13/06/2023 Arran

Arran 17yo 1997/2014 (51.6%, The Whisky Agency & Acla da Fans Acla Selection specially selected for Whisky-Schiff Zürich 2014, Refill Sherry Cask, 120b): nose: ooft! It is a fruity number, clean and ester-y. Tart apples, unripe plums and greengages rub elbows with acetone or xylene. Soon, we have chalky, crunchy (Korean) pears, and a bunch of yellow flowers, full of sunshine, and only watered by the weather. It has a very, very faint leather nuance that may also be sprayed-on sunscreen, and burnt-hazel gratings -- picture black sawdust. In the longer run, we have raspberry eau-de-vie, which is unusual, to say the least. Tilting the glass helps surgical alcohol emerge, and I swear it transports me to the dentist's chair (is that not a great mental image, from a marketing perspective?) The second nose feels young, fruit eau-de-vie and meadow flowers, yet it is also full of thinned-out, caramelised marmalade, cinnamon powder and Gummibärchen. Most surprising is an ethereal whisper of white smoke. Retro nasal olfaction is more grassy-flowery, and we have an elegant, honeysuckle-scented Cologne. Mouth: the attack is sharp and powerful, yet, after the initial shock, the taste buds quickly resume operations, and pick up all sorts of fruits -- raspberries, apples, quince, pears. There is a some hazel sap too, burnt hazel chips, and acetone -- or xylene, more than acetone, this time around. The second sip presents an interesting duality (a split personality, one may call it), what with it displaying dried orange segments and currants, dusted with cinnamon powder, as well as a frankly-stripping cleaning agent, too acidic to handle without gloves. The fruity side triumphs, though, much to tOMoH's relief. Finish: it walks a fine line, with one foot in the bitter, almost-immature side, the other in the fruit-booze camp. All in all, it works rather well, but it is touch-and-go, for a moment. The second sip brings out sultanas. Some cinnamon powder subsists, more noticeable by the way it leaves the mouth dry than by taste. Further sipping pushes yellow fruits forward, with unripe apricots leading the dance, followed by mirabelle plums and unripe nectarines. It feels fairly chalky, which suggests quince or pears too (Korean, barlett), though it never becomes too dry. Another convincing Arran. 8/10

11/06/2023 Dog days of summer

Chilly temperatures lasted until the first weekend of June, when a morning run with gloves and a snood still held the promise of feeling like an ice cube by the end.

Fast forward one week, and we have hit thirty degrees, even though summer has not officially started yet.

To acknowledge this contrast, PS, cavalier66, JS and I meet up to have a tasting. BA sadly calls off in the morning, stricken with hay fever. The theme is simple: dog days of summer. Funnily enough, we do not meet in Barking.

cavalier66 has had breakfast, for once, but he still brings yummy nibbles.

PS introduces a blended malt with a dog on the label -- one bottled by Dog-las Laing. He says he keeps saying how good blends can be, so he decided he should start buying and sharing some.

Sweet Wee Scallywag (46%, Douglas Laing Small Batch Release, Sherry Butts & Bourbon Hogsheads, b. ca 2022) (PS): nose: caramel, pastrami, nail varnish, oily dark wood, and the promise of Chinese five spice. Mouth: the palate has the bitterness of dark wood, and the spices that go with it. Ground cloves, shaved cassia bark, ground mace. The second sip has its fair share of caramel too. Finish: cocoa powder, treacle-tarred cinnamon sticks, and caramel again. As PS says, the spiciness builds up over time, and turns pretty intense (JS). A pretty good blended malt. 7/10

We decide to skip the two collie-burns: there is so much to try, and it is discouragingly hot, already. The Copper Dog meets the same fate.

PS stays on the blended-malt path, and introduces the Dog Star -- the Saint Seya fans will, of course, remember Sirius de Canis. I know I do.

From the best anime series of all time

Sirius 31yo 1988/2019 (43.1%, North Star Spirits, First Fill Bourbon Barrels, B#1, 3582b, b#1033) (PS): nose: seal wax, candle wax, and even spent wick. Out of nowhere, Turkish delights, chewy sweets, dusted with confectionary sugar. It is fruity and juicy, yet also waxy to the end. We see yellow fruits upon second nosing. Finish: waxy and coating, it has bits of spent wick floating in that excellent waxy-fruit bath. Full notes here. It feels perhaps even better today. 8/10

cavalier66 presents a Daftmill, "because dogs are daft, and they smell like they spent the day at the mill," I quickly add. No, it is because this is a summer distillation.

