Another Grouse, this time Naked – The Naked Grouse. Why Naked? Why not, exclaims the website nakedgrouse.com, which doesn’t appear to be part of the Famous Grouse site. In fact this IS a blended grain Grouse from 2011, relaunched as not-a-Grouse with a Grouse name for “older millennials” with only malt whiskies making the blend. […]
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 – […]
Here we go, third and final Twomatronic entry: Tomatin Cask Strength Bourbon & Sherry Casks! We’re in the home stretch now! Best part is even the Throwback Thursdays are stuck in a single brand month so shit’s real monotonous around here. Like, even more so than just the regular unrelenting procession of containers of alcohol. […]
Second bottle out of the box, second week of Twomatin – Tomatin 14y Port Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky. We’ve had a lot of Tomatins already so let’s just jump straight to the notes. Here’s what we thought: nose Dan – bright cherrywood, pepper, light pecan tart filling Simon – mushrooms, wood, soap 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 […]
And finally, as a last hurrah for the Glengoyne Discovery Gift Taste Sampler Set Collection we come to the traditional BattleScotch!, to be observed WITH the camelcase AND the punctuation as spelling. Because we’re from the goddamned future! ONWARD TO WAR, TINY BOTTLES! You have only one thing left to teach us – who is […]
I know, I know. It’s 4/20. It’s the first 4/20 since legalization. I was in a band with a song called four20. Where is the weed whisky or ihash.ca or whisky barrel aged weed (patent pending), right? This site is about subjective reviews of intoxicating substances, exclusively. Weed is in the same family as hops, […]
Our second swing at the Glengoyne Gift Collection is the 15y. Glengoyne suggest a rather elaborate range of flavours are present in this dram, I’m not so sure. The label details are also quite different and list different woods between the bottle and the website; is this marketing drift? Or distilling? Who knows! Summary: they […]
Glengoyne! A highland Single Malt Scotch that we’ve only seen a little of before. A quirk of geography puts the Glengoyne stills in the Highlands while the maturing happens all the way (across the street) in the Lowlands. Silly things happen when people draw lines on maps. Aged in sherry and bourbon casks, the 12 […]
The Continuing Weird Beer Adventures Of Innis & Gunn – Don’s Choice Black IPA with Coconut & Rhubarb. The definition of too many things – a barrel-aged black IPA with coconut & rhubarb which is the result of a “landslide” winning contest suggestion from a Canadian, the aforementioned Don. I think I know a hundred […]
This interestingly bottled novelty showed up just in time for the Holidays and seems to have disappeared pretty quickly afterwards. Magnum Scotch Cream Liquor – imagine Bailey’s but not gross. I know everyone loves Bailey’s and I have as well but it’s been too many times in too many nasty coffees and I just can’t […]
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 […]
Putting a new country on the board is always fun – Juraj Dobrila Single Barrel Malt Viski from Croatia! Thanks to Steph for checking a bag to bring this home. There’s not a lot online about this distillery or whisky – they have a Facebook page that suggests maybe it’s an offshoot from a winery. […]
When a lovely birthday present isn’t a lovely whisky – Thanks Steph! Caribou Crossing Single Barrel whisky – a birthday gift that has turned into a bit of a public service announcement. We’ve talked before about the Box Tax, well, this whisky makes you pay all the taxes. The Box Tax. The Swank Velvet Bag […]
Spicebox spiced whisky – “real prohibition rye whisky” marked “spices” to help smuggling. There’s a great story on their website that seems to have zero relationship with this product other than them calling it “real prohibition rye whisky”. Maybe this booze is specifically banned somewhere, otherwise I don’t understand how that works. Since spicing for […]
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 […]
Not every one has the time or budget to buy selections of tiny whiskies and write down their subjective impressions – no, as a busy working non-layabout mortal on the giggity-go, you need to know where the best bang for your whisky dollar is to be had! And that’s the sheer genius of the BattleScotch! […]
How many of these things are there? It’s like I’ve forgotten we ever reviewed anything else. NUMBER 5 – Compass Box Spice Tree, a veritable uh tree of I guess spices. Spice Tree apparently broke some rules when it first came out, using a system of inner staves of a different wood to achieve (or […]
Very quick review today because I’m late but that’s okay, we’ve had Compass Box’s Peat Monster before! Here’s our previous go-round with this boggy bugger, so we can jump right into what we thought this time – there’s a bit of drift between then and now: is it us? Is it the whisky? Did we […]
Compass Box Oak Cross – named for the American and French oaks used to re-age whiskies from three distilleries. I could go into more detail but sometimes too many things is too many things. nose Dan – oak, lime, pickling spice, sour cream? Simon – oak, tequila, mustard neat Dan – rough umami, weird […]
Compass Box Hedonism! Not the Jamaican sex holiday, but rather a scotch grain whisky blend. This is a multi-grain, multi-barrel concoction, whose website write up talks about “a certain enticing femininity” which sounds… i dunno, kinda gross, honestly. Whisky is cool and interesting but it suffers enough… genderizing already. It’s okay to tell the marketing department […]
Aw yiss let’s kick of Compass Box Month-And-A-Half here at iScotch – Asyla! A blended scotch meant as an everyday drinker, taken with splash. Unfortunately for anyone who did take them up on the daily driver option, this expression is no longer available because they can’t find the right source whiskies for the blend. Which is […]
Aww yeah ten and a half months later finally get to my Christmas present from Dan – Twelve Barrels Canadian Whisky. The story of this bottle is a little amazing. A high school bootlegger making prison wine under his bed in his parent’s home, pitches the story to distilleries all over the world, lands a […]
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 […]
