KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar Day 12: Arran Barrel Reserve
Posted on December 8, 2023
by EvanDay 12 and we are staying coastal, but heading from Campbeltown to the Isle of Arran for the Arran Barrel Reserve!
The Arran distillery is relatively young by Scottish standards.
That is one of the hack lines I spout when talking about Arran distillery to somebody that hasn't heard of them. I should probably retire that line sooner rather than later, as I have been saying it for more than a decade now. However, it still rings of at least some truth. Having started production in 1995 it is still relatively young when you take into account just about any other distillery we have tasted in the 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar thus far. Many of the distilleries responsible for these other mini bottles are older than Arran's distillery by a century or more.
I suppose that the distillery isn't entirely young anymore. The Isle of Arran Distillers just announced the first official 25-year-old bottling this past November. They are also old enough to undergo a somewhat confusing name change: We should start referring to the Arran Distillery by the name of Lochranza instead.
The Isle of Arran Distillery is located – unsurprisingly – on the Isle of Arran. The island lies just east of Campbeltown and well east of Islay and the distillery itself resides on the north of the island, in the village of Lochranza. There is that name again.
The Still Room at Arran's Lochranza Distillery
The reason for changing the name from reflecting the name of the island it resides on to the town that it resides in is this: The Lochranza distillery is no longer the only distillery on the Isle of Arran. On the south of the island sits the town of Lagg, which is where the distillery of the same name opened its doors in the summer of 2019. Like the Lochranza Distillery, Lagg is owned by the Isle of Arran Distillers.
The confusing part in this name change? For one, the range of Single Malts bottled by Lochranza still retains the name of Arran Single Malt Scotch Whisky in large letters on the label. You can usually find small print stating that it was "Distilled and Matured in Lochranza, Isle of Arran" on the label as well, but still...
Lochranza Castle on the Isle of Arran
The Isle of Arran is often talked about as being Scotland in miniature and I can understand why. It feels like you get nearly all possibly terrains and terrior on this one small island.
Last year, Andrew and I visited both the Lochranza and Lagg Distilleries. Where the Lochranza Distillery focuses mostly on making unpeated whisky (one exception being the Machrie Moor line of peated single malts), the Lagg Distillery is producing a heavily peated spirit.
Our trip to Arran was memorable for many reasons - first and foremost being that we li...
KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar Day 11: Glen Scotia 15 Year Old
Posted on December 12, 2021
by EvanWhat could possibly follow the beastly peat of Laphroaig we had on Day Ten? Open up the door and see - we are heading to Campbeltown! Door Eleven gives us the Glen Scotia 15-Year-Old.
This is at least the third KWM Whisky Calendar to feature a Glen Scotia. We featured the excellent Glen Scotia Victoriana in our 2019 Calendar. A year or two before that we had a G&M Glen Scotia.
As I have said half in jest at a few Scotch Malt Whisky Society Tastings previously: Glen Scotia is easily one of the top three operating distilleries in Campbeltown. When it comes to The Wee Toon, it is typically Springbank Distillery that gets all of the love from whisky aficionados. It is easy to see why - Springbank is a grungy Victorian throwback in look and feel. It is an anachronism - a distillery out of time and out of step with modern life - just as some say Campbeltown itself is. Springbank is rustic, dilapidated, inconsistent, and often impossible to find bottles from nowadays. And it is all the more loved because of that.
It can be easy to forget that Campbeltown is home to three operating distilleries. Besides Springbank, there is also Glengyle, which is bottled as Kilkerran. This distillery almost shouldn't count, though I love it dearly just as I love Springbank itself.
Both Glengyle and Springbank are owned and operated by W.M. Cadenhead. But together they essentially amount to one operating distillery, because they share important resources such as employees and the Springbank Floor Maltings. This means that if Glengyle is distilling, Springbank is possibly silent. Then when Springbank is distilling, Glengyle might be silent - all because there are not enough shared resources to operate both at full capacity at once.
