Tag: Malt Whisky
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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 #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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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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Whiskey Wednesday: Islay Barley
When you think of whisky and what gives it it’s flavor what springs to mind? Is it the mashbill, the barrel type, the aging location and length? Chances are good terrior didn’t spring to mind but the team at Bruichladdich would like to change that. Bruichladdich is a distillery that blends history and modernity. Founded in 1881 […]
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Whiskey Wednesday: The Art of Kavalan
If the Scots are the craftsman of the whisky world, passing down tradition and technique year after year because it works, then the Japanese are the engineers, dissecting and reassembling each component part. The Taiwanese are the artists, free willing and experimental; it’s insane that we can even make that analogy because there is only […]
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Whiskey Wednesday: Compass Box Directions
There are things that I love and there are things that I intellectually love. There’s a Venn Diagram where these two worlds merge but the edges are blurry and unscientific. Compass Box falls squarely in the grey area of these circles. Over the past 17 years Compass Box has certainly marketed themselves as the hip, […]
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