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KWM 2021 Whisky Calendar Day 11: TBWC Irish 14 Year Old

Posted on March 19, 2025

by Evan

We are taking a trip away from Scotland for Day 11 in the Kensington Wine Market Whisky Calendar. Join us as we head to Ireland to taste one of That Boutique-y Whisky Company's Irish Single Malt #1 Batch #4 14 Year Old!

This is the second mini bottle from That Boutique-y Whisky Company that we have featured in the 2021 KWM Whisky Calendar. The first we pulled on Day one: TBWC's 24 Year Old Speyside Single Malt Scotch.

I already talked about That Boutique-y Whisky Company and their quirky labels in that blog post so let's take a look at this specific bottle and what makes it tick:

About the Label - "The inspiration for this label comes straight out of a British made sitcom called ‘Father Ted’ It originally aired on Channel 4 from April 1995 and ran for just three series up until May 1998 Set on the fictional Craggy Island, a remote location off Ireland's west coast, the show is about three priests exiled on the island for various past incidents. Our label comes from an episode called ‘A Song for Europe’ that featured ‘My lovely Horse’"

We currently have two different full(er) sized 500ml versions of the Batch 1 Irish Whiskey from That Boutique-y in store. One is the 14-year-old version that we are about to taste, and the other is a 13-Year-Old. We do not know the exact distillery that this whiskey comes from, but That Boutique-y does give us a hint or two:

Producer Description: "Our fourth batch from this undisclosed Irish distillery is a 14 Year Old, a release of just 2,116 bottles at 47.6% abv. If you know your Irish Whiskey history, then you should be able to close down on the distilleries this could come from. It’s a single malt, so that rules out Ireland’s largest distillery, Midleton as they don’t make a single malt."

About that Irish Whiskey history: The Irish Whiskey Industry has been going through a massive swing from bust to boom over the past century. Here is a cliff notes version:

From 1966 to about 1987, there were only TWO companies producing Irish Whiskey. While these two companies didn't produce the exact same Irish Whiskey, much of what they did produce was triple distilled, all of it was unpeated, and some of it was Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey. It wasn't necessarily all homogeneous and the same, but it was definitely similar. That started to change in 1987 when a potato alcohol plant was converted and Cooley Distillery was revived by John Teeling.

Since then Irish Whiskey has slowly increased in prominence to the booming enterprise it is today, in which more than 30 distilleries either produce spirit to eventually become Irish Whiskey or in planning. Many of these distilleries will be producing ...

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KWM 2021 Whisky Calendar Day 10: Kilchoman 2013 Mezcal Finish KWM Cask

Posted on December 10, 2021

by Evan

RECAP TASTING REMINDER: If you are interested in joining us via Zoom for our 5-day recap tasting, the next one happens on December 10th @ 7 PM Calgary time. If you have not already done so, you can sign up to be emailed the Zoom link for these tastings here. You will also be able to find these tastings on Facebook Live and recorded for posterity there as well.

Day 10 brings us an oddity and a first for the KWM Whisky Calendar: A Single Malt Scotch finished in a Mezcal Cask?!?

One of the not-so-big surprises is that we do indeed have a Kilchoman in our KWM Whisky Calendar once more this year. We did take a break in 2020, but in the now seven years of building KWM Whisky Calendars, this marks the SIXTH Kilchoman KWM Cask to make it into the box by my count. If you add in the other mini bottles of Kilchoman that we have featured over the years, I believe this is the ninth Kilchoman to be featured in KWM's Whisky Calendar since we started making them back in 2015.

Even with that being said, this bottle is a wee bit different than past Kilchoman KWM Casks thanks to that Mezcal Finish! Have you had a Mezcal cask finish before? This marks only the third Mezcal cask finished Scotch that I have heard of - and one of the other two was also from Kilchoman.

Enough with the wild and possibly inaccurate numbers. Want to know a little more about Kilchoman Distillery? Well then, I am happy to accommodate!

