Keepers of the Quaich

My birthday this month was on a Saturday and late on the Friday before my group at work surprised me with a cake and a gift: Balblair 1989! I shared it with about 15 people and I had 4 drams myself. When we were finished there was about one finger left in the bottle. One really neat thing is they selected the Balblair based on the results of querying through our tasting notes on this site.

I have never been party to finishing a newly opened bottle in one session but this was really close as the Balblair was just that good. Two guys said they never liked alcohol of any kind before, but we’re happy to toast me on my birthday, and said they very much enjoyed this expression.

One notable flavor, early in the palate, was banana which was fun. Also the late palate had a nice shock to it like a menthol would. It was so impressive I decided to feature it at the 1Q12 tasting.

I received this email from Abhainn Dearg. They are justifiably proud of their initial 3 year old bottling. Abhainn Dearg is the brand new “Highlands Island” distillery currently building its stocks.

The three years waiting is almost over and the first release of Single Malt from Abhainn Dearg Distillery can be pre-purchased via the website from this evening.

There are only 2011 bottles in total and are for sale at £150 each with postage, packing and insurance of £12.50 UK, for those in Europe or further afield, please contact the distillery for shipping costs.

Each 500ml bottle will be individually signed by distillery owner Mark Tayburn
Bottles are numbered and each bottle is comes in a stylized teak case with an Abhainn Dearg wooden plaque on the front

46% Volume
Non Chill Filtered
Natural Cask Colour
Single Cask Bottling
Bottled by Hand

If you wish to reserve a bottle, please do so quickly as stocks will soon run out!

Kind regards,

Judy

Abhainn Dearg Special Edition 3 year old

Those of you familiar with the Internets won’t be surprised to find out that Brother Tao is also a fairly avid Redditor.  For those of you not familiar, Reddit is a community/bulletin board/discussion site.  Anyway, I’ve been finding some interesting posts and discussions on a sub-reddit r/scotch.  Perhaps we should consider giving it a link on the Single Malt Scotch Links sidebar.

The discussion is perhaps not at a professional level, but there is a lot of enthusiasm among younger participants, and isn’t ambassadorship part of our charter?

Subreddits are all /r/subreddit so you can find this at http://www.reddit.com/r/scotch

Just ran across this. Some brothers may be interested. Paterson is the hyper guy in the mixed drinks with single malt videos we were talking about a few quarters ago. I’ll copy the post but you can find the whole thing at http://fountainheadchicago.com/the-dalmore-whisky-dinner-sept-13th/

On Tuesday September 13th, Master Blender Richard Paterson will be with us for a terrific dinner pairing 6 amazing Dalmore whiskies with some of the best food Chef Sarah has to offer. The special treat of this dinner will be the chance to taste the King Alexander III, the only single malt that is aged in six different woods – wine, Madeira, Sherry, Marsala, Kentucky burbon, and Port casks. More information about the pairing menu to come soon.

Richard Paterson became a Master Blender at the young age of 26 and has travelled the globe as an ambassador for Whyte & Mackay, one of Scotland’s leading makers & distributors of Scotch whisky. He has won numerous awards and in 2008 he published his very own book, Goodness Nose. He is known for being a charismatic presenter on the subject of whisky, able to discuss both the history of the industry & the necessary steps to taste & appreciate whisky properly. We are so thrilled that he will be joining us at Fountainhead for this fantastic dinner.

You do not what to miss this night of delicious food, drink, & discussion!

Tickets are $40 & dinner begins at 7:00 in our Barrel Room.

Please purchase your tickets today at Brown Paper Tickets.

the Ardbeg Committee was notified by Ardbeg of a new release available June 1. Ardbeg Alligator. thanks to the initiative of Bother Hoopie I was able to obtain a bottle. Keep on the look out as more may be available on Sep 1. below is some info I could find on it from some early tastings. Brother lakeview and I will post our tastings soon. I will share it with the KOTQ group in a future meeting!

My findings: the real highlight was a chance to try one of Ardbeg’s newest creations side by side against one of their most legendary drams. Ardbeg Alligator is to be the next committee bottling, released on the 1^st June and is the latest in a new line of wood experiments from Dr Bill Lumsden. A number of heavily charred (level 4) first fill bourbon casks have been maturing since 2000, peated to the standard Ardbeg level of 55ppm. Having tried some of Ardbeg’s heavily toasted cask experiments (single casks 1189 and 1190 from 2009’s Feis Ile) we were itching to see how the heavy char affected the whisky. Here’s our thoughts:

Ardbeg Alligator – Committee release – 51.2% – around 10,000 bottles

Nose: Immediate spicy, fruity notes, with rolled oak shavings, BBQ charcoal, stewed apples, white pepper and hints of strong tea and fresh bourbon. With a dash of water the whisky really comes alive with wonderful rich vanilla tones, chocolate orange notes and hints of copper. Sterling stuff.

Palate: Big, resonant and dry, leading into more of the chocolate orange notes, sweet vanilla, hints of Five Spice and more stewed apple. Then the smoke arrives, soft, aromatic and gentle at first, giving this a superb complexity.

Finish: The sweet vanilla develops alongside the soft smoke for a very lengthy and pleasing finish.

Overall: What a mega whisky. We were critical of the last committee bottling (Rollercoaster) and its apparent lack of consistency and overly youthful tones, but Alligator is just brilliant. Rich, complex and spicy, it puts Ardbeg right back up there in terms of how to construct a highly drinkable and complex smoky whisky. Miss this one at your peril.

