The Top 18 iScotch Posts That Weren’t

In the course of running a blog, you lose shit. If, like me, you’re a photographer first and foremost, you don’t lose photos, but you do lose slips of paper. Especially when those slips of paper were last seen at some point in a late night analysis of the subjective qualities of grain-based intoxicants.

But, since I tend to do the photos weeks or months before I publish the review or even taste the stuff, I have a gathering folder farm of photos for articles that never happened. So, in the finest BattleScotch! or Round 2 iScotch tradition of wringing out as much content as possible, here’s some of our digital leftovers, in no particular order:

1. Calem PortGoran and I were going to branch out into wines and the like, and my parents gave me this Calem Port set. We tasted a few of the samples after whisky a few times, but we never finished the review, and grape-based products haven’t made it into our rotation. Yet?

2. Super BlenderScotch! Royale

We have reviewed each of these already: Te Bheag, Old Masters, Islay Mist Peated, Black Bottle & Black Grouse. And we’ve BattleScotched some of these against each other. I took a box of blends to Dan’s place for a party but we ended up just having a good time and not taking any notes.

3. Innis & Gunn Sneak Peek 1

We’re known Innis & Gunn fans here at iScotch, so I always grab whatever sampler/collection they’ve made available in Ontario. Usually specifically to get one or more new flavours, and whatever swag comes in the box. I’ll sometimes post a shot like this as a teaser on a Tuesday for that week’s review, but sometimes those posts don’t go out.

4. Innis & Gunn Highland Cask

AKA the reason for purchasing the above Innis & Gunn sampler, and likely the reason neither photo got used – I straight up lost the review notes for this one. Doubly annoying because they haven’t made this one available since. To my best accounting it’s our only review gap in their line.

5. Trafalgar Mead Braggot

We were only ever a scotch-only blog for about ten minutes at the beginning. We branched out early and often, with beer being an obvious and delicious place to go. In exploring beers, we developed and understanding of the different kinds, why they’re different and what they mean. We’ve also traipsed across a couple continents of craft beers as well. So why didn’t we publish this? I think Ryan got tired of waiting for me to want to drink mead and drank it himself.

6. BattleScotch! Black Grouse Alpha Edition v Famous Jubilee

Let’s hear it for iterative content derivation. There’s the Famous Grouse, Black Grouse, Famous Jubilee and Black Grouse Alpha Edition that we’ve tried. And then BattleScotched! Black Grouse v Famous Jubilee. This was next in the rotation, but as you can see from that line in the FJ bottle, we were running out, and this contest simply never happened.

7. BattleScotch! McClelland’s Highland v Deanston Un-Chill Filtered

So… I didn’t particularly care for the Deanston, but we did like McClelland’s Highland, although since then Matt swears vociferously that McClelland’s is now too expensive for the quality. This probably wasn’t going to be a great BattleScotch! but it had a good picture.

8. BattleBourbon! Bulleit v Fighting Cock

I can tell you right now, I’d give it to Fighting Cock over Bulleit. We BattleScotched Fighting Cock against Jim Beam Black and it won handily. I imagine this contest never happened because the FC didn’t last very long.

9. Round 2: Labrot & Graham
This one we may get around to doing again, but this photo is meh. The original review has a much better one.

10. BattleScotch! McClelland v McClelland
We did a lot of McClelland’s for a while, back when it was cheap and relatively good. As I say above, Matt’s contention is that with the recent price hike and quality drop, it’s not worth the money. YMMV

11. Innis & Gunn Sampler 2
Same as Innis & Gunn Sampler 1, I just never ended up posting this. I used this set up for the two flavours from this sampler that we reviewed, and they looked pretty good.

12. Round 2: Innis & Gunn Cherrywood
We tried this the year before, and it was good. So the second time around I ended up just drinking them.

13. Broker’s Gin
For the life of me I can’t remember what happened to this bottle of gin. We’re gin drinkers here, and I don’t think this was terrible. In fact, I think mum likes it. But I have no notes on it and no recollection of anything about it other than the funny bowler hat on the bottle.

14. CrappleCrap! Honey Garbage v Honey Vomit
At some point you just have to stop doing bad things to yourself.

15. Round 2: Steel & Oak Smoked Hefenweizer
An excellent beer, and I’m glad I got to have it again. So glad, I didn’t take notes. Plus while it had been a year and a half, and the minimum gap for a Round 2 is just one year, well, it didn’t feel like it. Sorry.

16. Young’s Double Chocolate Stout
This is another one that will make it to the site eventually, with a better photo and more people on the review. I think I ended up drinking this by myself when I poured it for this photo, as it had been in the fridge for a while and no one seemed interested in reviewing it. We’ll get back to it.

17. Round 2: Tullamore DEW
Another failed Round 2. This time, I think the bottle went to a party for some friends who were leaving. Something getting slotted for a Round 2 does usually push it’s availability up and priority down, so that seems reasonable. Besides, our main take away the first time was that it just isn’t as good as Bushmills.

18. Powers Irish Whiskey
Not many real reviews slipped through the cracks, but this was one of them. I don’t think I even got to try this, just grabbed a photo of it at Dan’s place and it was gone before the next time I saw him. In his defense, I’m a bit of a shut-in at times. Gotta stop that, keep missing out on whisk(e)y.