Good for you, Glen, good for you.

the new album by new age artist, Glen Scotia: "Aged 16 Years"

The last time I bought a single malt, you may remember I had trouble deciding what to get, and ended up plumping for another Islay. Well, after that I thought it was about time I created a system to help me explore the world of single malt whisky more fully.

What I did was identify a number of categories and then a method of rotating them (ever the geek). So the main categories were the various Scotch whisky producing regions, plus merchant, Japanese and other, after which there would be subsidiary categories, which would be based around the various expressions you can get – no age/under 10, 10-13, 14-17, 18+, cask strength etc. That way, each time I make a purchase I can narrow down my choices and make sure that ultimately I sample a bit of everything.

As my Talisker dwindled and payday came around, it was time to make my first purchase. My system decreed that it would be a Campbeltown malt, aged between 14 and 17 years. I turned to the three prominent whisky retailers The Whisky Exchange, Master of Malt and Single Malts Direct, and selected the Glen Scotia 16. I’ve never had a Campbeltown before, so I had no idea what to expect.

 Let me say first of all, if I was basing my purchase on presentation this would probably be one of the very last bottles I would ever select… what is going on there? It’s more suited to the cover of an album of new age music than to a lower-mid-range bottle of scotch. I didn’t actually know what that animal was, but the description on The Whisky Exchange informs me that it is a highland cow, and it is framed against the backdrop of aurora borealis on a metallic green bottle that is marginally too tall to go in my special cupboard. Instead it must sit on top with the rabble.

This apparently represents something of a rebranding. Yeah, can’t say I’m a fan of that. But it’s what’s in the bottle that matters, right?

Glen Scotia is actually available in 10, 12, 16, 18 and 21 year old expressions which implies to me that they have a lot of product hanging about. So the 16 is right in the middle. All the expressions are non chill-filtered and bottled at a gusset moistening 46% ABV. Good for you Glen, good for you.

This one set me back £49.45 + P&P.

So what’s the verdict? Verdict is: I like it.

To the eye, the spirit is very pale, almost clear – so you can see why the bottle isn’t. The palate brings something unique to my admittedly slim field of experience. Alongside the more gentle and familiar smokiness there is something synthetic, almost unpleasant tasting on entry, but this very quickly gives way to intriguing complexity. There are what I am going to call edges to the flavour – contrasts that keep me coming back for more. There is citrus in there and a bit of peat, but also, as advertised on the tin, a gentle spiciness. The generous alcohol content certainly makes itself felt, and (together with previous experiences) is making me determined to buy stronger spirits wherever possible.

Finally, the finish has a decent and pleasant length – er… I'll just stop there - before I say something inappropriate.

So, in summation, Glen Scotia 16 makes an interesting and enjoyable dram. I can understand that it won’t be to everyone’s taste – in fact I’m fairly confident that some people will abhor it – but I found it made a nice change, not relying too much on sweetness, and instead stimulating certain edgier tasting faculties.

At £50 it probably is a little bit expensive, but you are getting the benefit of 16 years and no chill filtration (and that 46% ABV). You can definitely get better for a similar price or less, but if you’re into your whisky, you’re going to want to expand your horizons a bit and I don’t think you’d be wasting your money here. I had enough confidence in it to make it my special occasion or guest drink for it’s fairly short lifespan (against some admittedly low prestige competition) and while I don’t think it blew anyone away (few of my guests were as into whisky as I am), it garnered at low key approval.

Ardbeg 10: it's a salty sex party in your mouth.

Purchasing whisky has become increasingly difficult over the last year or so, as I widen my tastes and extend my budget. For my most recent single malt acquisition, I decided to restrict myself to around £40. I had just gotten back from holiday after all, so some of that still needed paying for…

Oddly though, when I put out a call for recommendations on Twitter, I got nothing  - and with all the whisky people who follow me… very strange. Well I wasn’t waiting forever, and despite the fact that I didn’t want to get an Islay malt, I couldn’t really decide what else to get.  I decided then that it was time to right a wrong and make a dream come true. I had wanted to buy a bottle of Ardbeg when I visited Islay last February, but had been unable to do so because the distillery was closed on the Saturday, when I had planned to make my purchases.

I won’t be making these kinds of mistakes again, I assure you. Next time I visit any distilleries, I’ll check when they’re open. And for next time I need to decide what to buy, I’ve actually come up with a very geeky system that alternates between all the various styles, regions and ages… I’ll be telling you about that another time.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this short post that is all about the Ardbeg 10. Apologies in advance that there are no photos in this one. Somehow I forgot to photograph it during its short lifespan, no doubt believing I had already done so. Ah well.

Ardbeg 10 is bottled at 46%, as it should be (at the very least) and is non-chill filtered. You can pick it up for between £35 (if you’re very lucky) and £45 (if less so).

