Monthly Archives: May 2012

GWC Round The Barrel Night @ The Bon Accord – 29/05/2012

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Time for a new notebook, thanks to Highland Park for this one!

I think you could probably work out what kind of mood I’m in by my writing style, sometimes I find myself being straight to the point – here’s what I tasted, here’s what I think of them, other times I go off on a tangent, I think tonight may be one of the later although I’m getting tired and I’m still kinda working (had to wait for a few GB of data to copy over to setup a new profile for someone so now I have a Russian doll type thing going with remote sessions that’s starting to make me feel dizzy).

As usual I’m going to pimp my other blog post over at Glasgow’s Whisky Club blog before I get started on mine. As I mentioned in my other post whisky season really starts to be kicking off, Springbank last week, I was at this tasting on Tuesday, I was taking part in The English Whisky Co twitter tasting last night with The Whisky Wire (going to revisit them and do a post on them when I get the chance), I’m off to the Good Spirits Company tomorrow night for their first birthday bash and then I have at least five other tastings to go to in June, it’s going to be an awesome month!

There are often nights I really don’t want to leave, this was another one of them and I didn’t until that bell rang to tell me to go home as I had work in the morning. As I said in my other blog post there was quite a small turn out due to the Islay festival, this meant a lot more whisky for us which is a great thing. The club’s got quite a bit bigger since I joined so having any trace of whisky left in the bottles at the end of the night is becoming increasingly rare so a night where you can revisit any of the drams makes me feel nostalgic.

Robbie Douglas – Single Grain 21 Year Old North British Distillery – 56.8% ABV
 I love this dram, I brought a sample of this to our last club night, it was extremely popular with those I shared it with, so we had to buy a bottle! I’ve done a full write up of this bottle here which still nicely sums up my feelings towards this dram.

Duncan Taylor – The Octave – 32 Year Old Cameronbridge Grain – 50.8% ABV – Bottled Exclusively for Wholefoods
For those who don’t know, Wholefoods is an extremely expensive, organicy (not sure if they’re 100% organic hence the y), healthy supermarket with a pretty decent booze selection although again, they’re very expensive. The first Wholefoods in Scotland recently opened up not far from me, they had a small sherry octave sitting on their bar (refilling wine bottles etc. is good for the environment) with a flashing neon sign saying “Sniff my bung hole!” (I may have imagined that bit). Since visiting it for the first time and seeing the octave and their bottles of 32 year old grain whisky I’ve wanted to try some, but it was a bit out of my price range for a dram I’d never tasted. The octave yielded just 66 bottles, they still have a decent amount of them left, if I had the money to spare I’d buy a bottle, but there are bottles I’d much rather for the price.
I really liked this dram, the nose isn’t that impressive, it’s obviously old, woody, but it has those emulsion notes often associated with grain whiskies. Onto the palate there’s a lot more there, stewed plums, spicy, freshly roasted dark coffee, lots of coffee! dark chocolate, figs, burnt toffee, lots of wood, pencil shavings, polish and old furniture. I went back to it a little later after leaving it with some water and it went a lot more fruity, I was getting melon and papaya with maybe a hint of celery.

Berrys’ 11 Year Old North British Grain – 46% ABV
Another single cask grain offering, this time from Berry Bros & Rudd. This was an interesting dram, but not really to my tastes, the nose was actually really harsh and sharp with too much emulsion, again the taste was a bit too rough for me, despite this being stronger than the previous two drams it tasted a lot stronger despite only being 46% ABV. This would be a good one to give to someone who says all whisky tastes a like – this doesn’t taste like whisky! It actually tastes pretty young, tasted of bananas and reminded me of the really cheap fudge you’d get in a pick ‘n’ mix that had been sitting in a jar or tub for months or years, maybe also of cheap highland toffee knock offs, but I guess there’s not a massive difference between to two. I found this dram extremely metallic, lots of copper there like it had taken a layer of the still to the cask with it, it did soften up with water after being left for quite a while and became rather fruity, lots of raisins and fruit cake. I think this dram’s an excellent indication on why most grain whiskies normally get at least 20 years in a cask before bottling, I like this bottle as an educational piece and as a curiosity, but not something I’d sit and drink.

