MaltGeeks

Malts, Drinks, food sometimes all together

Posts Tagged ‘Whiskey’

The Belvenie 12 Double wood

I went on a family holiday and decided that coming empty handed was wrong , so I purchased this bottle and took it with me , on the last night we sat down and sampled this dram , funnily enough this was not my first Belvenie , i some how managed to forget my previous exposure ( see previous postings).

So now that I have sampled it – time to give my notes ,overall characteristics of this dram are , Sherry Oak finish , 12 years old , 40% proof .

Color : Light gold almond haze , with a nice smooth swirl and short light legs.

Nose : Easy nose with traces of pines,caramel and peppers , the aroma dissipates fast from the nose , leaving a clear void

Taste :The dram has a nice after burn on the back of the mouth , with a slow building burn in the stomach .
The flavors that remain are of strong pepper , wood , chocolate , raisins and almonds .

All in all , a mild dram for a light summer evening for the after meal drink or with a light fruits beside it .
Coming at a price of £28 in an off license shop, it is an affordable dram that can go with almost any social gathering.

Glen Elgin 16 Years old ,58.5% – short review

I went up to scotland on the end of March 2009 , and no visit to Scotland is worth with out a good dram to go along so i stepped into the whiskey museum in Edinburgh and had this dram .
Color : Goldish with light yellow tint.
Nose : an aroma that is very easy on the nose but and very promising , it felt like it’s trying to hide it’s true potential to the taste buds.
The taste had a fine pine wood feeling to it but light and very smooth going , very warm and long after taste of spices , the lasting sensation is a dry palate.

Adding a drop of water to the Dram opens up the whiskey to make it extremely smooth and even longer warm feeling in the stomach.

Speyburn Bradan Orach

The name of this one has some promise and contradictions in it (from my point of view) , as it is a speyside whiskey I am expecting a smooth and gentle dram , all the while the “Burn” part have me expecting a more vibrant and powerful dram .
The only way to find out , is our favorite way … open the bottle and sample … Speyburn Bradan Orach (Dist)

As is with all tasting and sampling , i’ll start with the color : Light golden , smooth swirl with very faint legs .
The nose is very easy , almost non existent with a very faint smell of pines .
in the mouth there is a lack of energy to this dram , it is very light on the palette with a light sense of almond to the dram and a very slow and mild burn ( sadly not up to his name in the burn factor).

Adding a dash of water to this dram does wonder to the nose , it comes alive with more powerful aroma of the same traces and the presence of peat.
There is no change on the color which was very nice surprise , but the biggest of the changes is the taste – that small dash of water made this dram utterly bland!! (Remember , i am not using pure Scottish water for this tasting , so this might be why i got this result).

All in all a light dram for the start of the evening or with a light fish dish for lunch .
Duty free price is £21.59 , which is ok , for a whiskey of this quality

GlenGarioch 1797 Founding Reserve

GlenGarioch 1797 Founding ReserveAfter a long time of hearing about this Distillery , reading many articles where people praise the dram that comes out of this established industry name , I decided to get a bottle and try it for myself.

So after attempting to gather my ” Usual Suspects” for a night of sampling , and managing to find only a small section of them available , we opened the bottle and drunk.

We’ll start off with the first impression you get :
Color – Deep honey gold ,with a smooth swirl and no legs in the glass .
The nose is very light on the senses but heavy on the honey aroma with a hint of pine, almonds and pepper.

Tasting : The honey again is very dominant on the palate , with the hints of pepper slowly creeping in. It is very light with a nice slow burn in the back of the mouth , and a gentle slow burn in the stomach.

And as in all tasting – adding a dash of water ( now I must say that the water used in this tasting are not up to the clear Scottish water standard – but that is what was available) .

Nose opens up marvelously exposing a gentle exposure of many spices , and the color change to a light golden hue , which gives the dram a more alluring approach.
The taste however is a different story – the gentle after burn is gone completely along with the after taste that existed before the water were added.

All in all – a nice starting dram for early evening and for lovers of the more gentle whiskey , but do not add water !!
Duty free price reasonable at £31.79 .

London Whisky Live -2010 – or not so much

I wanted to go to this event for a long time ( 4 month), and I was in london free to myself on the day – but I hate to drink alone and I had no one to go to the event with me .
I also had a crappy morning before I got in to the city , so all in all I was not in a safe place to go near a location with free (relatively) good booze , so I made the active decision to miss the event and head home , and a good thing i did – I almost fell asleep even with out the booze .

I hope to have someone to go to other events I can report back on .