Kilchoman Distillery was founded waaaaay back in... 2005. It is currently the youngest distillery on Islay to produce Whisky - and will remain that way until the younger Ardnahoe Distillery (which started producing its first spirit in October of 2018) has its first whisky release. Kilchoman was founded by Anthony Wills and resides on Rockside Farm on Islay. It is the only farm distillery on Islay, and one of the only Islay that is not located right on the shores of the island. Kilchoman's nearest distillery neighbours are Bruichladdich which is a 15-minute drive to the east and Bowmore, which is a 25-minute drive to the east.

Like a majority of the nine operating distilleries on Islay, Kilchoman focuses on mashing and distilling peated malt. Much of the distillery's malted barley needs are sourced from the Port Ellen Maltings plant which is about a 40-minute drive to the east and south along the A846 road. Kilchoman sources malted barley peated to the same specification as Ardbeg, which is around 50 ppm. The distillery also operates its own floor maltings which account for a small portion of its spirit production. The barley used for the floor maltings comes from their own Rockside Farm, making Kilchoman one of the only Scottish Distilleries capable of doing batches that are entirely grain to glass. These releases are often bottled under the 100% Islay mon...

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KWM 2021 Whisky Calendar Day 9: Tullibardine 500 Sherry

Posted on December 9, 2021

by Evan

RECAP TASTING REMINDER: If you are interested in joining us via Zoom for our 5-day recap tasting, the next one happens on December 10th @ 7 PM Calgary time. If you have not already done so, you can sign up to be emailed the Zoom link for these tastings here. You will also be able to find these tastings on Facebook Live and recorded for posterity there as well.

We took a day off from sherried whisky yesterday, but we are now back at it for Day 9 with the Tullibardine 500 Sherry Cask Finish!

Tullibardine Distillery is located in the southern Highland town of Blackford, just north of Perth. Its nearest neighbours include the Glenturret Distillery which is a 25-minute drive north on the A822 and also Deanston Distillery which is a 20-minute drive west on the A9. The distillery sits on the site of a series of breweries that date back more than 500 years. In 1488 King James IV, then aged 14, paid a visit to a brewery in Blackford to purchase beer for his coronation.

Tullibardine Distillery itself was founded in 1949, making it was the first distillery to be built in Scotland after the end of World War II. The distillery was sold by architect and Founder William Delme-Evans in 1953 to a company named Brodie-Hepburn LTD. That company was purchased by Invergordon distillers in 1971, which in turn was purchased by Whyte & Mackay in 1993. The distillery had been operating for four and a half decades but was mothballed in 1994. Tullibardine remained closed and silent until it was purchased along with some ageing stock in 2003 by an independent consortium of owners. It was quickly revised and began production once more while much of the older stock was released in vintages. If you have been into whisky for more than a decade, you might remember seeing various vintages including 1988, 1993 and 1994 on the shelves until around 2011 when the distillery once again changed hands: this time to current owner Picard Vins & Spiritueux.

The French company did a complete relaunch of Tullibardine's whisky line in 2013 that remains mostly unchanged to now. The core of the range consists of four no age statement bottles: The Sovereign which is matured in first-fill ex-Bourbon casks, the 225 which is finished in Sauternes casks, the 228 which is finished in red Burgundy casks, and the 500 that we are tasting today which is finished in 500-litre ex-Sherry butts. A 15-Year-Old expression recently joined the 20-Year-Old and 25-Year-Old as the age-stated releases in the lineup.

Now, back to the Sherry Cask Finish that we have in front of us today. To me, Tullibardine is typically very cereal-driven and malt-forward in style and often carries some starchy root vegetable notes along for the ride (think sweet potatoes and yams), so I am looking forward to seeing if those show through in this offi...

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KWM 2021 Whisky Calendar Day 8: Scarabus Islay Single Malt

Posted on December 10, 2021

by Evan

For Day 8 we are heading to Islay for the first time in the 2021 KWM Whisky Calendar with the Scarabus Islay Single Malt.

Beyond having a name that sounds like a 1970s Bond villain, what is the Scarabus?

When discussing Hunter Laing I feel one should also talk about Douglas Laing? Why? Well, for three reasons:

Both firms used to be one family business, under the name of Douglas Laing.
The split happened because the two sides of the family apparently could not stand each other.
I find it both interesting and kind of funny.

So, before we get into Hunter Laing let's travel back in time to the origins of the independent bottler Douglas Laing.

