar from those lovely people at @DrinksByTheDram, it was their Scotch Whisky 2019 edition.

Each day during #Dramvent I opened a door and discovered what was inside!

#MiniTasting - Laphroaig CS 10yo's

Laphroaig Cask Strength 10 year olds - the #MiniTasting gang take on the most recent 3 batches. For this #MiniTasting @ScotchB78 supplied 3 drams for  @jwbassman_, @WhiskynStuff  and myself to try!

#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: Laphroaig's 18yo & replacement?

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 drams from @Laphroaig, the discontinued 18yo and it's 'replacement' the NAS Lore.

Side by side: Laphroaig 10yo 2004 v 2018

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 @Laphroaig's 10yo, a bottle from 2018 v a bottle from 2004, what's changed in 14 years? Well all they have done is add a few things : more water, some colour and chill filtering - lets see what difference it makes?

Mini-review: Three times better?

Laphroaig Triple Wood 48% Sample swap from @WhiskyWings

Nose: touch of sherry, gentle peat smoke, some walnuts?

Palate: very smooth, some vanilla custard with strawberries, slight salty edge

Finish: gentle smoke, little spicy kick

Notes: nice dram, didn't get any peanuts which is great after the experience I've had with some recent Laphroaigs!

Mini-review: Just my cup of tea!

Càrn Mòr Williamson 6yo 46% (Non-teaspooned Laphroaig? finished in refill-sherry butts) Sample: swap from @Maltman_Mike

Nose: smokey bacon crisps, a touch of salt and a little sweetness.

Palate: a little fruitiness neary blocked out by the peat smoke, but a good kick of spice on the tounge

Finish: very warming with plenty of smoke

Notes: It's a lovely dram, the sweetness tries bravely to complete with the salty smokey bacon peat but in the end doesn't stand a chance. Brilliant for a 6yo.

#BlindTasting Series 2 - Review

Series 2 of #BlindTasting finished just after Christmas! Following on from a fantastic Series 1 - this one was a huge amount of fun with the five of us trying to identify 15 mystery drams through smell and taste, having #NoPreconceivedIdeas or #MarketingBullshit to sway our opinions.

#BlindTasting Series 2 - part 3

And we finally get to the 3rd part of Series 2 of #BlindTasting, like all good bands and the search for the second album we had some issues - these were mainly down to prolonged episodes of severe Man Flu on the part of a couple of members of the team and of course Christmas.