The KOTQ

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.