I had to have mine delivered to work, which I’ll never do again since they had it in the post room three days before finally bringing it to my office. I’d started to get paranoid because the courier had confirmed they’d delivered it – what if someone liberated it? What if they stored it inappropriately? Hurry up and bring iiiiiit…

I delayed fulfilment (the moment of opening) just a couple of weeks, until a Friday night when all I had to look forward to was a weekend of DIY. If I wasn’t going to get to relax this weekend, I was going to start it off right.

What you’re talking about when you get the Ardbeg 10 is absolute value for money. It is already renowned as one of the finest whiskies in the world, and it is certainly one of the best I’ve experienced. It pushes towards those heights of surely being about as enjoyable as it is possible for a whisky to be, and whenever I try a new spirit, that is what I’m looking for.  You open the bottle, and it jumps out at you (like releasing a genie from a bottle as one particularly good review on Master of Malt puts it), even instantly transports you somewhere else – in this case Islay, of course. If you’ve never been, this is the smell of Islay; thick, sweet peat – if you visit the various distilleries at least. Pour it and you can sit for ten minutes just inhaling those fumes from the top of your glencairn glass, no rush, no need to actually taste it yet. I took one sniff, and just passed it straight to Mrs Cake, check this out. Amazing. Nosing this whisky alone is as enjoyable as drinking so many other whiskies.

The colour is very pale, putting many cheaper, artificially coloured whiskies to shame with its bare-faced cheek. I ams what I ams, it says, and what I ams, it goes on, is very lightly coloured and even a bit cloudy – that’ll be the lack of chill filtering, don’tchaknow. Yes, deeply coloured whiskies look nice, but I’m not buying them for their colour. Having said that, I do tend to be put off at the point of purchase by pale, urine-hued whiskies, but Ardbeg doesn’t need you to entertain such concerns because it comes in a dark green bottle, that it might give you a surprise:

Aw, it’s yellow!

Worry ye not.

When you do get to the tasting, it is everything a whisky should be; sweet and warming. The flavour doesn’t dissipate, it envelops the tongue and embraces it like it’s a salty sex party in your mouth and everyone’s on ecstacy (except they do get to achieve completion. All of them. Repeatedly).  Every drop radiates and demands you prise everything you can from each molecule. Forget about all your vanillas and your chocolates and your green apples and whatever else you look for to convince yourself whatever you’re drinking has quality and complexity, just savour the intense richness, the rich intenseness and the tense rich in-ness.

So, what about the finish? Well, the Ardbeg 10 has an afterglow that lingers like a night of strenuous love that slowly dissolves into the dawn. You open your eyes and peer at the morning, creeping through the blinds and think, what a night; let’s stay in and do it again.

If you were to wait for it to fade completely between each sip a double measure could last you hours. Even better - and what I consider to be the mark of a truly great finish; there will be occasions the following evening (even the day after that) when you can taste it almost as clearly as the night before. As one reviewer on Proof66 notes, “You know when you spend the night next to a camp fire and your clothes smells like smoke the next day? That's what Ardbeg does to my mouth. “ And that, of course is a good thing. My analogy would be… dirtier, but I’m going to resist the temptation.

If you want to pass an entertaining ten minutes, you might like to have a look at the reviews of Ardbeg 10 on Master of Malt. Opinion is divided between the extremes with (at the time of writing) 25 five star reviews, 14 four and a half star reviews and 6 four star reviews on the one hand alongside 6 reviews where only half a star is awarded and a smattering of other low scores on the other. Sure, the weight is clearly in favour of this being a quality dram, but it is fascinating how much it offends some people. One of them says, “I’ll be giving this away” – how I wish I could be the lucky recipient – while another poured it down the sink, and more than a few were overpowered by iodine.  Pussies.

Of particular note is one reviewer who ‘always takes his dram with Irn Bru’ - because it adds more flavour to whisky – though with Ardbeg the combination is ‘awful’ – well, I know Irn Bru’s all right, so it must be the Ardbeg that is the problem...

I suppose that’s like a restaurant critic who professes to eat everything with ketchup and then complains that it doesn’t work with the duck – as if it’s the duck that ruined the ketchup. I don’t think you’d give their reviews much credence. Sorry for ruining your Irn Bru with my fine single malt… you fucking idiot.

Another reviewer attempts to qualify his half star review by stating “I am very open minded”, which you could compare to starting a sentence with “I’m not a racist but…” or “I’m hot homophobic but…” or “I’ve never hit a woman but…”

Seriously; thanks for coming out.

Just because some of the negative reviews are ludicrous, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t heed what they say. The fact remains that some people don’t like Ardbeg. You might be among them, so be warned. Either way, I’m firmly among Ardbeg’s admirers, and I don’t care if you don’t like it.

