This is a Scotch Thread

Nimick said:
Today's single malt selection selection, The Bruichladdie, Moine Mohr 3D- 2nd edition. is a dram of wow. Increably complex from nose to finish, and very very peaty.
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Try the first edition "Peat Proposal" if you can find it. I believe it was bottled at 43% abv rather than the 50% of the Moine Mhor. Smoother and better balanced IMO. But, you are right, it is a very cool concept. Three high peat level malts of different ages bottled together. Waves and waves of peat. I love it when the peat comes together. :)

Jack
 
shaldag said:
Both of them are, in my opinion, overpriced, though for different reasons.
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Interesting thoughts. I appreciate the input. Neither 25 Y/O was in my price range, so it was unlikely I was going to be buying either bottle any time soon, but perhaps you've saved me quite a lot of money.

What about cask strength bottlings? BevMo, my biggest source of scotch, has cask strength bottlings from Bowmore, Laphroaig, Macallan, and the Aberlour A'Bunadh. They are all in roughly the same price range ($55-$70 for 750mL) but of course I imagine they are all completely different. Any experience with any of those?

I like the powerful flavors of Islay malts, in fact I think the Lagavulin 16 Y/O is the best scotch I've had so far, but I'd like to get something with more diverse flavor, and perhaps less smoke and peat. So far, I'm leaning heavily towards the Aberlour A'Bunadh, especially since reading a glowing review.
 
The A'Bunadh is definately one of the better Aberlours. It is not, however, one of my favorite distilleries.

If you can find offerings in cask strength, this opens up a world of possibilities.

If you want something with a nice flavor, perhaps you should try some Highland Park (distilled in the Orkney Islands). It is a very nice dram.

The latest offerings by Blackadder include some amazing offerings. One of the best is bottled under the distillery name "The Old Man of Hoy". This is again an Orkney whisky, and really a good one, whether you buy the cask strength version or not. The no-cask strength should be about the same price range of A'Bunadh.

The most distinct Islay whisky is Port Ellen. Very complex, not only peat, smoke, and iodine. If you can find any bottling at reasonable cost, I heartliy recommend it. I would have to say that this is my favorite whisky.
 
Steven Roos said:
I like the powerful flavors of Islay malts, in fact I think the Lagavulin 16 Y/O is the best scotch I've had so far, but I'd like to get something with more diverse flavor, and perhaps less smoke and peat.
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I have a preference for Lagavulin 16 year too - so much so that any Islay malt - although may be good - gets the "well, it ain't Lagavulin" prejudice.

If you want diversification - then try these other very highly regarded single malts at relatively reasonable prices -

Highland Park 12 year old -
still smokey, but sweeter, with hint of heather.
highlandpark12gz3.jpg


Macallan 12 year old -
classic well balanced Scotch with sherry nose.
macallan12br7.jpg


Both these do come in older ages - but more age does not always mean better - sometimes the right age matters more to get the right balance.

Please take a look at my earlier post #40 (link) to see comments about aging/maturity.

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Vincent,
sorry that I did not reply earlier to the aging comment.

While it is true that the availability of older whiskies is largely a recent phenomenon, this does not mean that it is not an improvement. There were many reasons for the fact that mostly younger ddrams were drunk in the past, and they were mostly economical--affordabilitty, and fear of being forced to pay excessive taxes, for excample.

In addition, many whiskies did go bad. I have opened a number of older whiskies and found them to taste "woody". For this reason, by the way, when purchasing a very old bottle, do some research. While that bottle may have value as part of a collection, it will not really be very good drinking whisky. On the other hand, I have tasted some 50+ year old whiskies, from oak casks without a touch of sherry, that were a real treat--I only wish that I could afford the bottles.
 
shaldag said:
While it is true that the availability of older whiskies is largely a recent phenomenon, this does not mean that it is not an improvement. There were many reasons for the fact that mostly younger ddrams were drunk in the past, and they were mostly economical--affordabilitty, and fear of being forced to pay excessive taxes, for excample.
For this reason, by the way, when purchasing a very old bottle, do some research.
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Thanks for the input - I knew I had read the bit about 12 years being the common maximum age of Scotch somewhere, but long time ago -
so I tried to find some reference to aging of Scotch on the web.

Although there appears to be a lot of stuff on Scotch on the web - the information was variable, and not much on actual period of aging -
just when I was about to give up - I found a reference to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society - which has sites by country - (hopefully this site can be regarded as reasonably authorative?)
- not on the UK site - but the USA site I found the link -

About the Whisky

about 1/3 down the page it says -

"The distillate is matured in oak casks for anything from five to fifty years, though most malt is bottled at around ten years old. There is general agreement that malt whisky is at its best at about that age, though it can continue to improve thereafter. Most however, does not, and there comes a point at which the whisky in cask begins to deteriorate. Once the whisky is bottled, it does not change, provided the bottle is kept sealed."

So generally 10 years is regarded as the optimum age -
although age can improve, note that they say "Most however, does not" -
this means that it would take some pretty careful maturation to get to 50 years (5x the "optimum") without deterioration........

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Well, and obviously neither age or price is a useful indicator if the 25 Y/O Macallan I see at BevMo for nearly $500 isn't worth the money as discussed previously in this thread.

I've got an 18 Y/O Macallan bottled for Trader Joe's. It is quite good and well worth the $45 I paid for it, but if I bought a bottle of their normal label 18 Y/O and it was the same thing, just three times more expensive I would be quite mad. Age alone can't tell you everything.
 
Steven Roos said:
Well, and obviously neither age or price is a useful indicator
Age alone can't tell you everything.
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Thanks for that input.

