Another Cold One.

Yet again we are warned in parts of the world that the winter will be, yes will be the worst on record. This yearly event happens in the UK also here in Hong Kong, I’m told it will be the coldest and earliest winter on record, this makes me laugh, but as this is a weather warning from the authorities and the media, I think everyone should take it serious and stock up!

So here are a couple of winter warmers for those extra cold nights.

Kilchoman LOCH GORM

Kilchoman is the new kid on the block, over the first few years we see some amazing Malts coming out of there dunage’s, this one is no exception, simply a stunning Dram, this is the first sherried whisky from these guys, as a five year old only it has great character, a real winner from another great Islay distillery.

Nose: Peaty fruits with festive spice, cloves, cinnamon and mmmm.

Palate: Sweet peaty wood aroma, cloves, nutmeg and marinated raisins.

Finish: Long Long and clean with some smoke.

Comments: Rich, Smoky Magic… what more can I say.

Get it…
Online at the Whisky Shops. In Hong Kong it’s another bottle not available.

 

Dalmore 15

Launched way back in 2007, this Dram is matured for 15 years, twelve of which were spent in ex-bourbon casks, then three years in three different sherry woods - Amoroso, Apostoles and Matusalem oloroso, complicated! But this is a winner for me. It oozes winter spices, orange zest and chocolate. Dalmores defining characters.

Nose: Cadburys chocolate orange, Fruitcake and sherry.

Palate: The delivery is nice, you get the orange zest, candied of course, winter spices, stem ginger.

Finish: Malted barley.

Comments: Christmas cake. Reminds me of my childhood at this time of the year.

Get it…

Online at the Whisky Shops. In Hong Kong it’s another bottle not available.

Heed my advice and get them early before it’s too late and you are snowed in. I did but tried them when the weather was cold but not freezing and I can say they warmed me up a treat.

Keeping it in Perspective.

In general, an opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement about matters commonly considered to be subjective, i.e. based on that which is less than absolutely certain, and is the result of emotion or interpretation of facts. What distinguishes fact from opinion is that facts are verifiable, i.e. can be objectively proven to have occurred.

Thanks Wikipedia.

 

All writings are based on opinion only.

 

So I wish you all many happy malt moments.

What do I think?

Well do what I think really matter to anyone? I hear the cry from the gallery NO! well I'm going to tell you anyway. For me it’s simple I buy to enjoy and share, I purchase bottles based on recommendations from friends and online reviews, OK STOP there, first I only like online reviews from people who buy Malts by themselves not the reviewers who get there samples from the distilleries for free and plug it as great, outstanding, a must buy.

I purchase some bottles numerous times if I really like it and put some away for a rainy day, which could be a birthday for me or friends and family. I might add I do not splurge on bottles that are overpriced or priced based on presentation.

At my funeral, my wife sharing all my malt with the crocodile tear mob? no way, when I am gone, bottles will be given to family and friends who enjoy a wee dram and can appreciate it. or buried with me.

I have my preferred distilleries and my preferred ages from the distilleries, I think financially it makes sense to buy your run of the mill favourites at this moment, so here’s my example, I like Glenfarclas 105 so I buy a case of it, today’s price is around US60, in 5 years it will be double or more, maybe then I cannot afford to buy a bottle whereas now I can. Note here I’m not buying a case of Brora, keeping it for 5 years and then selling it bottle by bottle. It pisses me off when you see these tossers on face book bragging or selling as well as buying up everything.

Another thing I hate is the….. I have 100, 300, 500, 1000 bottles or I have the oldest bottling’s or all my bottles are older than Bla Bla Bla, it sickens me.

Yes I get some flak from people I talk too, but I’m from Glasgow we don’t give a crap what people think of us……………….

So my advice to the collectors who buy many bottles of one label to sell, I hope you never get to sell them or your storage crashes and and and many other thinks I cannot write here. We see this in the likes of the Bowmore Devils Cask, now in auctions and on FB for 3 times the price and its out for only just over a month.

 

Too the buyers who buy to enjoy, I raise my glass to you all.

 

Enjoy!

Why are you buying whisky?

This is an article written by Mr. John Hansell from The Whisky Advocate.

It’s Bloody Brilliant, so have a read.

