Highland Park 12

I have to admit, when we were in Scotland and I tried this Scotch, I didn't think to much of it.  We actually tried to tour the Highland Park Distillery when we went to the Orkney Islands, but they were all booked up with tours from the tour boats.  I wasn't really too disappointed that we could not get in as we had already toured the Oban distillery, and I hadn't found this whisky too appealing. Highland Park is the only active distillery in the Orkneys, although Scapa, which was distilled there, is still being sold.  But, like I said, I had tried this, and didn't think much of it, so I did not really feel I was missing anything.

WHAT was I thinking!  "Look ma!  The bottle is empty!"  And so are three more bottles of this.  That is a pretty telling review of Highland Park Whisky.  This whisky is $75.00 a bottle in Manitoba, but when we were in Alberta we found that it was $45.00.  At $45.00 I was prepared to give it another try!

I have to admit that I was pretty astounded with this Scotch Whisky. It is very tasty, with a nice sweet "Scotch" taste.  There is a strong flavour that is sort of caramel, and sort of spicy.  I don't taste any smoke at all, but some people who I have served this to have said there is a little smoke.  But, what sets this apart from many others is the fact that it has virtually no alcohol taste or burn.  Even my beloved Quinta Ruban has a some obvious fire going on in every taste.  Highland Park has none that I taste.  It is just a good, mild, and not overly complicated Scotch, that still has some interesting flavours.  At this price point, it is a no brainer. By several bottles....they go fast.

Balvenie Doublewood 12

This is a mild scotch.  No smoke.  Not a lot of sherry, (although that is the second cask used in this double cask).  It is readibly available in Canada for a modest price.   It is not at all harsh, but no deep flavours of any kind.  So it is kind of a whisky for Scotch whiskey drinkers who don't really like the taste of Scotch!  As a review, this one was pretty easy, as there is nothing wrong with it.  Just not a lot RIGHT about it either.  It was quite pleasant in a mild sort of way, and I would probably buy Balvenie doublewoood scotch Whisky again.  After I have tried a lot of others first!

GlenFarclas 12

This is an easy review: I really like this Scotch.  Glenfarclas is not harsh.  There is no smoke for those smoke loving Scotch drinkers, but it really does a fine job as a bit of a Sherry bomb.  The sherry taste is strong and satisfying. This is good Whisky.  I move this one to close to the head of the pack in terms of a good, relatively inexpensive, single malt whisky that will have wide appeal.

I saw a bottle of GlenFarclas 21 year old for a bit over a hundred dollars when I was in an Alberta Costco.  I should have bought it, but I had already bought three other bottles and wasn't sure I had enough room in my bag to get it on the plane.  Perhaps it will still be there when I next make a trip, or maybe I will find something even more interesting.

I liked this a lot. 

We've Always been Scotch drinkers...

Well, to the extent that we, I've, drank at all, Scotch has been the spirit of choice.  Sure, I was seduced by red wine for a time, eschewing the Cabernets in favour of the Merlots and Shirazes.  But my relationship with single malts goes back quite far.  Not as far as that brief and eventually unpleasant connection with Tequila, but that is a memory almost better forgotten.

But I've never really got scotch. I drank a few bottles of Oban decades ago, but that was hardly enough to develop an understanding.  

So when we decided to travel in Scotland for a few weeks, I decided to take the time to educate myself somewhat to the world of Single Malt Scotch whiskey.

It started with purchasing a variety pack and a few small bottles to test things out.  I am not (and hope that I don't become) a drinker of quantity...just a dram or two in a week.  But while we were in Oban we tried Dalwhinnie 15, Oban, a three pack of Cragganmore, Talisker, & Lagavulin that started our taste testings.  

That three pack  was interesting.  While we couldn't easily choose between the Cragganmore and the Talisker, as we had no foundation in single malt tasting,  that Lagavulin (Smoke Baby!) was revealing as to the high test smoke-in scotch experience.

I also tried Scapa, Highland park 18, Laphroaig after hearing some interesting comments from Scots: (Wife -"It tastes like paint thinner!"Husband - "It does NOT taste like paint thinner!"Wife - "It SMELLS like paint thinner" Husband- "Well...it does SMELL like paint thinner."

Along the way, we asked opinions from those who seemed interested.  As one would expect, opinions varied.  People tended to favour Bruichladdich as we arrived in Campbeltown, The Macallan and Laproaig as we travelled through the highlands, and Highland Park and Scapa in the Orkneys.

At the end of the journey, we had tried a number of single malts, but still didn't really get it.  So I bought a bottle of The Macallan Gold and headed home to where the journey really starts.

By TheOldMann
mfknot276@gmail.com

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Glen Garioch Highland 1797 Founders Reserve

"I've never met a single malt that I didn't like."  Well, that WAS true before I tried this Glen Garioch Founder's Reserve.  That is a harsh statement, but I found this to be a terribly harsh scotch.

This one really surprised me.  Unlike Cardhu, or Edradour that just did not have enough substance for me, this Glen Garioch was overpowering in its alcohol taste.  I was afraid to exhale near open flames.  And that overpowering taste just killed everything else for me.

This should have been a good one.  It got 4.5/5 stars at masterofmalt.com.  People seemed to like it.  But when I tried the first dram from a new bottle, I almost thought someone had bottle everclear by mistake.  It is 48%, but other scotches that I have tried have been higher than that and haven't been so overpowering.

Needless to say, this one cries for water.  I don't particularly like adding water to scotch, but for me, Glen Garioch absolutely needs it.  Once tamed down with about 20% water, it loses the strong alcohol taste, but that still seems to be one of the stronger tastes. It is actually better when the water is upped to around 33%, but I find it flat with that much water.  The other flavours also get watered down, which I don't particularly care for.   I don't know what else to say.  I had expected this to be much much better.  Not a particularly expensive scotch, and I will finish it, but for this price point, I still think that Aberlour 12 is the one to beat.

Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban - 12 Year Old

After reading the reviews of this whiskey, I almost wanted to get into the car and buy a bottle.  Even the name is appealing:  " Quinta Ruban".  But the reviews had "Charlie Browned" me before.  Cardhu and Edradour were both good, but not over the moon good like I had read in the reviews.  So I decided to wait.

Then, due to a snowstorm, I got unexpectantly stranded away from home for an extra night and hit the liquor store looking for this.

Glenmorangie makes a few of whiskeys of this type....Lasanta (The Christmas whiskey perhaps?), Nector D'Or, and Quinta Ruban.  Each is finished (extra matured) in a different cask. While Lasanta (Sherry casks) is also supposed to be quite good, Quinta Ruban, finished in Port casks, seemed to be particularly impressive.

This is very good whiskey.  Very very good.  Even my non scotch drinking friends liked it and rated it as one of the best of those that I had fed them.  It is a slightly sweet, but not a Speyside sweet - more like the difference between a sweet fruit and a mouthful of sugar.  It is just very, very tasty.  At 46% there is a bit of an alcohol bite, but it is still reasonably smooth.  This will definitely be my goto single malt for some time.  It ranks up there with the Bowmore Devil's Casks and Bowmore Wine Cask Matured, both of which were a one off limited edition whiskey that will not come again.  There is lots and lots of Quinta Ruban available.

Glenmorangie claims that it only uses casks twice, not repeatedly like some others do, and there is definitely quality to the whiskey.  It is a highland whiskey, coming from Tain, Scotland, just north of Inverness.  (The Speyside region is just east of Inverness.)

In any event, I am quite happy to find a great whiskey, costing about the same a Cardhu, but, to me, it is much, much superior.  Give it a try, and let me know what you think.

Cardhu 12

Cardhu is another Speyside whiskey.  It received some extremely favourable reviews at sites of visited, with some people describing it as their favourite malt.  I was very much looking forward to trying it, after reading the overwhelmingly positive reviews.

I am still trying to sort this out.  It isn't as obviously sweet as other Speysides I have tried but it is quite smooth.  It has a "dark" taste to it.  Sort of like the "dark" part of "dark chocolate".  Kind of a caramelized butterscotch dark, or "dark" toffee.  The alcohol is pronounced, but distinctive so that it does not detract from the taste of the whiskey.

While it is good, I would not describe this as a whiskey to get excited about. I can see why some people would like it quite a bit more than me, but I just didn't find anything extremely interesting about it.