What unique problem did Glen Elgin face at the end of the Victorian era?

Last distillery built in Speyside for 60 years at the end of the whisky boom of the 1890s. Designed by notable distillery architect Charles Doig, work on the buildings began shortly before the 1898-99 collapse of Leith whisky blender, Pattisons, famously drove a buoyant market for malt whisky into recession. Local legend has it that many of the workers went unpaid and that the steeplejacks only got their money when they threatened to demolish the chimney stack. Glen Elgin’s next act was to impoverish its creators, who were forced to sell it for perhaps a quarter of its cost (13,000 BPS to 4,000 BPS) within a year of its eventually beginning production in May 1900.

What is unique about Glen Elgin’s distillery configuration?

In walking around the distillery you are struck by the contrasts in old and new, big and small. The distillery has a huge storage capacity for malted barley. The 36 malt bins can hold 400 tonnes – more than the 3 other distilleries in the Elgin group combined. However the ISR (intermediate spirit receiver) which collects the spirit from the stills is very small and has to be pumped empty 3 times a day.

What interesting job did one person have full-time back then at Glen Elgin?

Until the 1950s the distillery was entirely operated and lit by paraffin. All machinery was driven by a paraffin engine and a water turbine. It was a full time job to keep the paraffin lights burning.

Known as an important component of the White Horse blend.

Brothers, did we identify the hosts for the remainder of 2011???

I just wanted to let everyone know that I have a source for Glencairn glasses.  In doing a little research for the upcoming launch of KotQ Colorado, I found a local restaurant supply which has the Stolzle Glencairn glasses.

Upside: Only $5.50 each.

Downside: minimum 4 doz.

I was wondering if anyone was interested in upgrading their glassware and would like to go in on a case.   I don’t at this point need 48 glasses.  I’m also not sure if the Glencairn thing is just a fad or a legitimate new glass type, but I do know that I use my glasses from Whiskeyfest all the time. They seem to be better for tasting than rocks glasses, although I do still use my Waterford just for the mass in hand.

If interested please contact me via email.

Tao

My first quarterly shipment for my membership in “Whisky Explorers” has come and is all gone and I wanted to share with you my experiences. A note though on process as it is important to understanding what I experienced. I receive 4 different whiskies which are all bottled in a nice, small plastic bottle which is completely dressed in its own black cloak; all the way to its collar. The cloak is there to keep the tasting blind. You get about two decent-sized drams (not Cyclone level but decent). Once you’ve tasted it you keep the cloak on the bottle and go to the Whisky Explorer’s website where you take a quiz on things like color, nose, body, palette and finish and you guess what you think the whisky is from 5 choices. You’re actually graded on your knowledge and then they show you what you were drinking and are offered a mechanism for purchasing the whisky. Just to be clear, you CAN remove the cloak and see what the dram is before you even drink it if you so choose. I chose to drink mine blind and take the quiz as it is part of the fun.

Here is what has been sent my way so far:

Dewar’s Special Reserve - tasted like scotch but not quite a single malt. I couldn’t decide whether it was a blend or if it was just a weak over-served Speyside. In the end, I guessed it was a run-of-the-mill Balvenie but harbored thoughts that it was the Dewar’s. If you like blends for their safety and lack of ambition this is a pretty good one. I’m not sure it would make for a good wassail (my current use for blends)

Booker’s Kentucky Straight Bourbon - as soon as I tasted this I immediately knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Or Glasgow or Inverness or Islay for that matter. This was the most other-worldly bizarrely tasting experience I’ve ever had; and not in a good way. Obviously impossible to describe into words without experiencing it but it’s one of those “OMG this is awful…here try it” moments. It evoked views of alien worlds and distorted rainbows and all kinds of twisted imagery. This bourbon reminded me why I love and drink single malt scotch. It makes me think that bourbons are not meant to be aged and refined. Beam should just crank out their regular stuff.

Glenmorangie 10 - thank heavens, we were back to reality and recognizable lands once again. I knew this one was a single malt but I knew it was not an advanced age. I felt like it was either an Eastern Highland or a Northern Highland or a really spicy Speyside. I think I may have properly pegged this as Glenmorangie 10 but my overall sense was that the Whisky Explorer’s club considered this single malt to be something rare and special; which is not my view. I got the impression that the Whisky Explorer’s club was projecting this single malt as almost a ceiling on what great whisky was like and I left the quiz on this one less hopeful for the remainder of what would come over the course of the year.

Bushmills - this one was close…I figured it was a blended scotch (or a mild single malt scotch perhaps) but wasn’t surprised to find out that it wasn’t; and I guess wasn’t trying to be one either. I’ve never had Irish whisky before this; so it was good that I had a chance to try it. I’m a bold palatte guy and I found this one to pale in comparison to a typical single malt scotch. Perhaps my comparison should be more between the Bushmills and the Dewar’s as they are both blends. I can see why some people might like to sip Irish whisky but I think I would lose interest fairly quickly if this was the typical experience.

Overall, I find two dynamics at work with the Whisky Explorers Club. Firstly, it is not about single malt scotch at all. It is about all whiskies and a wide array of experience. However, secondly, I think there is a cost ceiling at work here and I have quickly learned not to expect Glen Grant 21 or something like it to show up in one of these cloaked bottles. If you have a broad interest in whisky from Canada to Kentucky to Ulster to Glenmorangie to perhaps Japan then this is the club for you. If you’re looking for a wide array of advanced, refined, or rare single malt scotch expressions I think you’ll be disappointed.