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 […]
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 – […]
