The make your own whisky for those without a distillery or deep pockets for a warehouse of casks. Half a decade after the first infinity bottle article I am back with another. The first one can be found over at Infinity Bottle 2019. I talk about wanting to have a series of popping in and out of the bottle over time, adding a bit, drinking a bit, letting it rest and so on. I never did any of that though. This article is only here because while I did well to keep the infinity (ness) [is that a word?!?] going for nearly half a decade I had let it slip for so long that only maybe 2 drams were left ..read more

I definitely don’t want to write this article and only focus on the current branding of a once wonderful Benromach. I certainly don’t want to do that not least because the rebrand was a few years ago now and the comments have been done to death. I don’t want to do any of that. …and while I might not want to do it. I shall. Because it really is truly bizarre to go from these classy modern glass bottles with well designed cardboard boxes which incorporated a lid you could display the bottle in. To this brutish, forgettable and formulaic It’s all really rather awful. Anyway, I feel better now ..read more

When I got a a sample of 12 year old Aberfeldy I was sure it was something I had tried before. One of the first reasons for starting this blog though was to solve this problem. A search of past posts for Aberfeldy though bore no fruit so we have another excuse to make some moderately average content again. FYI: Other Aberfeldy related content can be found using this link. https://malted.blog/?s=Aberfeldy In the 16 year old I spoke about Aberfeldy being supermarket standard stock but since 2018. I actually don’t even think that is true anymore. I can’t actually remember that last time I saw it ..read more

To complete the collection of bottles in flight just now we finish the Lindores tasting with another Casks of bottle. This time we look at STR’d Red Wine maturation. Red wine was an obsession for me which predates my whisky one. I never quite got into the community like I did in spirits. We are just a much nicer and inclusive bunch Red wine is all very good I suppose and as I sit in here actual France I do worry that someone might see this but… wine has only one purpose and that is to mature whisky. The barriques themselves have come from Portugal this time and interestingly I didn’t realize ..read more

Back to the Lindores tasting on Twitter with a Bourbon matured whisky at nearly 50% ABV. The “Casks of Lindores” series is an interesting and ongoing range of whiskies from Lindores which focuses on a single maturation type in each bottle. This version and the other Lindores which I am still to write up are from the second batch from the series which was released in 2023. Why do I think this is so interesting? Well two reasons really. The first is purely obsessive as a whisky person. As I have said in a lot of articles over the years it’s important to remember a single malt is not a single cas ..read more

The second sample from festival 2021 is the Moine one. Moine being the Gaelic for peat so this is the peaty finisher to the set of course. This red wine finished peated whisky is the younger and more affordable whisky of the two. I am hoping it will also be the more interesting because the much more expensive one on Monday: Bunnahabhain Marsala Cask – Feis Ile 2021 was painfully expensive and insipidly boring. Not to labour on that one though and looking forward to the Moine Bordeaux it is a 2013 vintage bottled at 59.5%ABV and there is still bottles to be found as old stock or collector ..read more

Things have got out of hand here at Malted HQ. I have found a pack of samples I have had for nearly 3 years and indeed completely forgot I had. Feis Ile 2021 was the festival that never existed but did happen. The Covid years meant most commercial operations had to find new ways to work to stay alive and the Islay festival was no different. If you ever needed proof that the festival operation was valuable for a community and their distilleries then posting out samples of festival bottles to continue selling bottles during a lockdown was it. The first one in the trio was the 2021 batch version ..read more

You know what I have been doing too much of recently. Talking about single malts. I think it is too easy to forget that single malt Scotch is a relatively small part of the market. The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) would be at pains to remind us all blended whisky is where all the market share is and where properly vast amounts of mature whisky ends up. So I think I need to be more balanced on the kind of things I talk about. Of course, though given how I liked those jazzy peated Rum casks in the Lindores bottle I couldn’t just go ordinary here. I am trying here give me a break. Dewer’s Cari ..read more

If there was ever a bottle I am a sucker for it’s the cask strength one at a decent price. Friar John Cor bottle is that one in the run for me. This John Cor one though is extra interesting because beside the usual ex-bourbon barrels and increasingly utilised STR casks we have peated Rum to play with as well. This particular bottle is a batch run and the run I am trying now is the second batch. If you can find it on a shelf somewhere expect to pay under £70. The introduction of the peated casks which originally held rum, gives a very exciting point of difference to our unpeated spirit. The en ..read more

The last few weeks have been new products and exotic releases costing a good whack of money. Recently, I have been talking a lot about Supermarket fodder of standard issue single malts and them being just not very good. Given all those solidly confident opinions I thought I should write about one again for some perspective. The Founder’s Reserve is the most widely available Glenlivet you can find pretty much everywhere and anywhere. Once upon a time it would have been the 12 year old but in the last decade or so it’s this Founder’s Release. That doesn’t mean it’s bad of course, cheaper or at l ..read more