Coldorak's whisky blog.
Behind the third 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 2 year-old rye spirit from the New York: the New York Distilling Company 2yo Batch 3. Bottled at 47.7% abv, this rye spirit bottled by that Boutique-y Rye Company is not whisky yet (in Europe and UK, but in the USA it is), but it’s available from Master of Malt for £37.95. But if it’s not whisky yet, should we review it?
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Behind the second 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 8 year-old whisky from an undisclosed distillery in Speyside: Speyside #1 8yo Batch 1. Bottled at 50.7% abv, this whisky is not yet available in UK or France, but if we trust the Boutique-y brand ambassador Dave Worthington, it’s available at least in Denmark and Netherlands.
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Behind the first 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 24 year-old Bourbon from an undisclosed distillery: Bourbon Whiskey #1 24yo Batch 1. Bottled at 48% abv, the bottle was usually sold at £199.95 on Master of Malt but was on sale for half that price on the evening of the 1st of December. But let’s crack on and taste this bourbon!
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As I did last year when I was even newbier in whisky than I am now, I bought a Whisky advent calendar. Last year I bought the Premium Whisky Advent Calendar from Drinks by the Dram, and this year, I chose to buy That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar 2019. And this time, I brought Ainulindalë aboard, as I had him buy one too, so that we can do our “double notes” reviews. Hmm I should trademark this.
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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.
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As I would reveal at the end of the tasting when everyone would have made their final guesses, the fourth and last dram we tasted was the Yoichi Single Malt Peaty & Salty. It is a distillery exclusive bottled at 55% abv, without age statement, in a 50 cl bottle. I paid 130€ on auction for this bottle including 60€ in shipping cost as the seller was from Hong-Kong.
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As I would reveal at the end of the tasting when everyone would have made their final guesses, the third dram we tasted was the Yoichi Single Malt Sherry & Sweet. It is a distillery exclusive bottled at 55% abv, without age statement, in a 50 cl bottle. I paid 110€ on aution for this bottle, including 60€ of shipping cost as the seller was from Hong-Kong.
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As I would reveal at the end of the tasting when everyone would have made their final guesses, the second dram we tasted was the Yoichi Single Malt NAS. It is widely available, bottled at 45% abv in a 70cl bottle. You can find it at Master of Malt and The Whisky Exchange for about £75, and in France 75€ on Amazon.fr or LMDW.
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During a blind tasting with friends, and as I would reveal at the end of the tasting when everyone would have made their final guesses, the first dram we tasted was the Yoichi Single Malt Woody & Vanillic. It is a distillery exclusive bottled at 55% abv, without age statement, in a 50cl bottle. I bought it for 120€ on auction, half the price being shipping as it came from a Hong-Kong seller.
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Early september, I discovered there was events where you could taste SMWS whiskies as well as cigars – and boy what that an excellent discovery.
This time around, the French ambassadors reached out to me and asked me whether I would be interested in an “exclusive” session where we would taste a whisky selected just for France – SMWS 7.217 – Joie de vivre. This session would again be at Gentleman 1919, which I’m starting to love more and more.
Obviously, I accepted – and I can only thank them for that as I missed the Whisky Live due to friends having the bad idea of having their wedding that week-end. This was then the occasion for me to forget about the sheer pain it caused and soothe my broken heart by downing some drams.
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