Whisky of the Week review and tasting notes for whiskies that I rated as Excellent. Excellent means that after tasting the whisky, I want to pour a second and third glass. It is whisky that I want to keep on drinking and when the bottle is finished, I will buy another one. Rating: Excellent
I grew up with a dad who enjoyed whisky. His favourite drams were Dimple and Chivas Regal. This shaped the way I enjoyed whisky and early on, I gravitated to blended whisky too. One day, a friend poured me a Glenlivet 12 year old single malt Scotch whisky and it blew me away.
Some time ago, I tried the Knob Creek bourbon whiskey and loved it. It has become one of my favourite whiskies, and if you follow me on Twitter, you would have seen me pair the Knob Creek bourbon with a brisket smoked on my Big Green Egg.
Today I am trying a dram with a BIG ABV – 58.8%; the Tamdhu Batch Strength Batch 001 single malt Scotch whisky. One of the higher alcohol by volume releases in my collection. However, I bought this bottle pretty much just for the shape, not the ABV.
The first Black Bottle blended Scotch whisky I tasted was the new version that was launched in 2013. Burn Stewart went back to the original roots of the blend and updated the inside and the outside. That got me thinking about the Black Bottle old release whisky, that if you are lucky enough, you sometimes still find in the shops.
A whisky I have written about before in a twitter tasting, but I think it deserves its own blog post. The Douglas Laing’s Rock Oyster blended malt Scotch whisky is a firm favourite. Rock Oyster was released in 2015 as a blend of single malts from Scottish islands, including Orkney, Arran, Jura and Islay.
Today I am looking at the last of the Balblair miniature bottles that I found in a cupboard at the end of last year. This one is the Balblair 1990 Vintage single malt Scotch whisky release. John Ross founded the Balblair distillery in 1790, and he situated it close to the railway.