Group Tasting Archives - More drams, less drama

A blind evening with friends and French whisky

14th April 202014th April 2020Coldorak

On Friday the 10th of April, I organized a small blind tasting with friends I had sent samples to almost a year ago. Lockdown due to the Covid-19 crisis is keeping us to meet and go to festivals, but it does not prevent us for sharing whisky with friends. Back in November 2019 we did our first kind-of-blind tasting with 4 Yoichi, and last Friday we went to another country, my (and Julien’s) country: France. On the lineup: an Armorik and Eddu, from Brittany, and an Elsass from Alsace. So like last time, we knew what drams we were going to taste, but had no idea of the order. Myself included. But let’s start by introducing the distilleries.

A blind evening with friends and Yoichi whisky

29th November 201929th November 2019Coldorak

On Friday 22 of November, I organized a small blind tasting with friends I had sent samples to months ago. After a few last minutes cancellations, we were finally able to have that tasting, and the theme was 4 Nikka Yoichi non-age-statement single malts: the classic Single Malt one available in your usual liquor shop, and three distillery exclusives named Woody & Vanillic, Sherry & Sweet and Peaty & Salty. I’ll come back to it later, but tl;dr: it was a great evening, and the drams were really good. Oh, and I said blind tasting: well, kind of. We knew what drams we were going to taste, but had no idea of the order. Myself included. But let’s talk about Yoichi first.

Triple distillation and a triplet of Bushmills

24th September 201912th May 2022Coldorak

A few days ago, the #MiniTasting gang had a minitasting of 3 Bushmills, and since I had two out of three, I decided to crash the party. Bushmills is an Irish distillery that does triple distillation to create its whiskey with an e. They’re not the only one to triple distil, but what does triple distillation mean, and what’s the difference with the classic double distillation that is used by most distilleries? Then we’ll review three Bushmills from the lower end of their range.