discerning drunks classy alcoholics
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 –
Here’s one we’d been missing for a while, one that had escaped the LCBO before we had a chance to try it. Good old Cloud 9 in Alberta comes through again with Strathisla 12y single malt Scotch. The oldest continuously operating distillery in Scotland, this Speyside scotch is the backbone and principle whisky of the
Continue Reading “Strathisla 12y Single Malt Scotch with Dan”
It’s Dad’s birthday and he’s gone to the liquor cabinet and pulled out this Glenfiddich 12y Special Reserve. We’ve had a 12y Glenfiddich before, but it’s not clear if this is the same stuff. I know for sure this bottle pre-dates my drinking whisky. Dad received this as a gift from a close friend when my
Well, you knew this was going to happen, of course. It’s not a brand sampler without a BattleScotch to tell you which is worth your time or money. Always a little tricky with the tiny bottles, but when it comes to ranking Glenfarclii, here’s what we thought: nose Dan – 12y Simon – 10y Bowick
Continue Reading “BattleScotch! Glenfarclas with Dan & Bowick”
Alright, the last of the Glenfarclii, the 12y. We can jump right to the notes, here’s what we thought: nose Dan – old banana, salty baked bread, fresh fudge Simon – old candies, cereal, smoked fish Bowick – coffee, wheat neat Dan – spicy & salty, fried melon Simon – sting and spice, not
We haven’t done a BattleScotch in a long time, and this is the perfect set up. Since The Dalmore is so iterative, it will be interesting to see how their various finishes compare directly to each other. Here’s what we thought: nose Dan – 15y Simon – 15y Goran – 15y neat Dan – Gran
Continue Reading “BattleScotch! The Dalmore with Goran & Dan”
It has been a *long* time since our last Dalmore – fully four and a half years now. A Round 2 of the 15y is up next week, but this week it’s the first of the Dalmore Vial Sampler – The Dalmore 12y! The Dalmore claims history all the way back to 1263 – a
As this project has gone on, we’ve found a unique kind of satisfaction in checking off another expression of a brand we’ve enjoyed before. The completist’s high, the collector’s sense of progress. This isn’t that. Dewar’s 12y comes in a fantastically designed bottle & sleeve combination that I think is a nod to Compass Box and what
Continue Reading “Dewar’s 12y Ancestor Blend with Dan, Davey, Matt & Steve”
Welcome to 2016 and THE FUTURE! It’s a leap year and I hear there may even be a new iPhone this year. Marvelous time, this future. What better way to kick off the new year, our 6th calendar year of domain registration (even if maybe the first couple months there was nothing here), than with a
Continue Reading “Cardhu 12y with Steve, Goran, Julia, Dan & Matt”
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays everybody! Just posting a quick Round 2! review today because hey, it’s the holidays, guys. Here’s our previous review of The Glenlivet 12y. Next week we’ll start the year off with a couple of classic scotches as well as some Christmas gift reviews. Keep your stick on the ice; here’s
BattleScotch! Tomatin Stillmen’s Choice Edition! Aw yeah aw yeah! It wouldn’t be a reasonably priced selection of delicious single malt scotches without us wringing one more post out of it. In the review of the 18y article, I went into some detail about why older scotch may not necessarily tasting “better”. If you’d like to read more
Continue Reading “BattleScotch! Tomatin Spanish Sherry 12y v 15y v Oloroso 18y with Dan”
Welcome to Tomatin Month at iScotch. What? you say. Is this some kind of sponsorship jam? Nope! Just found this sampler at the liquor store in the Calgary airport and Dan & I rattled off three reviews and a BattleScotch in an evening. So here we go! Up first we have the Tomatin Spanish Sherry
Okay… This is a head-scratcher. This might technically be a Round 2, but it’s hard to say. We’ve had Gibson’s Finest 12y before, but it didn’t have the word “Rare” on it, and the LCBO lists the Finest 12y and the Finest Rare 12y as separate listings. But the Gibson’s website lists their “Rare” as 18y, while
