The Whisky Exchange BLOG

Welcome to the final part of this Whisky Tasting Pentathlon – a mini-marathon of whisky blogs on my recent tasting odyessy.

I was in St. James’s last week for one of Eddie Ludlow’s Whisky Lounge tastings – a run-through of several recent releases from Arran, in the delightful company of brand ambassador Céline Têtu, who came across very well despite the occasional interruptions of some noisy construction works outside the Red Lion pub in Crown Passage, where the tasting was held.  Friendly and informative, Céline’s cause was greatly helped by her fabulous Gallo-Celtic accent, which put me in mind, somehow, of the splendid Julio Geordio from the Fast Show (whose Youtube videos have all been taken down, boo). 

The compact, picturesque Arran distillery

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The next tasting in what was turning out to be a mammoth month was back in Vinopolis again: Old Pulteney, conducted by affable distillery manager Malcolm Waring, who gave a very interesting presentation on the history of Scotland’s most northerly mainland distillery.  Old Pulteney is well-known for its great value 12 and 17 year-olds, which both went down extremely well (the 17yo is terrific for around £40 on offer at present), but I hadn’t tried the 21yo or 30yo before – both were excellent, with lipsmacking spicy oak and chocolate / honeycomb notes. 

Malcolm Waring seeking divine inspiration

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We’re all about fun and enjoyment (and whisky) here on the TWE Blog, so I’m going to try not to mention the ‘F’ word (F**tb*ll) too much, out of consideration for the poor England fans who now have at least another three years and 51 weeks to wait before they see their team playing W*rld C*p footy again (that’s if they qualify, of course) and confine myself to wishing Holland and Spain the very best of luck and no injuries (particularly not to their Liverpool players). I’m also rooting for Japan because they’ve played very well and they make nice whisky.

A sorry collection of over-rated chokers, yesterday

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Welcome to day two of my summaries of the last month’s tasting adventures, and it’s straight on with the show.

Next up in this Whisky Tasting Pentathlon is a highlight from Ian Logan’s tasting at Glenlivet during our press jolly.  Unfortunately we missed the first part of this tasting as we were busy interviewing Master Distiller Alan Winchester at the time, but we managed to get back at just the right moment to try this little beauty, bottled to celebrate the distillery’s extension.

That yummy Glenlivet Founders Reserve - hands off, plebs

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Lord, it’s been hectic.  After a holiday in Bruges (3 days, 28 different beers and Lagavulin 16 at four euros for a double during happy hour at the hotel – nice), swiftly followed by our Glenlivet trip (and then trying to catch up on the resultant double backlog of work in the middle of the Father’s Day rush), my feet have hardly touched the ground this month. 

I’ve been lucky enough to be present at five really excellent whisky tastings during the last four weeks.  I’ve ticked off quite a few drams I hadn’t previously tried and a couple of forthcoming treats as well.  So, to catch up, I’m going to do a whisky blog post every (working) day until next Wednesday – one for each of the five great tastings I went to in the last month.

Happy punters at the Aberlour tasting

First up was an Aberlour tasting at TWE Vinopolis – follow the link and sign up for their newsletter if you fancy coming along to any of their splendid events.  The tasting was led by gregarious Pernod Ricard brand ambassador Phil Huckle, who was as charming and entertaining as ever, and supplied me with a great quote for my treasured stash: Churchill’s ‘Never trust a man with no redeeming vices’. 

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It’s getting late on Friday, and suddenly three more samples are sitting on my desk.  Nothing new there, but these are from Signatory – I think this is the first time I’ve seen a sample from them. 

My main feelings for Signatory are largely warm and fuzzy thanks to a jaw-droppping quartet of cask strength Benriach 1975s that they showcased at Whisky Live in 2005.  I wasn’t a massive fan of cask strength whiskies at the time, but those bottlings…wow. (Some of you will have had them, I’m sure.  We still get asked about them, five years later). 

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First up, an update on the Name That Bourbon competition: we’ve had well over a thousand suggestions so far, but still no winner - I did tell you that SDL are pretty picky!  Thank you all for your entries, especially the heroic Angus and Mike F who have contributed literally hundreds of names.  You’re all still in with a shout, though -  please, keep those entries coming to me at tim[at]thewhiskyexchange.com.  Don’t forget to check out the rules first, mind.

Now, the latest of our 10th Anniversary bottlings has just arrived – a Clynelish 37 year-old bottled at 46%.  It’s got high standards to live up to – I really enjoyed our recent Linkwood and Glenglassaugh and the rest of the bottlings have all been bloody good (if we do say so ourselves).  You can check out the other bottles we’ve done here.

I tasted this for the first time informally last night in the middle of a rather spectacular session in Sukhinder’s office (other highlights included the famous Rare Malts Brora 22yo and a wonderful 1980s Longmorn 12yo by Gordon & Macphail, but I digress).  I enjoyed it last night, but wanted to come at it fresh for my proper tasting notes, so here goes:

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We were privileged to have Cooley distillery’s Noel Sweeney conduct a St. Patrick’s Day tasting for us at The Whisky Exchange in Vinopolis, showing off a range of their fine products. 

We started off with three examples of the new spirit from the recently-revived Kilbeggan distillery, which began distilling operations again in March 2007, meaning that the first of the new spirit has just reached the three years it requires to be called proper whiskey. 

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