A Nikka Duet for World Whisky Day

Normally I drink and blog about Scottish Whisky but on occasions I have tried others drams including some from Ireland, Wales, Sweden, India and Japan. As it's World Whisky Day today I thought I'd try a couple of Japanese whiskys and let you know my thoughts!

Both of my drams are from the Nikka Whisky Company owned by Asahi who own a number of distilleries in Japan and the Ben Nevis distillery in Scotland..

The first is Whisky from the Barrel (WFTB) a blend of malt and grain whiskies bottled at 51.4% and sold in 50cl bottles.

The second is Pure Malt Black (PMB) another blend, this time of malt whiskies, bottled at 43% again in 50cl bottles.

These are both blended drams with a mixture of malt and in the case of WFTB grain whiskies from the Yoichi and Miyagikyo distilleries.

My drams were both sample swaps, the WFTB from @Mcfcivo100 and the PMB from @ThisIsMyDram - thanks to both of you!

Whisky From The Barrel and Pure Malt Black

Distillery : Nikka
Whisky : Whisky from the Barrel (NAS)
Characteristics : 500ml, 51.4% ABV.

Price : £38 widely available
Colour : Deep Gold - coloured
Nose : The room fills with the aroma of toffee as soon as you pour this dram into your glass, closer inspection reveals green apple and vanilla and over time a honey note develops.
Palate : Coffee instantly on the tongue followed quickly by walnuts - it's like an old coffee walnut whip (can you still get them?) the walnuts persist and is joined by vanilla notes and a lovely spicy cinnamon.
Finish : A long dry finish dominated by them walnuts and a little spice.

Water : As this is a 51.4% whisky I tried a little water, this introduced some citrus notes to the nose with a hint of pepper, on the palate the spice reduced slightly.
Overall : This is a lovely sipping whisky, where the strength is instantly recognisable but not dominating. A little water brings out some citrus but other than reducing the strength doesn't make too much difference to the whisky. A lovely dram, well worth trying!

Link : WFTB

Distillery : Nikka
Whisky : Pure Malt Black (NAS)
Characteristics : 500ml, 43% ABV.

Price : £46 widely available
Colour : Deep Gold - coloured
Nose : Not as strong as the WFTB and quite different - a malty chocolate aroma with a strong hint of peat smoke. Over time this develops into toffee and orange peel with a hint of vanilla.
Palate : A smooth dram on the tongue but with a slight alcohol burn (surprising as this is 43%, I didn't get any on the 51.4% WFTB) it's dominated by chocolate and a little treacle.
Finish : A medium length dry dark chocolate finish with a little spice and a hint of smoke..

Overall : This is one of a set of three 'coloured' Pure Malts - Red is fruity (like a Speyside), White is Peaty (like an Islay) and this one, the Black, is some where in between. There were definite hints of peat smoke buy I didn't get any fruit - plenty of chocolate though!. A lovely dram, probably my favourite of the two - again - well worth trying!

Link : PMB

A Bowmore Threesome

A couple of weeks ago I was graced by a visit from @MaltmanMike where we planned to do a tasting of two Bowmores. Unfortunately due to some technical glitches (his recording equipment had been on the Bowmore before us) the recording was completely out of focus!

Behind the scenes at a Maltman Mike vlog recording!

No doubt we'll have another go at a later date, but until then here are my thoughts on three Bowmore drams!

I'd bought the 9yo earlier in the year, the 15yo was a sample swap - thanks to @ThisIsMyDram and the Vaults was from the Maltman.

9yo, Vaults, 15yo

Distillery : Bowmore

Whisky : 9yo Sherry Cask Finish

Characteristics : 700ml, 40% ABV.

Colour : Old Oak - coloured

Nose : Light smoke with toffee

Palate : Weak sherry, very thin develops a little vanilla .

Finish : Slight alcohol burn - surprising for a 40%, some smoke

Overall : This one hasn't improved much in the 5 months it's been sat on my shelf - see my previous review here. As I said then it would have been better blended with something more smokier and sold as a NAS.

Distillery : Bowmore

Whisky : 15yo Darkest

Characteristics : 700ml, 43% ABV.

Colour : Old Oak - coloured

Nose : Bonfire smoke (from a distance) with salty sherry developing over time.