With a strong enough arm, Springbank and Glengyle are about a stone's throw from each other. Glen Scotia though? It sits on its own. The distillery lies off a ways from both these two - nearly a whole half-kilometre away from the two as the crow flies. Like it's Wee Toon’ cohort Springbank, the Glen Scotia Distillery itself is chock-full of grimy, Victorian, and industrial character in all of the right ways.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, back when Campbeltown was a more busy, industry-driven place with a bustling fishing port, Glen Scotia had much closer neighbouring distilleries. They actually abutted Glen Scotia Distillery itself - sitting just on the other sides of the walls that encase its lot. At this time, the story goes, Campbeltown had more distilleries than churches which themselves numbered more than thirty. Boom times eventually went bust, and for quite a while only two distilleries remained in the town, though that could have been considered one and a half for how little Glen Scotia operated in the early 2000s.
And...
KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar Day 10: Laphroaig 10 Year Old
Posted on November 7, 2021
by EvanDay Ten for our 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar has arrived, and with it so has our second foray into heavy peat. This also represents our first trip to the island of Islay in the Calendar.
Presenting: The Laphroaig 10 Year Old.
This is one of the Islay classics, one of the peated beasts that makes you either love or fear this style of Single Malt Scotch. For me, this was the first heavily peated Scotch Whisky I ever purchased years and years ago. I was just getting into Scotch Whisky at the time, and I had no experience with the smoky, peated side of it yet. I just picked a bottle of Laphroaig 10 Year Old off the shelf because I liked the plain, stark style of the label on the tube I guess.
When I got around to cracking open the bottle and tasting it for the first time I honestly thought that there was something wrong with it, like a corked bottle of wine. I asked my Dad to taste it to see if I should take it back and he instead confirmed that yes, that is what Laphroaig is supposed to taste like. If memory serves, I choked down the rest of that bottle of Laphroaig 10 Year Old by mixing it with coke and ginger ale.
That first dive into the deep end of heavily peated Scotch is nearly two decades back in time for me now. After that, I started going to tastings and festivals and tried more Scotch and quickly developed a love for peated whisky.
Belly Of The Beast - Inside The Malt Kiln At Laphroaig Distillery
Laphroaig Distillery celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2015. Two centuries plus five years back now, it was founded by two brothers, who placed the distillery right on the shores of Islay. Today, it remains one of a handful of distilleries to at least partially supply its own malt. Using the floor maltings and kiln at the distillery, the malt is peated to a spec of between 50 and 60 PPM. The distillery's own maltings can only supply about 15% percent of the malt needed, though. The rest is brought in from Port Ellen Maltings, which is less than a 10-minute drive to the west, on the opposite side of the town of Port Ellen. The sourced malted barley is peated between 35 and 45 PPM.
Two Kilometres down the road from Laphroaig Distillery is Lagavulin Distillery. Walk or drive another two clicks down the same road and you will hit Ardbeg Distillery.
On Islay, all other distilleries are dwarfed production-wise by Caol Ila. Laphroaig can outproduce most other Islay distilleries beyond that, but wouldn't only be able to pump out half as much spirit as Caol Ila if they were both running at full capacity. However, Laphroaig is the number one selling Islay Single Malt Scotch brand. It also happens to be the favourite Scotch Whisky of the Duke of Rothesay, who also goes by Prince Charles when he is not in Scotland.
The core lineup of Laphroaig currently consists of t...
KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar Day 9: Balblair 1997 Vintage
Posted on November 7, 2021
by EvanTime is flying, and we are up to Door number Nine on the 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar. Open that door and pull out the contents to reveal the Balblair 1997 2nd Release.
For many years the Glenrothes and Balblair lineups were the only Single Malt Scotch ranges released as vintages only. Both distilleries have eschewed the vintage bottling in the past few years and gone to a more typical line of age-stated releases. Balblair's range currently includes 12, 15, 18 and 25-year-old core. You might still find some of their vintage stated bottles out there - as of this writing we still have the 2003 and 2005 in our shop.
Balblair is likely one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland, though it has not been open continuously since its inception in 1790. Also, just over a century after production started in 1894, the distillery site was moved about a kilometre North to make it more accessible to the newly built Inverness to Ardgay Railway Line. This allowed the distillery to take advantage of the freight transport for the much-needed coal and barley used in heating and production.
