More Drams, Less Drama

Port Charlotte 2003 Hidden Spirits

2nd December 20212nd December 2021Coldorak

Today we open the second sample from my advent calendar. After a new riddle that didn’t help my hair grow back, my friends and I finally guessed it was a Port Charlotte 2003 bottled by Hidden Spirits. You probably know that already, dear reader, but Port Charlotte was an Islay distillery. It was founded in 1829 by Colin Campbell on the north-west bank of Loch Indaal and was also known as Rhins Distillery and Lochindaal Distillery. It ran for a hundred years between 1829 and 1929, changing hands several times during that period. In the mid-1880s, Alfred Barnard reported Lochindaal was producing 128.000 gallons of spirit per annum, to compare with Lagavulin’s 75.000 gallons and Ardbeg’s 250.000 gallons at the time. Back in 1920, JF Sherriff & Co, then the owner of Lochindaal, was bought by Benmore Distilleries. Nine years later in 1929, Distillers Company Limited (DCL) purchased Benmore and closed down immediately Lochindaal. Then, in 2000, the nearby distillery Bruichladdich was acquired by the independent bottlers Murray McDavid, who wanted to revive the Lochindaal distillery by creating a new distillery in which to produce heavily-peated whisky, but the plans never saw the light of day, and since Bruichladdich’s acquisition by French company Rémy Cointreau in 2012, it seems highly unlikely that distilling will return to the Port Charlotte village.

Chichibu The Peated 2018

1st December 20212nd December 2021Coldorak

We’re the first of December! While December means cold, wet or snowy weather depending on where you live, it also has more festive connotations with Christmas or other end-of-year festive events, and for many people from the 1st to the 24th of December: advent calendars! As the few years before, I’m doing a whisky advent calendar. This year again I couldn’t get a Boutique-y Whisky Advent Calendar (I reviewed one with Ainulindale in 2019) or another one from Drinks by the Dram, but Benjamin, a member of a French Whisky Discord server I’m a member of, and who spends probably way more than me on whisky, offered to do for a few of us our very own ultra limited whisky advent calendar. Five of us members ordered him one, gladly paid 300€ for 25 samples (yep, we have an extra one for Christmas!), and all we know is that the bottles used for the samples go from 150€ to 800€ a bottle… All the samples are just labelled with a number, and each day Benjamin gives us a hint or two in order for us to guess what it is. But first, where do advent calendars come from?

World Whisky Blend review

30th November 202130th November 2021Coldorak

About a thousand years after everybody (in the whisky reviewing world, which I’m trying to put a foot in, reviewing a whisky two years after the others might feel as a late as being a thousand years late with the sheer speed of releases that pop out during the time I write an introduction or ask a question), I finally got my hands on a bottle of That Boutique-y Whisky Company‘s World Whisky Blend. At RRP. And I’m especially happy to have succeeded in getting one, because since its release in 2019, their brand ambassador, the award-winning cigar and pipe smoking glorious beard growing World Whisky Blend by the case gulping Dave Worthington must have drunk a third of its outturn. So finding a bottle two years after its release in one of the La Maison Du Whisky shops in Paris was surprising and deeply appreciated. So let’s pop the cork out (and break it immediately), let’s get a Glencairn, and get on with the review. Oh wait…

Fuji Gotemba Single Grain at Aloha Whisky Bar in Tokyo

Fuji Single Grain review

17th November 202117th November 2021KanpaiPlanet

Our friend and guest writer Mac from Kanpai Planet is back today with the review of another Japanese whisky, this time the Fuji Gotemba Single Grain.

Most drinks fans are familiar with Kirin, whether through their Kirin Ichiban Shibori beer (Kirin Ichiban outside Japan) or through Four Roses Bourbon, which they own.

But outside Japan, not many know that Kirin is the number 3 whisky producer in Japan, behind Suntory and Nikka.

In November 1973, the Fuji Gotemba distillery began production. It was built by Kirin-Seagram, a joint venture established in August 1972 between Kirin Brewery Co., Ltd. (Japan) [50%], JE Seagram and Sons [45%] and Chivas Brothers [5%].

The Whisky Cellar Series 003 Tweet Tasting

12th November 202114th November 2021Coldorak

Keith Bonnington, Whisky Cellar‘s founder and who we interviewed for the first Whisky Cellar Tweet Tasting, likes to be busy. We tried his first series of releases during a Tweet Tasting back in September last year, but the second series was just a few months ago in August. And he’s already working on his fourth series that I really do hope I’ll get to try once again. But let’s talk a bit about indy bottlers first, then you thirsty readers will be able to check the review of the drams we tried.