What triggered me to write this? The onslaught of whisky collections that I see people posting up on Facebook. I’ve never seen so many unopened bottles of Pappy Van Winkle, A. H. Hirsch, Ardbeg, Brora, and Port Ellen. People speak of putting whisky in their “bunker” like there’s another World War or Prohibition imminent. It’s amazing what happens when you combine passion with disposable income.

I should know. I confess that I was guilty of “Whisky OCD” myself once, but I’ve been reformed. Instead of buying whiskies and stashing them away somewhere in my house, I’m opening up my whiskies, drinking them, and sharing them with like-minded friends.

What changed my attitude on whisky? Two things. It began when I was perusing a coffee table book about an Italian whisky collector, and it included pictures of his whisky collection. Many of the bottles lost so much volume do to evaporation, the quality of the whiskies were obviously compromised. Instead of being impressed with his collection, it made me sad to see so many bottles wasted, all for the sake of amassing this enormous whisky collection.

The second thing that changed my relationship with whisky was when a very prominent whisky collector and enthusiast passed away. He died before he could even enjoy and share the 1,000 plus whiskies he had accumulated. Instead, his wife put them up for auction!

It was at that moment I decided that I’m not letting any of my whiskies go to waste. The first thing I did was stop buying whisky. The second thing I did was go through my bottles and see which ones looked like they were beginning to evaporate due to imperfect corks or metal enclosures and immediately put them on my “whiskies to drink next” list, so I could enjoy them before they go bad.

The third thing I did, which brings me back to the title of this post, is take a look at the whiskies I had  and ask myself why I bought them in the first place. It was usually for one of three reasons: it was rare, great tasting, or it had sentimental value to me.

I took all the whiskies I purchased because they were rare and immediately started opening them and using them in the many whisky tastings I was hosting at the time. I figured this might be the only opportunity these people will have to taste them. Some of you reading this might have been to one of these tastings. They weren’t necessarily great-tasting whiskies, but they were rare. I also sold some at auction because the prices people are paying for rare whiskies these days, whether they taste good or not, is ridiculous.

Then I looked at my remaining whiskies (the ones that taste great or are special to me for sentimental reasons) and mapped out a plan on what to do with them.  Some I’m sharing or giving away as gifts, some I’m saving for special occasions, and some I’m opening up for no particular reason at all–the whisky becomes the special occasion. My goal for these whiskies is to make sure they are enjoyed and consumed–preferably while I’m still alive!

Why am I taking the time to tell you about this? It’s not to talk about how many whiskies I have (or had) or what brands of whiskies I have. In fact, I intentionally did not mention quantities or brands, because that’s not the point of my post. I’m hoping you will take a step back and ask yourself why you’re buying whisky (especially if you’re buying and hoarding them like some of the pictures I’m seeing on Facebook). Is it for the right reasons, and what are those reasons?

The Dram used in the Pairing.

So we chose Smokehead malt for the pairing, it matched well, which I think most Islay malts would. This mystery malt, no one knows where it is from, or do they…………..?

It is guessed to be distilled by Lagavulin and Ardbeg, I would lean more towards the Ardbeg, a younger expression for sure.

Looking closer at this new Malt from an unspecified Islay distillery brings a few things to the fore, this is purge genius marketing. Normally sold barrels of malt find themselves either in independent bottlers own labels or blended with the likes of Famous Grouse. On occasions we find them as vatted malts released by Compass Box and others.

So back to Smokehead, this is clever marketing, its attractive packaging, reasonable pricing and review some forums and blogs its said to be sub standard barrels that have been sold, after tasting it its not a bad drop, for sure there are better peated drams out there but for the price its ok, I also got myself the 18 and some others that you should look out for like Finlaggan and Big Peat.

What…

Smokehead

Location…

ISLAY

Where…

Somewhere on Hong Kong Island

Why…

I was impressed with this Dram on the oysters so I thought I would give it a review.

Tasting…

Nose: Black smoke, charcoal, seaweed and vanilla tinges.

Palate: Hickory smoke, oaky, dark chocolate sultana.

Finish: Not a long lasting taste, tangy at first then peat smoke, leaving you with a sweet woody oil coated tongue.

