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KWM 2023 Whisky Calendar Blog Day 19 - SMOS Speyside 25 Year

Posted on December 19, 2023

by Evan

The Single Malts of Scotland brand is owned by Elixir Distillers, which itself is owned by Sukhinder and Rajbir Singh. The brothers for a long time owned The Whisky Exchange, a popular and very well-respected group of UK-based whisky shops. The Whisky Exchange was sold to Pernod Ricard in 2021. Elixir Distillers is an independent bottler with some recently realized aspirations of distilling: In 2022, the company purchased Tormore Distillery in Speyside from Pernod Ricard.

The Singh brothers and Elixir are also coming close to their long-term plan of operating their own Islay Distillery. The distillery will be called Portintruan. Groundbreaking at the distillery site, which lies aside the A846 just to the East of Port Ellen and to the west of Laphroaig, took place back in 2020 on the site in 2022, and if things go well the buildings may be completed and the distillery in operation by late 2024 or early 2025.

For now, Elixir Distillers is much more well-known as an independent bottler. Its labels include the Single Malts of Scotland, Whisky Trail, Port Askaig and Elements of Islay brands. We tasted the Elements of Islay CI14 on day 15 in this year’s 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar.

Back to the bottle in front of us. This bottling of Speyside 25-Year-Old from the Single Malts of Scotland is the oldest whisky in this year’s KWM Whisky Calendar we have gotten thus far. Which Speyside distillery does it come from though? Is it a mystery malt?

No, actually. In fact, this Speyside single malt was distilled at THE Speyside Distillery – a name that out-generics the likes of Speyburn and Glen Spey and is at least in the running for the most boring and redundant of all Scottish Distillery names.



Speyside Distillery - Exactly what people imagine a quaint, old Scottish Distillery to look like, though it was only founded in 1990.

The Speyside Distillery, which is owned by – get this – Speyside Distillers – was founded in 1990, making it fairly young as Scottish distilleries go. Its short life has been relatively tumultuous in terms of ownership and official bottlings, However, the distillery’s location and surroundings are about as idyllic and picturesque as you can find in a country known for containing an overabundance of such places. Speyside Distiller is located in Inverness-Shire, about an hour’s drive south of Inverness itself. Its nearest distillery neighbours include Dalwhinnie Distillery which is about a 30-minute drive to the Southwest, and Tomatin Distillery which is around a 45-minute drive North.

If you have had any Speyside Distillery Single Malt Scotch in the past, it may have been bottled under the name Spey, which is what its official releases are labelled as. The bottles look pretty but are just at the point of being too tall to fit on most whisky store shelves....

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Kensington Wine Market's 2023 Whisky Calendar UBER EDITION Day 18 - Boutique-y Bourbon Whiskey 24 Year Old

Posted on December 18, 2023

by Evan

Beyond telling us that this is a 24-year-old Bourbon Whisky, the label does not give us much to go on. No provenance is directly given as to which distillery it comes from, or even which state it comes from. State-wise, it likely had to come from either Kentucky, Tennessee, or Indiana given how old it is.

Another company called Single Cask Nation did release a single barrel 24-year-old Bourbon that was declared to be from Kentucky at around the same time. That barrel spent 12 years maturing in Kentucky before being moved to the UK for the remainder of its cask life. The rumours swirling around that bottle were that it could be from the original Heaven Hill Distillery in Bardstown, which was lost due to a massive fire on November 7th, 1996. That was the fire that led to Heaven Hill purchasing the Bernheim Distillery of Louisville, Kentucky in 1999.

So: 24-year-old Bourbon, made somewhere in the United States. Ever had a 24-year-old Bourbon? Well, this is your chance! Crafted by a mystery distillery. Could it be Four Roses? Barton? Buffalo Trace? Dickel? Who knows?!? Wherever this was made it is heavenly, standing on hills above other Bourbons both in age and, well, price. The Bourbon in question purportedly spent 12 years maturing away in the US of A and the remaining 12 years in the UK.

Producer Description From That Boutique-y Whisky Company

“Our first ever batch from this US distillery is a 24 Year Old Bourbon, a release of 8,376 bottles at 48% abv and our largest release to date! Sadly we’re not able to name this distillery, but it is a Bourbon, and so we’ll have to do some homework to establish which distilleries it could have come from.”

