Friday 31 March 2017

Glen Ord 2004 Cadenhead's Small Batch Review

Hi everyone,

Back again with some Glen Ord. The only distillery at the moment with an industrial drum maltings, supplying a large portion of malt for the hungry Diageo workhorse distilleries.
At the moment it’s much more available in Asia as part of the ‘Singleton’ branding. The other two being Glendullan for the USA and Dufftown for Europe.

Luckily, the indies have a load of… indies for us to enjoy as well.
This one is from Cadenhead’s and they release a new barrel of these quite regularly.

Glen Ord 2004 Cadenheads Small Batch 60.5%
Colour: Light Gold
Body: Light
Nose: Light, alcohol, clean, bright, interesting minerality, lemon, vanilla.
Water: More of the same, some oak. Interesting. More Water: Chocolate, lemon, light orange, more balanced.
Taste: intense, clean, bright, youthful, alcohol, lemon juice, mineral stoniness, chalk, malt, vanilla into the finish.
Water: Softer, building intensity, maltiness, lemon, chalk, slate. More Water: More balance. Integrated, citrus, malt and oak.
Finish: Medium/Long length. Light, alcohol, lemon and vanilla. More integrated with water.
Bottled 2014 at 10yo. Really enjoyed those mineral notes on this, wasn’t expecting it from a Highland distillery. Think this could have done with a bit more maturation but it’s a great look into the distillery character.
71/100

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #333
Whisky Network Review #366

Network Average: 74.5
Best Score: 92
Worst Score: 44
0-49 Terrible
50-59 Bad
60-64 Just About OK
65-69 Ok to Good
70-74 Good
75-79 Very Good
80-84 Excellent
85-89 Superb
90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Thursday 30 March 2017

Octomore 6.1 & Discovery 4x Distilled Reviews

Hi everyone,

Since everyone is posting Octomore’s  over at r/Scotch at the moment, I thought I’d chime in too!

The first I’ve got is the first Octomore I ever tried, at a Bruichladdich tasting in Cardiff organised by a local whisky club.
The second is the Feis Ile release that was distilled 4 times.

Boring story: I met a lovely guy on a tour where I work, he came up to me at the end and we got to talking about whisky and such. He told me that while on Islay a few months ago, he had a masterclass at Bruichladdich and the person taking it had told him to taste a whisky, the Octomore Discovery 4x distilled. He said it was the most beautiful whisky he’d ever tried and the tears started to roll down his face as he tasted it. I thought wow, I want to taste that one day.
Then while I was on Islay, I spotted a bottle in a bar. I had to try it.

Octomore 6.1 57%

Colour: Gold
Body: Full
Nose: A big heavy dense nose. Alcohol- Absinthe, vodka, oily, tar, underlying sweetness, oaky sweetness, faint peat and a sweet chemical note- cleaning fluid, some fudge and toffee, rubber, raspberry tea, aniseed and liquorice.
Water: Peat coming through more, coal, charcoal, tyre, fragrant oak, floral- beeswax, citrus fruit- orange, lime and lemon, coconut as well.
Taste: Creamy arrival, immense building sweetness and creeping peat, a meaty note? And a metallic note.
Water: Huge. Peat and sweetness, rum and raisin, iodine, flint, rubber, tyre, liquorice root, fragrant oak, lots of spice (a bit of heat)- ginger and white pepper. Pear and vanilla too.
Finish: Long length. Tingling spice, oak and faint smoke. Lemon with water.
5yo, 167ppm, Bourbon barrel matured and Scottish barley. Beautiful bottle and whisky, really innovative. There's a young heat on the taste that doesn't really go away though, even with water.
82/100

Octomore Discovery 4x Distilled 69.5%
Colour: Gold
Body: Full
Nose: Soft barley and intense mineral. Restrained peat, brown bread, flour, granulated brown sugar.
Water: Lemon, charcoal. More water: More lemon, lemon juice squeezed over rocks, more Bruichladdich-y. Even more water: Lots of fresh brown bread, flour, a wisp of peat. After a bit- Hot chocolate and expresso, mint. After a long time- Lemonade.
Taste: Intense (Obviously). Alcohol, lemon, huge very mineral peat starts to come through and goes into the finish.
Water: Brown bread, flour, alcohol, lemon. More water: Finally alcohol gone, intense arrival on lemon and peat smoke, building development on mineral peat smoke, hot white pepper and zesty lemon.
Finish: Long/Very Long length. Lemon zest and very mineral peat.
Sherry casks, 7 years old. Great relationship between lemon and very mineral peat. A colossal abv, but not as complex as I was hoping, maybe because of the 4x distillation. No tears were shed in the tasting of this whisky.
82/100

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #331-#332
Whisky Network Review #364-#365

Network Average: 74.5
Best Score: 92
Worst Score: 44
0-49 Terrible
50-59 Bad
60-64 Just About OK
65-69 Ok to Good
70-74 Good
75-79 Very Good
80-84 Excellent
85-89 Superb
90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Wednesday 29 March 2017

Glencadam 10 Review

Hi everyone,

I actually don’t think I could find anything interesting to say about Glencadam distillery. It was closed between 2000-2004, it’s changed hands a bunch and it’s a Highland distillery, south of Aberdeen.

