Show us your whisky! Vol 2
Discussion
LeighW said:
NRS said:
Finished off the day at the Mash Tun in Aberlour and had the Allt-A-Bhainne Murray MacDavid festival bottling from this year. Loads of burnt toffee!
Great stuff. I'll be there two weeks tomorrow, I'll give it a try. Can't wait to settle down with their whisky menu. 
I want a dram !
Was thinking earlier (dangerous I know) as to what people would put forward as the most underrated readily available whisk(e)y ?
From my experience, it would be a Paddy , from across that Irish Sea , in this case, Powers John's Lane 12 year old. Single pot still.
Bloody delicious, quite unlike anything else I've tried , cannot imagine not having a bottle in my stash, and at around £48 a knock, hardly wallet bursting in matters whisk(e)y.
Anybody any other observations, standout drams rarely shouted about?
From my experience, it would be a Paddy , from across that Irish Sea , in this case, Powers John's Lane 12 year old. Single pot still.
Bloody delicious, quite unlike anything else I've tried , cannot imagine not having a bottle in my stash, and at around £48 a knock, hardly wallet bursting in matters whisk(e)y.
Anybody any other observations, standout drams rarely shouted about?
LeighW said:
Great stuff. I'll be there two weeks tomorrow, I'll give it a try. Can't wait to settle down with their whisky menu.
Mash Tun had a really recent range of more "standard" bottles available. They also have a continuous range of Glenfarclas Family Cask for sale from 1952 to 2002 which you can buy a dram from! The Allt-A-Bhainne was full of wood by the way, seemed to be completely non-filtered and since there wasn't much left you'll get it in the dram. It's also the dram I have been able to add the most water to and still be fine to drink. Highlander Inn which was the photo has quite a few more "special" bottles, but of course some of the prices match to a certain extent. Was in Glenallachie today. Not open officially yet, but they do tours if you ask. I'd recommend asking,
So far just a small team, so it's members of the team who do it, so you get a lot more details on the real stuff, rather than a polished guide speech. Basically an access all areas within reason. Some cool stuff - they have done some peated runs, around 80ppm. Next year should be a few types of wood finish releases, and we should soon have a batch of single cask releases. Something crazy they have at the moment is due to the low production rates they are currently doing they have around 160 hour fermentation going on! For the standard range the 12yo will be released when needed, and same with 18 and 25yo. The 10yo CS will be batch releases, and I got the impression the first one is pretty much gone. It seems they are doing a lot of experiments with different barrels to see what works with the distillery's character. Since production is so low they can be picky with barrels. Billy is up a few times a week, waking at 5am to do so! Apparently the money doesn't mean much to him now, it's just about playing around and producing the best whisky possible. Again, I'd really recommend it!Aberlour after, did the standard tour. A decent tour for a big distillery to be honest. A pity about the no pics in production areas though. Was toasty there! Good tasting, with the 12yo, new make, 16yo, 2 "small batch" 13yo cask strength distillery bottlings (bourbon and a sherry one) and the 18yo. The distillery bottlings are slightly odd, as it used to be single casks. Now they're a few casks combined. With a price of £70 it places them around the new A'Bunadh pricing I think?
Todd Bonzalez said:
I really like Cardhu gold as a basic sipping whiskey 
I’ll agree with that, very good for supermarket “s
te”.For bargain basement you can’t ignore Glen Moray-their Classic Elgin Range is available from £16+vat at Bookers and at that price it’s nice to have a bottle each of their port, sherry and chardonnay finishes to sample between the three. The Classic is aged 7 years in bourbon barrels but each finish is pulled from the bourbons and transferred in to first fill casks for the final 2 years. Well worth it.
Another favourite cheapo of mine is Compass Box’s Great King St, a blend but fine all the same.