Daftmill 2010/2021 Summer Batch Release (46%, OB, 25 x First Fill Bourbon Barrels, 6250b) (cavalier66): nose: lemon bonbons (PS), sherbet (cavalier66), Mint Crumbles, spearmint leaf (PS), lemon mint, calamansi leaf -- it is minty and leafy, in other words. It even gives an impression of burnt-vanilla-flavoured edible paper, which is rather unusual. Mouth: fresh and actually refreshing, with pomelo juice, limoncello, lemon custard, it is unctuous without being cloying, creamy, not thick (single cream, then), and fruity and a half. Finish: long, fresh, lively, zingy, this is a perfect summer dram alright, clean, fruity, and plainly enjoyable, with a hint of caramel flan too. 8/10

JS presents a Glentauchers, a distillery that was designed by architect Charles C. Dog, famous for his pagoda kilns.

Glentauchers 24yo d.1976 (46%, Direct Wines Ltd. First Cask, C#7652, b#248) (JS): nose: old, Calvados-y, sour apple (cavalier66), tangy (JS). I find unripe plum, then Virginia tobacco, and green-citrus leaves. The second nose has pomelo and calamansi, oroblanco and yuzu. Mouth: strawberry (PS), tons of ashy warehouse floor. It is quite chalky, today, and gingery on the tongue (bone-dry ginger shavings). The second sip has industrial smoke from the 1800s. Finish: some funk in the back, fruity dung (cavalier66), "sourness turns to dung, as so often happens in life" (cavalier66). Long, citrus-y, and that means fruity, not particularly acidic. This hits the spot, today. Full notes here. 9/10

We talk about WhiskyLovingPianist, who recently moved to France.

JS: "Isn't it crazy? Moving to France with someone he met so recently?"
cavalier66: "Maybe he's at a time of his life when he wants to take a risk."
JS: "What's he got to lose?"
tOMoH: "Limoges. What's he got Limoges."

cavalier66 sings the Grease song Summer Nights:

Summer lovin' had me a blast
Summer lovin' happened so fast
I met a girl crazy for me
Met a boy cute as can be
Summer days driftin' away
To ah, oh, those summer nights
Uh well-a well-a well-a huh!
Tullamore, Tullamore
Did you get very far?

We all agree that a Tullamore would be entirely inappropriate in this heat, but make a mental note to reuse that one in future.

PS produces an SMWS bottling with 'summer' in the title.

G1.13 36yo d.1978 Summer Fete and flower shows (56.2%, SMWS Society Single Cask, Refill ex-Bourbon Hogshead, 188b) (PS): nose: "afternoon tea, with jam scones, lemon cake, a vicar giving out raffle prizes, and a murder in there, somewhere, Agatha-Christie style" (PS). It is indeed full of lemon-drizzle cake. A bit later on, we have some oily tobacco too. It certainly has more horsepower than anything else we have had, so far. Dark currants appear, timidly. Mouth: vanilla-y lemon-drizzle cake, Mentos pudding (I imagine) and chalky (Korean) pear. Finish: oooh! It attacks the gums, very minty and gel-like in texture (minty gel, of course), limoncello and lime lacquer. It has a lovely grassy touch too. I like me a good grain, and this delivers. I am bound to have tried this when it came out, and indeed, I did. I seem to have been disappointed then, not today. 8/10

tOMoH presents Le-dog, distilled at Toby-mory distillery.

Ledaig 6yo 1972/1979 (70° Proof, Gordon & MacPhail Connoisseur's Choice) (tOMoH): nose: cereal dust (PS) and peppermint (PS). I have coal dust and crumbly peat, though it turns farmyard-y over time -- a dusty farmyard in the summer, that is. Mouth: cavalier66 finds the plastic element he still finds in modern Ledaig. It is vegetal and metallic, with Verdigris and some perfume (JS picks up lavender and violet). The texture is rather thin ("not at all oily," says cavalier66), and it certainly has vase water. Finish: metallic (cavalier66 + JS), bicycle clips (PS), disintegrated medicine capsules (JS). I have algae, and steel boilers full of soot and coal dust. JS notes a metallic sweetness, and is not taken by it, today. Neither is cavalier66. I am. Full notes here. 9/10

PS [about a recent SMWS Inchgower]: "'Onion tart and young white wine,' which is either an SMWS name, or Nigel Farage's new kink."

cavalier66 brought the next one because it is a thirty-year-old, and, yesterday, we hit thirty degrees for the first time this year.