I guess the name sounds a bit like a cliché magic word…

Abra-Kadabra-Glencadam! Poof!

No? Just me? Ok, whatever.

Glencadam 10 46%
Colour: Pale Gold
Body: Light/Medium
Nose: Fresh and clean. Malty, fresh fruit with plenty of green apple and juicy pear, light citrus, a little raisin, a biscuit note. Nice balance.
Taste: Juicy! Fresh with lots of life. Juicy red and green apple, pear, some raisin again, biscuit again, quite creamy, building malt character with cereal, some oak into the finish.
Finish: Short/Medium length. Red apple and an oaky bite.
An agreeable whisky. Reminds me of Glen Moray.
70/100

Wait, no! I’ve got it now. Glencadam sounds slightly musical!!

Glencadam, Glencadam
I’m still not sure if I’m a fan
Glencadam, Glencadam
More red apple than O-Ban

Oh, Highland Glencadam
Make me into more of a man
Glencadam, Glencadam
Throws the punches like Jackie Chan

Calling out Glencadam
You may get kicked out the clan
Glencadam, Glencadam
You could drink it out of a can!

I’ll show myself out….

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #330
Whisky Network Review #363

Network Average: 74.4
Best Score: 92
Worst Score: 44
0-49 Terrible
50-59 Bad
60-64 Just About OK
65-69 Ok to Good
70-74 Good
75-79 Very Good
80-84 Excellent
85-89 Superb
90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Tuesday 28 March 2017

Experiments in Oak: a DIY Maturation Experiment

Hi everyone,
I decided to share some of my thoughts following a recent experiment with DIY maturation.
Yes, it’s super long. Sorry.

(Disclaimer: I am not a Biologist or Chemist and I could very well be full of shit)

Intro

The wood is king. You can talk all day about barley type and origin, mashing temperatures, clear or cloudy wort, fermentation time, yeast type, distillation cut timing, condenser temperature, etc. The whisky in the bottle will have the majority of its flavour coming from the wood it has spent years maturing in. Some people say 60%, Gordon & MacPhail say 80%. Of course, it is dependent on how long the whisky has spent in the barrel in question. A 50 year old whisky from a 1st Fill Sherry Quarter Cask might be 99.99%.

After reading around oak, maturation and other parts of the process I was left wanting to know more. One of the burning questions to me was this: Could you mature whisky on a much smaller scale with a smaller piece of oak? This question was really raised and attempted to be answered by Ralfy in his video series on amazing whisky improvement technique. He was attempting answer a slightly different question though; he was looking at woods other than oak to mature whisky.

To me, if you can miniaturise the maturation process and therefore speed it up (with the increased surface area:volume ratio) then you can experiment a lot faster with different variables of maturation without getting into the real thing and waiting years to see if an experiment has worked.

People other than Ralfy have tried this as well, including here on Reddit. Since then lots of products have come out as well, claiming that they can mature whisky faster, including mini barrels, wooden bottles and these fancy oak sticks.

However, others in the past have not considered a few factors. The main one is the higher strength of ethanol in maturing whisky. Oak has to be activated through toasting and charring. This process breaks down the hemi-cellulose and lignin in the oak to produce Vanillin and other flavour active chemical compounds. Great, most do this with their experiments. However, Lignin continues to break down in contact with high ethanol levels (ethanolysis) to produce a variety of flavour activate compounds. Therefore, to receive a more accurate result we need to use high strength spirit, 63.5% would be best as this is the filling strength of most whiskies.

Other factors that can affect the accuracy of smell and taste of micro maturation would be: the time matured, the oak surface area to spirit ratio, the environment matured in, simulated breathing of the barrel/controlled oxidisation. Ideally, you would use new make spirit or a bland whisky at a high strength to accentuate the flavour differences from the original product.