NRS said:
Mash Tun had a really recent range of more "standard" bottles available. They also have a continuous range of Glenfarclas Family Cask for sale from 1952 to 2002 which you can buy a dram from! The Allt-A-Bhainne was full of wood by the way, seemed to be completely non-filtered and since there wasn't much left you'll get it in the dram. It's also the dram I have been able to add the most water to and still be fine to drink. Highlander Inn which was the photo has quite a few more "special" bottles, but of course some of the prices match to a certain extent.
Was in Glenallachie today. Not open officially yet, but they do tours if you ask. I'd recommend asking, So far just a small team, so it's members of the team who do it, so you get a lot more details on the real stuff, rather than a polished guide speech. Basically an access all areas within reason. Some cool stuff - they have done some peated runs, around 80ppm. Next year should be a few types of wood finish releases, and we should soon have a batch of single cask releases. Something crazy they have at the moment is due to the low production rates they are currently doing they have around 160 hour fermentation going on! For the standard range the 12yo will be released when needed, and same with 18 and 25yo. The 10yo CS will be batch releases, and I got the impression the first one is pretty much gone. It seems they are doing a lot of experiments with different barrels to see what works with the distillery's character. Since production is so low they can be picky with barrels. Billy is up a few times a week, waking at 5am to do so! Apparently the money doesn't mean much to him now, it's just about playing around and producing the best whisky possible. Again, I'd really recommend it!
Aberlour after, did the standard tour. A decent tour for a big distillery to be honest. A pity about the no pics in production areas though. Was toasty there! Good tasting, with the 12yo, new make, 16yo, 2 "small batch" 13yo cask strength distillery bottlings (bourbon and a sherry one) and the 18yo. The distillery bottlings are slightly odd, as it used to be single casks. Now they're a few casks combined. With a price of £70 it places them around the new A'Bunadh pricing I think?
When we stayed at the Mash Tun last year I was planning on trying the Glenfarclas from my year of birth (73), but the price was a bit strong. Was in Glenallachie today. Not open officially yet, but they do tours if you ask. I'd recommend asking,
So far just a small team, so it's members of the team who do it, so you get a lot more details on the real stuff, rather than a polished guide speech. Basically an access all areas within reason. Some cool stuff - they have done some peated runs, around 80ppm. Next year should be a few types of wood finish releases, and we should soon have a batch of single cask releases. Something crazy they have at the moment is due to the low production rates they are currently doing they have around 160 hour fermentation going on! For the standard range the 12yo will be released when needed, and same with 18 and 25yo. The 10yo CS will be batch releases, and I got the impression the first one is pretty much gone. It seems they are doing a lot of experiments with different barrels to see what works with the distillery's character. Since production is so low they can be picky with barrels. Billy is up a few times a week, waking at 5am to do so! Apparently the money doesn't mean much to him now, it's just about playing around and producing the best whisky possible. Again, I'd really recommend it!Aberlour after, did the standard tour. A decent tour for a big distillery to be honest. A pity about the no pics in production areas though. Was toasty there! Good tasting, with the 12yo, new make, 16yo, 2 "small batch" 13yo cask strength distillery bottlings (bourbon and a sherry one) and the 18yo. The distillery bottlings are slightly odd, as it used to be single casks. Now they're a few casks combined. With a price of £70 it places them around the new A'Bunadh pricing I think?
We have no spare time to do other tours other than the ones we've booked, but I may pop up to the Aberlour distillery shop to see what they have. Quite fancy a distillery bottling. We did the tour there last year and remember it being roasting in there.
This week's Whisky Broker offering. Not one for me this time, but looks decent value even though it's only 50cl.
https://www.whiskybroker.co.uk/50cl,-36yo-distille...
https://www.whiskybroker.co.uk/50cl,-36yo-distille...
Edited by LeighW on Friday 31st August 20:53
LeighW said:
We have no spare time to do other tours other than the ones we've booked, but I may pop up to the Aberlour distillery shop to see what they have. Quite fancy a distillery bottling. We did the tour there last year and remember it being roasting in there.
