Sunday 28 July 2019

Highland Park Full Volume Whisky Review!

It's been a while since I reviewed a Highland Park, and - despite being a bit of an outlier - this just happens to be one of the best HP official bottlings that I've tried in a long time!


Why is this whisky an outlier? Because rather than the usual Highland Park maturation method of various types of Oloroso sherry cask (American or European oak, first-fill or refill etc.), Full Volume has been matured only in first-fill ex-bourbon casks. That might put some old-school Highland Park fans off, but it shouldn't, because this expression has been bottled at a higher strength than the vast majority of their official bottlings, which tend to be 40% or 43% ABV. Despite the name though, Full Volume has not been bottled at cask strength, but rather at the odd strength of 47.2%. So not really full volume, just a higher volume than normal! And although this whisky has been chill filtered, the details on the side of the outer box clearly state that it was filtered at 4 degrees Celsius, which is the upper limit for chill filtration. When was the last time you saw a distillery quote the temperature that a whisky was chilled down to prior to filtering? It certainly doesn't happen very often! With different temperatures and other factors like the grade of filter (fine or coarse) and pressure used, determining how much of the oils, fats & proteins are actually stripped from the whisky during chill filtration, this whisky is essentially less chill filtered than most chill filtered whiskies. But I do have to ask, since this whisky was bottled at over 46%, why bother chill filtering it at all? Why not just barrier filter it, keeping it a more natural product? Particularly when a few of Highland Park's many limited releases are already non-chill filtered. When a large number of distilleries are bottling most or all of their products without chill filtration these days, it seems an odd choice. Especially for a whisky named 'Full Volume'.

Speaking of which, that name is actually a reference to the electric instrument musician's skill at tweaking an amplifier and equaliser to avoid distortion, and achieve the desired tone and volume. Highland Park have drawn the comparison between this and the skill of their master blender when creating a whisky, and as you can see below they've gone all out with that theme on the whisky's packaging. The outer box represents an amplifier and equaliser, and there's even a set of tuning knobs on one side that are meant to give an idea of this whisky's profile, including a volume knob - also found on the bottle's front label - that is turned up to 11 in a nod to Spinal Tap (but it's not cask strength, remember). Something else that is a bit strange is a few of the details that are printed on the other side of that outer box. There you'll find information like the exclusive use of first-fill bourbon casks, and the sizes of those casks (200-litre barrels and 250-litre hogsheads), but also extra and rather unusual details like the exact number of casks in the vatting (a not insignificant 481), the exact filling dates of those casks (6 different days in mid-1999), and that those casks were "filled at strengths of between 63.6% and 63.7%". Kudos for adding more information than usual, but I really don't see why that's relevant, when the vast majority of whisky is filled into casks at 63.5%, and like I've mentioned once or twice already this isn't a cask strength whisky, so the filling strength back in 1999 has very little bearing on the final product. Maybe I'm nitpicking here but it does seem like an odd thing to mention, particularly right there on the side of the box! Likewise that number of casks, it's not exactly a small figure and means that this limited release can't really be that limited after all. Particularly since it was bottled two years ago and is still easy to source. But luckily the packaging does also state that this whisky is naturally coloured, and while this Highland Park doesn't exactly have an age statement, it does have a year of distillation, 1999, and a year of bottling, 2017, making this a 17-18 year old whisky.

Before we get into the whisky itself, let's have a quick recap on Highland Park. Owned by the Edrington group, the distillery is located in Kirkwall, on the 'mainland' of the Orkney islands north of the Scottish mainland, and has been there since 1798, although it's first license wasn't granted until 1826. They floor-malt a portion of their barley, and that portion is peated to around 20 ppm with local peat from Hobbister Moor on Orkney, which is largely comprised of heather. That floor-malted peated barley is then mixed with externally-sourced un-peated barley, usually at a mix of around 20% peated and 80% un-peated. After double-distillation in their four stills the distillery fills the majority of their 2.5 million litre annual output into Oloroso sherry-seasoned casks, with the rest going into ex-bourbon and a few other types. They also marry, or rest, each new vatting for at least a month before bottling, to allow the whiskies to "harmonise". I can't find any information on what vessel that happens in, so I'd presume it to be stainless steel vats, which of course is no bad thing for that purpose. Highland Park produce a massive range of expressions, and on their website you'll currently find a frankly ridiculous 39 different bottlings listed as their current range of single malts. Naturally some of those are old vintage bottlings, plus the standard core range of the 12 and 18-year olds, but there are also a huge number of non-age statement, marketing-heavy, viking-themed expressions with very little real information published that are, honestly, a little tiresome. In fact they're a little hard to keep up with, even in the age of the internet and social media. Making them even harder to keep up with is the fact that many of those are also travel retail (duty free) exclusive and/or are only sold in certain countries or regions, and on that note Full Volume was actually exclusive to the US when first launched, and is only sold in travel retail in Australia, and has only been available there for a year or so. It's priced at $129 AUD, which is quite reasonable for a 17-18 year old limited release whisky at a decent strength, but I can't help but wish that it was more widely available for those who don't frequently travel overseas. I know that most of the above sounds a little negative or even cynical, which is not really intentional, I'm just calling it as I see it. I'm still a fan of Highland Park's work, particularly when bottled at cask strength. But the main thing of course is that this is a tasty and good value whisky. So let's find out, shall we?

