Welcome to the Kensington Wine Market 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - The Full Monty - All 5 Whisky Advent Tastings
Posted on January 6, 2025
Evan's Blog posts:Day 1 - Signatory Orkney (HP) 18 Year Old
Day 2 - Benromach 21 Year Old
Day 3 - Boutique-Y Blended Grain 30 Year Old
Day 4 - Ardnahoe 5 Year Inaugural Release
Day 5 - Kilchoman 100% Islay 10 Year KWM Cask
YouTube Video — Not an Advent Calendar Five Day Recap Tasting set #1
Day 6 - Boutique-Y Speyside #4 24-Year-Old KWM Cask
Day 7 - Lochlea Cask Strength Batch 2
Day 8 - Longrow Peated
Day 9 - Millstone 25 Year Oloroso Canada Cask
Day 10 - Caisteal Chamuis 12 Year Blended Malt
YouTube Video — Not an Advent Calendar Five Day Recap Tasting set #2
Day 11 - Bushmills 21 Year
Day 12 - Casks Of Lindores II Bourbon Cask
Day 13 - Ardnamurchan AD/11:16 KWM Cask
Day 14 - G&M Distillery Label Mortlach 25 Year
Day 15 - Rest & Be Thankful Port Charlotte 14 Year
YouTube Video — Not an Advent Calendar Five Day Recap Tasting set #3
Day 16 - Boutique-y 18 Year Highland Single Malt (Peated)
Day 17 - Scotch Malt Whisky Society 18.60 - SUPPING SHERRY FROM POLISHED WOODEN CUPS
Day 18 - Still Austin Cask Strength Bourbon
Day 19 - G&M Glentauchers 2000 KWM Cask
Day 20 - Compass Box Flaming Heart 2022
YouTube Video — Not an Advent Calendar Five Day Recap Tasting set #4
Day 21 - Nikka From The Barrel
Day 22 - Single Malts of Scotland Reserve Casks - Ben Nevis 10 Year
Day 23 - Roseisle 12 Year 2023 Special Release
Day 24 - Berry's Blended Malt #1 1999
Day 25 - G&M Ardmore 1997 KWM Cask
YouTube Video — Not an Advent Calendar Five Day Recap Tasting set #5
Welcome to the Kensington Wine Market 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar
- The Full Monty -
All 5 Whisky Advent Tastings
Each of the 5 boxes is its tasting kit, for events we will be hosting over Zoom as well as livestreaming on Facebook, December 5, 10, 15, 20, & 27, at 7 PM MT.
The tasting kits show the date and time of the respective tasting, as well as a QR code to link directly to the tasting on Zoom. We will also be emailing the links to the purchaser the day before the tasting as a reminder. For those who don’t use Zoom, you will also be able to view a livestream on the Kensington Wine Market Facebook page. The tastings will also be loaded on to our YouTube page a day or two after the event. The first tasting is December 5th at 7 PM MT.
Inside each box, you will find five 28ml bottle...
KWM 2023 Whisky Advent Calendar
Posted on December 19, 2025
by EvanThank you for purchasing KWM's 2023 Whisky Advent Calendar!
Below is a list of blog posts and information for the whisky behind each door:
KWM 2023 Whisky Advent Calendar
All posts for this whisky calendar written by Evan
Day 1 - Daftmill 15-Year-Old Cask Strength
Day 2 - That Boutique-y Whisky Company Teaninich Batch 6 - 12-Year-Old
Day 3 - Berry's The Perspective 21-Year-Old Blend
Day 4 - Gordon & MacPhail Distillery Label Glentauchers 2007
Day 5 - Amrut 9 Year KWM Port Pipe
YouTube Video - 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar Days 1-5 Recap Tasting
Day 6 - Compass Box Orchard House
Day 7 - Dumangin Starward 2017
Day 8 - Lismore 21 Year
Day 9 - Arran 2013 KWM Cask
Day 10 - Gordon & MacPhail Distillery Label Ardmore 2000
YouTube Video - 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar Days 6-10 Recap Tasting
Day 11 - Waterford Heritage Hunter 1.1
Day 12 - Old Forester 1920 Bourbon
Day 13 - That Boutique-y Whisky Co. Strathmill 14 Year Old
Day 14 - Gordon & MacPhail Mortlach 15 Year Old
Day 15 - Elements of Islay Cl14
YouTube Video - 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar Days 11-15 Recap Tasting
Day 16 - Maligne Range Tekarra
Day 17 - Speyburn 15 Year Old
Day 18 - Armorik Yeun Elez Whisky Breton
Day 19 - Single Malts of Scotland Marriage Speyside 25-Year-Old
Day 20 - Ardbeg Wee Beastie
YouTube Video - 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar Days 16-20 Recap Tasting
Day 21 - Old Pulteney 15 Year
Day 22 - Berry's Dailuaine 2010 KWM Cask
Day 23 - Bowmore 18 Year Old
Day 24 - Scotch Malt Whisky Society 36.209 - WILL YOU JOIN THE WORM TUB CLUB?
