Category: Malt
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Quarantine Bottle Kill #8: Kilchoman Sauternes Cask Matured (2016)
It feels like the quarantine weeks are quickly going up in smoke. That’s probably because half of the home bar is Islay Whisky right now. Is that a forced transition? You bet it is. I thoroughly enjoy heavily peated whisky. I often use Octomore as an example of just how good a Scotch Whisky can […]
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Quarantine Bottle Kill #5: Longrow Red 11 Year Cabernet Sauvignon Cask
Just because we’re in quarantine doesn’t mean that there can’t be a theme. Aside from sparking joy by eliminating bottles from the booze cart that is. So next up on the quarantine bottle list is the cousin to the last, the Longrow 11 Year Red: Cabernet Sauvignon Cask. For all single malts produced in Scotland […]
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Quarantine Bottle Kill #3: Springbank 12 Year Cask Strength Burgundy
Springbank has always been a fascinating distillery to me. I intellectually love them. They are one of the last great Campbeltown distilleries. Located on Kintyre Peninsula, Campbeltown was once known as “the whisky capital of the world” with 28 distilleries packed into its borders. Today a measly three remain with one of them, Glengyle which […]
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Whiskey Wednesday: Take Off of Taketsuru
Continuing this month’s conversation about Nikka comes the news that Nikka will be discontinuing the Taketsuru 17, 21, and 25 Year old expressions as of March of 2020. The Taketsuru line represents NIkka’s history. It pays homage to its founding father as well as combining the art of both of the company’s distinct distilleries. The loss of the Taketsuru line is the loss of a piece of history but it does open a future. Whisky, and in particular Japanese Whisky, is having an incredibly large moment. Bit even if whisky distilled 25 years ago is being depleted left and right the world, and the flavor, that whisky represents is gone. The challenge now is to find the way to create the spirit that fills the barrel to be bottled in 25 years while still keeping the lights on in the years between.
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Whiskey Wednesday: Nikka Days of Our Lives
I love a good story and Nikka Whisky certainly has a good story. A story of both an excellently crafted whiskey but also a phenomenal story in the life of the company’s founder, Masataka Taketsuru. The month of January is especially important to the story of Taketsuru and his redheaded Scottish wife, Rita. So, I thought I’d take some time and look at a few of Nikka’s offerings for the rest of January.
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Whiskey Wednesday: Teeling’s 24 Year Old Single Malt Award
*Updated with new facts because I sometimes don’t know everything.
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Whiskey Wednesday: The Old Bushmill’s Story
Irish Whiskey is my least favorite category of whiskey. To be fair that’s only because I think about Canadian Whisky so infrequently that I genuinely forget that it’s a thing. Yet, there are some true gems in the category. Redbreast should be a staple at any bar. Tyrconnell Madeira Cask is one of my favorites […]
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Whiskey Wednesday: Hitting Johnnie Green’s Stride
Johnnie Walker is a striding behemoth, straddling the world as the number one selling Scotch whisky brand. It’s so popular that “What makes Johnnie Walker Blue the best?” is a Google search autocomplete. It’s so popular that due to knockoffs and literal bootlegs there are more bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label sold in India every […]
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Open Bottle: Nineteen Eighty-Four JURA
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Released in 1949 George Orwell’s masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four often feels as alive and resonant as it must have when it was first published. Reading the headlines it feels like doublespeak, Big Brother, and New Speak have leapt from the lexicon of […]
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Open Bottle: Yamazaki 18 Year Single Malt Mizunara Cask
In today’s edition of things you’ll never get to taste: Yamazaki 50 Year Old! On Friday August 17th 2018 a bottle of 1st edition Yamazaki 50 Year Old, one of only 50 bottles to exist, sold at auction for $312, 519.87. This is now the most expensive bottle of Japanese whisky ever sold at auction, beating the […]
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