So, a few research questions:
Can you take a stick of oak from a tree and mature whisky with it (ala Ralfy)?
Will this ‘young’ oak differ in taste and smell from fully mature American Oak (usually 80-100 years old and dried for a few days to months before use)?
How much will different seasonings (Sherry, port, etc.) effect taste and smell?
Is there a difference in smell and taste between toasting and charring?
Can the maturation process be miniaturised to a smaller scale?

Hypotheses:

Yes, you can mature whisky with a stick from your nearest oak tree, as long as it has been treated with the same toasting/charring process as a normal oak barrel.
Yes, it will differ in taste considerably. I would have thought it would have its own unique characteristics.
Different seasonings will significantly differ the taste and smell of whisky due to indrink.
Yes, there will be a significant difference in smell and taste between toasting and charring.
Yes, the maturation process can be miniaturised. It’s just getting all the Goddamn variables lined up.

Method:

Since I don’t have access to new make spirit, I have used a 10 year old cask strength Caol Ila at 60.1%, matured in 1st and refill Sherry Butts. I poured 2 ½ cl into 6 3cl bottles.
Rather than a full maturation I decided to try and carry out a ‘finish’ to the whisky in 4-5 days.

I cut a small stick of oak from a nearby tree, it should be either Quercus Robur or Quercus Petraea but I was unable to tell the difference, in either case it would be European oak.

I took a small piece of American Oak from an actual barrel stave (they were dismantling some display barrels at work). It was untreated and unseasoned from the chime (the end of the stave that sticks out beyond the end of the barrel).

All oak pieces (5 from the young European oak and 1 from the mature American Oak) were toasted at 150 degrees centigrade for 1 hour. Not all were the same exact size, but as similar as I could get them.

All but 1 oak piece was charred with a Butane blowtorch for 1-2 minutes. There was some variability with the charring as it was done by hand rather than machine. The piece only toasted was of the young European oak.

3 pieces of the young European oak were seasoned for 1 day with Port, Pedro Ximenez Sherry and Rivesaltes respectively.

All oak pieces were inserted into the 3cl bottles with the Caol Ila and left for 4-5 days.

Samples were then compared together to see whether they differed in taste and smell.

I then left the samples for a few months and am now doing a final comparison.

Observations:

The oak floated at first and very tiny bubbles were observed coming out of the wood. I assume this was the wood absorbing some of the whisky (known as indrink).
After 24 hours the wood had sunk to the bottom of the bottle.
After 48 hours the small bubbles had usually stopped completely.
Colour got darker on all samples. The original colour was light Gold, the finally colour was Gold-Light Amber, depending if there was any seasoning.

Results:

Original Tasting notes: Caol Ila 2004 G&M 60.1%
Colour: Light Gold
Nose: Clean mineral smoke, salt water, malt.
Taste: Sea water and lemon juice. Clean smoke.
Finish: Very mineral.
Full tasting notes can be found here.

Toasted Young Euro Oak Finish 5 day
Colour: Gold
Nose: Similar but different. White bread, permanent marker, much more woody.
Taste: White bread, woody, but more similar to the original than the nose.
Finish: Mineral and slightly fishy (not in a good way) with a vague coffee bitterness.

Charred Young Euro Oak Finish 5 day
Colour: Gold (Slightly darker than Toasted)
Nose: Instantly darker in aroma than Toasted. Brown bread, earthy, chocolate and over-ripe citrus fruit.
Taste: Brown bread, coffee beans, earthy, rotting limes, bitter young oak off note.
Finish: Rotting limes and that young oak thing.

American oak Charred and Toasted Finish 5 day
Colour: Gold (Same as the Charred Young Oak)
Nose: Much more recognisable character. Vanilla, toffee, fresh citrus, smoke, sea water, lemon juice.
Taste: Smoke, much more than any of the others. Fresh lemon, some toffee and fudge, barrel char, charcoal.
Finish:Charcoal and lemon juice.

Pedro Ximenez Sherry Finish Charred Young Oak 4 day
Colour: Gold
Nose: Roasted coffee beans, light raisin, much less smoke than the others.
Taste: Much sweeter, raisin, young oak off note, bitter, harsh charcoal.
Finish: Lemon burst.

Port Finish Charred Young Oak 4 day
Colour: Light Amber
Nose: Much more intensely fruity, blackcurrant, blueberry jam, dark chocolate.
Taste: Lemon, light blueberry, intense smoke, peppery, charcoal.
Finish: Young oak off note and harsh charcoal.

Rivesaltes Finish Charred Young Oak 5 day
Colour: Light Amber
Nose: Parma ham, celery, no smoke, red berry, a hint of sulphur.
Taste: Sulphur, smoke, young oak note, charcoal, red berry, coffee.
Finish: Chewy with sulphur, smoke and red berry.