If you’re a long time reader, you know we’ve churned through a not-small number of bottles here at iScotch. Cost and availability are really our only limiters; we’re more than happy to try anything that could have any tangential relationship to whisk(e)y – beers, gins, flavoureds, heck we’ve even been thinking about adding rums, wines
A return to a favourite. Bowmore 12y has long been one of our favourites, one of the few scotches I’ve bought more than once. This particular bottle comes from Goran’s collection. We have had the Bowmore 12y before, as well as several others, but the last review was about 60 words long, hence this Round
Part one of our Drank Myself Budget Unconscious series, Gibson’s Finest 12y. And we’ve managed to stay one rung off the bottom here, because at almost $2.00 more than the Sterling per 750ml, this is the second tier offering from Gibson’s. Gibson’s is owned by Grant’s from Scotland, and was known for it’s rye in
Continue Reading “Gibson’s Finest 12y with Dan, Ryan & Goran”
The classic Christmas cadieux, the boozy boxed set. Thanks Ryan! Canadian Club gets a bit of a bad rap, one we tried to address with our review about the Premium. Unfortunately, this particular numbered-C12-057-for-some-reason Classic misses the mark fairly significantly. Canadian Club is one of those brands that gets named drop when trying to establish
Continue Reading “Canadian Club Small Batch Classic 12y with Goran & Ryan”
It’s the Highland v Lowland 12y scotches that start with ‘A’ BattleScotch! We haven’t had a lot of lowlands and don’t have a full impression of the regional qualities yet, but this little contest helped a bit, highlighting the differences. Here’s what we thought: smell Ryan – anCnoc 12y Simon – anCnoc 12y Goran –
Continue Reading “BattleScotch! anCnoc 12y v Auchentoshan 12y with Ryan, Goran & Bowick”
You knew it was going to happen. You knew as soon as you saw us review the second Glenlivet, you knew “they’re gonna BattleScotch! the 12y and the 15y, I know it”. You knew that. That’s okay. You can own that, bro. Good looking out. We can keep this one short, this is as straightforward
Just a quick wee bonus review to wrap up our great night at the Highlander Pub. Once we crashed through all The Glenrothes, we wanted a little sipper to taste while we waited for our food. Price is always a concern when eating at a resto you’ve already bought $200 worth of scotch at so
BattleScotch! Highland Park stablemates 10y and 12y duke it out in the opposite of last BattleScotch’s Terrible Bourbon-Off event! Because we had to wash that taste out of our mouths somehow. Wait, wasn’t Terrbl Borbanov the Chancellor of the Politburo? Probably. Anyway, he’s how it went down: smell Goran – 12y Ryan – 12y Simon
Continue Reading “BattleScotch! Highland Park 10y v Highland Park 12y with Ryan & Goran”
Sounds German, tastes Scottish. A quick Google for “etymology auchentoshan” reveals it’s just very old Gaelic from a branch that hasn’t made its way into common Scots English. Apparently this is both “the Glasgow whisky” AND “the breakfast whisky” which leads me to believe a Glasgow brunch is a good place to get punched in
BATTLESCOTCH AT A SCOTCHPARTY. THE BATTLE OF THE GLENS. Sorry for the shouting. We pitted The Glendronach 12y Original against The Glenrothes Select Reserve literally because they both have Glen in the name – The GlenDronach is an aged expression Highlander and The Glenrothes is a non-specific Speysider, so it really was the only axis
So, we had a little get-together. Everyone brought a bottle. We did our level best to properly review all of them. Seriously, we really really tried. A part of the BenRiach brand, GlenDronach is one of the deepest red scotches I’ve ever seen, and since we tasted this one towards the beginning of the night,
It’s pronounced a-nock. Steph picked this up for me in Montreal, and it’s one that’s been on the to-try list for a while. We also got to verify the consistency of our tasting experience by staging this over three tastings – me, Goran and Ryan, then Dan, then Steph. The consistency was a nice affirmation.