Jura 30yo 1990/2020 (46.33%, Thompson Bros., Refill American Oak Hogshead, 186b) (cavalier66): nose: I immediately picture fruity sweets and plush cushions. It smells oily (cavalier66), it has quite a bit of funk, with some leather and brown, dried citrus peel. That citrus develops, and we have plump tangerine, then plasticine. Further nosing reveals a whiff of black smoke too. Mouth: pink-peppercorn shavings on tangerine segments, and -- what is this? Tropical fruits! Mango, papaya, kaki come storming in. Later on, that turns into mango skins and plasticine, which is to say: still fruity, but also waxier. Finish: it gives me a bit of a buzz, at first. Over time, we see buckets of fruits, or wheelbarrows, actually, with the galvanised steel appearing loud and clear. Then, tropical fruits grow more and more prominent. This is amazing, today! Better than the first time we had it, we all agree. 9/10

cavalier66 [about the next dram]: "The 1977 were heavily shevi-... Herrily shev-... Heavily sherried! How many times does it take me to say it?"
tOMoH [singing to the well-know Modern Talking tune]: "Heavy sherry lady."

cavalier66 explains that the Baby-Boomers constantly reminded us that it was already warm (or warmer, they claimed) in the 1970s. [Let us clear up any doubt: today's climate is warmer and drier than it was in the 1970s -- or indeed in human history.)

A Speyside Distillery 38yo 1977/2015 (47%, Whisky-Doris, Sherry Butt, C#25, 578b) (cavalier66): nose: transport-cask Sherry (PS), leather, tobacco pouches (PS), rolling tobacco, marmalade spread on a slice of wood (watch your teeth!), a bunch of twigs, porridge, with a dollop of pan-seared honey. Mouth: melted butter, salted caramel, toffee, caramelised lemon cake and pound cake all ride on an oily texture. Finish: "a moment of sherbet" (PS), a drop of nail varnish, or wood oil, and glazed ripe berries. It is distinctly bitter too, if not overpoweringly so. From the second sip onwards, orchard fruits and mud appear faintly. 8/10

PS [citing South African government advice that, in fact, originated in California]: "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down."

We skip the Convalmore Rare Malts. It is already a stretch, as far as I am concerned, and we all start to feel the combined effects of heat and alcohol. At least, I do -- I am exhausted. One more.

JS brings a light dram into the spotlight: a Link-woof.

Linkwood 11yo 1984 (60.5%, James Mac Arthur Fine Malt Selection) (JS): nose: straw and faded leather, pineapple chamomile. It has rubbing alcohol, on top of the leather, and unripe apple, after a while. Even later, as one tilts the glass, overripe persimmon pokes its head. Mouth: powerful, but also very fruity, this is like an apple-flavoured engine grease applied onto a steel plate. It grows so strong it feels as though it will pull teeth out of their sockets. Subsequent sips are more tolerable, and just as fruity. Finish: again, orchard fruits, a lick of cold, bitter metal, and crystallised raspberries. This is really good. Looking forward to spending more time with it soon. 8/10

The clock shows a reasonable time, the temperature is also more reasonable, now, but I am rinsed. We disband.

09/06/2023 Mosstowie

Mosstowie 1975/1993 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail Connoisseurs Choice, IC/FG): nose: thirty years in the glass, and, with exactly zero surprise, that has imparted an obvious OME, this time not so much cardboard and pickled onion, more tins of shoe polish. Mind you, we also have gentian-vanilla ice cream (or softy, really), then mentholated tobacco, faded dried oregano, and lichen-covered planetree bark. That is right: it is surprisingly vegetal, for a few minutes. It does not take too long to open up, and soon, we have dried cherry slices to accompany darker tobacco and black coffee (a dodgy breakfast, if there ever was one). The whole fuses into something more cardboard-y, after all, which is fairly unexpected: traditionally, that impression is the initial one. It is only fleeting, though, quickly replaced by dried cranberries, dried cherries, and dried elderberries, still with a pinch of oily Semois tobacco. The second nose has more coffee and mocha, corrected with a dash of some liqueur -- my guess is cherry, but it may as well be orange (Cointreau style). The back of the sinuses picks up a fine eau-de-cologne -- Ispahan, perhaps. Finally, it has lichen on dry stave. Mouth: a gentle attack that soon displays fiery grated ginger on cardboard, yet that is made perfectly palatable by a generous dose of fruit (again, we are talking dried berries). The tongue detects a soft bitterness (chicory granules, fenugreek, annatto -- it is all granules, really!), in amongst pressed currants, chewy dried cherries, dried cranberries, and eucalyptus powder. The second mouth brings a drop of lychee juice blended with orange liqueur, and served warm. Cardboard is now reduced to a slightly-dusty bookshelf, and the afore-mentioned bitterness is limited to that of mixed peel. We still see a pinch of eucalyptus powder, but it is faint. Repeated sipping puts the emphasis on fruit again, a bowl of citrus (peel), elderberry and cherries, augmented with currants, and a thin layer of dust, showered with a thin liqueur. Finish: excellent. Cocoa powder now wrestles eucalyptus (and is winning), adding some sweetness to a clear-but-gentle bitterness. It now feels more chocolate-y and woody (sawdust) than overtly fruity, yet some of it remains, albeit more dried-cherry stems and currant stems than anything juicy. The second sip feels a lot more drying, with sawdust aplenty, or, indeed, eucalyptus powder, the sort one inhales to unclog one's nose. In the long run, the finish too turns more liqueur-like, fruity and fairly dry or bitter, so closer to Cointreau than anything completely saturated with oily sugars. This is very good. 8/10

06/06/2023 Ireland

6th June, or 6/6. What better day for a dram left behind by cavalier66?