Comments: Smokehead in my humble opinion is a good single malt from Ian MacLeod. Great marketing, on its own or with the oysters a good dram, can’t wait to try the 18 year old. Would I buy it again? Yes. If you like peated Malts give it a try.

Get it…

From the boys and girls at Fine Vintage here in Hong Kong.

Pairing No No No..Or!

Food and wine pairing dinners, cocktails and other events have been going for many years and very successfully I might add. So to the big question is pairing food and Whisky, does it work?

I have been in the hospitality industry for over 20 years, I say over as when I put the right number of years it makes me feel old. As I’m a Whisky novice I do consider myself with some expertise on pairing as I was a chef for 20 years and have conducted many pairing sessions for various clients and product launches. But what about Whisky you ask? Well its simple pairing with certain foods I would say yes definitely but pairing with 4, 5, 6 or even more courses on a degustation menu is a clear No!

I have on many occasions been to dinners with a great number of courses and matching Whiskies, either from one distillery or from various and I can honestly say that I would rather forget the food courses and focus on the Whisky courses. At this point I can tell you the arguments start, why not? You don’t know what you’re talking about! your talkin pish!, I know people who pair whisky with food! However pairing with some dishes is possible but as I mentioned not as a dinner with a number of courses.

So here to patronize the crazies……………….. is combining food and whisky that crazy in some cases or individual dishes………… remember it is only my opinion in many of distillery whiskies you find salty, sea weedy qualities, a note that resonates with shellfish. So to test this out we ventured into the gastronomic world and sampled the possibilities by the pairing of oysters and whisky, testing what it might bring to us. Looking at both individually they can be outstanding so let’s see how they fared together.

So we experimented and tried to find out what the hell happens when the two meet, mingle and express on one's palette, we took for this trial a smoky whisky and sea-salty oysters.

And the answer is magical.

To give you an insight, we used Smokehead and some amazing Australian oysters, we use tester tubes to keep the whisky in for each oyster and in a glass a dram of the malt, the guest then squeezes the tube onto the oyster and waits for a couple of minutes, then in it goes, at this point chew on the oyster and enjoy it as much as you would the dram when tasting, the 2 minutes lets the oyster be macerated by the malt and allows it to absorb a little of the smokiness, then the dance begins between the creamy buttery oyster and the peated, slightly peppery dram. I am not an oyster eater but this was magic. I will experiment with some other malts and oysters to see what happens in the mouth.

If you’re an oyster lover give it a go.

KAVALAN Tasting

OOOPS! Missed this one in my SPAM folder...........

First Review is back

This was my first review that disappeared, or I deleted it, so i put it back.

OK here goes - first review, I thought I would start with something that I particularly love or should I say the style that I love, I’m a peat lover and have a few favourites which we will look at and share over time.

Before I start I hear you say, god almighty another bloody review on this dram, well yes as this is me just practicing my writing skills and navigating skills on the blog.

So my tuppence worth………………….

What…

Laphroaig 10

Location…

ILAY

No need to talk about the distillery as a lot online regarding it.

Where…

Well this one is being sipped at home.

Why…

After a long 14 hour day of this and that, the feet are up, kids sleeping, it’s “me time”.

Tasting…

Nose: Fruits, hard fruits I can sense pears, apples not so sour but like Fuji apples, slightly sweet with vanilla, light smoke in this bottling, if you’re new to peaty malts then you might find it heavy on the smoke, love the antiseptic smell, smells like the hospital wards from the child hood days. Glasgow's Royal Infirmary to be exact.

Palate: rolling around the tongue, tasting peat and then the black pepper as it rolls down the throat. Arbroath smokies at the end. A little weak if you drink peated malts regularly.

Finish: oily but not as oily as some of the other Islay malts, but smoky, salty dry finish.

Comments: Peated malt is not for everyone so tread carefully. I would suggest start with the 10 year old before anything else. This is my go to dram when at home, after a long day…. a wee nip before bed, relaxed, ready to doze off. Good night

Get it…

If you’re going through duty free at most airports you can pick it up in the duty free, if your lucky you can get the cask strength, if not its available online from the guys at Royal Mile Whiskies.

In Hong Long it’s available at:

http://www.lillionwine.com