Douglas Laing is an independent bottler that was founded in 1948 by Fred Douglas Laing after he acquired the rights for the King Of Scots Blend. Fred and his wife had two sons. Fred Jr. was born in 1950. Stewart Hunter Laing was born in 1947 or 1948. Both brothers eventually joined their father, working at Douglas Laing. Before that though, they both had apprenticeships at other Scotch Whisky companies, something that seems to be a hallmark of families who make Scotch Whisky their trade.

Fred Douglas Laing passed away in 1984 and it was then up to his sons to run the company.

Hunter Laing is the result of a split of the Douglas Laing Company and its assets between brothers Fred and Stewart in 2013. Apparently, they had a long history of not getting along with each other. In the dividing on the company, Douglas Laing continued on with a few less brands but has created some new labels since then, focusing more on the Blends and Blended Malt side of things than Hunter Laing typically does. Fred Laing was joined by his daughter Cara at about the same time as the split. Since then, Douglas Laing has had plans to open their own distillery in Glasgow, but those plans may currently be on hold. The company did purchase Strathearn Distillery which is located in the Southern Highlands and was founded in 2013. The Strathearn purchase happened in 2019.

The offshoot company Hunter Laing was founded at the time of the split and set up by Stewart. Stewart was joined by his two sons Andrew and Scott, retained Old Malt Cask. Since the split, Hunter Laing has built a distillery on Islay named Ardnahoe, which was founded in 2017. Andrew and Scott also brought their First Editions and Hepburn's Choice labels to Hunter Laing.

Along with the rest of what Hunter Laing produces, they also created the Scarabus label attached to the mini bottle we are tasting today. Scarabus is apparently an Old Norse word that translates to "a rocky place'. That nicely sums up at least a portion of Islay itself.

It says right on the bottle lab...

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KWM 2021 Whisky Calendar Day 7: Glenfarclas 105

Posted on December 6, 2023

by Evan

Hello daddy! Hello mom! I'm your Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh Sherry Bomb!

We are jumping from 40% ABV on Day 6 all the way up to 60% ABV on Day 7. Say hello to the Glenfarclas 105!

Many of us are very familiar with Glenfarclas as a distillery and the story of the Grant family behind it. The distillery has been owned by the Grants for six Generations now. To keep things simple for the rest of us to remember the family history, all six patriarchs of the family have been named John or George. The current face of the distillery is George. His dad is still around as well and his name is John. The family has owned the distillery for more than 150 years.

What was Glenfarclas selling for their core range ten, fifteen, twenty years ago? The same bottles as they have today. Glenfarclas’ core range consists of the 105 Cask Strength, 12-year-old, 15 year old (which was in the 2019 KWM Whisky Calendar), 17 year old, 21 year old (which was also in the 2019 KWM Whisky Calendar), 25 year old, 30 year old, and 40-year-old. This doesn’t even take into account the impressive slew of Family Cask single vintage releases that at one point included each consecutive year between 1954 and 2002! Style-wise, they are still sherry-cask-focused for the entire range. No playing around with cask finishes or experimenting with peat here.

The Grant's see themselves as curators of Glenfarclas distillery for future generations of their family. They want to make sure that what has been built remains, so they don’t make big decisions solely based on the boom and bust ecosystem of the whisky industry. Change is great, change is fun, but it is refreshing to find a family and a distillery that doesn’t change everything based on the whims of trends and shareholders.

Going legal in 1836 and run by the Grant Family since 1870, Glenfarclas as a brand has been a model of consistency for quite a long time. This consistency is refreshing compared to the vast and often confusing changes other Scotch Whisky labels have gone through over the past decade or more. One popular brand has shifted from age statements to colour codes and now back again, but not the same as it once was. It can be difficult to be a fan of a brand that can't even maintain a core range well. That is not something that you have to worry about with Glenfarclas.

Glenfarclas as a brand has been important to me for quite a while. It was my first introduction to selling whisky. Years ago I would pour Glenfarclas at festivals, sometimes alongside George Grant himself. I had the chance to visit Scotland and the distillery for the first time in October of 2019, and it made me fall in love with the whisky all over again.

Back to today's dram: The Glenfarclas 10...

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