The GlenDronach PX Single Cask – 1995 – 15 Year Old – 56.2% ABV
Not the first time trying this one and I find myself wondering why I didn’t buy a bottle after the first time, I love this stuff! I didn’t write a lot of notes about this one as I was too busy drinking it! Very spicy and fruity, there was some sort of fizzy drink quality about it, maybe cola or cream soda, I couldn’t quite put a name to it, lots of cherries and raisins, xmas pudding, very warming – I wanted to cuddle this whisky! Butterscotch, some light tannin notes and chocolatey. This one is going on my to buy list if it’s still available!

Ardbeg Corryvreckan – 57.1% ABV
Named after the third largest whirlpool in the world and something, something, something (getting lazy now!) The Ardbeg Corryvreckan lives up to it’s name or something like that. I love this whisky, this was one of the first “expensive” whiskies I tried and it was the first one over £50 I bought, I taste something different every time I try it. I didn’t write all that much about this dram, I was too busy finishing the last and looking forward to the next one so I think I’ll come back another day and do a post dedicated to this dram as I really do love it, I’m just getting sleepy!

Laphroaig PX – 48% ABV
Travel retail only, I hate it! I touched on this a bit in my other post, but I end up wanting whiskies more just because they’re not readily available. I’ve not travelled much by air recently which is probably why I hate it so much, I read about this Laphroaig a few months ago and I’ve been wanting to try it since, I love Laph’ and I love PX casks so obviously I was going to love this… Nah, I was a bit disappointed, which makes me hate travel retail all the more, I’ve had too long to build this dram up in my mind so when I finally get to try it my reaction was “is this it?”, maybe it was all the cask strength whiskies before hand so I’ve got a small sample to go back to later, but I really didn’t think there was much to this one. There was the obvious peat and smoke characters, but a lot subtler than you’d expect from Laphroaig, but so was everything else, some raisins, a little buttery, butterscotch and maybe a bit of vanilla, but not much else. I’m going to try this one again later and if my mind’s changed I’ll give it a post, but the verdict for a lot of us on the night was this was the triple wood gone wrong then covered up with a PX cask, sorry Laphroaig, I love you guys, but this was a bit of a let down.

Whisky Broker 21 Year Old Bunnahabhain Sherry Cask – 54.5% ABV
These next two are what I think of as an “under the table dram”, they come out of someone’s bag at some point during the night, if you’re sitting at the right table you might get to try some, but there’s not enough for every one I’m afraid! I’ve been meaning to place an order with Whisky Broker, but I never get around to it, I think this was my first time trying any of his bottles and it was quite interesting, fruity, grassy, tropical sherbet, pineapple and then suddenly it tastes extremely meaty, being a vegetarian from an early age I suck at putting names to different dead animals so it just becomes a generic meatiness, that coupled with the hint of sulphur I got that seems to be fairly common in sherry casks of this age I wasn’t too keen on this dram, but that’s not going to stop me placing an order with him.

Bruichladdich 10 Year Old Octomore Cask Sample – Probably somewhere between 60-65% ABV
I think I mentioned Islay earlier on, if not in this blog then on the other, but one or two of our members that turned up on Tuesday spent the weekend from Islay, a sample bottle of this stuff may have found it’s way from Islay to the Bon Accord in Glasgow and I’m glad it did! Before this I hadn’t actually had any of the Octomore range, I know them by reputation of course and I’m always a bit wary of whiskies that people rate in PPM thinking more automatically means better, I view them in the same way I view a lot of the crazy melt-your-face-off hot sauces you get out there, I’d much rather something milder with more character so I thought I know what to expect here, but I was wrong! The nose on this one was just TCP and more TCP, that’s all I got, but when I took my first sip I wondered what happened to the TCP, it was amazingly smooth, very dry, but sweet, lots of raisins, mixed dried fruit, red berries, menthol notes and then the smoke came, something like smoky bacon crisps at first then it turned to wood smoke and kept going and  going, this has to be one of the longest finishes I’ve ever come across, minutes later I was still tasting the smoke and wanting more! Sadly there wasn’t any more as it was just a small sample bottle and the gentleman who brought it along was kind enough to share it around quite a few of us.

