Bonded Warehouse

Today is the last Saturday before Christmas; a perfect opportunity to nip out an put the finishing touches to the Christmas shopping. Well, it would have been had it not tipped down with snow for about 3 hours this morning. From less than a millimetre to well over 4 inches in about 180 mins is quite a feat, especially here in Central London.

Not a time to be out shopping. Not a time to be out doing anything at all, really. This is a time to call up on local friends, put on a pot of hot chocolate and dig in to some festive viewing.

For me, this consists of as much James Bond, 007, as played by Roger Moore, as possible. Classic films. Classic lines. (“Put your clothes on, Love. I’ll buy you an ice cream.”) Classic fashion. No man can wear a safari suit quite like Roger Moore.

Before I start sounding like Alan Partridge (possibly the greatest clip we’ve ever linked to) there are many, many Christmas classics and one which I know a lot of people will love at this time of year is The Sound Of Music.

From watching The Sound Of Music this weekend, it has come to my attention that the von Trapp family were indeed the world’s first drinks critics and were trying to send home a message of their tasting notes for the locally produced Austrian spirit, through the lyrics of one of their most famous songs, These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things:

Nose: “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings.”

Palate: “Cream coloured ponies and crisp apple strudels, door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles. Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings.”

Finish: “Girls in a white dresses with a blue satin sashes, snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes, silver white winters that melt into springs”

Overall: “When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favourite things, and then I don't feel so bad.”

Judging by their overall comment, one would imagine this to a be peated spirit with a high alcohol content, giving a “bite” and a “sting” to the experience of the dram. My advice; drop in a little water...

None of this has anything to do with where I’m going next, which is to write up some of the notes I tweeted on Monday from a wonderful Laphroaig tasting at The Whisky Exchange’s shop in London, hosted by Distillery Manager John Campbell.

The tasting featured a whopping eight whiskies, starting with the 10 Year Old, then Batch 1 & Batch 2 of the 10 Year Old Cask Strength. You’ll notice, three whiskies in, that we’re still on their 10 year olds. Big smile. Onwards the selection went to the Quarter Cask, the Triple Wood (Travel Retail Only), the 18 Year Old, Cask Strength 25 Year Old and finally a 30 Year Old Cairdeas.

We’ve reviewed much of this before and it can all be found at (the soon to be updated) Caskstrength Warehouse. In summary, the 10 year old was excellent as always. Like visiting an old friend; solid and reliable. The Quarter Cask: in our opinion, is better than the 10 Year Old. The whisky that goes in to it is apparently between 5 and 7 years old. Age matters, huh? The 18 Year Old: is it as good as the 15 Year Old used to be? I don’t know, I can’t really remember the 15 Year Old too well. But this does an ample job in providing a whisky with more depth of wood character, a greater spice presence and depth of flavour than the 10 Year Old. The Cask Strength 25 Year Old I wasn’t a fan of. I found it had too much bitterness and the smoke hadn’t mellowed, but had become faintly annoying and stale. It also fell apart with water.

The were however, two outstanding bottles, both at the opposing end of the age scale. And the price scale.

Laphroaig - 10 Year Old – Cask Strength – Batch 002 – 58.3% ABV

Nose: Huge wafts of peat smoke but with this being a Laphroaig, there are the classic elements of bandages, TCP and liniment. But this is backed with a very “lowland in American oak” feel: slight hints of ginger and vanilla oak. Tempting.

Palate: A fresh fruity nature that goes from being tinned fruit salad (neat) to something more akin a home-made smoothy using the fruit in the bowl that is on the turn, but you’ve not got enough smoothy to go around the family, so you water it down very heavily! Plus a bit hit of peat, of course. The fire from the peat keeps this one lingering on and on.

Finish: Lots of great wood; spices and oak. A hint of hazelnut praline and of course, loads of smoke!

Overall: Side-by-side with Batch 001, this wins hands down. Having said that, I think I’d still rather have a bottle of the Bowmore Tempest, but that is a side-by-side that we’ll look to do in the very near future and we’ll do it blind.

Laphroaig - 30 Year Old – Cairdeas – 43%

Cairdeas is a brand that has been developed to sell in to Friends of Laphroaig as well as Travel Retail and Festival Bottlings. Basically, it is their “Ultra Premium” or “Ultra Rare” range. This bottle has spent 30 Years in Oloroso Sherry and 1 Year in ex-American Oak casks, technically making it a 31 Year Old. You can watch a video of a warehouse tasting of this whisky here.

Nose: Ahhhh... there is that medicinal peat smoke, but aged and restrained by the influence of the wood. Like Ryan Giggs, a football who used to rely on blistering pace but due to age has become a more tempered player, happy to linger on the ball and pick out stunning passes. This is a mature nose with elements of menthol, not medicine. Peaches, not peat. Soft, inviting and warming.

Palate: The influence of the sherry has imparted stewed plumbs, apple chutney and cloves. All wrapped up in that delicate peat blanket.

Finish: Just enough flavours of spice apple and stewed red fruits to compete with that delicate peat hit. Well balanced and warming.

