Tag Archives: Good Spirits Company

The Good Spirits Co 1st Birthday Tasting – 01/06/2012

Posted on by
1

Last Friday my favourite shop, The Good Spirits Co were having a tasting to celebrate their first birthday, this seemed like an excellent way to start the long weekend so I had to pop along. If you’ve never been to The Good Spirits Co and you live in Glasgow (or are ever passing through), then you need to stop by! It’s a great shop, Mark, Mathew and Shane are great hosts and extremely knowledgeable about what they’re selling.

The tasting was excellent as always, the atmosphere was great, you could be sitting at a table full of strangers and still have a good conversation and there was a bit of friendly heckling which hopefully Mathew who was presenting the evening didn’t take offence to!

They kicked off the night with two brandy’s a Cognac and a Armagnac, neither of which I have any experience, but both of them were extremely pleasant.

Maxime Trijol XO – 40% ABV – Cognac
This was really interesting, rather “winey”, quite dry, but very fruity, berries, peaches & apricots and slightly minty. There was quite a lot of tastes I couldn’t put a name to or were simply new to me and I didn’t find it as complex as a single malt. I recently heard that the Asian market for malt whisky is increasing so much is because compared to cognac it’s quite a bit cheaper, but is still seen as a bit of a status symbol. While this cognac was really nice, I’d take a whisky any day!

Darroze 1970 – 42% ABV – Armagnac
This smelled red! The first thing I thought when I nosed it was “red” someone at the table I was sitting at said nail varnish a while after that so I guess I associate nail varnish with the colour red! Despite the nail varnish (or red) notes it was really nice, apples, anise, liquorice, sweet, nutty, syrupy and lots of menthol!

Glenglassaugh 3 Year Old – Distillery Only – 60.5% ABV
It was great to hear that recently reopened Glenglassaugh are now making a profit and I can’t wait to try their “Revival” bottling. This distillery only bottle was matured for 3 years in George Dickel Tennessee Whisky casks, it was great to try, but I felt this was very much a discussion or educational dram, not something you’d want to drink, it was extremely young tasting, still had that Butterkist toffee popcorn and raisins new make character about it. I really like Glenglassaugh new make, but to me what’s what this was, not whisky (despite what the law might say about it).

Balblair 1978 – 46% ABV
Balblair don’t do age statements, they release their whisky when it’s ready so they do vintages instead, but this one’s around 30 years old, distilled 1978 then bottled in 2008, but it really doesn’t tastes it’s age. There is that woodiness and spiciness you associate with older whiskies, but mainly it’s light, fruity, floral, lots of pears, apples, vanilla, toffee, caramel and a creaminess that can’t help, but remind me of ice cream.

Compass Box – M is for Magic – 46% ABV
Compass Box has got to be my favourite producer of blended whisky, these guys produce whisky that’s a lot better than a good number of the single malts out there, I’m going to a whisky festival next Saturday and I’m hoping they’re there as I’m always excited to pop by their table!
If you’ve not heard of this bottle before that’s most likely because it’s bottled for the French market, it turns out the French have a massive market for whisky (every day’s a learning day!). If I remember correctly this bottle was 30% malt, 70% grain, it did taste quite young, it had a lot of cereal, toffee and butter notes, mixed in with fruity, almost tropical flavours, a nice pinch of spice and some fudge to go along, a very pleasant dram, just as I’d expect from Compass Box.

The Good Spirits Co MacDuff – 11 Year OId – 54.6% ABV – Single Cask (Sherry)
This was The Good Spirits Co first proper bottling to celebrate their first year so of course I had to buy a bottle (I went for number 13 as I couldn’t find my birth year 85) . I’d never tried MacDuff (a.k.a. Glen Deveron)  whisky before, they’re one of those distilleries that exist pretty much purely for the blended whisky industry and are owned by Bacardi Ltd. who I believe don’t have much interest in the single malt market. As I mentioned earlier the guys at The Good Spirits Co know what they’re doing so when they selected this cask they done a good job, it’s spicy, woody, lots of fruit, some very subtle tannin notes in there and a lovely oily mouth feel that leaves you wanting more!

Bowmore – 17 Year Old – 43% ABV
This is another one of those dreaded travel retail only whiskies, unfortunately I wasn’t that impressed by this one, maybe it was the strength and the fact that I’d just had a cask strength sherry bomb, but the peat and smoke should have cut through that. I got the usual Bowmore profile of peat and smoke, but I found it quite rubbery, floral and maybe a tiny bit of fruit (pears), but it was a bit of a let down for me.

