EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE THING – THE WHISKY SAMPLER. This time 5! FIVE! F!VE! whiskies! 4 new reviews, a Round 2! and a BattleScotch! The whole kajimmy! Stay tuned for Asyla, Hedonism, Spice Box, Oak Cross and The Peat Monster! November (and early December) is Compass Box Month at iScotch!
Beer from Belgium! I thought they were supposed to be good at this? Rodenbach is a brewery in Roeselare, a city in West Flanders, and we all know what Homer said about Flanders in… uh, the Odyssey, I think. The Vintage 2015 is a Flemish red-brown ale, in this case sour and aged in oak […]
I could’ve sworn we’d had a Pike Creek before, but a quick search for “creek” only pings Forty, Knob and Corner. So add another creek to the… uh.. pile? of creeks? Not creaks, creeks. This particular creek is where Pike Creek ages their whisky, in this case in Rum Casks. Altho the website only mentions […]
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 […]
Odd Society Wallflower Oaken Gin. 100% British Columbian grown gin, aged in oak barrels. A pretty interesting idea. One issue we see a lot with craft gins is the mash/swamp factor. That same sort of distillate distaste you get with tequila, moonshine and young whisky, and what is likely one of the reasons we age […]
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 […]
We’re in the middle of tornado recovery here in Ottawa, so this week’s review is limited by data plans and battery life. Which is fine because there isn’t too much to say about this product. I had thought that Maple3 Maple Water was basically maple syrup leftovers. When you make maple syrup you boil off the […]
Highland Park Magnus. Big dark bottle, cool.. uh.. dragon.. wolfy sort of logo. Classic Highland Park. And by “classic” Highland Park I mean this truism: the less you pay for Highland Park the better it is. And not just in that classic market economics sense. We’ve had a few Highland Parks at iScotch and we’ve […]
A new Nova Scotian whisk(e)y (the spelling is inconsistent across their website), I hadn’t heard of Glynnevan before Dan’s friend Matt brought a bottle over. The Glynnevan Double Barrelled Rye is a genuinely pan-Canadian whisky. Distilled “in the west” and then carted across the country to age next to the sea in the Maritimes. We’ve […]
Aw yiss. A classic of the form. One of the pantheon. A real… thing of the… stuff. Lagavulin 8y. We’ve had exactly one Lagavulin before because they are prized, rare and expensive. But if you want a true Islay and have had enough Bowmore, you should try Lagavulin at some point. It’s like an off-white […]
More ghosts of Christmases past! Woo hoo Christmas references in August! Glen Garioch Founder’s Reserve. Another wonky Scottish name, Garioch is now pronounced somewhere between Geery and Garyich, like a chubbier Gareth. Traditionally, it is pronounced GRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA with a nasal umlaut in the middle, and is screamed into the genitals of one’s defeated enemies. Glen […]
Flavoured whisky, man. Why do we keep doing this? Forty Creek Spike Honey Spice. It’s like honey only no not really. Not at all actually. It’s what a computer’s idea of a bee makes for honey. It’s what wasp honey probably tastes like. Like if honey was made from scorpions maybe. But this was a […]
Just a quick Round 2! for this glorious August weekend. Scotch doesn’t always feel like a summer drink, but on those cooler evenings in front of the grill or out in nature, it can be the right compliment. And when it’s as good as Dalwhinnie, all the better. Here’s what we thought: nose Dan – […]
Another border hop, another duty free… uh, find? Doesn’t seem like the right word here. This is like something out of Dungeons & Dragons, a ceramic jug of curses & concentrated goblin farts. Platte Valley 100% Straight Corn Whiskey. Straight in this case meaning distilled not higher than 80 proof and casked for a minimum […]
A Highland single malt from Bacardi by way of Dewar’s, from the Macduff Distillery: The Deveron 12y. This is one of three expressions launched in 2015, a new line from a newerish distillery that used to produce mostly for blends. Here’s what we thought: nose Dan – strawberry creamsicle, salt water, candied apple Simon – […]
Thornbridge Eldon Oak Infused Imperial Stout, a Dickensian(*) name to be sure. Thornbridge Brewery is in the UK and the names of their beers seem to indicate an affinity for literature and the arts. I can’t find the Eldon in their beerlist so I’ll have to assume this dark beer makes swarthy reference to the […]
A lovely Christmas present reviewed in the spring and finally published on one of the hottest days of the year. It’s hot. It’s real hot. You’d be excused by saying “Damn, dude, surely this is the kind of weather best suited for a refreshing gin review or some such” and I would agree with you, […]
Just a quick review this week. It has been hot as hell here for too long and I am up to my beer gut in chores that need doing. So in the name of both refreshment and productivity here’s Coffin Ridge Winery’s Forbidden Dry Cider. Here’s what I thought: nose – slight jolly rancher taste […]
The LCBO is still open and you can still go pick up party fuel for Canada Day tomorrow. With that in mind and in the vein of a public service announcement: don’t buy Liquormen’s Ol’ Dirty Whisky. Don’t do it to yourself, and don’t serve it to your friends. Canada Day is about coming together […]
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 […]
Once again, it’s been a while since we had a single malt scotch, the whisky after which the site is named. This happens, of course, because other whiskies, spirits & beers tend to be cheaper. Scotch still carries the whisky banner and therefore the price standard, even if Americans like to pay a lot for […]
Another big bottled, high abv, milestone-celebrating weird beer here, with a twist – it’s actually good! A lot of times these large format beers can be.. um.. challenging. A lot of hops to make big flavour can make something undrinkable or a lot of yeast to kick up the alcohol content can make things a […]
From just outside Prescott, here’s King’s Lock Craft Distillery‘s WhiskyJack Rye. 100% rye, same as their Prescott White Rye. “Aged on oak”, which doesn’t necessarily conjure images of barrels. If I spill moonshine on a hardwood floor and leave it for the weekend is that “aged on oak”? Possibly oak chips? Possibly some kind of […]
Man, am I a sucker for packaging. I think it stems from being a deeply superficial person, pun intended superficially. I will 100% cop to the gold label grabbing me on this one(*) – it hit the same button as those foil-wrapped “collector’s” cards when we were kids. If they ever put a hologram on […]