Ireland 24yo 1989/2014 (42.2%, The Nectar of the Daily Drams a joint bottling with La Maison du Whisky, Rum Cask, C#16262): nose: ha! ha! There is the 117.3 profile, chock full of cut mango and herbs that flirt with metal; oregano, thyme, sage, mangoes baked to a brown, crusty sludge. We also have stewed buckwheat, dark crêpes from Brittany (that would be buckwheat again), and a drop of warm seal wax. In the background, though, propelled by what promises to be a bold wave of alcohol, mango, papaya, nectarine and jackfruit become more and more vocal. The second nose has more wax, and comes close to oilskins, or drying nail varnish -- one that would be tropical-fruit scented. While the varnish is drying, a cup of hot cocoa cools down on the nearby coffee table. The herbs have morphed into a metal teaspoon in the mug of cocoa. Classy. Mouth: soft entrance, yet that becomes spicy and creamy in equal measures, with red-chilli powder, ground Brazil nuts, and sappy oat milk having a conversation. It is pretty bitter, reminiscent of chicory infusion, and that takes the attention from the fruit, somewhat. The second sip is as creamy, if not creamier, and adds milk chocolate to the picture (Kinder Surprise). The bitterness from before now takes the form of wood varnish applied to a dusty wood shelf. Fruit is still present, yet more ethereal, now. Finish: creamy and fruity, it delivers mango-juice-augmented chocolate milk. The bitterness from earlier is still very much there, yet it is contained: imagine chicory granules, infused, and cut with oat milk. In the long run, creamy overcomes bitter, and we see waves of buttery-mango slices augment a lovely river of milk chocolate. The death produces a faint metallic touch, and is well yummy. I could go to 9 on another day (I did last time), but for today... 8/10 (Thanks for the sample, cavalier66)

02/06/2023 Poit Dhubh

Poit Dhubh 30yo b.2006 (43%, Pràban na Linne 30th Anniversary Edition, b#230): nose: a deep nose, this, teeming with fortified wines and wine sauces. We have Madeira, tawny Port and Manzanilla Sherry that offer sweetness and leather. Before any sauce can be identified with certainty (let us face it, it is likely Madeira sauce to accompany turkey-breast strips), an elegant smoke rises and wraps the whole; coal smoke, soot, warm ash. Coupled with the wines, it transports one to the smoking room of a gentlemen's club before the 1950s. A portion of caramel flan served with a spoonful of Madeira wine increases that impression (even if dessert was likely never served in the smoking room). Later on, cured meat comes into the frame, though, perhaps surprisingly, it is white meat (turkey-breast strips again), which makes it more discreet, and, therefore, more to my taste. Oh! It goes without saying we have rancio too. Even later, that rancio veers towards a sawmill in the summer, with dry clay floors, sawdust aplenty, and piles of logs waiting to be sawn. The second nose presents a tantalising interplay of smoke and animal musk -- let us call it smoked fox skins. Or it could also be smoked liqueur pralines. In any case, it is lovely. Mouth: initially mellow and voluptuous, it quickly shows some spices on the tongue -- ginger shavings, ground cardamom, grated cassia bark, and crushed juniper berries. One soon gets over the spices, which allows the taste buds to pick up milk-chocolate pralines and smoked Brazil nuts. The second sip is more liqueur-like -- a high-end liqueur made from smoked nuts, rather than regular dross pumped up with sugars. Looking hard, one might detect a melliferous note: extra-dark conifer honey. Suddenly, Chinese black rice vinegar (sans acidity) flashes by. Finish: assertive, not huge, this finish warms the soul. It has a similar spicy character, now augmented with smoked fruity tea -- think: smoked rooibos, or smoked hibiscus, not Lapsang Souchong. That smoky touch is the main takeaway, at the death, though there is a soft bitterness of crushed bay leaves that will prevent a higher score. All in all, it is a marvellous experience, mind. Repeated sipping adds dark honey, pine-tree resin, and distant liquorice for extra enjoyment. Wow. 8/10