Longrow – 10 Year Old – 57.2% ABV – Cask Sample
This is what drinking whisky is all about! Great whiskies, going straight from a cask into a bottle with a hand written label and then into a Glencairn glass! Drinking this I had “Whitesnake – Is this love” stuck in my head, it was awesome! My notes for this one consisted of “mmm, love, peat, whiff of smoke, fruity, nectarines, salty, <3″. Now I’m not saying the 7 previous drinks didn’t impact my feelings towards this one, but it was awesome! I want more!

 

 

BenRiach/GlenDronach Tasting with Stewart Buchanan – 18/05/2012

Posted on by
1

On Friday I popped along to my favourite shop, The Good Spirits Company, for another Glasgow’s Whisky Club tasting, this time it was BenRiach and GlenDronach which I’ve tried and really enjoyed in the past, but have never paid a massive amount of attention to so it was great to have a night to focus purely on these two malts.

We had BenRiach distillery manager Stewart Buchanan along to host the night and educate us about the two distilleries. I was tired after a pretty exhausting week from work so I didn’t take as many notes as I should have and my DSLR stayed at home and I relied on my phone for these pictures.

GlenDronach 12 Year Old – 43% ABV
Smoke, sweet, honey, vanilla, dry pipe smoke, fruity, pears, spicy, soft.
A very nice well rounded dram.

GlenDronach 15 Year Old – 46% ABV
This one spent a lot of its life in PX casks so there’s a massive sherry hit at the start, a whiff of smoke, tannin, sweet, toffee, smooth, soft, raisins, ginger, black cherries, spicy, a hint of vanilla, dark chocolate and treacle.

GlenDronach 21 Year Old – 48% ABV
Very sophisticated! Deep, dark, more cherries and spice, old wood, toffee, nutmeg, liquorice, fudge, plums, dark chocolate, tannin, creamy vanilla and honey. An amazing dram, very deep and complex.

BenRiach 12 Year Old – 40% ABV
Very sweet, citrus, apples, kiwis, fruity, creamy vanilla, wine gums or some sort of sweet?, cereal, cheap vanilla ice cream, strawberries, wood, oak, spicy and slightly soapy. Not the least bit complex, but a great dram none the less, very easy to drink, great nose to it, you could work your way through a bottle of this in an evening without noticing, it’s great at what it does and very well rounded, I had to buy a bottle of this!

BenRiach 20 Year Old – 43% ABV
The 20 year old shares a lot of the 12 year old character, more fruitiness, but this time a bit more stewed and less fresh reminding me of home made apple crumble with custard (“home made” simply because it sounds better! Plus you get some poor quality frozen ones!), pears, a lot more wood and oak here, slightly “green”.

BenRiach Curiositas 10 Year Old – 40% ABV, 55PPM
Highland peat here, not your typical West Coast, Islay peat, the peat here’s a lot more subtle, earthier and floral than what you normally associate with peat, the peat goes hand in hand with smoke, but this is more like wood smoke that you’d get from burning old gorse and heather. More vanilla here, brambles, citrus, malty and candified orange peels, despite being a peated malt it still manages to be extremely elegant. Apparently the contents of the bottle is closer to 17 years old than 10 years old which I find easy to believe. Another amazing dram, so I bought a bottle of this one too!

BenRiach Solstice 17 Year Old – 2nd Edition – 50% ABV
The first thing that strikes you about this dram is it’s colour! It’s closer to the colour of Rosé wine than whisky so you’d expect an extremely fruity nose, but the first thing that hits you is peat and smoke, the colour comes from the port casks it’s finished in and behind the peat and smoke there’s a subtle fruitiness. The smoke and peat is definitely there on the palate, but there’s a lot of fruitiness there, it’s creamy, a bit of vanilla in there too, raisins, dried fruit, but I found the peat and smoke dominated this one a bit.

As always this was a great night, it was interesting to have a tasting that was based around two distilleries rather than just one or maybe having two drams from the one distillery at a barrel night. If I had to pick between the two distilleries I’d pick BenRiach (hence buying two of their bottles), I’m not sure why, but I think it might be down to their sweetness being different from most of what I already have in my collection so it was just a bit different.

On a more personal note I’ve just finished my first book of tasting notes (as in notebook, I’m not going to try and sell a book as I suck at writing and tasting notes), I started it on the 29th of January last year (2011) and it lasted me until the 18th of May this year, time to start a new one and I think I’ll be using the one I got from the lovely people at Highland Park and I’ll put my first note into it on Thursday as I’ll be paying a visit to Springbank distillery for their open day, I can’t wait!

