Coldorak's whisky blog.
Bimber returns with a second round of releases in its ‘Shoulders of Giants’ series. Eight new ‘Giants’ have been introduced, joining the original six from the first batch, along with fresh country exclusives – this time with Germany and Belgium joining the UK and Poland. With samples from all eight of these new expressions kindly sent by Bimber a few weeks ago, let’s dive into a review of this Bimber Shoulders of Giants Second Release.
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Bimber recently introduced* a new series, ‘Shoulder of Giants’, a tribute to the thinkers, innovators, and visionaries who have shaped history. While the connection to whisky may not be immediately obvious, perhaps these celebrated figures were whisky enthusiasts – though, in the case of Nicolaus Copernicus, who passed away in 1543 in Poland, it’s unlikely he ever had the chance to enjoy a dram! Regardless, this theme is as fitting as many others embraced by distilleries, and the labels are nothing short of stunning. Thanks to Bimber Distillery, we didn’t just have the last Spirit of the Underground batch, we also have all six expressions from the ‘Shoulder of Giants’ series in front of us – three exclusive to the UK and three to Poland. Let’s dive in and explore what each of these whiskies has to offer.
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Back in 2021, Bimber started its then-new collection, The Spirit of the Underground, celebrating many stations from the London Underground passenger railway system, the Tube. We could review the first batch of four stations in June 2021, thanks to a Tweet Tasting with Steve Rush and Matt McKay. Fast forward three years and they’ve already released their 6th batch of four expressions, that we’re trying today. The ballot for those bottles is long closed and these are all sold out, but you might be tempted to get one on the secondary market as I’m sure several of them will pop in one of the several whisky auctions you already probably know of. So maybe this review will help you choose which one to go to with my tasting notes. But remember this is my humble opinion so your taste might be different, your nose and palate may get different notes that what I recognised. So to help, I’ll also link at the end of the review a link to friends’ blogs, who also reviewed these four whiskies. But without further ado, let’s review those four Bimber The Spirit of the Underground, from their sixth release.
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I was hoping to try the brand new Bimber bottlings for La Maison Du Whisky at Whisky Live Paris back in October, especially since the Bimber booth was really close to Dingle’s, where I was working once again. Regrettably, LMDW had reserved them for their exclusive stand in the VIP section, and my schedule didn’t allow me to visit. Therefore, from the coziness of my whisky room, let’s explore a couple of Bimber single casks bottled last year specifically for LMDW’s Antipodes collection.
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Having high expectations for a product can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, high expectations can create excitement and anticipation, making the experience of obtaining the product more enjoyable. However, there is also a risk of being disappointed or not satisfied when the product does not meet those expectations. I have been anticipating this first peated Bimber release since I’ve tried their stunning peated new make, back in 2019. For one of the firsts ever articles on this blog. So when Matt McKay reached out to offer to send me a sample, I obviously said yes in less time than needed to say well, er… yes. Okay, I guess this doesn’t work as I hoped. Anyway, let’s review this Bimber The 1st Peated!
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Bimber distillery released a new series to celebrate the London Underground, a great engineering project of the 19th Century, and together with Steve Rush they offered to try them during a new Tweet Tasting. Bimber was one of my first ever Tweet Tastings almost two years ago (already!) and since then I’ve been really following what they do and bought a few bottles they released. So you can imagine I was quite excited at the prospect of trying these four whiskies, especially since thanks to Brexit and wouldn’t try my luck grabbing one by fear of having hide and seek with customs and annoying shipping companies.
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Bimber Distillery is a quite recent distillery operating from London, England. Founded in 2015, they buy their two-row malted barley (Concerto and Laureate) from a single farm near Hampshire and have it malted by Warminster Maltings. Then, they distill their spirit with two direct-fire small copper pot-stills made by a Spanish company, Hoga: a 1000 litre wash still, called Doris, and a 600 litre spirit still called Astraeus. Distillation of whisky began in May 2016, and the first casks filled on the 26th of May, 2015 have now reached 3 years of age. Quite a journey since the distilling of moonshine in Poland by the grandfather of the master-distiller of Bimber Distillery, Darius Plazewski. And by the way, the translation for “moonshine” in Polish is… “Bimber”.
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