Month: June 2016

Whisky #413: Glenfiddich Distillery Edition 15 Year Old Single Malt

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img_6842.jpgGlenfiddich Distillery Edition 15 Year Old Single Malt. Speyside, Scotland. ABV: 51%. Tasted at home, $135 (bottle).

Colour: Dirty gold.

Nose: Fresh strawberries, sherbet coated soft serve ice-cream cones, soft vanilla and sweet oak.

Palate: Cool entry, closely followed by a warmth that fills the mouth. Oily mouthfeel. Creamy with a hint of sweet lemon tanginess. Full flavoured – think golden syrup rather than honey; lots of vanilla too.

Finish: A long gentle tingle all around the palate, roof of the mouth as the whisky gently finds its way to warm the chest.  This is a winter warmer without being too intense. Honey on hot buttered toast flavours in the fade.

Comments: It’s a bloody cold night here in Sydney, so a whisky with more oomph was required. This one definitely ticks the boxes – bucketloads of flavour, a full mouthfeel and a satisfying warmth that convinces you that you’ve made the right choice to stay inside. Recommended for those without log fireplaces to curl up beside. Actually, recommended for those that do as well – this is good stuff! Keep drinking to ensure you remain warm at all times.

Whisky #412: Signatory 1997 Single Grain Collection North British 18 Year Old Single Grain Scotch Whisky

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img_6824.jpgSignatory 1997 Single Grain Collection North British 18 Year Old Single Grain Scotch Whisky. Lowlands, Scotland. ABV: 43%. Tasted at home, $100 (bottle).

Colour: Faded apple juice.

Nose: Like walking through a forest on a crisp, cool morning. Geez that sounded a bit wanky.  Fresh hay and sawn timber (ok, it’s not a national park), lemon peel, a hint of coconut.

Palate: Light, cool and savoury on the palate. Like biting into a water cracker with a finely balanced piece of cheese – you’re so focused on the texture at first that you’re not quite sure what flavours are dancing around on your tastebuds. Better have another sip…this time there are indeed water cracker notes, along with honey, creamy apricots and some residual husky cereal notes. There’s no malted barley in this, but if you’ve ever been on a distillery tour and been given a few grains of malted barley to bite into…this whisky shares some of those notes and sweetness.

Finish: Medium length, with some vanilla and toasted biscuits. A gentle salty fade with a lemon sherbet tang, a hint of liquorice too.

Comments: Grain whiskies are not uncommon, but single grain whiskies certainly are a much rarer beast. This is only the second single grain whisky I’ve tried, though this is the first one that I remember tasting as the Invergorden The Five – Rich & Extremely Rare Single Grain 47 Year Old Whisky that I once tried was the eighth whisky of a very large night out in Glasgow!

This one is from the North British Distillery just outside of Edinburgh, a grain distillery that produces whisky spirit destined to go into blends such as Johnnie Walker, Cutty Sark and The Famous Grouse. If the quality and complexity of this whisky is anything to go by, I hope North British bring out a few more single grain releases to introduce themselves to a much wider audience. Top stuff.

Whisky #411: Black Gate Distillery 5 20s Cask Strength Single Malt

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img_6791-3.jpgBlack Gate Distillery 5 20s Cask Strength Single Malt. New South Wales, Australia. ABV: 67.00%. Tasted at home, $195 (500mL bottle).

It’s a cold, windy and rainy afternoon here in Sydney today. Today’s sailing race has been abandoned due to dangerous conditions. So…perfect weather for staying indoors with a cask strength whisky! And what a cracker this is…

Colour: Deep treacle.

Nose: A satisfying nose prickle. Very complex, lots of rich sweetness; raisins, treacle, and (somewhat strangely) blackcurrant Soothers. A campfire burns in the distance.

Palate: A rich and full mouthfeel. Imagine a smoked golden syrup, or smokey salted caramel. Caramelised balsamic onions that have been baked with a Sunday roast – a perfect balance of rich savoury and sweet notes.

Finish: Ridiculously long. The syrupy flavours subside leaving a rich, smokey and salty tang in the fade.

Comments: Distilled in September 2013 and bottled in December 2015, this is a very young whisky – but fortunately with Australia’s climate variations whisky tends to mature a lot more quickly than whiskies from other parts of the world where the variation in temperatures are less pronounced. The scientist in me would love to take the same new make spirit, place it in (as near as possible) identical barrels, and then send them to four corners of the earth and see how the whisky matures, both in terms of flavour variations as well as maturation times.

But back to the Black Gate. The “5 20s” in the name refers to the five twenty litre casks that were vatted together to produce the 159 bottles of this release. A limited release, and one that they’ve put out to market as soon as it is legally becomes whisky. However, with the small cask sizes turbo-charging the maturation by increasing the wood-to-whisky ratio, it tastes a lot older.

Amazing complexity and flavour profile, this is a whisky that is perfectly suited for a cold rainy afternoon.