Day 25 - Gordon & MacPhail Linkwood 25
YouTube Video - 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar Days 21-25 Recap Tasting
...
Kensington Wine Market's 2023 Whisky Calendar UBER EDITION Day 25 - SMWS 76.151 - Cloves studded in honey-glazed ham
Posted on June 16, 2024
by EvanHere we are on Door and Day number 25 in the 2023 KWM UBER Whisky Calendar! This is the last dram we get to enjoy together from the now torn-apart Whisky Calendar box. It has been a lot of fun to write these posts up and do the tasting notes for this and the other 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar. All total, this makes 50 blog posts with 50 tasting notes over the past 25 days, and about 36,000 words in total between the two. Some of those words even made sense when I managed to combine them correctly in the form of a sentence! I think.
Here is my personal top 5 list from the 2023 KWM UBER Whisky Calendar:
5 - SMWS 42.73 Quiet Confidence from Day 1
4 - Glenfarclas Family Cask 1990 S22 from Day 9
3 - Port Askaig 28 Yr Islay Single Malt from Day 5
2 - Boutique-y Millstone 25 Year from Day 4
1 - Whisky Trail Silhouette Carsebridge 1973 from Day 16
I could easily make a long list of honourable mentions if I went further into detail on the UBER Edition of the KWM Whisky Calendar. For me, the UBER Edition was stuffed with bottles I had never tasted before, with a few drams that I was very happy to revisit along the way. Hopefully, most of these drams were new for you as well, and it has allowed you to discover some new favourite styles or distilleries to keep an eye out for. I would love to hear what your own personal favourites are, and even which ones didn’t hold up to scrutiny if you want to share that! Please let me know in person or via email. I always enjoy talking about whisky!
Now, let's take a look at the final dram in the 2023 KWM UBER Whisky Calendar: Your bottle should read:
SMWS 76.151 - Cloves studded in honey-glazed ham – 30 Year Old
What does the 76.151 mean? Is this a mystery malt? We have had a one of those in the 2023 KWM UBER Whisky Calendar – including the Boutique-y 24 Year Old Bourbon from Day 18 (which just missed my top 5 in the calendar) and back on Day Five with the Port Askaig 28-Year-Old. However, the numbers on an SMWS bottle do refer to which distillery it comes from, if you know the codification of it.
First comes the 76. That means that this bottle comes from the 76th Distillery that the SMWS ever bottled. The .151 means that it is the 151st cask bottled by the SMWS from Distillery 76.
Both the Distillery Numbers and Cask Numbers are chronological, and reference the order in which they first appeared in an SMWS bottle in. This means that the first Distillery bottled is still referred to as 1.XXX, the second Distillery ever bottled is still referred to as 2.XXX, and so on down the line. For the SMWS, Distillery 1 is Glenfarclas, Distillery 2 is Glenlivet, Distillery 3 is Bowmore, and so on. Distillery 76, which is what the bottle we will taste today is from, is Mortlach.
To summarize: 76.1...
KWM 2023 Whisky Calendar Blog Day 25 - G&M Linkwood 25
Posted on November 27, 2024
by EvanWe made it folks! If you went in order on the 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar, this is the final dram in the kit. If you are following along in December and it is the 25th, then Merry Christmas!
As is tradition: here is my personal top 5 list from this year’s calendar:
5 – Maligne Range Tekarra from Day 16
4 – Bowmore 18 Year Old from Day 23
3 – Compass Box Orchard House from Day 6
2 – Arran 2013 KWM Cask from Day 9
1 – SMOS Speyside 25-Year-Old from Day 19
This was a tough list to make. The Malinge Range just edged out the Boutique-y Teaninich from Day 2 for me thanks to its surprising flavour and the excitement of tasting something completely new. Old Forester 1920 would slide in just behind that. I could go and list my other favourites, but I would rather hear what you have to say. Let me know what your faves are, and your least favourites and why for that matter, if we have the opportunity to chat in person or via email!