Highland Park Full Volume, 17-18 year old, 47.2%. Orkney, Scotland.
Distilled 1999, bottled 2017. Fully matured in first-fill ex-bourbon casks, lightly peated. Chill filtered at 4 degrees, natural colour. Travel exclusive in Australia.

Colour: Semi-pale gold.

Nose: Very nice! Vanilla custard, russian fudge (lighter style sweet fudge), lots of lemon peel and some dried apricot. That dry heathery peat is there, like burnt herbs, and a subtle hint of heather honey as well. Some lightly spicy charred wood (cinnamon & pepper), and a couple of dried apples in the distance.

Texture: Medium weight. Richly flavoured with a generous pinch of pepper, lightly waxy.

Taste: More wood spice and more dry heather-y peat, some beeswax (natural honeycomb with the honey drained out), and a bit of orange. Drier than I would've guessed from the nose, which wasn't massively sweet either in the scheme of things (not a criticism by any means). More burnt herbs (that peat showing itself again), and more lemon peel, plus that vanilla but it's vanilla paste here, and it's definitely drier to boot.

Finish: Medium length. More black pepper, vanilla paste, still-smoking burnt herbs and that floral heathery peat. But it's soft overall once that pepper note subsides, with more beeswax, fudge and lemon peel.

Score: 3.5 out of 5.

Notes: Quite a tasty dram this! And definitely one of the best official bottlings of Highland Park that I've tasted in recent times. Plenty of flavour, and more peat is evident than in most HPs, particularly at this age level, which I'd say would be down to the ex-bourbon casks being a little less dominant than the sherry-seasoned ones that are HP's modus operandi (M.O.), and also the higher bottling strength. I'm digging that vanilla, lemon, heather & pepper combo too, it works very well and those flavours are nicely balanced, which of course is the whole premise behind this whisky, showing off the balancing skills of the blenders. And all the marketing and other little niggles aside, I think it does achieve that.

I can't help but wonder what this whisky would've been like at it's actual full volume (cask strength and completely non-chill filtered), but that would've put the price up, and it's pretty reasonable at the $129 AUD mark. Particularly when you consider that the asking price for the standard Highland Park 18-year old, which is only bottled at 43%, is $200-250 AUD these days. Which despite being a nice whisky is one of the most expensive 18-year old core range / standard official bottlings on the market at the moment. But then if Full Volume had been released to the general market rather than travel retail, that price would probably have increased. On the flip-side that doesn't make it particularly easy to get hold of a bottle, so it's a bit of a Catch-22. Definitely worth grabbing a bottle when you're next going through an international airport, though!

Cheers!

Sunday 21 July 2019

Hazelburn Rundlets & Kilderkins Whisky Review!

A cask strength, 10-year old, small cask-aged Hazelburn, and the third & final instalment in the Rundlets & Kilderkins releases. Bring on the (sexy) funk...