The Scottish Liqueur Centre Tasting @ The Good Spirits Co – 04/05/2012

Posted on by
Reply

On Friday I popped along to one of my favourite shops, The Good Spirits Company on Bath Street for one of their tastings. Unfortunately this was the first one of their tastings I actually made it along to, I bought tickets for one in the past, but ended up too sick to go, so I’ve been determined to actually make it to one of their tastings for a while and this one appealed to me.

No offence to The Scottish Liqueur Centre, but I’m happy to say no liqueurs were drunk in the making of this blog post, while they started life with liqueurs they’re also an independent bottler and this was the first public tasting of their Càrn Mòr range. There was a couple of drams I wasn’t that keen on, but overall I think it was a great line up.

Speyside 15 Year Old – Distilled 1996, 46% ABV, Sherry Butt
Found this one dusty, fruity, quite leafy, there was a cheesiness to the nose I couldn’t get over, sweet like icing sugar, a little milky or creamy, with a bit of water I was getting celery salt and I found the finish quite bitter despite the initial sweetness and overall it was quite bland.

Clynelish 16 Year Old – Distilled 1995, 46% ABV, Hogshead
Straight away I got parma violets on this one, it was a little waxy and reminded me of envelopes, not sure if it’s the envelope glue or stamps though? Floral, fruity, spicy, sweet, buttery, salty, vanilla, pears and extremely nice second dram, I’d happily buy and work my way through a bottle of this!

Ben Nevis 15 Year Old – Distilled 1996, 46% ABV, Sherry butt
I’ve not really tried much in the way of Ben Nevis and the little I’ve tried hasn’t left me wanting much more to be honest, but I was still interested in trying this one, straight away I got smoke on this one, charcoal, a coal fire, BBQ, it was malty with hints of cereal and quite sweet, but very smoky and earthy and extremely drying, one of my friends described it as a “road kill BBQ” which is less than flattering, but it was very very smoky and it had a really strange finish. When I think of a sherry cask whisky none of the characteristics I think of were in here, the dryness reminded me of that dry “hairy tongue” feeling you get while hungover, sorry, but this one really wasn’t for me!

Mortlach 16 Year Old – Distilled 1995, 46% ABV, Hogshead
Very sweet, green, rich, floral, apples, buttery, pear, a velvet mouth coating, fresh fruit salad, butterscotch and vanilla. Although I don’t have as much to say about this dram as some of the others it left me wanting more, it was so easy to drink and it was easily my dram of the night!

Bunnahabhain 10 Year Old – Distilled 2001, 46% ABV, Sherry puncheon
A tiny whiff of smoke at the start, fruity, salty, coffee, liquorice, caramel, treacle toffee, spicy, fruit cake and very rich, this one tastes a lot older than 10 years old, I’d be amazed if anyone would guess 10 years old if they were asked to determine the age of this one blind. I’ve tried quite a few independent sherry cask Bunnahabhains and this one has to be my favourite and has no trace of sulphur unlike a lot of the other sherry casks I’ve tried.

Highland Park 17 Year Old – Distilled 1994, 46% ABV, Hogshead
Some more smoke here, sweet and spicy, shortbread, fruity, pastry, dusty, old wood, another one that has aged beyond it’s years, old furniture, salty and reminded me (and others) slightly of mineral water. This was another dram that left you wanting more, there was enough Highland Park character in there to make it recognisable, but at the same time it was individual enough to stand out from its brothers and sisters.

Bowmore 16 Year Old – 46% ABV, Sherry Cask
Smoke, peat and floral as you’d expect from Bowmore, a tiny hit of sulphur in there, rich tobacco, caramel, burnt sugar, fresh, juicy and at the same time rather nutty. This was a surprise dram and it was an excellent finish to an excellent night.

Overall it was a great night, some really interesting and unique drams and they were all relatively affordable, I’m finding myself typing this and wishing I took advantage of the 10% off on the night, I may have to buy a bottle or two from the line up above. I’m really looking forward to seeing what they come out with next. One thing a few of us noticed is most if not all of the drams sampled had a quite distinct spiciness to them, so I’m not sure if the person selecting the casks has a thing for spice or not or even whether all the casks were selected by the same person.

Stop by the Good Spirit Co on Bath Street if you fancy a bottle of any of these.