Spirit Log: White Horse Blended Scotch

I had a pleasant surprise one Saturday, when a visit to my parents resulted in receiving a new bottle of whisky. Apparently my dad had been emptying out the pantry because they needed to find storage space for some things that had been displaced by the arrival of a dishwasher, and he found some booze hidden away in there – you wouldn’t get that in my house. I was invited to take a look – like one of those experts they get in on Cash in the Attic.

First out were 20cl bottles of Gordon’s Gin and Smirnoff vodka. Pretty standard, and no more than I had expected. I would have been happy to take these off their hands – I’m not a big fan of Smirnoff, or the whole genre of gin, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have requirements – nevertheless, my mum laid claim to those, for drinking with orange or tonic or whatever – she doesn’t normally, and actually had to ask me what she could mix vodka with. The answer? Nearly anything.

Far more interesting than those anyway, was what came out of the pantry next: White Horse blended scotch (40% ABV). It’s not a brand you hear much about, being as it is, more popular and readily available in overseas markets. I had heard of it though, from a brief perusal of sub-£20 blends on The Whisky Exchange (£18.55 + P&P, btw). Reviews were exclusively good so I’d made a mental note to keep an eye out for it next time I was looking to buy a blend.

It scores an impressive 90.5 in Jim Murray’s 2013 Whisky Bible, is made up of 40% malt whisky, and has as its base, the excellent Lagavulin single malt. I read somewhere though, that it is actually blended from around 40 malts in total. Does that mean each malt comprises only 1% of the resulting blend?

Where did this buried treasure come from? Apparently it all used to belong to my granddad… who died about 15 years ago. None of the bottles have been opened, so it should be fine – despite the fact that there looks to be a lot of air at the top of my bottle – perhaps some of it had evaporated? I’ve read before that whisky will taste as good as when it was bottled for hundreds of years, as long as the bottle remains unopened. And now this particular bottle belongs to me and there is no longer any chance of it remaining unopened for hundreds of years. I give it a week or two at most.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience, but when my grand parents learned they were not much longer for this world, they started asking me if there was anything of theirs I wanted. I said that I would like whatever they specifically wanted to give me. The person is more important to me than their stuff. A word of advice for you though, if an elderly relative of yours asks you this question, think about saying, “I wouldn’t mind having your booze”. You never know, you might get something valuable. Worst case scenario: some bottles of booze.

Something else my granddad did as the end approached was to try to give me the benefit of some useful things he had learned. One was about changing a tyre, that I’ve sadly forgotten, and the other was about how to emerge from a shower cubicle in winter without feeling the cold.

White Horse, I see, is one of Diageo’s blends, though my internet research so far has not revealed for how long Diageo has produced this particular brand. Diageo was formed in 1997 from a merger between Guinness and Grand Metropolitan, and that’s probably roughly around the time this particular bottle was produced, though nowhere on it is the name Diageo mentioned, and to be fair, my granddad could have had it for quite sometime before he passed on anyway. It remains to be seen then, whether this bottle is representative of the White Horse brand you might be able to buy today, since I’ll need to buy a new bottle to determine that.

Have you ever inherited any booze? I remember now that when my Grandma died, I was given a litre bottle of Teachers so, you know, it would be interesting to know what gets left behind at the end of a person’s life. If you were proper into whisky you’d probably make sure you were finishing the good stuff in your last days – or maybe there are more important considerations for the terminally ill. Would you drink the good stuff, leaving the Teachers, or would you save something special for the end?

A Few Weeks Later…

So, what about this White Horse, then? I broke the seal and gave it a first tasting the night of the Confederations Cup Final, and was impressed right away. In the glass, it looks simply beautiful. There’s something about that rich hue that shimmers invitingly in kitchen lighting conditions. Incidentally, I'm sorry but I don't seem to have taken a picture of the bottle. I don't know how that happened.

As I said, it is supposed to be founded on Lagavulin, and while I can’t say I detect that in there specifically, there is a definite feel of Islay. This is a nice blend – not as great as the Jim McEwan’s Symphony that rocketed right to the top of my blend league – but approaching that level of complexity and refinement.

After a couple of tastings I started to detect vanilla on the nose – like the Bladnoch 10 that I had some time ago. Grainy elements also started to show through on the finish, where I hadn’t been able to detect them before. In spite of that, on the blended scotch scale it sits closer to the delicate sweetness of the Jim McEwan’s Symphony than it does to what I consider standard budget blend fare where sweetness is lacking and instead the spirit seems rough and unpleasant .

Perhaps not one to bring out when the single malt snobs come round, but I wouldn’t use it for mixing. It’s definitely one to consider if you’re looking for a decent blend on a budget.

I see from looking at my stats today that this is my 100^th post. Go me. Thanks everyone that has popped by whether it by to read, look at a picture or whether it was entirely by accident. And apologies for my tardiness. I’ve not been so good at posting regularly of late, but I’ll keep trying. See you next week (or later this week) for something else.