A Mötley Crew Indeed... Southbank Centre Whisky Club

Smashing into 2013 like a greased up, white hot juggernaught of whisky, hitting a Ford Transit Van full of salted Lurpak butter, Caskstrength's January has thus far been undoubtedly our busiest yet. Book launches, new tastings, creative projects, writing and a host of fun have all entered the swiftly emerging horizon and so far, we've been feeling slightly light headed as a result.  In other interesting news, our 5th annual BiG award (Best in Glass) has recently sparked off a flurry of international interest, especially in the New York Times with Balcones single malt release proving that craft distillation is very much alive, well and turning out some highly individual and engaging spirits.

Anyway, back to what we know best: writing and talking about whisky.  

Last night was our first Southbank Centre Whisky Club date for 2013 and the line up was undoubtedly the best yet: premium whiskies of the highest order. The club, which was started this time last year for members of the Southbank Centre and Royal Festival Hall is now open to non-members and it was wonderful to see a few familiar faces last night and regular readers of Caskstrength grinning as the drams were being poured.  But then again, who wouldn't want to open their 2013 malt account with this little motley crew and a view of Big Ben after dark?

From the left:  Balvenie Portwood 21yo, MacKinlay's recreation, Highland Park 21yo,
Nikka Pure Malt 17yo and SMWS Glen Moray 38yo

In fact, we were so taken with the whiskies, that we decided to do a little write up on each one-  (as we reviewed the MacKinlay's recently click here for a full report)

Balvenie Portwood 21yo -  40%

Nose: A wonderful richness, with floral wax, fresh cherries, wine soaked oak and spiced oranges. 

Palate: Bold and creamy, but with a secondary wave of fresh cherries, lemon zest, a hint of liquorice and oaky, ruby port. 

Finish: The oak is balanced perfectly with a lingering note of fresh fruit.

Overall: On a show of hands, this very much looked the dram to beat... until our next one popped its head up, but a truly outstanding example of how to bottle a near perfect whisky.




Highland Park 21yo - 40%

Nose: Manuka honey, a touch of dried ginger, liquorice, juicy apples dusted in cinnamon and brown sugar. The peat is soft, floral and slightly waxy.  Wonderful and refined.

Palate: Soft sweet malt, stewed red berries, patisserie cream, some green apple freshness and a sprinkling of rich brown sugar.  Tantalising and extremely moreish.

Finish: Honeyed malt notes are left on the palate, with a touch of slightly more medicinal peat.

Overall: HP 21yo at this strength is just superb.  The 18yo ranks as one of the all-time greats and this is another step up in the staircase of malt perfection.  

Nikka Pure Malt 17yo - 43%


Nose: Bold and bright, with strong PVA notes, a mineral/chalky note, swiftly followed up with some very unique peatiness (smoked straw), rich malt extract and old lobster pots/ brine.  Very distinct indeed.

Palate: Very clean, with come sweet candied cherries, icing sugar, malted milk biscuits a touch of pears steeped in white wine and vanilla, plus a slightly smoky backbeat.  

Finish:  The creamy notes take the longest time to diminish, alongside the peat smoke and fresh fruit.

Overall: Balanced on the palate, giving the hallmarks of lingering oak alongside some youthful exuberance.  Nikka are really beginning to fill in the gaps left by the likes of Suntory's Hakushu and Yamazaki, as well as the hugely sherried Karuizawa with their approach to intricately peated whiskies. this is yet another 'must-buy', if you're looking for something different from a Japanese whisky.

Scotch Malt Whisky Society: 35.63 (Glen Moray) 1974 Single Cask - 45.3%


Nose: A very dry note to begin with, which takes a little time to open up. But when it does, the fun begins: graphite/pencil shavings, a hint of freshly modelled clay, lemongrass, golden syrup, creamy fudge, vanilla essence and stewed plums.

Palate: The initial dryness gives way to some gingery notes, sweet potato, lemongrass something slightly medicinal (child's cough syrup) and a hint of woody anise.

