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KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar Day 17: Tobermory 12 Year Old

Posted on November 7, 2021

by Evan

We are headed off of Jura and moving North for Day Seventeen of our 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar. We visited this island once already on Day Four. If your memory serves, it will tell you we are heading back to the Isle of Mull, this time for the unpeated side of Tobermory Distillery with the Tobermory 12-Year-Old.

I have not yet been to the Isle of Mull, but the town of Tobermory seems like it would picturesque town to visit. With a row of houses along the waterfront painted in bright colours, it looks like it could be located in parts of Italy or Greece if it wasn't for the surrounding trees and foliage. The waterfront view has been used on many different UK television shows because of this.

The town Tobermory is located on the Northern part of Mull and was founded in 1788, a decade before Tobermory Distillery came to being. The town was intentionally built and engineered to be a fishing port by the British Fisheries Society. Today, the population sits around 1,000.

The Tobermory 12 Year Old that we will be tasting today was just introduced in the summer of 2019, at around the same time that the distillery reopened being closed for two years of heavy renovations. The 12 Year is the flagship of the Tobermory lineup - and it replaced a 10-year old that was the previous main bottle in the range. That range is small currently, with the 12-Year-Old and the Ledaig 10 being the main and only regular bottlings from the distillery that reach Alberta.

We have already tasted the heavily peated style from Tobermory. How does the unpeated version stand up? Time to find out!

Tobermory 12-Year-Old - 46.3%

Also available in 50ml Mini bottles

Evan's Tasting Note

Nose: Full of lemons, limes and grassy notes. Olive oil, apples, pears, lemongrass, green onions, mint leaves, sea salt a good amount of minerality.

Palate: Oily, salty, warm and toasty with notes of toasted almonds, cracked pepper, lemon tarts, apple strudel, shortbread cookies and a touch of ginger.

Finish: Clean and fresh with salty and citrus-driven with a soft nutty note on the fade.

Comment: Crisp, salty and fresh this dram is. A solid 12 year that balances fruit and minerality nicely.

Pretty tasty stuff in my opinion. Almost a palate cleanser in style, like lemon sherbet. I am more of a Ledaig fan, but I would never turn this Tobermory down! See you tomorrow for Day Eighteen!

Cheers,
Evan
evan@kensingtonwinemarket.com
Twitter and Instagram: @sagelikefool
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KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar Day 16: That Boutique-y Whisky Co. Jura 20 Year Old

Posted on November 7, 2021

by Evan

What does Day Number Sixteen in the 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar have for us? Today, we are leaving one island for another - heading from Canada back to Scotland and specifically to the Isle of Jura. Today's whisky is a 20-Year-Old small batch bottling of Jura from That Boutique-y Whisky Company.

This is the second bottle in this year's Whisky Calendar that has been sourced from That Boutique-y Whisky Company. This cool indie bottler is part of a larger company called Atom brands, which also operates a few different indie whiskies, rum, and gin labels including Drinks By The Dram, Darkness, and others. The company is responsible for the UK liquor retailer website Master of Malt, and also for making the first Whisky Advent Calendar that we had ever seen about seven or eight years ago. Atom Brands itself was bought by beer and drinks giant AB Inbev back in April of 2018.

That Boutique-y Whisky Company: Quirky Labels, Delicious Whisky

The Isle of Jura Distillery is the only distillery on the Isle of Jura (yes, I did read my previous sentence and no, I am not going to change it). The distillery site was originally founded in 1810 when it started its life under the name Small Isles Distillery. While it operated for most of the 19th century, it was shut down in 1901 and mostly dismantled. Jura Distillery was finally rebuilt and revived six decades later in 1963 when whisky production on the site started once more.

The distillery may not receive the amount of love from consumers that it should, currently. It is owned by Whyte and Mackay/Emperador and while the company does try to put focus on the Jura label, it is overshadowed by another brand in their portfolio. That is Dalmore Distillery, which has more of a following (and a lot more pretension in my opinion). It could be worse, though: Have you heard of Fettercairn or Tamnavulin? In Alberta, we just started to receive official bottlings from these two distilleries, but not much effort has been put into making them household names at this point.

Two woods ought to be enough for anyone.

While Jura whisky has a fanbase, the label and lineup have been a little scattershot and schizophrenic over the past decade or more. For years, it was tough to figure out what kind of whisky you were going to be getting from a lineup that carried both unpeated, lightly peated, and heavily peated whisky. I know they were trying to brand their peated styles with the mysterious names of 'Superstition' and 'Prophecy', but telling what was peaty and what was not in their range could be difficult for consumers.

The Jura brand was relaunched in 2018, though you can still find some of the older bottlings on shelves. The new range might not be much better for consumer understanding. One of my favourite Scotch Whisky bottle names to...

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KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar Day 15: Shelter Point Rye KWM Cask #346

Posted on November 7, 2021

by Evan

What is this? KWM single casks back to back in the 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar? What were we thinking?!? For Day Fifteen in our 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar we present to you the Shelter Point Rye KWM Cask #346.

We tasted our second bottling of Millstone KWM Single Cask Rye with the full-sized bottle still to come back on Day One, so this is the second Rye Whisky to grace our Whisky Calendar this year. It is the first Canadian Whisky to do so and the third KWM Cask we have seen in the 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar.