Rebel Bourbon 100 & Tawny Port Finish

3rd November 20211st December 2022Coldorak

Rebel is one of the four brands of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskeys coming from Lux Row Distillers in Bardstown, Kentucky. You can trace back the history of Lux Row back to 1843 when David Nicholson, a St. Louis grocer, began making and selling whiskey in his general store. The Rebel Yell recipe was invented in 1849, but the Rebel Yell brand itself (though since then the Yell has been dropped) was created only almost a century later, in 1936, by Stitzel-Weller Distilling Co. to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Weller company. While this article is part of a Lux Row Distillers Flash Blog event for the launch of their third release in the Kentucky based brands limited edition cask finish series, we won’t just taste and review it, but also put it against their Rebel 100 bourbon.

Naguelann Cuvée Grand’Pa Eilvet

7th September 202116th June 2022Coldorak

Naguelann is a brand of whisky from Brittany created in 2014 by Lenaïck Lemaitre. He started maturing whiskies distilled by neighbour Breton distilleries, allowing him to release his first expressions in 2015, with Cuvée Grand’Pa, and in 2016, with Ed Unan. If he started maturing new make made by others, he’s now also distilling himself. Lemaitre also owns a whisky shop and bar in Saint-Malo called ArKoad, where you can buy his creations as well as whiskies he bottled as an independent bottler, and taste many other whiskies from everywhere around the world. Let’s review his first release, Naguelann Cuvée Grand’Pa Eilvet.

Mackinlay’s Shackleton review

16th August 202116th August 2021Coldorak

The legend says Sir Ernest Shackleton, preparing his Antarctic expedition to the South Pole in 1907, ordered 25 cases of Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt Whisky to heighten the expedition team spirit. By the way, I love how whisky is always rare and old, especially blends. Do you think they mean rare as a wink to a good steak cooking, just a bit but not too much? Thus the whiskies that make the blend spent just a bit of time in casks but definitely not too much? Unfortunately, Shackleton and his team didn’t reach the South Pole, but at the time they still went by far to the farthest south latitude ever attained, 88° 23′ S, missing the South Pole by just 97.5 nautical miles (180.6 km or 112.2 mi.). I said the legend, but it seems it’s a fact, as a century after the expedition, in 2007, three cases of the original Mackinlay’s blend were discovered, frozen into the ice beneath Shackleton’s base camp at Cape Royds. As Mackinlay’s website says, the whisky was excavated and flown to New Zealand where it is exposed by the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust. Let’s talk a wee bit about blends market share, then it’ll be time for Mackinlay’s Shackleton review.

The Whisky Cellar Tweet Tasting

6th August 20216th August 2021Coldorak

A few ~~weeks~~ months ago, The Whisky Cellar, a quite new independent bottler, announced its second outturn, with brand new single casks for whisky amateurs to enjoy. As for the first one, back in September 2020, Keith Bonnington and Steve Rush organized a Tweet Tasting to allow a handful of lucky people to taste a selection of drams taken from this second outturn. I absolutely love the first Whisky Cellar Tweet Tasting with some stunning drams, so boy was I excited for this one…

Dingle Single Malt and Batch No. 5 review

2nd July 20214th July 2021Coldorak

Fun fact: we’ve not written anything about Scotch whisky on this humble blog this year. We didn’t write much at all to be fair. And if you were expecting a Scotch whisky review here, well you’re going to have to wait a little more, as we go back to Ireland today. And even almost as far from Scotland as we could without leaving the UK and Ireland, as we’re going to the Dingle Peninsula. Put down that map and that ruler, it was a figure of speech, I know it’s not the furthest point on the map by quite a few miles. Dingle Distillery released a few weeks ago their first permanent expression, a single malt Irish whiskey, after releasing their previous single malts (and single pot still) as batches. But today, they’re becoming big girls and boys, and we’re going to see how well they did. Oh, and we have a guest that will bring his Scottishness with him, so that’s almost as if we reviewed a Scotch whisky today, right? No, that doesn’t count you say? Anyway, let’s have a chat with Graham Coull, Dingle’s master distiller, then we’ll review Dingle’s Single Malt. And I won’t go into a presentation of Dingle Distillery, my good friend Brian @MaltMusings did one that I invite you to go read. Cue the intro! (Ahem, I mean scroll down, I know we’re not on TV.)