Hazelburn is the triple-distilled and un-peated spirit produced by Springbank Distillery in Campbeltown, named after the Hazelburn Distillery which closed in 1925. A few of the original distillery's buildings still stand, the majority of which now form a business park 300 metres down the road from Springbank. Hazelburn only makes up 10% of Springbank's annual production, while 80% goes to the namesake Springbank spirit which is lightly-peated and 2.5-times distilled, and the heavily-peated and double-distilled Longrow takes up the remaining 10%. Bear in mind that Springbank have a maximum annual production capacity of around 750,000-litres of spirit, a positively tiny amount compared to most operating Scottish distilleries, so there really isn't a lot of Hazelburn produced. There's also less spirit produced thanks to that triple distillation, where the un-peated wash is run through each of Springbank's three stills (pictured above) in series, starting with the direct-fired wash still, then the worm tub condenser-equipped first low wines still, and the shell & tube condenser-equipped second low wines still. Which means it's a lighter and more refined spirit, at a higher alcohol level with a spirit / heart cut average of 75% ABV when it leaves that third still. Triple distillation is associated more with Irish whiskeys these days, and only a few Scottish malt distilleries have dabbled in the practice, with Auchentoshan in the Lowlands being the only Scottish distillery to triple-distill the entirety of their production.

As a result of triple distillation and also the lack of peat used in the kilning of the applicable malted barley, Hazelburn tends to be a lighter, cleaner and more refined whisky than the Springbank and Longrow malts. So there's generally less Campbeltown "funk" to be found in these bottles, but if you play your cards right (cask strength required, in my experience) you'll still find it. Personally, and like many Springbank fans I suspect, I do tend to prefer Springbank & Longrow, so my experience with Hazelburn isn't on the same level, but I have had a couple of excellent expressions in the past. The winner so far was a refill Sauternes cask-matured Springbank Society bottling, which I'm not likely to ever come across again, unfortunately. It's hard to argue with the statement that the finished product tends to be less "Campbeltown-y" than the other Campbeltown malts (Kilkerran and Glen Scotia included), but it's still a Springbank, which means that everything other than growing the actual barley itself is done on-site. From malting, milling, fermenting, distilling, maturing and bottling, it all happens at the distillery. And for 100% of the distillery's production. Which is certainly not something you see everyday!

This particular Hazelburn is the third and final instalment in Springbank's Rundlet's & Kilderkins releases, following on from 2012's 10-year old Springbank release, and 2013's 11-year old Longrow release (reviewed here). A rundlet is a 68-litre (approx.) cask, and a kilderkin is an 82-litre cask, compared to the 200-, 250- and 500-litre casks commonly used for Scotch whisky maturation. Smaller casks equals more surface area contact equals more cask influence, so these whiskies tend to drink well beyond their modest age statements. This 10-year old Hazelburn (not to be confused with the regular 10-year old expression) was bottled at a cask strength of 50.1% ABV, and of course is non-chill filtered and naturally coloured like everything that comes out of Springbank's narrow driveways. While both the Springbank and Longrow releases consisted of 9,000 bottles apiece, there were 12,000 units of the Hazelburn released, which is a significant number, but I was nevertheless surprised to see this whisky still available in Australia here in mid-2019. Why? Because it was bottled over five years ago, way back in early 2014! It's still quite reasonably priced as well at around $165 AUD, and while Hazelburn doesn't quite have the cult following of the distillery's other two products, I can tell you now that it is a serious bargain. Get in quick folks, and tell them Peated Perfection sent you!


Hazelburn Rundlets & Kilderkins, 10-years old, 50.1%. Campbeltown, Scotland.
Un-peated triple-distilled single malt from Springbank Distillery. Fully matured in re-coopered 68-litre rundlet and 82-litre kilderkin casks. Cask strength, non-chill filtered, natural colour. 12,000 bottles, released 2014.

Colour: Gold.

Nose: Oily, lightly cheesy, slightly herbal & earthy. Olive oil, baked red apples, semi-sweet herbal honey. Some brine, damp earth (dunnage) and white pepper. Lemon oil, and some light fresh oak - reminds me of balsa wood. Some damp malt and a little marzipan with more breathing time.

Texture: Medium weight, oily & surprisingly savoury. A little peppery, but not in a harsh or overly spirit-y way.

Taste: More olive oil, more white pepper, and more light fresh oak. A lighter version of the classic Campbeltown "funk"as well, that damp earthy dunnage warehouse & old dusty farmyard / barn note. Dryer than the nose, not a sweet whisky by any means. Still has that lemon oil note in the background.
  Finish: Medium length. Getting quite dry here with more pepper and light oak, before that olive oil, lemon, baked apple and dunnage earthy-ness come through. Those apples are powdery now though. More clean olive oil and light brine to finish.

Score: 3.5 out of 5.