I’ve hopefully got a lot more blog posts lined up over the next month if I can find the time, I’m going to a tasting tomorrow night and I need to get a post up about the English whisky, I was trying to type one up during the event last night, but due to PC problems it was lost (I have a habit of using notepad as my word processor) so it’ll mostly be my thoughts on the drams.

Springbank Open Day 2012 (Part 2) – The Distillery Tour – 24/05/2012

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This post is a follow on from Springbank Open Day 2012 – Part 1, read it first!

I’ve been on embarrassingly few distillery tours and I was really looking to this one as Springbank’s one of my favourite distilleries and that they’re one of the few distilleries still about that you can follow the entire process, from start to finish.

The maltings floor

How your whisky starts it's life

Whisky starts life as barley so that’s where the tour started, on the malting floor where not so local barley (although they do occasional use local barley) is spread across the floor inches thick in a manner that reminds me of a zen garden which made this whole distillery visit even more spiritual (Shut up! Don’t judge me! I’m a whisky geek, there’s something almost religious about a distillery visit!). The germination process is stopped with local peat from Machrihanish.

Where the malt's stored

The malt is then stored in massive steel containers under the malting floor, there are 10 of these in total, they keep track of the contents of these using a very high tech system which involves a sheet of MDF, a bit of wire and some chalk to keep track of which bin is full, which is empty and what kind of malt is in the bins (Longrow having spent the longest time coming into contact with the peat smoke).

Cutting edge technology at Springbank

Our tour guide (a former distillery worker) had fun asking who’s good with computers before showing off this system, as ended with at least 4 sets of eyes on me and maybe some pointing I decided to speak up, knowing Springbank I was expecting a paper and pen on a clipboard, but it’s good to know they’re more environmentally friendly.

The malt then goes to the malt mill which grinds it up to produce a fine greyish powder known as grist, it’s quite sweet and reminded me of digestive biscuits, but at the same time it’s rather peaty, the grist we got to taste was for Springbank, but our guide told us a story about a local lady who likes to make bread with their grist, but she prefers the much peatier Longrow grist.

The grist then goes to the mash tun where it’s mixed warm water and continuously stirred in a process called mashing which is done three times to produce wort.

Washback

The wort then goes into one of Springbank’s six washbacks where it’s mixed with yeast and left to ferment which after 70 hours produces a light beer like substance which we tasted and I actually found quite citrusy and refreshing, it still tasted quite “live” and yeasty so it’s not something you’d want to drink a lot of, but it wasn’t unpleasant like I was expecting it to be.

Quite a lot of distilleries are against people taking photos in their still houses, especially when they’re in production as they claim the flashes could ignite alcohol vapours, if this was true I wouldn’t be standing here as Springbank still use a live flame for their stills and they’ve yet to go up in flames. They were producing low wine while we were there, again we got to try this and despite being alcoholic it just tasted like salty, peaty water, not at all pleasant.

Low wine flowing

Work in progress...

Oxidised copper, yummy!

One of the things I really loved about this distillery tour is it’s a purely a working distillery, it’s no where near as polished and touristy as a lot of other distilleries out there, as we went through people were obviously hard at work and although there’ll have been some modernisation over the years everything’s still very much traditional.