Palate : Thin sweet sherry developing to toffee with a little drying smoke.

Finish : Medium dry finish with light smoke

Overall : As others have mentioned this is a strange one where the name describes an artificial colour - come on Bowmore get rid of the caramel or sort out the marketing department.... This one was a much better dram than the 9yo.

Distillery : Bowmore

Whisky : Vaults Edit1°n (NAS)

Characteristics : 700ml, 51.5% ABV.

Colour : Old Gold

Nose : Vanilla, smoke developing into salty bread dough.

Palate : Mouth filling, oily, salted smoked oranges - yummy

Finish : Dry salty finish with the orange coming back
With Water : This dram was over 50% so I also tried it with a drop of water - this brought out a sweet smokiness in the nose and palate and intensified the orange finish.

Overall : Definitely the best of the trio! This was in a different league to the other two even as a NAS. The addition of a little water really brought out the Islay smoke - it's not in the same ballpark as some of the other Islay peat monsters but lovely never the less!

OK so no vlog for this tasting but you can view Mike's other vlogs on the Maltman Mike YouTube Channel.

Another trip to the Prince Of Wales

I'm very lucky where I work that they let us out at 12 noon every Friday, this gives us a chance to visit some local hostelries and sample their wares. One of our regular haunts is the Prince Of Wales at Foxfield, it's a small pub on the Cumbria coast which boasts it's own brewery, regular beer, gin, rum and music festivals - check out their website.

There are normally 8 real ales on the bar plus a couple of ciders and many bottled delights. They also have a great, ever changing, selection of whiskies!

The Whisky Blackboard

This week they held a Dark, Strong Beer & Cider Weekend so we had to visit!

So whilst some of my colleagues made their way through the list of beers, I started with a few whiskies.

Distillery : Mannochmore

Whisky : 12yo (Flora & Fauna)

Characteristics : 700ml, 43% ABV.

Colour : Light Gold

Nose : Vanilla, Christmas cake spices

Palate : Smooth mouth filling vanilla, orange hints and those Christmas spices.

Finish : Long spicy finish

Overall : This is the first time dram which I spotted on the board from a distillery I couldn't remember sampling from before. It's part of the Flora & Fauna range of limited releases - I don't think these are very common?

Distillery : Linkwood

Whisky : 15yo (Gordon & MacPhail)

Characteristics : 700ml, 43% ABV. NCF, Uncoloured

Colour : Dark Gold

Nose : Vanilla and oak with a touch of cereal

Palate : Sweet vanilla, developing into chocolate

Finish : Long spicy sweet finish

Overall : Another dram which I spotted on the board from a distillery I couldn't remember sampling from before and definitely the best of the three I tried on the day.

Distillery : Dalmore

Whisky : 12yo 

Characteristics : 700ml, 43% ABV. NCF, Coloured 😟

Colour : Dark Gold

Nose : Sherry and vanilla, 

Palate : Dry sherry with hints of oranges and marshmallows

Finish : Long dry finish dominated by vanilla with a hint of spicy orange

Overall : Pretty standard fare this one but it was the first time I'd tried a Dalmore. Honesty I wasn't really impressed - nice bottle and presentation but just a little plain for me.

Saturday afternoon with Tamdhu @TweetTastings

You never know what is going to turn up when you sign up and get accepted for one of @TheWhiskyWire's @TweetTasting and this one was no different. This one took a while to get my hands on - the DHL man tried to deliver it twice when I was away on holiday, then took it back to the depot - I was really concerned that it wasn't going to get delivered in time!

When it did arrive I opened a beautiful large box from @TamdhuWhisky with a hand written welcome letter, a booklet about the history of the distillery and tasting notes for two of the 4 bottles. Underneath was a beautiful glass and four small bottles.

Box opening!

The drams included : New Make Spirit, 10yo, 10yo Limited Edition and Batch Strength.

The drams

This tasting was a little different for a number of reasons:

1. It look place on a Saturday evening - usually they take place on a Wednesday night.
2. It was a joint twitter and distillery tasting as it coincided with the Spirit of Speyside festival.
3. As they were 50cl bottles I'd invited a mate round to help me sample them!

Personally I thought the evening went a little quickly - there wasn't a lot of time for the usual twitter discussion - I'm guessing that's because the distillery tasters had a schedule to meet!