Notes: A very tasty dram, and probably the richest and most 'Campbeltown-y' Hazelburn that I've tasted to date. And also one of the best. It's definitely miles above the standard 10-year old, although at cask strength and with small casks involved that could be expected. Considering the relatively small jump in price over that entry-level bottling, and considering that this one was bottled over five years ago, it's a bit of a hidden gem. If you find Springbanks too funky and a little too wild for your tastes, give Hazelburn a try. And if you prefer a dryer, oily, richer style of malt then this Rundlets & Kilderkins is the one to go for. Personally it's not on the same level as the Longrow version, but since the base malts are so different that's probably just down to personal preference rather than overall quality.

Yet another tasty single malt from Campbeltown's finest, and a real bargain at the still-current pricing here in Australia. Just don't expect the remaining stocks to last long. It's still a hidden gem at the moment, but people are catching on to that sort of thing very quickly these days!

Cheers!

Sunday 7 July 2019

Laphroaig Cairdeas 2019 Whisky Review!

A new Cairdeas release is always exciting, but this year's just happens to be even more so. This is a cask strength version of Laphroaig Triple Wood!


But before we get into the details and the review, I have a point to address. If you go searching online for information about this particular Laphroaig, 90% of the regurgitated press releases listed in Google have stated an incorrect bottling strength in their articles. This cask strength whisky was not bottled at 51.4% as you'll read on most of those sites. I actually fell for this myself when this bottling was first officially announced and social media quickly became flooded with dozens of slightly-altered versions of the same short article, and thought that strength was unexpectedly - and disappointingly - low for what is a relatively young whisky. But all is not lost, because they got it wrong: the actual strength of this little beauty is a substantial 59.5% ABV. Which puts it among the highest strength official bottlings of Laphroaig in recent history! If memory serves it's only been beaten by the US bottling of the 10-year old Cask Strength Batch 008 (reviewed here), which hit 59.9%. So there's definitely nothing to be concerned about here when it comes to bottling strength, and this promises to be a rather intense whisky!

Now, onto the juicy bits. Like 2017's release from the home of some of Islay's peatiest whiskies, this year's Cairdeas (Gaelic for "Friendship") bottling, which is released annually to coincide with the Islay festival a.k.a. Feis Ile, is a cask strength version of a core range / regular expression of Laphroaig. Some may find this a little less thrilling than an exotic cask finishing like the majority of recent Cairdeas', but for Laphroaig fans - myself included - the opportunity to try an old favourite at it's natural cask strength is extremely exciting. It also means that both pricing and availability are kept at reasonable levels, which is no bad thing for those who can't spend a week on Islay in June each year because they just happen to reside on the other side of the planet. The 2017 Cairdeas was a cask strength version of Laphroaig's Quarter Cask, at 57.2% ABV rather than the usual 48%, with 32,000 bottles released. This year's bottling is a cask strength version of Triple Wood, which is also normally bottled at 48%, and shares most of it's maturation method with the aforementioned Quarter Cask expression. Both are a vatting of 5-11 year old first-fill ex-bourbon casks, and are then finished for around 7-months in re-coopered 125-litre quarter casks which are also first-fill ex-bourbon. That's where the journey ends for the Quarter Cask expression, but as you can probably guess by the name, Triple Wood takes a third step before it can hit the road: a second cask finishing, or triple maturation if you prefer, in ex-Oloroso sherry European oak butts (500-litre casks) for around two years. Both of these core bottlings are non-chill filtered and reportedly naturally coloured, as is the delicious travel-exclusive PX Cask expression which swaps out the Oloroso casks in the Triple Wood for sweet Pedro Ximinez sherry casks.

This cask strength version of Triple Wood follows exactly the same cask recipe as the standard release, right up to the bottling stage, including the lack of chill filtration & artificial colouring. 36,000 bottles have been released at a price of 63 Euros, or approximately $104 AUD at today's rate. But due to our unfortunate geography Australians are then looking at another $73 AUD in shipping on a single bottle order. You could of course buy two bottles to spread the shipping cost a little further, but you'll then be up for $108 in shipping. And of course either way you'll most likely be hit with our ridiculous duty, tax and GST charges from Australian Customs, because how dare you bring spirits into this country you peasant, plus the extra charges from the usual freight company just because they can. By my calculations those charges would come to around $83 on a single bottle order (around $63 to customs and $20 to the courier), which makes this a $250 bottle once landed in Australia. All of which of course has nothing to do with Laphroaig or the people that made this whisky, but doesn't make for a cheap proposition. Especially considering that the regular version of Triple Wood retails for around $120 AUD on our shelves. But like the annual bottlings of Cask Strength 10-year old these Cairdeas bottlings are not officially imported to Australia by the national distributor, and they haven't been since at least 2015, so importing it yourself is essentially the only option. It's very tough for a Laphroaig fan to say no to something like this and then watch the bottling slip through your fingers, thanks to the fear of missing out and all that. For you peat-heads not in Australia that are not lumped with our truly horrible duty & excise rates, particularly for those in the United States which are usually - maybe even unfairly - treated to obscenely low pricing on high strength Laphroaigs, I hope you realise how lucky you are!