The distillery was mothballed in 1911 and did not resume production until nearly decades later in 1948. Since then, it has changed ownership a few times but was sold to Inverhouse Distillers in 2007. In 2019 the Balblair Single Malt brand underwent a full-scale revamp. Balblair remains in the hands of Inverhouse/Thai Beverages today and is one of four Scottish Single Malt brands owned by the company. The others are Old Pulteney, anCnoc (from Knockdhu Distillery), and Speyburn.
Balblair Distillery is located in the Northern Highlands, on the South side of the Dornoch Firth and on the outskirts of a town called Edderton. Its nearest distillery neighbours are Glenmorangie, which is about a 10-minute drive going East, and the newer Thompson Brothers Distillery at Dornoch Castle. What lies on the North side of the Dornoch Firth and is about a 15-minute drive from Balblair if you take the A9 across the Firth itself.
Back to the mini bottle at hand. Truth be told, we weren't supposed to get this mini bottle of the Balblair 1997. It was a fortuitous mistake. We weren't even aware these still existed. It is always fun to try something that is no longer available though, so we were happy to put it into our Whisky Calendar regardless.
You could consider this bottling a library release. The 1997 Balblair was actually put into bottle back in 2013 and is no longer available as a full-sized version. So how about we give this relative rarity a taste?
Balblair 1997 2nd Release - 46%
Only available in 50ml Mini bottles.
This second release of the Balblair 1997 was aged for 15 years in ex-Bourbon Casks before being bottled in 2013 at 46% ABV. It predates Balblair's chang...
Scotch Malt Whisky Society of Canada December 2020 Outturn
Posted on November 7, 2021
by EvanBetween writing up 25 blog posts for our 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar I decided to take a break - by tasting the seven new bottles in the SMWS December Outturn!
December is here and a new Outturn has been unleashed on us by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society of Canada, which means it is time to talk about the seven new SMWS bottles that have graced us with their presence. For me, that means it is time to taste more whisky! I look forward to tasting the bottles and writing up these blog posts each month. I wish I could share in tasting them together with you all, and hopefully, we can get back to doing that soon. For now, here are my thoughts on the December lineup.
39.194 - This is the first Linkwood we have seen in a while, and with a name like TIME FLIES AND FRUIT FLIES I am expecting some nice sweet notes within the glass. Let's see: The nose is fruity and floral with cherries, raspberries, lemon tarts, spearmint and chamomile, a touch of grapefruit peel, golden delicious apple, and white pepper. and hand lotion. On the palate, I get a creamy and spicy built followed by a burst of fruit. Buttercream, sweet yellow kiwis, pineapple chunks, applesauce and coconut water. This is a bright and delicious starting dram.
6.37 - Next up is a 10-year-old from Macduff distillery, which is more commonly known as The Deveron in official bottlings. WITH AN UNBATTERED EDGE shows a touch of green/unseasoned oak on the nose along with wedding cake fondant, blanched almonds, and jasmine. To taste it is sharper than the 39, with a touch of salt on the finish. The palate gives lemonade, ripe golden pears, pickled ginger, yogurt-covered pretzels, lychee, and polished oak.
89.11 - With an awesome name comes A KRAFTWERK ORANGE. I am going to have to crank up Autobahn to taste this Tomintoul! As the song opens and the car door closes with a thump, I and start to notice aromas of marmalade on buttered and toasted Wonderbread (Wunderbread?), oatmeal with golden raisins and a touch of honey, dried apricots, and late harvest Riesling. As the tempo slows on the song and the German chorus extolls the virtues of that magnificent highway I start to taste. The buttery and creamy mouthfeel also gives notes of drizzled honey on top of whipped cream that sits on a creme brulee. Macadamia nuts, cashews and black pepper on the finish. This is a subtle yet rich dram. I am only at minute thirteen in the song so I could keep drinking this one, but there are more to taste so I had better hop to it! AHHH TOHHH BAHNNNN
10.192 - Onto this Bunnahabhain, which is titled DEEP & COMPLEX & SWEET & EARTHY. I am left empty, wishing this name also referenced a German Pre-Industrial Proto-Electronic band. The nose gives black walnut bitters, black tea, black truffles, and a dash of iodine. Maybe they could have gone with a Rolling Stones reference and called it Paint it Black? The pa...
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