Infectious Charm. Devastating Wit. Below Average Looks.
Irish whiskey is on the rise. Just kidding. Little inside joke there for those paying attention. What I can say is on the rise is rum finished whiskies. Balvenie does it, Angel’s Envy does it, I think, and now our close, personal, mutual friends at Tullamore Dew are jumping in on the Caribbean action. And... Continue Reading →
Okay, you win, Midleton, you win all the awards. You’re the kings of the single pot still style. The SWC seems to gravitate towards this stuff like Matthew McConaughey into a black hole, and I secretly wonder out loud in front of you all if we should just slow down a little. All the Spots,... Continue Reading →
Here's how you know if the whiskey blogger you are reading has nothing unique or interesting to say about Irish whiskey: they begin their review with the oft repeated, vomit inducing lede, "Irish whiskey is on the rise" or, the ever blood curdling opener, "Irish whiskey is in the midst of a comeback." I'm not... Continue Reading →
I recant my former statement on the novelty of the Edition series from Macallan. Just when I admit the freshness of this curious set of bottles, along comes Edition No. 4. Here is a quick snippet from Macallan on No. 4….. The fourth release in this innovative annual Series, Edition No.4 embodies the craftsmanship and... Continue Reading →
We move forward with our ever penetrating gaze upon The Macallan Edition No. 3 single malt expression. I would be tempted to complain that all the Edrington Group seems to do these days, as many other Scotch producers are want to do in our Golden Age of whisky consumption, is simply rehash non-innovative production methods... Continue Reading →
We shall begin today's look at Macallan Edition No. 2 with a celebration. A celebration of wealth. Our club normally only carries one rich dentist member, as they are hard to find and we wish to remain a blue collar group, but we certainly will not resist the emergence of a second, for as well... Continue Reading →
Long ago in a land far away I heard on Whisky Cast that Irish Distillers was reviving the Spot line, an old brand of Irish whiskies sold in the shops of Mitchel & Son in Dublin, Ireland. I faintly remember a guest of Mark Gillespie, the host, explaining that barrels aging the single pot still... Continue Reading →
Now we are on to something. Today’s look at Glenfiddich IPA Cask Experimental Series is the 3rd and last in our brief beer cask finished whisk(e)y series, and as it so happens, this one was far and away our favorite. We tried two stout finished whiskies to start off, (here and here) and while I... Continue Reading →
We continue onward and upward through our beer soaked whiskey odyssey to Jameson Caskmates Stout Edition. Next review will be our favorite of that particular tasting theme mentioned in last week’s review, but today’s will be ranked somewhere in the middle in terms of what we liked best. A number of us greatly enjoy stout,... Continue Reading →
Because we are perhaps the oddest whiskey club currently running, it stands to reason that we display our oddness for you all to enjoy. Or hate, I don’t know. Pursuant to this character flaw, we will publish the results from an equally odd tasting theme from one of our recent meetings: beer cask finished whiskies.... Continue Reading →
After years of never letting bourbon from a bottle of Michter’s touch my silken lips, and I have my reasons, the club finally got around to sampling their flagship US*1 Small Batch Bourbon. And after all these years, we spent the majority of the time during our tasting trying to figure out how to pronounce... Continue Reading →
It’s almost like I’ve gone whisky meta. Or perhaps whisky transcendent is a better descriptor of my ambivalence towards whatever marketing trope a group comes up with in order to release a new whisky. I don’t know that anyone is bothered when Joe Schmo Distillery releases a new 8 year old bottling for no other... Continue Reading →
During a particularly wise and lucid moment at our most recent SWC meeting, I noted to the guys a bit of an evolution in my whisky hobby. In the early days, my buying focus centered on what new things I could taste, both for curiosity and palate development reasons. The particularly obvious attribute of this... Continue Reading →
It appears that a hidden desire exists amongst the whisky fanatic firmament: we all love us a nice peated whisky with a sherry finish. We love lots of other concoctions to be sure, but these smoky sweets do not show up often on the shelf. I seem to remember whisky writer Dominic Roskrow comment in... Continue Reading →
Having missed the Bunnahabhain boat for most of my whisky life I have found myself in preparation for this review not knowing too much about this Islay distillery. I have tried the 12 some time ago and remember very little. A barely smoky, salty malt. In fact, the most prominent factoid available in my mental... Continue Reading →
For the dusty hunters out there in Internet Land, the story of how a man named Jimmy Turner stumbled upon a bottle of his great grandfather Joseph Magnus’ bourbon in his mother’s house in 2007 certainly has its charms. This admittedly remarkable find (at least he didn’t have to pay for it) of a bottle... Continue Reading →
I long knew that Tomatin was a value brand. Inexplicably, I never tried it. I should have. I'm Mr. Value. You have to be in this age of inflated whisky prices. Back when I first got into whisky, you could score Jameson 18 for $70, Glenlivet 18 for $80, Chivas Regal 18 for $60, even... Continue Reading →
At the time of this writing, the SWC is over 6 years old. I'd like to say that the basic beating heart of any given meeting has not changed from when we first started, and that beating heart is sitting around a table and evaluating a new whisky we have not tried before, together. We... Continue Reading →
Peat lovers, or peat freaks, as they are lovingly referred to, are pretty much the closest to opiate addicts as you can get in the whisky community. There is a strange thing that happens in your brain when you first try a hefty peated scotch. If you do not immediately take to it, your first... Continue Reading →