Overall: In this whisky, we see just how well peated whisky can age. When wood spices, sherry and peat smoke combine with maturity, it can be unstoppable.

It’s been a while since we’ve done a flight of Laphroaig and is something we usually do when on Islay, so it made a refreshing change to sit down with these old friends just a few miles from home. It is also fantastic to be re-visiting some of the whisky that we used to review a lot of in the early days, such as the Ardbeg posting from last week and in a few days time we’ll be looking at a Talisker vertical, which is yet another blast from the past!

Merry Christmas, one and all.

A Load Of Old 'Toshan....

Recently, I was going through the cabinet at Caskstrength towers, wondering whether I should categorise all the bottles into their respective regions. I'd seen my pal do this and create a rather fetching leather-bound menu, which I liked the look of. So like trying to order one's music collection into genres (which starts out like fun, only to descend into absolute misery)

I set about the task, only to quickly realise that 1 region, the Lowlands was pretty poorly represented. I have a couple of nice Rosebanks, which i've been rationing out, but are becoming severely depleted. I also picked up a bottle of Auchentoshan Three Wood, as Mrs Caskstrength tasted it at a food festival earlier this summer and proclaimed it to be 'the whisky that MIGHT start her enjoying whisky'... High praise indeed.

It was somewhat timely then, that earlier this week, we received a couple of small samples of 2 new Auchentoshan releases, namely their 1998 and 1977 vintages.

Auchentoshan - 1977 vintage- 49% - Oloroso Sherry Cask - 249 bottles

Nose: Moist Christmas cake, slightly earthy and musty, with some pine resin, aged leather, big fat juicy raisins and some freshly cut oak. Quite surprising that this has been in Oloroso for its entire term, yet doesn't show any signs of over-age or dryness/dark fruit.

Palate: Hot and quite firey, with ginger, lemon zest, a hint of chilli, then extinguished with some creamy milk chocolate, some herbaceous /almost vermouth notes. Lingering sweetness from those big juicy raisins and all spice come through on the death.

Finish: Not a hint of dryness, the palate is left feeling juicy and peppered with fruit and spice.

Overall: Altogether, a bit of a minx. The nose has lots of juice and leather, the palate is very spicy, but the whole thing is very pleasingly balanced. This works as a wintery whisky, but differently to most other older sherry casks, in that it certainly isn't dominated by overly woody flavours and still retains a zesty, spicy sense of youth.

Auchentoshan - 1998 - Fino Sherry Cask - 54.6%

Nose: Toffee, with peanut brittle, honeycomb, oak sawdust, white pepper and lemon zest are all noticeable on the first nosing. With a little water, summer fruits including gooseberries and elderberries make themselves known, coupled with a malty cereal undercarriage.

Palate: Not as open as the 1977. There is a similar spiciness, with the ginger and lemon zest, but it's not quite as appealing as before. Water really gives this a lift, with a much more fruity edge coming to the fore.

Finish: Clean, with a residual malty note developing as the palate dries.

Overall: Nothing inherently wrong here- a very well put together Auchentoshan, but perhaps not as developed and as exciting as the 1977. The Fino sherry notes really compliment this style of whisky, heightening the spice and citrus. Overall, well worth seeking out if you have a penchant for discovering a hidden depth to Lowland whiskies.

I think I already have one resolution for 2011. A bigger cabinet.

BIG Awards - Competition Winners Results!

Well folks, sorry for the delay in posting the results of our readers competition. As mentioned in an earlier post, Mike Aikman wins some tasty samples of our 10 BiG nominees. But there are also 2 runners up prizes to be awarded and those go to Richard Wood and Jonathan Bryant. Well done gentlemen!! A very nice, newly released collection of Jura Miniatures will be winging its way to you shortly - in case you're wondering what's in it- take a look below...

Also keep an eye out later this week for something a little Antipodean themed... and no, it has nothing to do with the ashes...

Rising to the Challenge

Sometimes, great ideas just present themselves, rising out of tragedy, misfortune and accident. And Glenfiddich's new release Snow Phoenix typifies this sort of thing down to a T.

I must admit that when we first heard the story if this remarkable whisky, my b******t radar went on alert. A shameless cash-in on the unfortunate damage to Glenfiddich's warehouses, resulting in the loss of a few casks of whisky to the elements?

Well, once i'd stopped being suspicious, I was intrigued to find out more. To re-cap the story in case you missed it... In December 2009 the snowfall in Dufftown was just about the heaviest on record for the area. Approximately 4 feet of the stuff had landed and compacted on the warehouse roofs and the weight was equivalent to a herd of elephants standing on top of each warehouse. Clearly something had to give and what resulted was a huge hole and many man hours of work in freezing conditions as low as -19c to remove the precious stock and repair the damage. Whilst it's unclear whether any actual casks were crushed under the weight, the whole event prompted Glenfiddich's Malt Master Brian Kinsman to release a special batch of whisky from the casks within the warehouses- and Snow Phoenix was born.