Finish: Slightly dry, with a crisp oakiness leading the way and a touch of cooking apple.

Overall:  Yes, this is showing signs of its age, but there's still plenty in the tank to get excited about.  A great way to round off our tasting with and judging by the fair share of hands -  a firm favourite for some of our Whisky Club members.

If you'd like to come along to our next Southbank Centre Members Whisky Club, (on March 6th, covering Irish whiskey) visit the Southbank Centre website, where you can become a member (and get plenty of benefits, including significant discounts on events at the Royal Festival Hall, as well as access to the members lounge.  You can also email us info(at)caskstrength(dot)net for details and tickets, as our 2013 events schedule (including gin, cocktails, and many more) are now open to everyone.

Best In Glass Award 2012 : The Winning Whisky

The world of whisky is littered with awards, medals and trophies. As professionals in the drinks industry, we are honoured and privileged to be judges on a few of these excellent ventures. Indeed, as we type there is an ominously large box of samples waiting for us to ready our noses and palates for the judgement which awaits.

Scoring whisky is not something which we have every felt fully comfortable with. When we started this website, our ethos was (and indeed still is) about bringing you, our readers, entertaining and informative articles with tasting notes woven into the general fabric and architecture of the piece. These tasting notes provide guidance as to the flavour profile of the liquid, with some advice as to the quality of those elements. Thus helping you to make a decision if you'll like it or not. Ergo, not simply telling you if we like it. For example, you may love the light, youthful, peat smoke which is found in the Ardbeg Still Young. If so, then buy that whisky from the tasting notes we provide. If, however, you find that "young", "youthful", "spirit" turns you off and you like "heavy, rich, sherried, peat" then simply don't buy the whisky described.

Within these tasting notes, we'll add an overall section with our thoughts in it which is where we allow ourselves a little more freedom to place the liquid against others in the same category or price point. It's all pretty simple, really.

And keeping things simple really is our motto; we're all about keeping whisky inclusive, not making it exclusive, ring-fencing it for the geek and the wealthy.  If we were were a club, we  wouldn't have a dress code. You're as welcome here in a pair of Nike Air Stabs as you are in a pair of Church's Brogues.

The idea of inclusivity and simplicity was the driver for our yearly Best in Glass Award. Bored of the idea that a whisky, which sold out nine months ago could win a gold medal, or that a trophy was awarded to a whisky issued in a run of just 45 bottles, exclusively for the  ('Insert-typically-cryptic-but-predictably-gaelic-named') Whisky Club and something which the average man in the street will never even see, let alone have a chance to purchase, seemed totally ludicrous and alien to us. Worse still, it seems to enhance the alienation which can preclude so many new, young drinkers in to the category.

As a result, five years ago, we developed our own system. Paying homage the highly successful Mercury Music Prize in the UK, we chose our top ten drams from the year, got a bunch of like-minded drinks professionals together and chose one overall winner. 
The criteria for entry is simple:

-the whisky must be a new release in the calendar year

- the whisky must be commercially available to buy from a retailer (no festival bottlings, no one-off club bottles etc)

- the final ten whiskies are chosen by us at Caskstrength from reviews we've done and other whisky features we've penned, then judged by an independent panel. There is no entry fee as we chose the finalists from the whiskies we've had throughout the year. Often the liquid is provided free by the distilleries for the judging, but often we purchase many of the bottles used.

Once the ten nominations have been chosen by us, we sit in a room, have some lunch and then start the judging, with all the drams tried blind. Every year there is a mix of old and young whisky; peated and unpeated; single malts and blends; world whiskeys and Scotch. If we thought it hit our top ten and meets the criteria above, then it's in.

So this this year, our fifth awards ceremony rolled into town and it turned out to be the most surprising yet. Gathering at the London home of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, the 2012 panel was made up of the following:

Lucy Britner - Freelance Drinks Journalist

Ryan Chetiyawardana - Cocktail and Bar Consultant 

Ben Ellefsen - Director, Master of Malt

John Glaser - Compass Box Whisky Company

Alex Huskinson - Manager, The Whisky Exchange Shop, London

Alice Lascelles - Spirits Editor of Imbibe and The Sunday Times Drinks Columnist

Simone Sacco - Bar Manager, Hakkasan

Cat Spencer - Marketing Manager, Master of Malt

Marcin Miller - Number One Drinks Co.