Why rye? Well, rye whisky has been undergoing a bit of a renaissance (Ryenaissance) over the past five or six years. In the USA, American Rye Whiskey has been booming, and in Canada, it has been undergoing a revival as well. Much of the Canadian attention has been due to the excellent Lot 40 bottlings from the Wiser's distillery in Windsor, Ontario and the Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye from made in Gimli, Manitoba. We have seen excellent smaller releases as well, with the excellent Ploughman's Rye from Eau Claire Distillery in the Turner Valley and the equally good first releases from Park Distillery in Banff.

The Best Alberta Premium Ever?? https://t.co/dXrSikGU2M

— Davin de Kergommeaux (@DavindeK) November 27, 2019

I had high hopes when I heard that this was being released. It does not disappoint. This is excellent Rye and it will likely win a few awards in the future. The price is amazing too! My tasting notes can be found here: https://t.co/3LQc9nwvRW pic.twitter.com/zO9RQ06T0M

— Evan Eckersley (@SageLikeFool) October 21, 2019

And then there's that incredibly underrated distillery that makes extremely good 100% Rye whisky right here in Calgary: ADL or Alberta Distillers Limited. It's recent claim to fame? Perhaps you have heard of it - it is called the Alberta Premium Cask Strength. After some guy in a Panama Hat who is unfortunately good at writing a press release in an attempt to his book every year that makes the whisky world go crazy named it his Whisky of the Year and the media took his word as gospel, everybody went crazy and tried to track down what was already a mostly sold-out product.

This statement is not hyperbole: since that press release in September of 2020, we have received more phone calls for the Alberta Premium Cask Strength than any other product over the entirety of this year. It was annoying to me, and Kensington Wine Market because we had been telling people that this was a great bottling since last year. Then all of the sudden some guy puts out a whisky rating book he calls a bible and the whole world goes mad for it. That is the way of things I guess!

The takeaway from all of this should be twofold:

Alberta Distillers makes world-class R...

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KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar Day 14: SMOS Caol Ila 8 Year KWM Cask

Posted on November 7, 2021

by Evan

We are going big, peaty, sherried and cask strength for today's whisky. Day Fourteen in the 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar features our Single Malts Of Scotland (SMOS) Caol Ila 8-Year-Old KWM Cask!

We have been fortunate to see a lot of young, high-strength Caol Ila in recent years. Between Port Askaig, Elements of Islay, Cooper's Choice, and the Scotch Malt Whisky Society to name a few, I have conservatively tasted 25 or so different Caol Ila's that are aged 12 years or less over the past five years or so - many having been bottled at cask strength from a single cask. There have been a variety of styles, aromas, and flavours to come from these bottles, but one thing does bind them all together. They have all been AT LEAST very good bottles of whisky. Some of them have been even better than that.

There are a few reasons for this in my mind:

Firstly - peat can enhance the style, complexity and approachability of young Single Malt Scotch. If you had one very young (3 to 5 year old, say) unpeated Single Malt Scotch and another of the same age that was peated - even coming from the same distillery - chances are the peated whisky will not only be more enticing but it will also come off as more complex.

Secondly - peat can mask flaws and/or young spirit. Whereas unpeated Single Malt Scotch can come off as being harsh, chemical, or overpoweringly spirit-driven - we almost expect a lot of this to be the case in peated single malt anyhow.

Those are just my two cents. Take them as you wish! Regardless, the quality of Caol Ila at a young age (or any age for that matter) is undeniable. It enhances any blend it is put into, but also stands on its own quite easily with its oily, coastal, marine and peaty character.

Caol Ila Distillery itself has been around since 1846 and is about a 5-minute drive from the ferry landing at Port Askaig. The Ardnahoe and Bunnahabhain Distilleries, are its nearest neighbours. Caol Ila is the largest producer of Single Malt Scotch on Islay by a good margin, and it has to be. It is a distillery that is sought after by blenders and independent bottlers alike and with good reason. More than 85% of Caol Ila's production is destined for blends, and one of the main factors for this is that it is the heart of Johnnie Walker Black Label and the more recent Johnnie Walker Double Black.

What we will be tasting today is a single cask offering of Caol Ila, bottled for us by Elixir Distillers under their Single Malts of Scotland line. We originally tasted this cask quite a while back, and it was a no-brainer of a selection on our part. That can be said for all of what we have seen from Elixir Distillers so far. Elixir has been very good to us, working with importer Pacific Wine & Spirits to give us some of the best Islay Malts we have seen in the past...

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KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar Day 13: Glenfarclas 25 Year Old

Posted on December 6, 2023

by Evan

Lucky Day Number Thirteen is here on our 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar! What is the hump day whisky? We are leaving the coast and going into the Scottish mainland - to the town of Ballindalloch specifically for the Glenfarclas 25-Year-Old!

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 continuity is refreshing compared to the vast and often confusing changes other Scotch Whisky labels have gone through over the past decade or more. We have seen two brands change from promoting a range of vintage releases to going the more time-tested route of age-stated Single Malt Scotch. We have seen another major brand go from age statements to colour codes and back again (kind of) in that time. Talk about an identity crisis! That is what is wonderful about Glenfarclas: it knows exactly what it is and doesn't try and convince you of anything else.

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.

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. 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. The Glenfarclas 105 was introduced more than 50 years ago in 1968. It was the first small batch, cask strength Single Malt Whisky released by a distillery.

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.

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...

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