But that's enough aimless whingeing / yelling at clouds for this post. We have a cask strength Laphroaig to review! I was lucky enough to get a sample of this tasty number from Dan Woolley, Beam Suntory's National Whisky Ambassador for Australia, who recently just happened to get married among the casks in the famous No. 1 Warehouse at Laphroaig, a few days prior to working at the distillery during Feis Ile week. As you do!?! Congratulations to Dan & his lovely wife Billie, and many thanks for the sample. Let's get to it!


Laphroaig Cairdeas 2019, Triple Wood Cask Strength. NAS, 59.5%. Islay, Scotland.
Vatting of 5-11 year old ex-bourbon casks, finished in 125-litre ex-bourbon quarter casks for approx. 7 months, then finished in 500-litre ex-Oloroso sherry casks. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 36,000 bottles.

Colour: Dark amber.

Nose: Rich, sweet like a dark toffee, and lightly salty. Toffee almonds, drying seaweed, baking spices and a nice dry minerality, like wave-washed volcanic rock. Warm brown sugar, maybe even treacle, and a little orange peel with a light, dry vegetal peat in the background. Extra breathing time brings out more orange and some sugary vanilla paste.

Texture: Medium-heavy weight, rich & syrupy. Warming but not harsh or hot, even at nearly 60%.

Taste: Dried fruits macerating in syrup, and there's lots of orange peel now. Some dry, ashy smoke, more drying seaweed, and some more dry spices - cinnamon and clove in particular, and a bit of aniseed behind. That treacle note is there, as is some dark chocolate.

Finish: Medium-long length. Warming with those spices, and that orange peel is even more evident here, in fact it's more of an orange zest now. There's more dark chocolate, but it's fruit & nut chocolate here with a few raisins & almonds mixed in. That dry mineral saltiness returns, with more aniseed and a puff of that dry vegetal peat.

Score: 3.5 out of 5.

Notes: A very rich & condensed whisky this, no question. There's plenty of flavour, but there's not a huge amount of Laphroaig's peaty or medicinal DNA showing itself. Very little, in fact. There is loads of orange and chocolate though, particularly on the palate and finish, and it's very drinkable for the (substantial) strength. It is recognisable as Triple Wood, but with almost everything dialled up to 10, particularly in the texture and richness departments. But I did say "almost everything", because the peat and smoke have been subdued and kept in the background. Which only goes to show the power of those sherry casks!

So despite being "only" a cask strength version of a regular expression, once again Laphroaig have brought a different whisky to the table for this year's Cairdeas. Which is entirely the point after all, and as we could've safely expected it's a very tasty one. Definitely one that fans of the distillery, and of richly flavoured whisky in general, will want to get their hands on. Despite the difficulty and expense required to do so in many parts of the world. Given the choice between this and 2017's cask strength Quarter Cask, personally I would probably go for the latter, but then I tend to prefer the regular Quarter Cask to the regular Triple Wood anyway, so that's not really a surprise and should be taken with a grain of salt.

As a bit of a footnote, some may want to know how it compares to the regular 48% ABV version of Triple Wood. Well, at least I did! Given the substantial difference in strength you'd expect the standard version to be relatively mild in comparison, and it definitely is. In fact when poured immediately after it's big brother it's actually very light and almost watery, which is not something that I'd normally say about almost any Laphroaig, and demonstrates just how rich and flavoursome this new Cairdeas release is. Now if they'd just hurry up and release this year's 10-year old Cask Strength, I could finally place my order...

Cheers!

Old Master Spirits 48 Year Old Armagnac Review!

Another single cask brandy from Old Master Spirits! These guys are really making a habit of releasing well-aged armagnacs and cognacs at ext...