My thoughts:

Distillery : Tamdhu

Whisky : New Make Spirit

Characteristics : 50ml, 69.7% ABV.

Colour : Transparent

Nose : Fresh baked bread with a little sweetness

Palate : Sweetness, lip numbing, like schnapps but at all rough like I expected!

Finish : None to speak of - must have been the alcohol

Overall : This is the first time I'd tried New Make Spirit from any distillery and was apprehensive when I saw the strength thinking it was be very rough and burning - it wasn't like that at all. Initially I'd only poured a small amount into my glass to try and soon topped it up! It was quite drinkable as long as you only took small sips.

Distillery : Tamdhu
Whisky : 10yo
Characteristics : 700ml 40% ABV
Price : £30
Colour : Light Gold
Nose : Sherry and almonds with a slight rough edge - developed over time into buttery toffee
Palate : Creamy smooth, banoffee pie
Finish : Medium - spicy - aniseed?
Overall : A lovely beginners Speyside dram - just the right about of sherry which if left in the glass to develop turns into toffee - delicious!
Link : 10yo

Distillery : Tamdhu
Whisky : 10yo Limited Edition (1000 bottles)
Characteristics : 700ml 46% ABV
Price : £120
Colour : Dark Gold
Nose : Sherry with a slight rough edge - developed over time into buttery toffee - similar to 10yo
Palate : Sherry, toffee - very smooth and drying with a spicy tingle of cloves
Finish : A long spicy clove finish
Overall : Another lovely dram, this time the sherry was a little more pronounced on the nose and palate.
Link : 10yo Ltd Edn

Distillery : Tamdhu
Whisky : Batch Strength No 002
Characteristics : 700ml 58.5% ABV
Price : £60
Colour : Dark Gold
Nose : Toffee, Vanilla, Citrus - maybe orange - no rough edge like the previous two
Palate : Toffee, orange - drying in the mouth, again with spicy cloves or cinnamon on the tongue
Finish : Long orange oil finish
Overall : For all it's strength - this one was my favourite on the night - strong yes - but a lovely sipping whisky, the addition of a little water added to the vanilla on the nose and orange on the palate and finish.
Link : Batch Strength

Many thanks to Steve for organising and @TamdhuWhisky for the samples and my fellow tasters for a really enjoyable evening!

Would you like a slice with that whisky?

You never know what is going to turn up when you sign up and get accepted for one of @TheWhiskyWire's @TweetTasting and this week's was an especially unusual one! I've been lucky enough to have taken part in a number of these and have received a box with a glass and 3 samples, another had 5 samples, but this one was the strangest yet! When Steve announced it was a #GlenfiddichIPA tasting my first though was OK, we're only sampling 1 dram, but that's not quite how it turned out!

Box opening

So in the box we had a sample of Glenfiddich IPA, a bottle of Brew Two India Pale Ale, a slice of Blood Orange skin and a nice beer mat! What's unusual about this dram is that the casks have been used to mature beer:

The evening kicked off as normal with our thoughts on the whisky:

My thoughts:

Distillery : Glenfiddich

Whisky : Experimental Series - IPA Cask Finish

Price : £45

Characteristics : 700ml, 43% ABV.  NAS but around 8yo

Colour : Deep Gold

Nose : Floral and fruity, Orange, pear, cereals - develops into apples with cinnamon

Palate : Smooth and sweet but tasting a little like honey sandwiches, some sour apple and hops

Finish : Very bitter, with hints of spice (ginger?)

Overall : The nose and taste of this dram were very nice - a little fruit and cereal but the finish was very bitter - maybe slightly unpleasant.

Link : IPA

Next came the beer!

The beer is brewed by Seb Jones at @SpeysideCraftBrewery and matured in the ex-whisky American Oak casks for a month before being bottled.

The beer is dry, very bitter and has hints of citrus - very moreish!

After a couple of mouthfuls of the beer I went back to the whisky and it had changed a little - more creamy and fruity on the palate and the bitter finish had gone altogether - interesting! 

Then came the strange part of the evening - we were invited to get a handful of ice, add it to the beer, twist and add the blood orange peel and finally add a little of the dram! I found it really difficult to 'pour away' some of my whisky.....