From the still house we went onto the filling store, where we were greeted by a massive metal tank that’s normally full of new make. Not a massive amount to see in here, a cask waiting to be filled, a rusty funnel, some stencils hanging from the wall, an old wheel barrow containing some mallets and bungs.

Cask number 247 waiting to be filled

Very 80's

As you leave the filling store you walk past mountains of old casks along with some newer casks waiting to be filled, it’s a great site to see and I could spend ages walking amongst them taking photos and reading the cask ends. I believe Cadenhead share some of Springbanks bonded warehouses and also use their bottling plant (I may be wrong – not 100% on this) so walking amongst them you’ll see some casks that look rather out of place such as a 1976 cask from The Glenlivet distillery and a 1981 cask from Glenburgie.

A cask in the hoist

The bottling plant

Although it’s not part of the proper tour I got shown around the bottling plant by a member of staff, the casks when ready get poured into a massive vat which then goes through a filter to clean out sediment, splinters etc. from there it gets pumped into bottles on what’s pretty much a manual production line, each bottle will be manually corked, checked for defects or sediment in front of a light box before the cork’s sealed on, bottle’s labelled, checked again and then boxed. Those raised dots at the bottom of your bottle of Springbank allow the person putting the bottle in the label machine to ensure each label goes on the correct side. Any bottles found with defects, the wrong label etc. are poured back into the vat so they can go through the process again. The guy showing me around was saying if Springbank modernised the process most of the people on this production line would be out of a job.

2012 casks waiting to be filled

 The next day we woke up slightly worse for wear, but waking up to a beautiful day in a beautiful area makes a massive difference so I came back to life pretty quickly. After getting some breakfast the first stop was Cadenhead’s whisky shop which packed full of extremely reasonably priced single cask bottles, I left with a 14 Year Old Ardmore from a Bourbon Hogshead (which I’m sure will warrant a post later) and a Springbank Glencairn.

About all of Glen Scotia we seen

My friend Scott had emailed Glen Scotia to ask about a tour a few days before we left, but he didn’t get a response, we went for a look anyway, but it was closed, someone who seemed to be leaving the distillery informed us that they close at 10am on Fridays so I had to settle for taking some cask shots through the chain link fence.

A now dead distillery

You can just make out "distiller" over the arch way

Not sure if this was ever one - it looked slightly distillery like

Campbeltown currently has three working distilleries, but at one point it had 34 and called it’s self the “whisky capital of the world”, traces of it’s past can be seen as you walk through the streets, the Tesco’s metro even has a pagoda style roof.

Looking through the window at Springbanks malting

We cut through the court yard of Springbank to make our way to Campbeltown’s third working distillery, Glengyle which appeared even more closed then Glen Scotia so I had a bit of a walk around and snapped a few photos.

Look familiar?

One of the strangest vehicles I've ever seen

After our final wander around Campbeltown it was time to head back to Glasgow, I stopped by Loch Fyne Whiskies on the way back and bought a bottle from their “Living Cask” which at the time contained 32 malts. I had an amazing time over the two days, great weather, great whisky and great company! I can’t wait until my next whisky festival/outing, which fortunately is only a couple of weeks away!

Springbank Open Day 2012 (Part 1) – 24/05/2012

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After a not too unpleasant 3 hour drive (ignoring a few over taking incidents…) we arrived at our wooden wigwams, from there it was a short ride to Campbeltown and Springbank distillery. They were still setting up when we arrived which has got to be a good thing as it meant all the good whisky was still there!

Springbank festival bottling

Shortly after arriving we were told we could buy the open day bottles, a straight from the cask 12 Year Old Springbank, 9 Year Old Longrow or the Kilkerran Work In Progress number 4, without tasting any of them I went for one of the 313 bottles of Springbank.