Now here's the thing. The story is a great tale of effectively survival against the elements. But would this whisky hold up regardless of the tale it can tell? Last week, I got an opportunity to find out, at a rather unusual tasting over in Hackney, East London...an equally chilling and bleak place, but not in the same way as Dufftown is, under 4 feet of snow... ;-)

Chef, Ben Greeno (middle) with Jamie Milne (right)

The folks at Glenfiddich have been busy working in conjunction with acclaimed chef Ben Greeno, formally one of the rising stars of the 2 Michelin Starred Noma restaurant in Copenhagen. Ben has set up an innovative 'supper club', inviting diners by appointment to his own London apartment for a home-cooked gastronomic experience. Brings a new meaning to the phrase 'straight from the chef's table'....

Our 5 course meal (a preview to Ben's Glenfiddich Burns' Night menu) was paired expertly with expressions from the Glenfiddich range, the dessert being matched to the Snow Phoenix.

Sweet parsnips and Malt Oil were complimented by the light and fruity 12yo, with cured salmon and szechuan pepper working nicely with the more robust flavour of the 18yo. For the main course the 14yo Fine Oak went well with braised beef cheeks in a 'whisky barrel reduction' - basically a rich, oaky sauce, made by infusing pieces of stave into the mixture.

By dessert, the assembled diners were positively salivating for final whisky- whose fateful tale was told expertly by Jamie Milne, UK Brand Ambassador for Glenfiddich. Although the contents of Snow Phoenix are listed as no age statement, Jamie pointed out that the whisky is likely to be a vatting of casks between the ages of 13-30. So an incredible spectrum of maturation then. Also made me start to wonder what type of flavour profile we'd be expecting; Light, fruity and gentle like some of the younger bottlings, or bigger and resonant, like the older expressions? Would the pairing with vanilla mousse, malt cookies and elderflower suit the whisky, or be lost under the weight of flavour, rather like the potential fate of the casks under all that snow....

Glenfiddich - Snow Phoenix - Limited edition bottling - 47.6%- Non Chill Filtered

Nose: Slightly musty, earthy grape notes, cereals (malted barley) followed by floral notes and a whiff of some dried fruit. With a dash of water, white chocolate notes come to the fore, followed by liquorice and fresh peach. Not at all what I expected, but excellent all the same.

Palate: Immediate creamy cereal notes, masses of light orchard fruit, hints of dried apricots, followed by light caramel and delicate vanilla. The mouthfeel with the vanilla mousse was sublime.

Finish: Lingering fresh fruits fade into those of the dried variety (more apricots) and also mango.

Overall: Very different to what I imagined. The lighter styles of whisky have definitely taken the high ground here and this is a whisky which doesn't feel that wintery at all. In fact, it could easily work in the middle of summer, paired with a seasonal fruit compote or salad. Expert whisky making all round from Glenfiddich and at around £49, very affordable for a limited edition bottling. Whilst we don't usually draw much attention to the packaging, the box which this comes with looks great.

As the weather gets heavier again, I can't help but wonder what fate lies-in-wait for the warehouses this year. Will we see Snow Phoenix mkII? Time- and the words of wisdom from this man will tell...

Let's hope that this doesn't happen....

BIG AWARDS - THE WINNER IS ANNOUNCED!!

Well, here it is folks, the moment you've been waiting for... from our list of 10 incredible, inspirational drams, we have the great honour of announcing the overall winner of the 2010 Best In Glass awards.

Yesterday, at a secret location in central London, 5 men sat down to discuss the fate of our short list.

Ben Ellefsen- director supremo of Master Of Malt

Ryan Chetiyawardana - Cocktail supremo and top barman at the now legendary 69 Colebrooke Row

Sam Simmons - Global Ambassador for The Balvenie and known to millions simply as Dr Whisky. We certainly had a prescription for him.

plus 2 shabby drunken reprobates.

The format was the same- 10 whiskies, initially nosed and tasted blind, were whittled down to a shortlist of 3, with one overall winner.

And, to use the vernacular of a slightly pubescent teenager "OMG- how hard was that!!"

This year, the standards were exceptional. We argued, mulled, ummed and arrrred, at one point finding that we had spent nearly the best part of an hour exploring the fine differences between a 4yo and a 40yo.

Something had to give- and in the end, we managed to nail our top 3.

So our 2 runners up, or as they are, 'highly commended' bottlings were:

Yamazaki 1984- The panel feeling this whisky was a masterpiece of whisky making, displaying a broad symphony of oriental flavours.

Glenfarclas 40 yo - Big, bold intense flavours, with lots of distillery character.

but this year's overall winner, by a whisker is.....

Berrys' Own Selection - Ledaig 2005 - single cask bottling

Yet again, a young whisky triumphs over age. The panel felt that the whisky exhibited some huge flavours and extraordinary cask choice. Well done to Doug and all over at Berry Brothers & Rudd for continued excellence with their bottlings. If you can lay your hands on a bottle of this- GRAB ONE NOW!!

That's it for another year folks. See you, same time, same place next year!

ps.... as you'll see by the dusty old spitoon...

not a drop was wasted.