With the references I have read/seen about 10 years being the optimum and 12 years seemingly some sort of a maximum -
does make me somewhat dubious about Scotches matured much beyond the "optimum" (eg: 40 years past)

I am sure that some of the older aged Scotches are good/very good -
and with the fine reputations of the distilleries/houses these older Scotches must have some merit, and it isn't a scam or conspiracy to hoodwink the consumer -
however, I can't help being just a little suspcisious that older ages aren't there to appeal to the thought that if old is good so older must be better - and one should pay more for older age.......

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UnknownVT said:
however, I can't help being just a little suspcisious that older ages aren't there to appeal to the thought that if old is good so older must be better - and one should pay more for older age.......
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We'd be fooling ourselves to think that distilleries don't take marketing into consideration when bottling these very old vintages. However, if the finest scotch can be made in 10 years, is it honestly worth all the extra care and time to age the scotch for many times that? There has to be some basis for them to do all that extra work.
 
Steven Roos said:
It was on BevMo.com for the longest time, but now that I go to look it is gone! It was simply listed as Macallan 25 Year Old and the price was $469.99 + tax and shipping. Crazy!

EDIT: Found a Bowmore 34 Year Old for $700! :eek:
http://www.bevmo.com/productinfo.as...=1&D=bowmore&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=All
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The store I get most of my scotch has a fairly good stock on hand with some high prices such as Macallan 25yo $437.95, Macallan 30yo fine oak $679.95, Macallan 30yo sherry oak $799.95, and the Macallan Royal Marriage $2500-
Bruichladdich 40yo $2295.95 and a Black Bowmore 1964 $6000-
If you ever get out to the Van Nuys area of L.A. check out the Wine and Liquor depot they have a really good selection of scotch.
 
H2OCutter said:
The store I get most of my scotch has a fairly good stock on hand with some high prices such as Macallan 25yo $437.95, Macallan 30yo fine oak $679.95, Macallan 30yo sherry oak $799.95, and the Macallan Royal Marriage $2500-
Bruichladdich 40yo $2295.95 and a Black Bowmore 1964 $6000-
If you ever get out to the Van Nuys area of L.A. check out the Wine and Liquor depot they have a really good selection of scotch.
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Hopefully they have affordable stuff too! lol!
 
donovan said:
Try the first edition "Peat Proposal" if you can find it. I believe it was bottled at 43% abv rather than the 50% of the Moine Mhor. Smoother and better balanced IMO. But, you are right, it is a very cool concept. Three high peat level malts of different ages bottled together. Waves and waves of peat. I love it when the peat comes together. :)

Jack
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My boss was telling me that each succeeding edition will get more and more peaty, or at least that's the plan. It's supposed to top out with the 5th edition at twice as peaty as Lagavulin.

That's a lot of freakin' peat.

"excuse me sir may I chew on that peat log?"
 
The idea that a given age is optimal does not hold whisky--I mean water.

Whiskies are quite different, and age differently.I would even say that the majority of whiskies will be better at 15 than 10 years. Would they be "enought" better to justify the additional cost? Depends on how much better (varying with the whisky) and the consumer.

Regarding Bruichladdich. This was traditionally the non-peated islay, and the more subtle taste of iodine could come out more effectively. (I am only talking about the distillery since it's new ownership.) The distillery put out non-peated whisky. Their peated whiskies were cxasked as Port Charlotte. Becasue they decided to offer more peated whiskies, all of the Port Charlotte was used to bottle combined with the Bruichladdich. (Since it is the same distillery and master distiller, this is a single malt.)

For this reason, casks of Port Charlotte have been unavailable for the last couple of years.

On a human note: Islay is not a wealthy area. There are few sources of employment. Bruichladdich, when it reopened (all those fat bottles are from after the reopening) made it a point to employ only locals, and made it a particular point to employ as many handicapped people as it could. Nobody was sure that they could make a go of it. The master distiller, Jim McEwan, told me that when he tasted the first dram of the new whisky distilled after the reopening, and found it drinkable, he cried. Prior to that tasting, nobody was sure that it would work or that they would all have jobs, I believe him because he was crying when he told me.
 
The Macallan 25 was the very first dram of real Scotch whisky I had ever tasted. I'll admit it was an epiphany, and started me on a quest for more fine whiskies.

While I prefer the Islay types, I'll admit a fond rememberance of that Macallan 25 (at $75/dram, thankfully my company was buying).

I do agree that an older whisky has the potential to be better than a young(er) whisky, however some of my most favorites are young (Ardbeg Very Young comes to mind at 6 years old). Just because it's old doesn't necessarily mean you're going to like it. Certain hints of flavor come in at various ages and disappear as well.

You just have to start trying them all to see where your favorite tastes lie :)
 
This book -
156138519001sclzzzzzzzrt6.jpg

as shown in its 3rd Edition - 1994
Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers
3rd edition (September 1994)
ISBN-10: 1561385190
ISBN-13: 978-1561385195

is available on-line to read - at -

WhiskyWeb.com - Michael Jackson

The published book on paper is now in its 5th Edition -
Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch
by Michael Jackson
Hardcover: 448 pages
Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers; 5th edition (August 30, 2004)
ISBN: 0762413131
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches


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This just in:

Bruichladdich has just put out a new release:

The Port Charlotte 5 Y.O.
First Release from Bruichladdich
HEAVY PEATED Whisky


I have already reserved a bottle.
 
Steven Roos said:
Sad news, well known beer and whiskey critic and author Michael Jackson passed away last night in his London home.
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I, for one, am very saddened by this news -
his book "Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch" has more or less been my "bible" on Scotch since I first picked it up.

Every Scotch drinker should have a copy in their library.

RIP Mr. Jackson.

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