Conclusions:

Let’s have a look at the hypotheses:
Turns out you CAN take an oak stick from any old oak tree and use it to finish your own whisky. However, the young oak had a definite off note. The young oak note was quite unpleasant and I haven’t found it anywhere else. It’s a little like rubbery cardboard. It also did NOT take well to being charred. It seems to create a pretty unpleasant charcoal note that was particularly noticeable in the finish of the whiskies. The combination of these off notes is convincing to me that 100 years of growing definitely helps the oak to develop, perhaps something to do with the growth rings (I would love to meet a Biologist with a specific knowledge of oak trees).

The mature American oak had much nicer notes of vanilla and toffee, although still suffered a little from the charcoal note. Perhaps it was the butane blowtorch charring that caused the burnt off note.

The seasoning seemed to affect the flavour of the whiskies as well; the most successful here was the Rivesaltes. I’ve found it is hugely important to pair the wood with the seasoning and then with the whisky. A light white wine would not be able to stand up to European oak and then to a big smoky whisky, it would have no effect. The porousness of the oak would be important as well, PX Sherry can have a very thick consistency and may take a lot longer to penetrate deeper into layers of the less porous American Oak (this is to do with the Tyloses in American Oak rather than the grain of the wood).

There was a definite difference between toasting and charring and again it would be important to pair this with the seasoning and then the whisky. Here the blowtorch effect of the heavy char note slightly ruined things, again could have been the Butane, I’m not sure what fuel they use normally. The toasting seemed to have a much lighter flavour than the darker and more intense charring.

I believe that the process of maturing whisky can be miniaturised accurately, but it’s very difficult. However, micro maturation seems to work best as a finishing to blander whisky that doesn’t have too much flavour already but that is also cask strength. It also helps if it is natural colour as you can then track any colour change.

Therefore I wouldn’t see it ever being really useful, but absolutely interesting and helpful in understanding the multitude of variables involved.

Further research:
Does the ethanol strength of the whisky make a difference to the taste and smell of micro maturation? 40% vs 60%
Does the environment of micro maturation affect the taste and smell?

If you managed to read it all, thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts!
For those that skipped down here TL;DR: It is possible to change the flavour of your whisky with DIY maturation, but it’s really hard to accurately replicate full barrel maturation.

UPDATE: From some comments made on this post on Reddit, it seems that the seasoning process was rather more elaborate than I had thought. Many places not only kiln or air dry the staves but leave them to season out in the open for many months before this process. This would have the effect of the natural weather conditions slowly leaching much of the tannins and other harsh falvours out of the wood before it then gets dried and made into barrels. Something to consider for future experiments. 

Thanks for reading!

Glendronach 15 Revival Review

Hi everyone,

Another quick review today and it’s a popular one.

Maybe 2 years ago, I think Glendronach was the most hyped distillery of discerning whisky nerds. Not in a bad way, they deserved the hype. They were bringing out some great stuff. All the intense Sherry cravings we were getting from Macallan withdrawal could be satisfied for less than half the price.
It’s traditionally made, they are using some great casks, they're releasing it at 46% as well as epic single cask versions. No wonder the stuff sold out.



Well, the problem was that Glendronach was closed between 1996-2002. If you do the maths, you can work out that that falls into that 15 year gap. Glendronach doesn’t have any 15 year old whisky right now.
You can also figure out that the latest batches of the 18 year old will be from 1996, sooooo 20 year old really.

Glendronach 15 year old Revival 46%
Colour: Dark Amber
Body: Full
Ignore the award.
TWE's, not mine!
Nose: Treacle, toffee, rum, molasses, wood polish, zesty citrus notes, lemon peel, chocolate orange, nutty note, some vanilla. Develops spices, then a herbal note- Mint and wax, dark cherries, cream, more treacle comes through with sweet black grapes.
Taste: Intense and mouth coating. Toffee and some tannins, chocolate, raisins, sweet honey, mint, a little salty note, walnut, dark chocolate and coco, some coffee, cherry, some spice developing in the mouth.
Finish: Medium length. Drying with mint, chocolate and tannins.
Lovely and intense, a great Sherry bomb. Takes water very well too.
80/100

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #329
Whisky Network Review #362

Network Average: 74.4
Best Score: 92
Worst Score: 44
0-49 Terrible
50-59 Bad
60-64 Just About OK
65-69 Ok to Good
70-74 Good
75-79 Very Good
80-84 Excellent
85-89 Superb
90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

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