Joe McGirr - Manager, SMWS London

Richard Woodard - Freelance Drinks Journalist and former Editor of The Spirits Business

The ten whiskies which made our finals this year were the following:

Balcones Texas Single Malt

The Balvenie Doublewood 17 Year Old Single Malt 

Cutty Sark Tam 'o Shanter Blended Whisky

Glenmorangie Artein Single Malt 

Johnnie Walker Platinum 18 Year Old Blended Whisky

Kilchoman Machir Bay Single Malt 

The Macallan Gold Single Malt

 

Nikka Coffey Grain Japanese Whisky

Springbank Rundlets & Kilderkins Single Malt

 

Teelings Hybrid Blended Irish / Scotch Whiskey

After much discussion, the panel whittled down the shortlist to three. From these those, an overall Best in Glass winner was chosen.

The two 'Highly Commended' whiskies were:

• Teelings Hybrid Blended Irish / Scotch Whiskey

• Cutty Sark Tam 'o Shanter Blended Whisky

So without further ado, it gives us great pleasure to announce that the overall winner - and this year's Best in Glass goes to:

Balcones Texas Single Malt - 53% - 75cl

Nose: Light orchard fruit notes, with apricot, stewed pears, plums and vanilla and a touch of dessert wine.  With water, the aromas start to really intensify, with more floral notes coming to the fore with a deliciously sweet red apple and hint of anise.  

Palate: Sweet and light, with vanilla, more dried apricot, chopped green apples, a hint of lightly toasted oak and milk chocolate.  The small casks used to mature this (mostly yard seasoned 20 litre American oak casks) have had a huge, but appealing influence to the palate. 

Finish: Short, with lighter fruit notes and a touch of liquorice. 

Overall: A mighty whisky and a triumph for independent distilling.  One thing's for sure, we very much look forward to trying the next few batches of this unique single malt in the years to come. 

So congratulations to the good people at Balcones for their excellent liquid, which the panel agreed stood up very well against some seriously stiff opposition. The panel were surprised and delighted by the Balcones bold flavour profile and balance of maturity.

Join us this time next year for the 6th annual Best in Glass award... who knows what will take the top prize...!

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Barley & Water & Yeast & Time.

Just an additional note to mention that our new sister site, WhiskyMerch.com, is now up selling our own designs of whisky-related t-shirts, bags and... baby grows. Yes, that's right, Daddy's Wee Dram can enjoy whisky too! With international shipping, these items are all woven from high quality cotton with the chosen design in deep flock print.

The most popular tee so far has been our Barley & Water & Yeast & Time edition (as seen above), echoing the three ingredients which go into single malt whisky and the magical final piece of the jigsaw: time. 

Check it out here: http://www.whiskymerch.com

BiG Award 2011 the Winner is announced!

With the taste of 10 great whiskies still lingering in our mouths, we're pleased to announce the overall winner of this year's Best in Glass Award, which was no doubt, the biggest and best we've been involved with.

Not only was the competition extremely stiff between the ten short-listed whiskies, but the wealth of experience from our judging panel was a real force to be reckoned with.

Many thanks to our generous hosts The Albannach in London's Trafalgar Square for providing such excellent surroundings for the event and to the esteemed judges themselves for giving up their time and expertise.

This year's BiG Award panel consisted of the following keen noses and palates:

John Glaser, founder of Compass Box Whisky

Sam Simmons, The Balvenie Global Ambassador and the irrepressible Dr Whisky

Ed Bates, independent drinks consultant and former spirits expert for Berry Bros & Rudd.

Hannah Lanfear, bar manager of Boisdale, Canary Wharf

Ryan Chetiyawardana, manager of The Whistling Shop bar and cocktail maestro.