A fine blend. Chivas Regal 12y is the bottom of the line entry from Chivas, a blender that also offers 18y and 21y blended expressions. They appear to be based out of the Strathisla Distillery, which makes me think there’s a good reason for that, likely making up a significant portion of the blend. But
Continue Reading “Chivas Regal 12y Blended Scotch Whisky with Dan & Ryan”
We need to start with a bit of a come-clean about Johnnie Walker. None of us get it. We don’t get why JW is considered a great drink, let alone why it has the prestige it does. This is the second Label we’ve tried and we still don’t. smell Simon – honey, toffee, maple, smoke
Continue Reading “Johnnie Walker Black Label 12y with Goran & Ryan”
The Glenlivet. Another fairly glaring absence from our testing roles, finally remedied! The Glenlivet is an elder, storied distillery. I would tell you more about it but I can’t type their tag lines like “a tale of single-minded determination and irrepressible spirit” and still respect myself, so go check out their website. They have videos
Okay. Last of the Glenmorangies. Pretty sick of typing Glenmorangie. Only 5 minutes left to get this post up so here goes. Lasanta aged in sherry casks. Which means I probably won’t like it. And I didn’t. smell dan – burn, thick church wine, molasses, grape simon – cocoa, grape, pear neat dan – no
The next sampler out of the Glenmorangie Discovery Pack is the 12y Nectar d’Or, aged in Sauternes casks. What is Sauternes? you might ask. Totally legit, so did I. Sauternes is a sweet french wine, from some specific region of France and, interestingly, afflicted with a specific blight. Botrytis Cinerea causes noble rot, which partially
There’s only so much you can write about one scotch distiller and I feel like I’ve covered anything worth mentioning in the last two posts, so instead I thought I’d write about what Quinta Ruban is. According to Google, it’s this scotch expression aged in port casks. Wahwah. So, okay, that’s kind of predictable. I
This was a great get. For the cost of a bottle of Glenmorangie Original 10y, you get a bottle of Glenmorangie Original 10y, with three other scotches to try, each aged an additional 2 years in different kinds of casks. The Quinta Ruban 12y is aged in port casks, the Nectar d’Or 12y in sauternes
Just a quick review of a surprise scotch I wasn’t expecting to get to try! Had a great dinner with some friends and after some lovely seafood and salad, the host pulled out this little gem of a Bruichladdich. And to add to a great night with great people – they don’t make this scotch
This is a bit of a finally for me. I’ve had about four bottles of this and haven’t gotten around to writing a review. It’s like going to a sci fi blog and there’s a obvious lack of Star Wars articles. Glenfiddich is a huge brand, consisting of over 20 different lines of whisky. The
Another case of a splash of water making all the difference. And it’s another case of a slightly overproofed spirit. It’s possible that my tongue has become accustomed to the 40-43% abv range and anything over that, while fun to drink for other reasons, is simply too overpowering for a true tasting. Anyway, Elijah Wood
Continue Reading “Elijah Craig 12y Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey with Dan & Alex”
The unpronounceable Caol Ila (allegedly either ‘cool eye-la’ or ‘cull eela’ depending where you look) is another Malts.com brand, the web presence that covers Talisker, Dalwhinnie, Oban, Lagavulin and a host of other top-end scotches. Their website is a little confusing, in that they show six different bottles but only detail four, while the LCBO
Fun in bite sized form. Picked up this kit from Bowmore a few months ago and am finally getting around to reviewing it. As you can see, this Collection includes everyone’s favourite 12y, the 15y Darkest (sherry finish) and the 18y. Reviews for the 15y and 18y will be forthcoming in the next few days.
I had tried the Cragganmore previously on a drinking night with NG, but I lost my notes in a scuffle later that evening. It came as part of the Classic Malts Strong Collection and I invited Vanni & Jono for a taste. Neat: Jono – smooth & sweet all the way down. Vanni – subtle,
Picked up the Classic Malts (the Malts.com people) Strong Collection, featuring wee bottles of Cragganmore 12y, Talisker 10y and Lagavulin 16y. I’ve reviewed the Talisker previously, but reviews for the other two will be up shortly. Classic Malts Strong Collection – 40%, 43% & 45.8% 3x200ml – $54.95 – Islay, Islands & Speyside
I grabbed this and the next bottle of something called “Irish Whiskey” for St Patrick’s day when we threw a little impromptu get together. My work ethic being what it is its taken me until now to write down some notes. So, obviously, this is not scotch, this is irish whiskey. Its a pressed malt,
Yay for surprise scotch presents! Katherine grabbed this for me a few weeks ago so obviously I had to get her help for the review. You may recognize MacAllan as the scotch Joel McHale/Jeff Winger drinks on Community/The Today Show, apparently. Asking for ‘a” MacAllan is a bit like rolling into Boston and asking for
I should come clean on this one before I go any further – after Taliskers, Bowmore is my favourite scotch. If you want to drink single malt scotch on a budget, you literally can’t beat this. I got my first bottle as a birthday present from my friend Jono – I’m now at the bottom
3rd round, Whisky Cafe. Time to get weird. We tried the Nikka Taketsuru 12y Pure Malt Whisky, Japan’s equivalent of a blend of single malts. This was unlike any whisky I’ve had so far – almost as smooth as a liquor, clear tasting for such a dark drink. Me: smooth, clean, comfortable Katherine: light, fruity,
Continue Reading “Nikka Taketsuru 12y Pure Malt with Katherine at the Whisky Cafe”
So, I don’t know if you know this, but when you make homemade caramel corn as Katherine awesomely does, its actually kind of an interesting chemistry thing. You basically boil sugar in butter to caramelize it without burning, then add vanilla extract, typically alcohol-based, that reacts with the whole mess to help it dry chewy
Once again, I should start by copping to the fact I already like this scotch. I’m still working my way through my own collection, and I tend to give away bottles I don’t like (screw you, Laphroaig Small Cask, you taste like compost) so a lot of these first reviews will be for whiskys that
