December 2019 - Page 2 of 3 - More drams, less drama

Quick review: Islay #3 13yo batch 4 TBWC

15th December 201924th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the fifteenth window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden an undisclosed Islay #3 13yo batch 4, bottled at 48.6% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. The label is inspired by the movies Back to the Future, but replaced Doc and Marty by Jon and Mike from LivingRoom Whisky after they won at (I copy-paste it as I’m sure I can’t write that without typing wrong) That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s “Islay Ultra Competition Showdown Throwdown Extravaganza To The Extreme Lucky Best Time”. No idea what that is, but they won. Great Scott! It’s available on Master of Malt for a steep £119.95, let’s find out if it’s worth it, and if we can guess the distillery.

Quick review: Irish Single Malt 13yo batch 2 TBWC

14th December 201914th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the fourteenth window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a psychedelic looking Irish Single Malt 13yo batch 2, bottled at 48.4% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. The psychedelic label for this undisclosed Irish single malt is a no subtle at all reference to the Lovely Horse from Father Ted, and I absolutely love it. Though the distillery is undisclosed, there is probably very little choice as it’s a single malt and not a single pot still: it’s very probably either Bushmills or Cooley. This Irish Single Malt 13yo batch 2 TBWC is sold for the quite modest price of £59.95 on Master of Malt.

Quick review: Ben Nevis 23yo batch 10 TBWC

14th December 201914th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the thirteenth window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a quite promising Ben Nevis 23yo batch 10 single malt , bottled at 48% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. “Long” John McDonald founded the Ben Nevis Distillery in 1825 near the biggest mountain of UK on the outskirts of Fort William, in the Western Highlands.

Quick review: Longmorn 10yo batch 3 TBWC

12th December 201912th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the twelfth window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a Longmorn 10-year-old batch 3 single malt (it’s almost only batch 3s in this calendar!), bottled at 48.3% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. Another distillery from the Speyside region, Longmorn is owned by Chivas Brothers (Pernod Ricard). It was founded by John Duff, George Thomson and Charles Shirres in 1893 and the production started in December 1894, but in 1897 John Duff bought out his partners and the next year he built another distillery, Longmorn 2, now known as BenRiach, before going bankrupt. The bank then sold the shares to James R. Grant. In 1970, Grant merged with The Glenlivet & Glen Grant distilleries, taken over by Seagrams in 1978, and themselves bought by Pernod Ricard in 2001. Longmorn currently produces about 3M litres of pure alcohol per year with a capacity of 4.5M litres. This Longmorn 10yo batch 3 is, like the Speyburn before, sold at a very expensive price: £76.95 on Master of Malt for a 50cl bottle, that means almost £108 for a full bottle! I sure hope it’s worth it, let’s find out!

Quick review: Speyburn 10yo batch 3 TBWC

11th December 201911th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the eleventh window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a Speyburn 10-year-old batch 3 single malt, bottled at 49.5% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. Speyburn is a Spey… side distillery, easy to guess, and has been founded in 1897 by the brothers John & Edward Hopkins with their cousin Edward Broughton, and has been bought by its current owner, Inver House Distillers (the owners of Balblair, Old Pulteney and anCnoc) in 1991, Inver House being themselves owned by the Thai company International Beverage Holdings (what an imaginative name…). Speyburn is quite little known in Europe but a huge success in the USA, making it the best selling distillery of InterBev in front of Old Pulteney. In 1900, Speyburn was also the first distillery to move from floor maltings to pneumatic drum malting, though the malting closed in the late sixties, fortunately leaving the equipment there to see. This Boutique-y batch had an outturn of 1540 bottles and is still available on Master of Malt for the quite expensive price of £77.95.

Quick review: Strathclyde 31yo batch 4 TBWC

10th December 201911th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the tenth window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a Strathclyde 31yo batch 4, bottled at 45% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company and the first single grain of this calendar. The black and white label details the chemical components created when the cooperage toasts the wood making the barrel, those substances being what’s behind the flavours we recognize in our whiskies. But boutique-y being boutique-y, you’ll quickly see that they cannot stay serious and scientific until the end and give a quicker explanation for those not that interested. And what about Strathclyde, a distillery many people never heard about? It’s a grain distillery located in Glasgow on the south bank of the River Clyde, in a district called Gorbals, and is pretty awful looking (it was an old cotton mill). It’s owned by Pernod Ricard (Chivas Brothers) and is used mainly as a component for Ballantine’s and Chivas blends. I could not find a price for this whisky.

Quick review: Blended Whisky #2 22yo batch 3 TBWC

9th December 201910th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the ninth window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a Blended Whisky #2 22-year-old batch 3, bottled at 41.8% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. The black and white label seems to show a white glove going through a barley field. This batch was released in May 2018 with an outturn of 1650 bottles. It is still available at Master of Malt for a mere £63.95.

Quick review: Blended Malt #1 18yo batch 3 TBWC

8th December 201910th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the eight window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a Blend #1 18-year-old batch 3, bottled at 47.3% abv bottled by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. The funny label represents a congregation of people on a hill, praying to a giant floating teaspoon with an aureole, and cleric people at its errr… feet? This seems to be a not-so-subtle hint to tell you this “blended malt” is in fact a single malt that has been teaspooned. When an independent bottler buys a cask from a distillery that does not want its name to be known, the distillery can add a teaspoon of a any other single malt to the cask, making it by definition a blended malt. Yep, even with a teaspoon worth in a full cask, it cannot be called a single malt anymore, and thus the name of the original distillery cannot be used. Anyway, it’s available on Master of Malt for a mere £64.95 which is I think very good value. But let’s dive on and let us explain what we think of this teaspooned malt.

Quick review: Royal Brackla 12yo batch 1 TBWC

8th December 201910th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the seventh window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden the first batch of Royal Brackla from Boutique-y: a Royal Brackla 12 year-old batch 1, bottled at 47.9% abv (like yesterday’s Auchroisk or the Teaninich from a few days ago) by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. Brackla became in 1833 the first distillery to obtain a Royal Warrant, from King William IV, and thus changed its name to Royal Brackla. Only three distilleries bear the name “Royal”: Royal Brackla, Royal Lochnagar and the now demolished Glenury Royal. Royal Brackla is located in the Speyside region but is listed officially as being in the Highlands, and is one of the five distilleries owned by Dewar’s (the others being Aberfeldy, Aultmore, Craigellachie and The Deveron). Royal Brackla was used solely to produce single malt for blends for a long time before a marketing manager, Stephen Marshall, helped by Master Blender Stephanie Macleod, succeeded in convincing the management to release a range of single malts, and since 2015 there is an official range consisting of a 12, a 16 and a 21yo. Royal Brackla has a medium capacity of production at about 4.1 million litres of pure alcohol per year.

Quick review: Auchroisk 12yo batch 7 TBWC

6th December 201921st July 2020Coldorak

Behind the sixth window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden an Auchroisk 12 year-old batch 7, bottled at 47.9% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. Auchroisk is a quite recent distillery, as it was built in 1974, and is located in Speyside. Owned by Diageo, it was created mainly for blends, with only one official bottling, a 10 year-old in the Flora & Fauna collection and occasional apparitions in Diageo’s Special Releases. Fun fact: Diageo did not bother to pay enough attention to the page dedicated to Auchroisk on their malts.com website: you can still see a filler “lorem ipsum” line just when they start presenting the Auchroisk “range”. Auchroisk has a medium capacity of production at about 5.9 million litres of pure alcohol per year. I could not find any website selling the Batch 7 of this Boutique-y’s Auchroisk unfortunately.