About the Label

Firstly there are no clues on our label at all, but any similarities to current bottlings are purely coincidental. Our label shows a peaceful scene at Area 51, complete with a sign saying "Nothing to see here", which has to be true. As we’re unable to name this long-aged Bourbon Whiskey we’ve covered our label in a few of America’s well-known mysteries. How many can you spot in our Area 51?

That Boutique-y Whisky Company - Bourbon Whiskey Batch 1 - 24 Year Old - 48%

Evan’s Tasting Note

Nose: Leather, tobacco leaf, polished oak staves, cherry pie, peach cobbler, tangerines, smoky brisket, and chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven.

Palate: Sour cherries, apple pie with a slightly burnt crust, bitter dark chocolate, caramelized brown sugar, espresso coffee, peanut brittle, and a touch of Amaretto plus hazelnut liqueur.

Finish: Spicy, smoky, and drying, but will juicy cherries and peaches, plus more dark chocolate and espresso notes.

Comment: I have tasted this dram a few times, and it is always a wonderful ride. It shows its age ...

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KWM 2023 Whisky Calendar Blog Day 18 - Armorik Yeun Elez Breton

Posted on December 19, 2023

by Evan

Armorik Whisky is made by Warenghem Distillery of Brittany. Brittany is a region in Northwestern France. The region is a peninsula, surrounded by saltwater on three sides in the form of The Bay of Biscay, The Celtic Sea, and The English Channel.



Though it is part of France, Brittany counts itself as one of the six Celtic Nations as defined by the Celtic League. The other five nations are Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and the Isle of Man. Culturally, Brittany has such strong Celtic ties due to the migration of many large groups of Bretons some 1500 or so years ago between 450 and 600 AD. Much of this migration was a means to escape the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England. The Breton language is still spoken by a small minority of people in the Brittany region to this day.



The Warenghem distillery was founded in 1900, but the first whisky production did not happen at the site until 1983. In the late 1960s, the distillery was moved from its original location in the centre of Lannion to the outskirts of the city. The distillery’s first whisky release was called WB - or Whisky Breton – was launched in 1987. It was the first whisky from the Brittany region, as well as from France itself. The first Whisky Breton release was a blend of 25% malt whisky and 75% Grain Whisky.

In 1993, Warenghem installed a set of copper spot stills to be used solely for whisky distillation. Single malt production emulating the Scottish style using small pot stills and double distillation was started soon thereafter and the distillery's first Single Malt Whisky release was launched in 1998. Using the Armorik name, it was the first-ever French Single Malt whisky to come to market.  

In 2015, the term Whisky Breton became an officially recognized geographical indication. The rules regarding Whisky Breton state:

“All “Breton Whisky” (or “Whisky de Bretagne”) must therefore meet demanding specifications, guaranteeing its quality and the know-how of the distiller. It must have been produced from water sourced from Breton soil and have been fermented, distilled and aged in Brittany.”



Armorik bottles multiple Single Malt Whisky releases, though not everything they produce is available in Canada.  We have had one Armorik Whisky in our KWM Whisky Calendar in the past, back in the 2019 edition to be exact. That was the Armorik Double Maturation, which is part of Warenghem/Armorik’s regular release portfolio. This lineup also includes the Armorik Classic, and Armorik Sherry Cask. The Armorik Yeun Elez Single Malt Breton Peated is a Peated Breton Single Malt Whisky (see how I changed the order of these words to make myself sound smart?), distilled from peated malted barley imported from Scotland with a spec of 50ppm. Sadly, we only managed to get 50ml bott...

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Kensington Wine Market's 2023 Whisky Calendar UBER EDITION Day 17 - Kavalan Solist Fino Sherry

Posted on December 17, 2023

by Evan



Ahh, Kavalan – perhaps the most highly regarded Single Malt Whisky brand outside of Scotland. Kavalan has had a tremendous few decades in the limelight, gaining awards and accolades from nearly everyone that tastes its whisky.

In the early to mid-2000s, the term Single Malt Whisky wasn’t really bandied about. If it was said, most people meant Single Malt Scotch specifically and were rarely talking about whisky made in other parts of the world. Single Malt Whisky had been made outside of Scotland for quite some time, but most of the releases were either small-scale and localized, considered quirky abominations, or used as fodder for blended whiskies. To many in the Western world, Amrut launching its Single Malt Whisky in 2002 was the first exposure to Malt Whisky made in pot stills from somewhere outside of Scotland, Ireland, or Japan.

