Here at iScotch we’d like to wish you all a very happy holidays, merry Christmas, festive Kwanzaa, chappy Chanukah, feisty Festivus or an unrelenting Yule. Oh yeah and a happy drunken New Year’s. This is the last Saturday in December, the last Saturday of 2019, indeed the last Saturday of the decade, and it marks […]
Interesting story on this one. Crown Royal released the bottle as Bourbon Mash (seen here because we got the hookup), a Canadian whisky made in Canada using a typical Bourbon mashbill. And since a Scottish Rye would still be Scottish, it got approved etc and sent out to market. However, because of the prominent Bourbon […]
Video Review! Bearface is a somehow new 7y Canadian whiskey. I’m being facetious – you can do that by buying other people’s at least 7y whisky. It looks like this company buys, blends and barrels, but I can’t tell exactly how much they do from their very internet website. Said very internet website has […]
A recent very excellent birth day present, two tickets to Whiskey Ottawa, thanks Hillary! A massive event with a good 3-400 people and looooots of different whiskeys and whiskies. So much scotch, such tiny glasses. For the sake of it not taking half a year to publish, and because the notes are short and get […]
After doing a bunch of these reviews (like… a bunch), you can sort of perceive bigger trends. Like how for a bourbon, you need either a year or a cork, and preferably both. How Irish whiskey is the best value for flavour, but Canadian is what you buy if you’re mixing. One thing we’ve noticed […]
Another Video BattleScotch! Okay so those were… weird. Which of Alabama’s Official State Spirit did the iSiLive team prefer? Here’s the chart: nose Simon – Bourbon Bengt – Alabama Style Whiskey Brad – Bourbon Chris – Alabama Style Whiskey neat Simon – Bourbon Bengt – Alabama Style Whiskey Brad – Alabama Style Whiskey Chris […]
VIDEO! VIDEO! VIDEO! Clyde Who? Straight What? Bourbon… from where? ANSWER: Clyde May’s Straight Bourbon from Alabama. What do those things mean again? Bourbon: from America, with 51% corn in the original mash. Straight Bourbon: from America, with 51% corn in the mash, in new charred barrels, minimum two years, within a specific abv range […]
I was down in the states visiting family and friends, and we stopped in a small (giant) liquor store in… I would say Massachusetts if I don’t know how to spell it. But yeah, a liquor store discovery in the greenest depths of Northern America (which is the middle of North America) – Clyde May’s […]
Dominion City Brewing in Ottawa does a lot of interesting stuff, but Davey and I couldn’t agree on whether this was one of them. As stouts go, it’s great for people who don’t like stouts. Whether it’s for you is yours to discover, here’s what we thought: nose Davey – 70% dark chocolate, acai Simon […]
Quick review this week, Wild Turkey Longbranch Bourbon! Small batch bourbon made with weird woods! How much do you trust the “small batch” label from a large distiller tho? I dunno. Here’s what we thought: nose Davey – spicy tomato sauce Simon – caramel pie crust, sweet corn, bbq, candy necklace candy neat Davey – […]
This one is going to be a very short review. We had this beer with Christmas dinner (not quite 6 months ago), so we weren’t able to take traditional notes. I was hoping for something that might cut the savoury with enough structure and flavours of its own to compete. The Collective Arts Bourbon Barrel […]
It’s been an interesting spring, and May 2-4 weekend found yours truly ping-ponging around The Drive-Thru Province, traditional home of the Irving family, land of seafood, craft beer and more seafood, New Brunswick. My local fixer Hillary, political ninja and tour guide to the stars, planned several days of family and friends, seeing sights like […]
BattleScotch! Tomatin Second Edition. Or the TwoMaytin Edition. You know what that means! It means we’re almost done this month & can go back to our regularly scheduled random nonsense. This second edition pitted the 12y v 14y v Cask Strength, here are the results: nose Dan – 14y Simon – 14y neat Dan – […]
May is Twomatin month, or the second Tomatin month, which I guess we could have also called ToMaytin now that I think about it a little bit longer. No worries, they’re both terrible names but this we’ve been doing this thing a while so. TOMATIN! Previously seen in: The 12y Spanish Sherry, the 15y, and […]
Aw yeah, another whole month with the same whisky, and a second time! May is Tomatin Month 2, come on back every Saturday for the same superficial analysis and redundant flavour words you’ve come to expect from your ninth-favourite bastion of GenX halfassery: iScotch. #tasteslikewhisky
Another Heaven Hill bourbon to add to the wall – Larceny Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. You know what’s cool? Crime. Crime is cool. Name things after crimes. This bourbon’s distinction is that it swaps rye for wheat in the mash – bourbon has to be 51% corn but the other 49% can be any other […]
Most completistisming going one here. We had the VP01. So therefore we must have Innis & Gunn’s Vanishing Point VP02 or how will we know.. anything? How will we know we even exist unless we experience two similar things and observe their subjective differences over linear time? I ASK YOU. Last year’s beer was only […]
This one’s going to be a little messy. Steph, Dan & I reviewed the Founder’s Original – Dan discovered he does not like Old Fashioneds and bowed out of the Barchef review – fair dinkum. Steph suggested we have some people by – these things are made for parties. So we invited some interesting Ottawa […]
A border-crossing friend snagged this.. um.. testament to budgetary discretion. Dr James Crow’s Old Crow Kentucky Bourbon is available at Duty Free shops and still manages to only be $8usd. Which is made further amazing when you find out that it’s the same mash as Jim Beam, just aged less. That’s a little shocking. Other […]
Innis & Gunn are known for trying stuff, different combinations, interpretations etc. They’ve launched a new line called Vanishing Point, which is: the point at which the skills and passion of our brewers converge with our ambitions to create exceptional beers that define us as a company. Which is guess is cool as long as […]
A new budget bourbon appeared on the shelf at the LCBO and we had to try it. Weller Special Reserve, The Original Wheated Bourbon. Despite being “wheated” (which sounds like a Saskatchewan hazing ritual), this is still marked as a Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. The requirements for KSBW are just that the mash be 51% […]
Knob Creek, purveyors of fine Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. This is their Single Barrel Reserve, aged nine years and bottle at 60%. It’s not often a distiller can pull off a high-powered whiskey without a lot of collateral damage in the flavour and face burning departments, but Knob Creek manages to do it and still […]
This week’s bottle is Jim Beam Bonded, courtesy of Dan’s Laura. Thanks, Laura! Bonded is a whiskey term we’ve seen before. To jog your memories, the whiskey meets an external government standard – the product of one distillery in one distilling season, aged 4 years in a government facility, bottled at 100 proof. Why submit […]
Innis & Gunn Bourbon Cask Dark Ale! A potentially new bottle from the Holiday 4-Pack. Why potentially? Well, because we’re having another classic Innis & Gunn “have I had this before?” moment. We had the Irish Whiskey Finish/Cask discrepancy, and the (Winter) Treacle Porter pair, and now we have this Bourbon Cask Dark Ale v […]
