Glenlivet 12, The Original Stories – Illicit Still, 48%
Malt Fascination
by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
2d ago
I always have a bit of a chuckle when one of the biggest, most corporate distilleries in Scotland starts toting things like ‘Illicit Still’. This whisky is about 200 years removed from an illicit still at Glenlivet, but that doesn’t hold back the old marketing department. What did surprise me is that this is a whisky with a title/name AND an age statement. Generally speaking these things are mutually exclusive, so some kudos to Glenlivet for that. Image from Whiskybase Tom, of Whisky Odyssey and from many a guest post here, bought a bottle and was kind enough to supply me with a sample. Let’s ..read more
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Cognac Mauxion 78, 1945, 60% – Wu Dram Clan
Malt Fascination
by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
2d ago
There is a lot to unpack here. In the world of whisky they often talk about slow maturation and state things like ‘patiently matured’ on labels. It often doesn’t mean much, but if there is anything to go by, this one is slowly matured. If you think about the simple fact that the alcohol content is still 60%, ever after 78 years (!), that is quite miraculous. Mauxion was able to get this far along with such a high ABV by intentionally storing in an incredibly humid cellar and partially burying the cask so that interaction with the air around it was minimal. It change quite a few maturation para ..read more
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Macallan 1998-2009, Bourbon Barrel 1193, 54.9% – Malts of Scotland
Malt Fascination
by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
6d ago
It’s been ages since I had a Malts of Scotland bottling, and it’s been even longer since I had a Macallan. I was about to rant a lot about why Macallan is no longer regarded as highly as it was 20 years ago, by whisky fanatics at least. Things about age statements, golden promise barley, sherry casks and price points, I think it’s a topic that has been chewed out a bit too much. This one came from a share a very short while ago through another channel than my own. It looked interesting and I didn’t even check which whiskies were in the share. Somehow I must have read it, but this Macallan was ..read more
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Bruichladdich 30, 1988-2018, Bourbon Hogshead, 48.9% – Cadenhead’s
Malt Fascination
by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
6d ago
Old Bruichladdich can be hit or miss. As in, the distillery was highly inconsistent in the quality of its output spirit. Since the reopening in 2001 it still is but the spirit is far more consistent. The new inconsistency is in the use of all kinds of weird casks between 2005 and 2015-ish. It has gotten far more consistent over the last couple of years with more focus on bourbon and sherry casks with far less wine casks and other things mixed in. Personally, I think that’s a good thing because the spirit works so very well with bourbon casks. However, I’ve had some older ones from before it cl ..read more
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Bowmore 17, 2004-2021, 2nd Fill Ex-Bourbon Hogshead, 56.7% – SMWS (3.333 ‘Slowly Forgetting the 1980s)
Malt Fascination
by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
1w ago
Image from Whiskybase Going back to a Bowmore I had quite a while ago during a wee online tasting that I’ve been doing regularly with JPH. We dubbed it our ‘quarterly advent’ since we found out we like doing those semi-blind things, but November is always gobbled up by the Blind Tasting Competition. And I know that November isn’t advent yet, but December has lots of holidays and other events. So much so that getting a couple of nights available for whisky tasting is quite tough to arrange. Hence us spreading it out. Recently we had some epic all-time-high drams. A while ago we did a series of ..read more
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Glenburgie 25, 1995-2020, Hogshead 6543, 52.9% – Signatory Vintage
Malt Fascination
by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
1w ago
During COVID (yes, again) there were a lot of Glenburgies being released. Most of them were distilled in the mid-nineties and they tend to make for gorgeously fruity drams. It should come as no surprise that some of these bottles found their way to the MaltFascination headquarters. Image from Whiskybase There are a few of these bottles left on my shelves, but this one got recently emptied. At some point the time to say goodbye is there, and in cases like this is does feel like going out with a bang. Or a buzz, if you’re the recipient of this whisky. Sniff: Strangely, it starts with a whiff of ..read more
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Glen Garioch ‘The Birds’ 1975-1990, Oak Cask 5910, 46% – Moon Import
Malt Fascination
by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
1w ago
This whisky was bottled when I was, most likely, eight years old. Ever since then it has started to gather legendary status and currently it sits comfortably at a 91 point score at Whiskybase. Interestingly, Moon Import seems to be still active, but at a rather slow rate. Three bottles were released in 2020, seven in 2019. Whether or not that counts as ‘active’ is up for debate. Glen Garioch is one of those distilleries that has a rather great status for older whiskies from years ago, but doesn’t seem to be scoring that highly with their more recent releases. I know they changed their distilli ..read more
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Linkwood 1973-2004, Refill Bourbon Hogshead, 52.5% – Skorupa Rareliquids
Malt Fascination
by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
2w ago
If you’re thinking that you’ve never heard of this bottler, that would make perfect sense since this is the only bottling under their name. I had this sample a while ago and I still had no recollection of it, also in part because JPH and I tried this one semi-blind. In this case, semi-blind means that we did consciously order the samples, but when we tried some of the batch of samples, we didn’t check beforehand which was which. My most memorable Linkwood 1973 was a bottling done for the 10th anniversary of The Whisky Exchange, ages ago. Back when things were more affordable. It was also part ..read more
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Lagg Corriecravie, Sherry Cask Finish, 55%
Malt Fascination
by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
2w ago
While trying to focus on all kinds of townships and locations on the Isle of Arran, Lagg have taken to the smallest named settlements they could find, or so it seems. Corriecravie is a couple of minutes west of the distillery, but isn’t more than a handful of houses and a swing set. The previous edition, Kilmory, is even smaller. Although, there is a campsite there so that might count for something. Anyway, this second regularly available release is a sherry cask finish, whereas the first edition was fully bourbon cask matured. The other difference is that this one was released at 55% ABV inst ..read more
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Whitlaw 10, 2013-2023, Oloroso Sherry Cask 1789, 47.5% – Càrn Mòr
Malt Fascination
by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
2w ago
For some unknown reason I though Whitlaw was an Autralian of New Zealand distillery. I have no idea where that comes from, but I was very wrong of course. I didn’t taste this exactly blind, but this did blind me somewhat to what I was actually having. I even told JPH that I didn’t really understand why New Zealand distilleries would want to do a thing that is so close to Scotch and not create their own niche. Turns out, this is very similar to Scotch indeed! So, after doing some minimal checking on Whiskybase (read: entering the wbid and seeing what’s there), this turns out to be a Highland Pa ..read more
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