This one we’ve done before, so I’ll keep it brief this time around. First up out of the Johnnie Walker set is arguably my favourite, the 12y Black Label. The second from the bottom of the range, this holds with a lot of other blends and famous brands – it’s significantly better than the base […]
Finally. Seven months after purchase, we finally got around to tasting this set. A broad selection of Johnnie Walkers, as it turns out, is not appreciable better than a narrow one. But you can read about it. And maybe watch it if I get the video edited in time.
The Singleton 12y Dufftown Single Malt Scotch Whisky. A rogue’s smile and an upgraded ticket got me into the Air Canada lounge in Winnipeg (mostly the ticket), where I found this relic of a grandfather’s attic. Hung upside down in an airport lounge for who knows how long, it’s also been breathing for about 10 […]
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
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Haven’t had a good run from a good distiller in a long time, so coming up through September and October – The Dalmore. Grabbed this shwank sampler pack to give us 3 reviews, a Round 2 and a BattleScotch in classic iScotch form. Stay tuned for the 12y, the Gran Reserva, the 15y and the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