The resulting 'IPA Experimental Serve' was an unusual experience! There was huge explosion of zesty orange followed by a dry bitter taste, from the beer, finishing with a little kick from the whisky. Not really my cup of tea but I'm sure it wouldn't be out of place at a summer BBQ!

Glenfiddich have a swish video showing you how to make their Serve:

Many thanks to Steve for organising, Mark and @GlenfiddichSMW for the samples and my fellow tasters for a really enjoyable evening!

Stagg Jr

A recent sample swap with @SpikeyDog120 delivered an unexpected surprise - a sample of @BuffaloTrace's 3rd batch Stagg Jr.

Beautiful colour!

Distillery : Buffalo Trace Distillery
Whiskey : Stagg Jr. Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey (3rd Batch)
Price : £75

Characteristics : 700ml, 66.05% ABV. The mash bill on this one is 75% Corn, 15% Malted Barley and 10% Rye, it's matured in charred oak for around 8-9 years but is sold with NAS.

Box/Bottle Information : "Rich, sweet, chocolate and brown sugar flavors mingle in perfect balance with the bold rye spiciness."

Colour : Mahogany
Nose : Vanilla, earthy oak, cherries, lemon

Palate : WOW - obviously with this strength it's going to be powerful and I'd been warned so was only taking tiny sips. It was solid, like a spoonful of burning treacle rolling over your tongue! It burned but there were hints of old leather. A little water opened it up a bit - with honey and raisins, over time cherries from the nose came through quite strongly.

Finish : Oak, vanilla and a strong burn! with a lingering taste of spicy (cinnamon?) honey.

Overall : Definitely a sipping whiskey (with a strong burn if that's that you like). The addition of a little water reduced the burn and opened up the flavours - I enjoyed the cherry on the nose and palate giving the whiskey a little sourness. Many thanks to @SpikeyDog120 for the surprise!

Link : Stagg Jr

#WishkyTwo Blind Tasting

Following on from a fantastic blind tasting in February WishkyOne, @WishkyCo came up with another evening in March, again an beautiful unidentified 50ml bottle arrived in the post - a simple label identified it as WishkyTwo. The hardest part of all of this is not opening the bottle before the night....

For those of you who haven't heard of this, we had a hour to try and identify the mystery dram - it was time for #WishkyHour

Appearance: Pale Gold.
Nose: SMOKE

As soon as I opened the bottle the smoke jumped out - obviously an Islay - buy which one? My thoughts in the text, others from Twitter:

Appearance: Pale Gold, clinging to the glass when swirled indicating age or non chill-filtered?

Nose: Smoke, Seaweed, Salt with floral tones but not medicinal...

Palate: Strong smoke, vanilla, salt. The dram also came across as very strong...

Finish: Bitter and dry...

Overall: Even though I'm an Islay Fan Boy I wasn't blown away by this one - which led me to believe it was maybe one I hadn't tried before maybe Bowmore,  Bunnahabhain or a strange  Bruichladdich Port Charlotte? Over time we were told it was a 46% whisky.

Eventually we got to the end of the hour and the end of the dram...

If you haven't guessed what dram we were drinking yet from my notes - we were drinking Kilchoman Machir Bay.

Many thanks to Neil at @wishkyco for organising, if you want to get involved next time, there is a small fee to cover costs, get in touch with Neil or better still sign up for one of his boxes, all can be tried blind but tasting notes are included!

House Of Malt Twitter Tasting

A great evening of whisky tasting took place on Friday 24th March and luckily I was invited to take part! @MaltmanMike distributed samples of @HouseOfMalt's Secret Distillery Bottlings from three distilleries, one each from the Highland, Speyside and Islay regions of Scotland.

Once again I used my geeky Tasting Mat design which allowed me to record and then tweet my tasting thoughts as we went along!

