Olympic Spirit? Whisky, surely.

Living in London can be testing. Coming up we’ve got various events from the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee through to the much anticipated Olympic Games, which seems to have divided opinion of Londoners right down the middle.

On the one side are the ‘glass half full’ folk who dream of London being the cultural melting-pot of the world for two weeks where, somehow, the decrepit and failing public transport system won’t buckle under the pressure of an extra million people trying to use it... and then there are the realists.

People like me.

People who think that London is a great city, a wonderful place to live but we know the fault-lines. And many there are.

But, however negative your view of the upcoming Games may be, one should rightly focus on what makes London such a great city and so it was that yesterday afternoon gave me a key example of the brilliance of living life in a city rich in culture, history and heritage.

I was to catch up with an old school friend of mine. A chap of good Scottish lineage who ended up spending a long time living in Edinburgh but has now moved back South to live and work in-and-around London. Having known Simon for somewhere in the region of 25 years, but not having seen him for around 12 months, a catch-up in some of London’s more delightful haunts was required and having grown up together, there is bond that only well matured relationships have so where better to open our afternoon of gossip than at JJ Fox’s Cigar Merchants in Mayfair.

The area around St James’ Street, Mayfair is such a wonderful example of London and its history (as seen in our recent piece about Berry Bros) and, despite the best efforts of the local shop owners, you do not have to be wealthy to enjoy the refinements this part of town has to offer. In JJ Fox you can sit back in a leather Chesterfield, light up a very high quality cigar and enjoy a cup of coffee all for the princely sum of... well, whatever you can afford. Personally, I like a Honduran cigar called La Invicta and you can pick up their Corona No.1’s for a mere £4.75. Not a bad way to spend an hour, if you ask me.

Nestled behind JJ Fox on Crown Passage is a brilliant little pub called The Red Lion which provides exactly what one requires post-cigar; a nice pint of real ale. Apparently the second-oldest continually used pub in London with a licence to serve beer, this is London... not some new Westfield shopping ‘mall’ on the edge of the Olympic Park. Note to any rioters reading this: it’s full of trainers, flat screen TV’s and glass. #JustSayin’

JJ Fox and the Red Lion, two of the most idyllic places possible to catch up with an old friend. But an evening of cigars and real ale is only really complete with a wee dram so, via Randall & Aubin in Soho for some much needed belly-padding, we made our way over the Scotch Malt Whisky Society for a night-cap.

SMWS 29.109 – ‘Oak and Smoke Intensity’ - Laphroaig – 20 Years Old – Refill Ex Sherry – 619 bottles – Distilled 12^th Oct 1990 – 59.2% abv

Nose: A hint of brine, a huge waft of smoke and then it settles down in to red berries, carnations and old leather sofa. Some wood polish and general ‘musk’ whips up all wrapped in a wet peat smoke which gives a lovely warming feeling to the dram.

Palate: Neat, this gives off plum jam, icing sugar, smoke, tar and cherries. But with water is when it really comes to life. This can take a large slug of H2O and with it come toasted brown bread with lashings of butter and strawberry jam, fresh cherry pie and honey all backed with a fantastic smokiness.

Finish: Without water, this is hot and aggressive. With, you get ginger, spices and oak.

Overall: Nowhere near the complete article when sampled neat, but with water this bottling comes to life in a big way. So good, I bought a bottle. A touch more expensive than a £4 cigar, at just over £70, but well worth it. One of the best heavy sherry matured Laphroaig’s I’ve had in a while.

Whatever we may think of the impending invasion of the world to our city (and to be fair, that's what we spent most of our history doing to other countries), there are many, many places 'off the beaten track' in London where you can nestle yourself away with a good friend, a good drink and some good food for a perfectly lovely afternoon / evening.

Our cracking evening ended with a suburb dram, but look out for our next post, pitting two new limited edition Laphroaig head-to-head: the new Duty Free-only PX vs. The 2000 bottles only Laphroaig ‘Brodir’... let battle commence!

Highland Lark

Bloody hell it's cold.

We're sat at Caskstrength.net HQ in South London as the icy northern breeze whistles through our fresh Shoreditch haircuts. It's certainly time to warm up and there are only two ways we really know of upping our internal thermometer;

Pour a large dram or book a holiday.

Well, as luck would have it we've managed to kill two birds with one stone (don't worry, readers... this isn't Ipswich c.2006...)

After a warming £2.99 Weatherspoon's lunchtime special, we picked up the post and what should we find, but 3 very new and exclusive Highland Park bottlings, especially for the Duty Free market. They will be commercially available from April onwards, so keep an eye out.

The Vintage Editions come off the back of the St Magnus bottling, which Highland Park have just released and which we reviewed here.

4 expressions make up the range, dating from 1998, 1994, 1990 and 1973, (which we don't have a sample of) with the emphasis on the difference between maturation in European and American Oak. Apparently the sweeter characteristics of the distillery are prominent in both the '94 and '73 versions, whilst the '90 and '98 expressions detail the more smoky notes.

Fortunately for us, that trip to Heathrow Airport 's 'World Of Whiskies' can wait a little longer.