Ben Ellefsen, director of Master Of Malt

Darren Rook, former manager of the SMWS and now independent spirits consultant

Carey Willetts, bass player and songwriter with the UK band Athlete and whisky enthusiast.

Cat Spencer, marketing manager of The Albannach bar.

The ten whiskies were all judged blind, with three rounds to get down to our overall winning Best in Glass whisky.

So without further ado, the final 3 whiskies were as follows:

Ardbeg Alligator (highly commended)

Tomatin Decades (highly commended)

The 2011 Best in Glass Award winner goes to:

Black Bull 40 year old blended whisky - Batch 2

The panel were wowed by the balance of this superbly put together whisky, which demonstrated incredible fruit, vanilla and complex, aged oak notes, with a rich and highly moreish character. For a full review click here:

So it's congratulations to the team at Duncan Taylor. Once again, the BiG Award has demonstrated that it is possible to select 10 great whiskies, wildly differing in style, put them in the same room, with a bunch of like-minded imbibers and select an overall winner.

On receiving this year's award, Scott Watson, CEO for Duncan Taylor Whiskies commented:

“It’s tremendous to see Black Bull 40 year old recognised with a prestigious Best In Glass award from Caskstrength. To come out top in a blind tasting from such an esteemed panel of judges is a great honour and a fantastic testament to Black Bull’s boldly independent character."

Stay tuned for next year's awards....

Bulldog vs Hockey Mom

Politics. It is a funny old game. We are less than a week away now from the US Presidential election to see who will replace George W. Bush in the White House. But before citizens of the United States go to the polls there is weeks and week of electioneering. Candidates travelling from coast to coast and spending unfeasibly large amounts of money (money that could, if both parties agreed not to spend it on marketing, be used to build schools, hospitals and feed the poor). But the election run-up is about educating the people. Empowering the good folk in the U. S. of A to make an informed decision at the polls. To know each candidates agenda. To understand why they believe their campaign. And most importantly to find a candidate they trust.

This is much like whisky.

"Er, okay. How on earth is this like whisky?!" I hear you cry. "You've finally gone mental."

Well, whisky is all about education; education of the palate. Travelling from coast to coast and spending unfeasibly large amounts of money (money that could be better used to build schools, hospitals and feed the poor. Or just to pay my bloomin' mortgage!) on learning about different wood finishes. Learning about peating levels. Learning about age. Learning about regional styles and regional variations. Understanding blending and vatting. And trying out as many different distilleries as one can get ones hand on! Education before you finally put your "X" in the box of a whisky that you dearly love. A whisky you would trust as your leader. A whisky to run your free world. A Whisky with it's finger firmly on the button.

It was with unbounded joy then, that we recently came across a bottling from a distillery which neither of us had sampled before; Glendronach. An open bottle of 15 Year Old, 100% Matured in Sherry, this was going to be a real eduction for the palate.

Glendronach - 15 YO "100% Matured in Sherry" - 40% Vol - 1 ltr

Nose: A touch of peat smoke (very light indeed), some aniseed, lots of Christmas spices and Rum 'n' Raisin ice cream. Yummy!

Palate: The raisins again mixed with some light summer ale. Ginger root and a slight medicinal (TCP) quality. Nice and warming.

Finish: Lingers for a short while with cola but the depth in flavours is let down by the low alc content. Sherried whiskies of this age need more oomph to carry their substantial character across the finish line.

Overall: A real education. This is a pleasant enough dram but I'd love to try this spirit in bourbon casks, as was tried in their 12 YO release called "The Original" (second fill, mainly bourbon). It feels over disciplined in the sherry casks at this age.

Best In Glass Awards 2008

As the end of the year approaches, we here at Caskstrength.net shall be looking to place an "X" next to our favourite whisky of the year, as we announce the nominations in our first "Best In Glass" Awards (BiG Awards). A short list of 8 - 10 whiskies shall be drawn up and announced at the start of November. The only criteria for this is that the whisky must have been released in 2008. From the short list there shall be only one winner, to be revealed Monday December 1st. Keep and eye out for further announcements.