Now, let's check out our final dram from the 2023 Whisky Calendar!
For the first time in quite a few years, we are not ending the KWM Whisky Calendar with an SMWS bottle. Instead, we had that yesterday for Christmas Eve. This year, our dram is the Gordon & MacPhail Distillery Label Linkwood 25-Year-Old.
Linkwood Distillery’s single malt whisky production is used mostly in blends and does not have much in the way of official releases. Sound familiar? We talked about Dailuaine Distillery from Day 22 in the same manner. And Strathmill Distillery on Day 13. Same with Teaninich Distillery, which we covered back on Day Two. Also, Benrinnes Distillery, from the SMWS bottle we tasted yesterday.
What do those four distilleries have in common with Linkwood Distillery? They all have the same owner, of course! Diageo is the company behind this travesty, hiding the Single Malt Scotch of these four distilleries from our noses and palates. HOW DARE THEY!
Diageo, of course, has their reasons for this. Whether we agree with them or not. All four distilleries pay key roles in the Blended Scotch that Diageo produces. Linkwood features prominently in the Johnnie Walker range as well as the company’s White Horse blend. It isn’t just Diageo hoarding it for blends either – Linkwood is prized by blenders in general thanks to its light, delicate, floral, grassy, and orchard fruit driven style.
Linkwood Distillery was founded in 1821. In 1872 the distillery was completely rebuilt, and nearly a century later in 1971 a second distillery was buil alongside the first. The second distillery was dubbed Linkwood B. In 1985, the old Linkwood A was closed, leaving Linkwood B to be the primary Linkwood Distillery. The older Linkwood A was used for production for a few...
Kensington Wine Market's 2023 Whisky Calendar UBER EDITION Day 24 - Whisky Sponge Glen Keith 1993
Posted on December 24, 2023
by EvanOkay, stop me if you have heard this before: The distillery we are tasting whisky from today has had a tumultuous history and is owned by a very large company that uses its single malt whisky production almost exclusively for blends.
That doesn’t tell the entire story of Glen Keith, though. It even does it a bit of disservice, because Glen Keith Distillery was not built with consistency in mind. The Glen Keith Distillery was built in the late 1950s by Seagram Distillers, which was run by a Canadian named Samuel Bronfman. Samuel was the son of immigrants from Russia who settled in Brandon, Manitoba. Samuel and eventually his sons' lineage had a great deal of influence over the whisky world for much of the 20th Century. The Bronfman Family itself has also been behind quite a few long-lasting philanthropic endeavours thanks to the money made in whisky, spirits, and other industries.
While Glen Keith was built primarily to be a fully operational distillery, it was also set up to be a bit of a skunkworks or test lab, meant to experiment with different styles and batches of distillation. For about a decade, it actually made both double-distilled and triple-distilled whisky in different runs. It also did occasional runs of peated whisky, which were named Craigduff and Glenisla.
Glen Keith was the first new distillery to be put into operation in the Speyside region in over 60 years when it started production in 1958. The distillery is located a literal stones-throw away Strathisla Distillery, if you have a good arm and the wind direction offers some help. Strathmill Distillery resides nearby as well. The distillery operated consistently for about the first 40 years of its life but was mothballed in 1999. It was then sold to current owners Pernod Ricard in 2001, who eventually revamped and reopened the distillery twelve years later in 2013.
Most of Glen Keith’s whisky production was and is earmarked for blends from its inception, and it was used predominantly in Chivas Regal, Passport and 100 Pipers. As a blend, Chivas Regal is very well known. 100 Pipers may not be as well known in Canada, but the brand is massive in Asia and parts of Central and South America. It is the number one-selling Blended Scotch Whisky in India, which is where most if not all of it is bottled.
Official bottlings of Glen Keith are currently non-existent and have been a rarity throughout its operational history. It can be found occasionally through independent bottlers, like this 1993 Glen Keith from Whisky Sponge. Very, very rarely there are bottlings of peated Glen Keith under the Craigduff or Glenisla names crop up as well, but those are becoming even fewer and further between as time goes on.
Shall we give the penultimate dram in the 2023 KMM UBER Whisky Calendar a go?
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