Thanks to globalization and a plethora of Single Malt Whisky producing distilleries all around the planet opening up and/or gaining more recognition, the Whisky world is a lot different in 2023. In my opinion, much of that is thanks to Amrut, Kavalan, and the late Dr. Jim Swan.

Kavalan Distillery was founded in 2005 in Yilan County, Taiwan. It is about a 1hr 20-minute drive from the Taipei Taoyuan International Airport, taking you from the Northwest coast of the island country to near the Northeast coast, just north of the Yanlang River. It was founded by Tien-Tsai Lee and owned by his company – The King Car Group. The first spirit ran of Kavalan’s stills in 2006, and in 2009, the first whisky bottling from its renowned cask strength Solist range was introduced.

The Solist range is what has led most to Kavalan’s rise internationally. The range consists of a variety of single casks bottled at cask strength with the ex-Bourbon and ex-Oloroso Solist casks being the first to launch. The range was soon expanded and now includes a multitude of different releases, featuring whisky matured in casks that once held rum, brandy, wine, Madeira, Port, and more.

Much of Kavalan’s work with different casks is thanks to the late Dr. Jim Swan. Swan worked with quite a few new distilleries around the world as a consultant until his passing in 2017. Many of these distilleries have made their mark by launching young, but incredibly flavourful and accessible whisky. Distilleries that Dr Swan worked with and contributed to include Kavalan in Tawain, Amrut in India, Cotswolds in England, Penderyn in Wales, Milk & Honey in Israel, Kilchoman on Islay, Lindores Abbey in Scotland, and more.

The Kavalan we are trying today is the Solist Fino – which means the whisky was matured in a cask that once held Fino Sherry. Fino is considered the driest of all sherry styles and is made in a curious fashion by allowing a naturally occurring mold called Flor to develop the cask...

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KWM 2023 Whisky Calendar Blog Day 17 - Speyburn 15 Year Old

Posted on December 17, 2023

by Evan

Up until 2023, Speyburn Distillery was in a bit of a tough spot when it came to being noticed. Speyburn is owned by Inverhouse Distillers/International Beverage Holdings. Inverhouse also owns are the more famed Old Pulteney and well-respected Knockdhu (bottled as AnCnoc), Balblair, and Balmenach. Speyburn is capable of producing more spirit annually than any two of these distilleries combined, each of the other brands in the Inverhouse single malt portfolio has more cache with whisky geeks, leaving Speyburn overshadowed when it comes to name recognition. Recently, Inverhouse and Speyburn have undertaken plans to engage more with their consumers than in the past.



The Speyburn core range of Single Malt is worth giving a try when you can. The range begins with the no-age statement Braden Orach. We will be tasting the 10 Year today, but there is also the Speyburn 15-year-old we will be tasting today and an 18-year-old expression. Both the 15 and an 18-Year-Old bottlings lean more into sherry cask influence in comparison. Beyond those, there is a 25-year-old as well.

Enough about the bottles for the moment. Let's talk about the distillery itself. Speyburn Distillery dates back to 1897 when it was founded by a family that also happened to own Tobermory Distillery at the time. Speyburn was a modern distillery at the time of its inception and was designed by famous architect Charles Doig.

Another thing that made it modern was a new version of malting the barley. Instead of using the tried-and-true floor maltings, Speyburn Distillery was the first to employ a newfangled technology for this process called drum malting. Drum malting uses a large cylinder (or drum) to rotate the barley during the malting process, which allowed the temperature and tilling/separation of the germinating barley to be machine-controlled. The result was the need for far less space to be taken up by the malt floor, fewer employees needed to monitor and turn the barley, and greater speed and consistency of the entire process.

These drums were used at Speyburn for 70 years before their retirement. The equipment is still intact and can be viewed by the public now that Speyburn Distillery has recently started offering tours. The distillery started to throw open its doors to the public in August of 2023. This should make the distillery a little less hidden than it has been in the past.

The Speyburn 15-Year-Old that we will be tasting today is aged in a combination of American and Spanish oak casks. It is bottled at 46%.

Evan’s Tasting Note

Nose: Dried fruits, orange peel, Grand Marnier, red rose tea, shortbread cookies, and fennel fronds.

Palate: Juicy with plenty of spice. Ginger candy, more orange peel, toasted raisin bread, dried cherries, milk chocolate, peaches ...

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