Distillery : Secret Highland
Whisky : 10yo
Characteristics : 700ml 43% ABV
Price : £35
Colour : Pale Gold
Nose : Quite a complex nose on this one, developed over the 10 minutes I was nosing. It started with Polish and honey, developed into strawberries, pears and apples then later a lovely vanilla came through.
Palate : Smooth and creamy with oranges, vanilla. It was also very drying and sweet like icing sugar.
Finish : A short spicy finish of orange oil.
Overall : I really enjoyed this yummy dram, a really complex nose, smooth creamy taste and spicy finish - what else do you want from a Highland dram?
Link : HoM Highland

Distillery : Secret Speyside
Whisky : 15yo
Characteristics : 700ml 40% ABV
Price : £45
Colour : Deep Gold
Nose : Vanilla and a little sherry, rubber glue and oak
Palate : Creamy sweet sherry, a little honey, lime and cinnamon
Finish : Short spicy finish like dry roasted peanuts
Overall : All we know is that this comes from Ex Bourbon and Oloroso casks - it was a nice dram with a typical Speyside sherry finsh.
Link : HoM Speyside

Distillery : Secret Islay
Whisky : 10yo
Characteristics : 700ml 43% ABV
Price : £40
Colour : Pale Gold
Nose : BBQ smoke, not medicinal, honey, stewed pears developing into BBQ bananas with chocolate drops
Palate : Smoke, a little honey, vanilla, salt, drying licorice
Finish : Sugared almonds, smoke
Overall : A nice smokey dram with BBQ overtones
Link : HoM Islay

Overall : A great evening of tasting, but it's really annoying that we don't know the distilleries! Personally I preferred the Highland even though normally I'm an Islay Fan Boy! The nose was brilliant - very complex! The Islay came second and the Speyside third. For the price these were all very good drams, fine examples of their respective regions and I don't think anyone who tries they will be disappointed!

UK v USA @TweetTasting

Another fantastic evening of @TweetTasting took place on Wednesday 22nd March and luckily I was invited to take part! This is time was a bit of a competition between UK distillery @GlenGrant and US distillery @WildTurkey but seeming as the drams were very different it wasn't really a competition!

I demoed my geeky Tasting Mat design for the first time which allowed me to record and then tweet my tasting thoughts as we went along!

Distillery : Glen Grant
Whisky : 10yo
Characteristics : 700ml 40% ABV
Price : £30
Colour : Old Gold (Non Coloured)
Nose : Pear, watermelon and apple notes develop into vanilla with overtones of strawberry chewits
Palate : Pear & liquorice developing into vanilla with a touch of pepper
Finish : Smooth, long vanilla with a touch of pepper
Overall : I enjoyed this dram, it's a basic delicate whisky with no surprises - ideal for beginners looking for a typical Speyside malt.
Link : Glen Grant 10yo

Distillery : Wild Turkey
Whisky : 101 Bourbon
Characteristics : 700ml 50.5% ABV
Price : £31
Colour : Tawny
Nose : Fig biscuits, caramel, wax polish developing into a lovely golden syrup
Palate : Spicy cinnamon and nutmeg with apple strudel covered in creamy vanilla custard.
Finish : Vanilla custard, much more rounded than the 10yo
Overall : My first ever Bourbon this is made with 75% Corn, 13% Rye and 12% Barley
Link : Wild Turkey 101

Distillery : Glen Grant
Whisky : 12yo
Characteristics : 700ml 43% ABV
Price : £43
Colour : Old Gold (Non Coloured)
Nose : Pear, watermelon and apple notes similar to the 10yo but with more punch. Fresh baked apple pie and Pistachios
Palate : Honey, apples and pear (in a pie?)
Finish : Vanilla custard, more rounded that the 10yo
Overall : An improvement on the 10yo, the extra 2 years make quite a difference - more punch and smoother.
Link : Not currently on the Glen Grant website.

Distillery : Wild Turkey
Whisky : Rye
Characteristics : 700ml 40.5% ABV
Price : £28
Colour : Deep Gold
Nose : Toffee, wax polish, cream soda, marshmallow
Palate : Watered honey, cream soda with a little bitter lemon
Finish : Spicy with a kick, juice from a pickled egg jar?
Overall : So my 2nd Bourbon, this one was 65% Rye, 23% Corn and 12% Barley matured in a cask which has had an Alligator #4 char.
Link : Wild Turkey Rye

Overall : A really interesting evening of sampling - thanks to @GlenGrant and @WildTurkey for the drams, @TheWhiskyWire for organising and all the Tweet Tasters who shared their thoughts on the night. My order of preference was the Glen Grant 12yo, Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon, Glen Grant 10yo and finally the Wild Turkey Rye.