Still roasting now! I didn't look too hard, but they have standard range, plus the 2 distillery 13yo of bourbon and sherry (around 1000 or 2000 bottles I think she said). Plus I think some A'Bunadh, but never looked close.NRS said:
LeighW said:
We have no spare time to do other tours other than the ones we've booked, but I may pop up to the Aberlour distillery shop to see what they have. Quite fancy a distillery bottling. We did the tour there last year and remember it being roasting in there.
Still roasting now! I didn't look too hard, but they have standard range, plus the 2 distillery 13yo of bourbon and sherry (around 1000 or 2000 bottles I think she said). Plus I think some A'Bunadh, but never looked close.I need some help! I've agreed to sell some bottles to Master of Malt (A very easy process, recommended for ease and efficiency!) so I've now got to ship the bottles to them.
However, it turns out a lot of couriers have restrictions on shipping alcoholic beverages. I've checked with UPS and DPD so far, and both have said no. Does anyone know a friendly courier to ship whisky within the UK?
However, it turns out a lot of couriers have restrictions on shipping alcoholic beverages. I've checked with UPS and DPD so far, and both have said no. Does anyone know a friendly courier to ship whisky within the UK?
F-Stop Junkie said:
I need some help! I've agreed to sell some bottles to Master of Malt (A very easy process, recommended for ease and efficiency!) so I've now got to ship the bottles to them.
However, it turns out a lot of couriers have restrictions on shipping alcoholic beverages. I've checked with UPS and DPD so far, and both have said no. Does anyone know a friendly courier to ship whisky within the UK?
Not wishing to be obtuse, but have you asked MoM?However, it turns out a lot of couriers have restrictions on shipping alcoholic beverages. I've checked with UPS and DPD so far, and both have said no. Does anyone know a friendly courier to ship whisky within the UK?
Fair question, but I'd only asked about packaging. They don't offer a collection service.
For future reference, there are two good options I've found; Parcelforce do upto two bottles per shipment and you have to drop off at a Post Office. The other is DHL, who seem pretty happy shipping it within the UK.
For future reference, there are two good options I've found; Parcelforce do upto two bottles per shipment and you have to drop off at a Post Office. The other is DHL, who seem pretty happy shipping it within the UK.
Doesn't work with Royal Mail sending abroad that! They scanned my HP single cask I was sending to someone and destroyed it. Or more likely drank it. I even contacted them about it before they scanned it, as I had googled the page and it said it was ok to send alcohol, but it turned out the link was to the UK internal page, not international, so I had thought it was ok. Found the problem before they destroyed it, but they refused to send it back even if I paid postage.
Back home with this lot. Already had a few friends "booking" time for a visit as a result,
Back home with this lot. Already had a few friends "booking" time for a visit as a result,
F-Stop Junkie said:
I need some help! I've agreed to sell some bottles to Master of Malt (A very easy process, recommended for ease and efficiency!) so I've now got to ship the bottles to them.
However, it turns out a lot of couriers have restrictions on shipping alcoholic beverages. I've checked with UPS and DPD so far, and both have said no. Does anyone know a friendly courier to ship whisky within the UK?
you can send whisky using royal mailHowever, it turns out a lot of couriers have restrictions on shipping alcoholic beverages. I've checked with UPS and DPD so far, and both have said no. Does anyone know a friendly courier to ship whisky within the UK?
https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/de...
Had a week in the highlands last week, and did the distillery tour at Aberfeldy. Never tried Aberfeldy before, but had the chance to pour a bottle from a cask at a reduced price.
Cask filled in 2001, single cask at 55.8% abv. Very smooth, not overly complex, but very agreeable smooth vanilla, fruit & a long finish. Lovely.
Cask filled in 2001, single cask at 55.8% abv. Very smooth, not overly complex, but very agreeable smooth vanilla, fruit & a long finish. Lovely.
Blown2CV said:
If you read the detail, they only allow a max of two bottles per shipment. I have 9 to send...F-Stop Junkie said:
Blown2CV said:
If you read the detail, they only allow a max of two bottles per shipment. I have 9 to send...Gassing Station | Food, Drink & Restaurants | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff