Spirits - and Beer - of the Year 2016

Ah, at last it is time for my annual Spirits of the Year post. I always look forward to this, but this year was a little different. You see, for the vast majority of the year, Spirit of the Year contenders came solely from the genre of whisky. Admittedly, it is mostly my fault in that I didn’t religiously try all that many other types of spirits, but it’s also the spirits’ fault in that the ones I did try just weren’t quite up to the standard I expect from a Spirit of the Year. It actually made me sad, and may have been partially responsible (along with getting more interested in reading, and finding it harder to divert funds towards the purchase of spirits) for the discouraging malaise that set in over the last four months of the year. I don’t mind telling you that I nearly stopped writing the blog. Buuuuut there have been so many nice comments over the years, and so many good times that I kept it ticking over, and in the end I was rewarded for my persistence with some late contenders.

You might not think all the contenders being of the whisky persuasion is such a big deal, but this blog has never been just about whisky. It’s about all spirits – except gin, and sometimes it might even be about gin. Last year, none of the winners were whiskies. It would be fine if two out of the three were whisky as long as they were of different genres (at a push), but if all the winners are whiskies, I haven’t been doing my job properly. So who are this year’s great and good?

Whisky: Old Ballantruan (50%, £39.52 for 70cl)

I hope I haven’t brought you down too much in my introduction to this [normally] celebratory post. There were some good whiskies to choose from – three in particular spring to mind, but I won’t be mentioning them because you have to be a winner to get a mention here. This though, was the pick of the bunch, a no longer in production peated Speysider that stood up well to the behemoth that is Ardbeg 10. It is still available on line at the time of writing, so it’s not too late if you want to experience it. This is the no age statement bottling, by the way.

Vodka: Russian Standard Gold (40%, £15 for 70cl)

The first of two late entrants. You’re going to have to wait a few months to read more about this and my final winner, as I only opened them in the last three or four weeks of the year. Be assured though, that they are well worthy of their places. Russian Standard Gold is an uncommonly good spirit. I was lucky to get this for £15 by all accounts, but I’d urge you to try it even if you have to go just above £20. It’s as full-bodied and full of flavour as any vodka I’ve ever had the pleasure to try and, there’s no definite way of knowing, but it might be even better than the last vodka to place in the final three spirits of the year, Stolichnaya Blue. It is even sealed with a stopper. As I say, more about this in the coming months.

Grappa: Leali di MonteAcuto Grappa (45%, 13 euros for 50cl)

Finally then, my favourite spirit genre. I drank one bottle of grappa over the week we spent back by Lake Garda and brought back four more. I was expecting them all to be supreme examples but, while they were by no means bad, this one was by far the stand out and coincidentally the last I chose to open. It was also the first of the producers we visited. Beautiful branding, a classy bottle and a sweet, delightful spirit inside. Definitely a good way to end the year.

Beer of the Year

I’ve spent a lot of money on beer this year. This Distinct BeersChallenge thing has really taken over – even though we’re not really doing it anymore. I mean, it’s not a competition (or a graph) anymore, but it is almost a way of life (I’m up to 947 distinct beers at time of writing, have one in the cupboard, and a couple of beer shopping trips planned in the next few days). As a result I’m learning more about breweries and being more discerning about which ones I’ll try and especially which ones I’ll buy from again. It’s funny how many times I get asked whether I’ve finished all the beers – people don’t realise that breweries are creating new beers all the time, so it literally isn’t possible. More importantly, this year I had a lot of potential winners – I scored no fewer than nine beers a full 5 marks out of 5. This year’s winner though is Cloudwater of Manchester’s DIPA V9. So fruity, so full flavoured – like all their DIPAs (that I’ve tried) so far, but more so – so expensive, come to mention it. These DIPAs vary, but for 330ml you can expect to pay between £4.50 and £6.80. I think v8 touched the top end, while v9 was a little more reasonable. In regard to beer though, it’s about flavour, not price. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of this one, but well done to Cloudwater.

All that remains then, is to contact this year’s winners with the good news and give you a little sneaky peak into what to expect in 2017. Hopefully the world won’t descend into all out nuclear war, we’ll get the Tories out of government, Brexit will work out better than we’re all expecting, Trump will get himself impeached, I’ll still have a job, things will get better and maybe we’ll all be able to raise a smile and even laugh again. Other than that though, I’ll be heading back over to Canada for a couple of weeks in the summer, so expect more Canadian beers and whiskies. I have a stag do in Amsterdam, so god knows what to expect from that. And there will always be more spirits and more pub crawls, in spite of the atmosphere of doom I started this post with. I will be instigating a new MO for the new year; the old procurement matrix whereby I categorised whiskies and bought whatever it threw up was turning out to be too expensive. So from now on, instead of trying to convince myself to spend nearly £100 on an 18+ year old Highland malt, I am going to try to stick to the rotation of regions, but I’m only going to make a purchase when it’s a good deal – or if I’m particularly excited about a purchase. I was simply buying too many things that were giving me no pleasure and making me feel guilty, and I don’t want my alcoholic explorations to be tinged with sadness anymore. We’ll see how we get on with that.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for sticking with me if you have. Merry Christmas, happy new year, let’s get fucking drunk.

Spirit Log: Old Ballantruan

It was back to the whisky procurement matrix for the focus of this week’s post. The target: a Speyside malt with no age statement or under 10 years old. I had a bit of a search, then made a list of targets and started comparing prices.

At the lowest end of the pricing spectrum, and very tempting, was the Glen Grant Major’s Reserve. That was going for as little as £22 at one of the major supermarkets, but the handy price comparison on Bring a Bottle showed that it frequently dipped as low as £18. I thought I’d wait for that to happen before dipping my toe in that particular bucket.