One thing that I did like, was that I LOVE the bottle.  It is beautifully and thoughtfully shaped, with indents on the side for grip and a funnel like lip for pouring.Very well thought out.

Jura Superstition

Jura Superstition

I had wanted to try something from the Jura Distillery and read some reviews on this Whiskey.  Jura is a reasonably sized island a stones throw north east of Islay, and there is only one distillery, and one road (single track) on the island. It boasts a population of between 200-300.  In addition, you can become an honorary member of the people of Jura, and get a free dram once a month for life....at the only bar on Jura.  (I bet they give out between 200-300 each month).

Jura was described as "different", "complex", and "peaty" by the reviews I read.   After trying it, I agree that the first two are definitely true.

When I gave my glass a sniff, I didn't notice anything unusual about it.  Smelled quite good.  However in tasting it, one gets quite a surprise.  It is stong tasting.  And not like a cask strength whiskey.  The flavour is bold and different.  Sort of sweet, but with a definite "taste".  I had to add water to this, which is unusual for me.  The only other whiskey that I have found needed water was Aberlour A'Bunadh and only because that was a cask strength whiskey.  At 43%, I would normally not add water to a whiskey like Jura Superstition.  Yet I found that this whiskey needed water - not a bad thing, but different.

The taste is unusual.  I was searching for the right description. I did not taste much peat, or smokiness at all.  But there was something there.  On reading the box I found it.  Pine.  There is a mild taste sort of like chewing pine needles.  It isn't overpowering, but it is there.  It is also not off-putting, at least to me.  I liked the fact that this is different.  It kind of tastes like a "baby laphroaig".   I would not consider this to be an overly smooth whiskey, or a go-to whiskey,  especially for someone not into single malt exploration, but for something different this is the road less travelled.  Sort of like the road on the island that the whiskey comes from.

EDIT:  When we finished off the bottle, we concluded that this whisky is quite good.  It is much more "spicy" then other scotches, and again, for something different, it is worth a try.

Edradour 10

Edradour 10 - From Scotland's smallest distillery.

I wanted to like this Scotch.  I went to the website and this place is amazingly quaint.  Here are some pictures from the Edradour website:

Just look at those barrels of singlemalt in what appears to be a cement attic!  Very very quaint.  So I really wanted to like this Scotch...a lot.

I had checked out the reviews, and they were extremely consistent in their praise, so I could not wait to buy a bottle on my semi monthly "Scotch Day".  The wife and I conferred.  We agreed.  It was next on the list.

And, while I can say I certainly liked it, it just didn't blow me away the way I had hoped it would.  This is a good Speyside Scotch but it didn't REALLY impress me the way I had wanted it to.

It is mild, and the alcohol is not overwhelming.   Taste is balanced, being neither overly sweet or overly salty.  The taste is not overly strong in any direction, and there is a slight delicate spicy taste.  So I felt that it was good but not remarkably different from many of the other good Scotches that I had tried.

What was interesting is when we served it to a visiting couple.  She generally dislikes Scotch, and he is willing to try what I offer, (but often doesn't like it).  Both of them were VERY impressed with Edradour 10.  He actually said it was the best of the many that I had tested on him.

So,, my summary of Edradour is that some people like it....and some people like it a LOT.

Old Pulteney 12

Old Pulteney is from Wick, Scotland which is right in the north east corner of the Scottish mainland.  There are two distlilleries on Orkney Island to the north (Highland Park and Scapa), but Wick is almost as north as you can go on the Scottish mainland.  The old Pulteney website (www.oldpulteney.com) is interesting and claims that old Pulteney uses techniques that "other distillers have long abandoned"!?  hmmm.  The shape of the bottle reflects the unique shape of the stills they use, which lack a traditional swan neck.

This is a nice reasonably smooth Scotch, slightly more "salty" tasting then the sweeter Speysides I have tried, such as Aberlour.  This Scotch is definitely less sweet and more salty, with a slight sweet note at the end, and a clean finish.

"Salty" isn't a great description.  This does not taste like a bag of potato chips (or crisps for our UK readers).  It is more like an aftertaste....if you put some salt in your mouth and then quickly spit it out and waited thirty seconds.  That taste.  

There is no smokiness or grandiose complexity to this scotch.  For people who do not like sweet scotches, and also don't like smoke, this is a good choice at a reasonable price.