Let's see how they fare:

Highland Park - Vintage Edition - 1990 - 40% (but we'll get the info asap) 70cl

Nose: Classic fragrant Highland Park, with a tiny hint of sweet smoke and buttery richness. It has all the hallmarks of a well balanced whisky, which Highland Park seem to do so well. Dig a little deeper and some slightly fruity notes (with almost a Ribena like syrup) emerge.

Palate: Sweet malt, barley sugar, swirls of spice, Cream soda, vanilla ice cream and back to sweet sherbets all in the space of a few seconds. Very good indeed. A dryness descends after a little while, revealing some slight parma violet notes, but nothing out of character.

Finish: The dryness continues into the finish, with a resonance of slightly milky coffee, spices and wood smoke.

Overall: Very, very Highland Park. If, like me, you have a huge soft spot for this distillery, you'll sniff this out a mile off. slightly dryer in the finish than, say the 18yo, but there's certainly masses of flavour to recommend it. I feel like jumping on the Gatwick Express right now and grabbing a bottle.

Highland Park - Vintage Edition - 1994 - 40% 70cl

Nose: A very different beast to its older brother. Notes of butterscotch sauce hit you first, followed by just-baked apple crumble, freshly starched linen and some demerera sugar. The sweetness certainly comes through!!

Palate: Slightly spiced, with the unmistakable flavour of Highland park squarely underneath. This distillery has so much character, they'll never be able to stray far away from it, which is a great thing. Hints of fresh fruit, (apples) and some hazelnuts round of a pleasing flavour.

Finish: Relatively long, with the fruity notes outlasting any drier characteristics.

Overall: A close second to the 1990 IMHO, but still worth exploring, especially for that crumble on the nose.

and finally....

Highland Park - Vintage Edition - 1998 - 40% 1L

Nose: Slightly soapy sherry cask notes are immediately apparent, but tame, with an sweeter aroma of foam banana sweets and some oak smoke following up immediately. Not as characterful as the 1990 or the 1994. Most definitely the smokiest of the 3.

Palate: Ooh, some lovely vanilla hits your tongue, with a pleasant sweetness. But it's only fleeting, as a drying wood note takes over the palate. Tiny hints of cream soda fight to come through but the wood keeps a firm grip.

Finish: Dry, with and relatively short, with a hint of rye bread on the death.

Overall: The least impressive of the trio and the youngest of the bunch. It has a way to go before it eclipses its older brothers, but is certainly not the runt of the litter.

To use a simple analogy- each of these whiskies represents a certain grade of flight.

The 1990 has all the hallmarks of 'First Class' travel; Elegance, variety and refinement.





The 1994 still has the luxury, but without some of the trappings- perhaps akin to a seat in Business Class.



The 1998, whilst not in the 'Easyjet' category, lacks the finesse of the previous 2, but does the job well- you also get a little more for your money with a 1 litre bottle. Shall we say
Premium Economy??



As we didn't taste the 1973, we can only surmise that it's like owning your own plane.... hopefully we'll be able to take it for a test flight very soon!

'Beistie Boys

The problem with having a whisky fetish is that many bottles are opened, sampled, loved, drunk, loved, drunk, loved... rested. After dusting down several bottles from our cabinet that need to be finished off, we chose to put to bed the Ardbeg Airigh Nam Beist. This whisky is one of the core Ardbeg range currently on offer. However, as with any whisky of a stated vintage stocks will be limited and this fantastic bottling must come to an end at some stage (who knows when...). There have now been three different releases of the Beist, notable by the "Bottled In The Year xxxx" in gold print on the reverse label. So far we have seen 2006 (a 16 YO Whisky, given that is from 1990 stock), a 2007 (17 YO) and a 2008 (apparently the smallest batch, and an 18 YO to boot). The glass that caskstrength.net has in its hands holds the first batch, the 2006 release. If you are lucky enough to have or find a bottle of the '06 stock, it might be worth a place under your mattress...

Ardbeg - Airigh Nam Beist - 46% Vol - 2006 Release - 70cl

Nose: A huge nose of vanilla fudge, dry oak, over ripe plums, pipe tobacco (a fine Balkan blend). Aniseed. This is all the aspects of a whisky nose you would expect to find wafting from a lovely old tweed suit. This may sound wanky, but the overall aroma is that of the Old Kiln Shop at Ardbeg. This is the signature smell of the distillery.

Palate: Fresh green apples, bitter dark chocolate, more fudge, dried vine fruit and drying peat leading into almost fresh strawberries, cream with a hint of medicinal loveliness on the death. (It really does remind me of the wonderful warm day at the end of may sat with our feet dangling off the pier at Ardbeg, greedily pouring generous drams of this)

Finish: Acres of peat, more green leaves and cocoa on the death. Sadly for this bottle, it really is the death. RIP, old friend!!

Overall: It's easy to eulogise about our obvious love for this bottling, but this last dram really does highlight its brilliance. We managed to savour our smaller-than-usual measures for nearly an hour before cracking and allowing the last few drops to slowly slip away. Sensational stuff. Now... what can we put in its place in the cabinet? .... another 'Nam Beist we suspect...!