The range then extended from an uninspiring Benromach 5, through an ugly but positively reviewed Cu Dhub, a Gordon and MacPhail bottling of an 8 year old Tamdhu and finished at the top of the price range with a classy looking Spey Tenne (which I always read as “spray tan”), tawny port finish.

My heart had already been won though, by this 50% ABV, unchillfiltered Old Ballantruan. It isn’t a typical Speyside in that it is peated, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for peat, and it’s rare that I’ll pass up on those extra ABVs.

I made a note on my matrix that the next Speysider (and indeed, scotch) I buy absolutely must not be peated.

Now, Old Ballantruan is from the Tomintoul distillery, and it receives pretty much universal acclaim from the users on the main UK retailers. Let’s just have a little look then, at what Tomintoul is all about.

Presenting its product as “the gentle dram” (so you can assume this whisky will whisper tenderly in your ear and penetrate you slowly with plenty of foreplay and lubrication), the Tomintoul distillery is located close to the highest village in the highlands of Scotland (groovy), in the prestigious Glenlivet estate, though it is apparently only the second highest distillery. So is the highest distillery nowhere near a village, or is there a really steep incline between Tomintoul and the highest village? I never realised Glenlivet was an estate and not merely a distillery, so I found it confusing when I read Old Ballantruan was a Tomintoul malt, but the bottle stated “Glenlivet” on it. I’m not a fan of the standard Glenlivet, but that shouldn’t matter here.

The Tomintoul website (at the time of writing) doesn’t make mention of the Old Ballantruan expression – similarly to how the Old Ballantruan bottle (and box) doesn’t mention anything about Tomintoul. What it does say is that they use the pure spring water from the Ballantruan Spring, and that Tomintoul whiskies are not peated – except the Tomintoul Peaty Tang. It looks, after digging around some of the internets, that Old Ballantruan has actually been discontinued, and the Peaty Tang is what stands in its place. I wonder whether I should focus my energies from time to time on finding discontinued expressions, since they will represent the last chances I have to try them. That’s something to think about. Of course it will also mean it is harder to buy them again if I like them.

Now, when you get peated malts it’s nice to find out about phenol content. Phenols are measured in parts per million and particularly renowned peaty whiskies like Ardbeg are known to have a content of around 55ppm – which doesn’t seem very much, but if you’re familiar with Ardbeg, you’ll know that packs quite a punch. Bruichladdich’s Octomore range regularly exceeds 160ppm, sometimes more than 200, but they also exceed £140 for spirit aged only a few years, so you’d have to be particularly adventurous (or lucky (or extravagant)) to find out what that’s like.

All this leads me to saying that the phenol content of Old Ballantruan is unclear. One source suggested 55ppm, so matching Ardbeg, but another claimed it is only 30ppm. As ever, you just can’t trust the internet.

So how’s it looking? As far as presentation is concerned you get a dull but sturdy tube depicting some gents digging up a bit of peat and a dark bottle that matches the design of the tube. The neck is fairly long and rounds out at the shoulders before tapering slightly to a sturdy bottom.

According to Royal Mile Whiskies.com, the finish contains “cold haggis, bitumen [and a] touch of thick cardboard”.

While from from whisky-discovery.blogspot.com, we have; “The smell of a big damp warehouse or cricket store at the end of winter...”

My initial impressions are favourable. Definite peaty sweetness on the nose, and some toffee on the palate. None of those other things present for me though. You only have to say “damp cricket store” to me, and I can smell it, so it definitely isn’t in this whisky. As for haggis, I doubt it is even possible for whisky to taste of that, and it just smacks of someone trying to reference something patently Scottish. Just give it up.

Some other tastings

I’ve been enjoying the Old Ballantruan so much neat that I found it hard to finally take the step toward adding a drop of water. Considering it’s an impressive 50%, there isn’t any burn to speak of. In fact, the only hint of the high strength is a very slight bitterness on the finish. Nevertheless, one day I did add water, and when I say it was only a drop, it really was only a drop. The immediate effect was wonderful; highlighting the sweet tones. As that paricular tasting progressed, for some reason the stunted taste of bottled spring water became more apparent. This wasn’t a problem on succeeding occasions though, and I took to adding a tiny drop of water every time I had a glass. It had grown to be very enjoyable, and probably the best spirit I had available at that point.

I was going to try it in a three-way tasting with Kilchoman Sanaig and an Ardbeg miniature, but for some reason my booze collection seemed to be in constant danger of disappearing, so I decided to be more frugal and just enjoy each on their own terms.

I finished the Kilchoman, enjoying its distinct earthiness for its own sake, and then decided I would do a direct Ballantruan-Ardbeg comparison one Friday night anyway.

In terms of colour, Ardbeg is much paler, while on the nose I made notes that the Old Ballantruan was “custardy” with a pleasant hint of ginger and the Ardbeg “sweet and peachy” (how I like my women – though I probably wouldn’t mind if they were custardy, too – or indeed ginger, for that matter).

I added water to the Old Ballantruan, to help bring out some of its sweetness, but I didn’t do the same to the Ardbeg, since I only had a miniature and I wouldn’t dare to disrespect it in this way – not that I’m disrespecting the Ballantruan, it’s just that the Old Ballantruan is 50% alcohol, while Ardbeg is only 46%. I don’t think you should ever add water to your whisky if it’s 46% or less. But that’s just me.

Anyways, on the tongue, Ardbeg is earthy, appley, and shows traces of Indian spices when held. It remains one of my favourites. In spite of this, I can’t find much to separate these two malts. They are both excellent, and excellent value. Ardbeg of course continues to be available, so the Old Ballantruan might be worth a punt while you can still get a hold of it.