Now that my wallet was £50 lighter it was time for a drink, I wanted to try what I missed out on by buying the Springbank, so my first dram was the Longrow open day bottle which spent 9 years in a new bourbon cask, it was only a small measure, but it was extremely nice, I didn’t bother to write any notes on it (that will come at a later date). I bought my Springbank to drink, not to collect/sell (didn’t bother to get it signed), straight away I knew I made the right decision, lots of sherry, deep, warming, the tiniest hint of peat, I preferred this one to the Longrow (although I wish I could have bought both!). Just so I’d tried all three I had the Kilkerran Work In Progress number 4 next, these were all small (free) measures so I didn’t take the time these really deserved to appreciate them, but I’m sure I’ll revisit at least two of them in future.

The happiest place on earth!

After warming up my palate it was time to enter Bonded Warehouse Number 15 or what I like to call, “The Happiest Place on Earth”, the first thing that strikes you when you walk in is the amazing smell of whisky maturing, then you look around and everywhere you look there are stacks of casks maturing whisky, but the main draw to this warehouse is the “bar”.

Bottles without proper labels are always worth investigating!

For £5 you got 5 raffle tickets, each ticket could be exchanged for a dram from the bar, a lot of which were cask samples, there was quite a lot of “unknown” age whiskies which made things interesting, I started to get told the story about how their age became unknown, but it was cut short by someone asking for another dram.

A small glimpse of the whisky menu which had 34 different Springbanks and over 60 drams in total, each costing £1

Off this list I had a good few drams, I also came prepared with empty sample bottles so I’ll be doing some proper tasting notes on a few of them in the future, but here’s what I tried;

Springbank 14 Year Old – Distilled November 2010 – Rum Cask 54.3% – “Bubble gum Springbank!” Credit goes to Ian for this accurate description.

Springbank Age unknown, 1998 Rum cask number 370 – 58.7% – Brown sugar, mmm rum, deep, woody – I brought home a sample of this one, better notes to come soon!

Campbeltown Loch Blend 30 Year Old – Cask number 223-1 Cask strength – So deep, so complex, likely to be the best blend I’ve ever tasted!

I had fun taking cask shots while enjoying the drams.

Springbank 13 Year Old – Distilled 1997, madeira cask – 57.4%

Springbank 17 Year Old – Distilled 1991, Cask number 357-4, Cask strength.

Longrow Red – Distilled 2001 – 52.12% – Lovely, lot’s of raisins, think this one’s being released in August.

There was some interesting looking casks....

Longrow Rundlets and Kilderkins – Distilled 2001 – Bottled 2012 – Wise beyond it’s years!

Springbank 13 Year Old – Distilled 1996 – Fino sherry cask, cask number 264 – 57.1% – Wow, this dram kept giving! Brought home a sample of this one too so I’ll post more when I find the time.

Has to be one of the best environments to enjoy a whisky in!

Springbank Unknown age – distilled 1999, local barley – cask number 6 – Wasn’t overly impressed with this one to be honest.

Springbank 14 Year Old – Bottled October 2010, Bourbon cask – 57%

Springbank Unknown age – bottled 2008, cask 267-1, cask strength – I felt sorry for this one as no one had opened it, I’m glad I did as it was awesome, very syrupy, sweet red apples.

Hazelburn 8 Year Old – Rum cask – 53% –  very sweet, very nice, think I brought back a sample of this one too.

Springbank 1996, cask 375, Oloroso sherry cask, bottled for the co-op in Canada at cask strength – If only our co-op stocked stuff like this!

Casks sometimes require repair...

Kilkerran Unknown age, 2004 (not sure if that’s bottled or distilled, rum cask, cask number 8 – 59.9% –  Liquorice, raisins, burnt sugar.

Springbank Vintage 10 Year Old – Cask 200 – 47%

Springbank 14 Year Old - Spanish oak cask number 165 – 56% - Too much sulphur. 

 

All this typing has made me develop a bit of a thirst, I really enjoyed my tour of the distillery it’s self, I feel I have enough to say about it photos of it for it to warrant it’s own post, so I’m going to hit the publish button just now and I’ll leave the distillery tour photos until tomorrow