Lagavulin 12 Year Old 2017 Whisky Review!

I apologise in advance, but this review is going to include a bit of whingeing. Like the magnificent Laphroaig 10 Cask Strength, the subject of today's review is another brilliant whisky that we Australians have been unfairly deprived of recently. Sad face.

Lagavulin 16-year old is an undeniable staple of the entry-level peated whisky scene. It was responsible for showing many current hardcore whisky enthusiasts, including yours truly, just what was out there in the whisky world, and most haven't looked back since. The 16 is still a great introduction to Islay malts, and is still a nice easy drinking dram for those who are a little more experienced to return to. But when compared to the higher level whiskies from its neighbouring distilleries, it's held back a little by a relatively low bottling strength (43%), chill filtration and added artificial colouring. Prior to the welcome launch of the Lagavulin 8-year old in 2016, which has since been made a permanent addition to the range, the 16-year old and its PX sherry-finished Distiller's Edition sibling (which is also chill filtered, artificially coloured and bottled at 43%) were the only easily obtainable Lagavulin bottlings. So there wasn't a lot of further Lagavulin exploration left for many of those hardcore enthusiasts. 

But there is something out there that can fix that little problem. Lagavulin 12 year old, which is bottled at natural cask strength, naturally coloured and also non-chill filtered. But it's only released once a year as part of Diageo's annual special releases, along with un-peated expressions of Caol Ila, and official bottlings of Brora and Port Ellen. And unfortunately, while the releases aren't particularly small, the Lagavulin is usually the most affordable, and arguably the most popular, and is often the first to sell out from those annual special releases. I'm assuming this is why Australia has missed out on the last three bottlings of this delicious drop, aside from a couple of specialist bottle shops that are parallel importing stock from Europe on their own, which understandably comes at a higher price. To be fair we did officially get stock of the 2014 release of the Lagavulin 12, and it seemed to hang around for longer than I would've guessed, so maybe that has something to do with why we haven't seen the subsequent releases. Likewise a certain large retailer had stock of the excellent 2013 release, but good luck finding that one these days.

I have had the pleasure of trying both the 2015 and 2016 releases of this special drop in bars, finding one in the UK last year and one in Brisbane whisky haven Cobbler. Both were very good, and despite the 2016 bottling commemorating the distillery's 200th anniversary, neither was ever officially imported into Australia. Which means that if you found a bottle from a local parallel importing retailer you were going to have to pay an extra 50% or so over the price that the 2014 release (that was officially imported) was selling for. The fact that these bottlings have sold out from those parallel importers signals to me that there's definitely a market for them in Australia, especially at a lower price, even if it is increased slightly from the earlier bottlings. There's also the fact that they're utterly delicious whiskies, and are in my opinion the best example of Lagavulin that us mere mortals can afford, unless you visit the distillery itself on Islay. **EDIT - Diageo's Australian Brand Ambassador Simon McGoram tells me that Australia is getting a limited allocation of the 2017 release! So I stand corrected, and it's great news!**

Anyway, enough of my moaning! The sample of the 2017 bottling I'm reviewing today was a sample swap with another whisky geek, who picked up a bottle in Europe. It was bottled at a cask strength of 56.5%, without added colouring and no chill filtration. Which shows in the lovely oily, almost dirty texture, which we can largely thank Lagavulin's squat, bulbous stills & downward-angled lyne arms for. Like all recent versions of the 12-year old it was matured in refill ex-bourbon casks, which lets Lagavulin's delicious oily, dirty (in a great way), medicinal & coastal spirit show itself in full. Time to dive in!

Lagavulin 12-year old, 56.5%, 2017 bottling. Islay, Scotland.

Cask strength, matured in refill ex-bourbon casks, Diageo special releases 2017. Natural colour, non-chill filtered.

Colour: Very pale gold. More colour than the 8-year old though.

Nose: Lovely. Oily, peaty & coastal. Thick brine, salted butter, dried sweet herbs and aniseed. Dried sweet lemon, fresh salty oysters, spearmint. Some vegetal, ashy peat but it's subtle and refined here. Plenty of Lagavulin's trademark dirty engine oil and diesel fuel, and a little clean, old rubber.

Texture: Also lovely. Medium weight, oily and dry, and remarkably soft for the strength. No heat whatsoever.

Taste: Big dry, ashy, spicy peat, which builds for a couple of seconds then explodes. More aniseed, some sweet cigar ash, more brine and fresh sweet shellfish. It starts quite dry overall but then subtle sweetness pokes through, like a salted light toffee, and seafood sweetness.

Finish: Long and warming, becoming quite soft. Still has that ashy and spicy peat, and the aniseed, maybe actual licorice root now. And that diesel fuel and dirty engine oil. That might not sound particularly pleasant, but trust me, it is. Laga lovers won't need to be told that! There's some ashy wood smoke here too, and a slightly bitter wood-smoked fish, plus more of those dried sweet herbs and dried citrus in the background. Then the ashy, coastal peat returns to round everything out. Delicious.

Score: 4 out of 5.

Notes: Pure, unadulterated Lagavulin. Very easy drinking and soft for the age and strength. Remarkably so, in fact, especially when you consider that there haven't been any first-fill or notably assertive casks involved in this whisky. And it's remarkably mature regardless. There's not a huge amount of complexity perhaps, when compared to the more subtle single malts anyway, but it still has a lot to say. Big, peaty and dirty, but also soft, easy-going and disarming. Lovely Lagavulin with loads of character. Like the packaging says, "as fine as new milk"!

I know I keep harping on about this, but it's a real shame that these 12-year olds aren't easier to get a hold of in the southern hemisphere. And yes, I do prefer this one to the 2014 release that we did get. It's sweeter, more dirty, and even softer. Nosing and tasting this beauty almost takes me back to the warehouse tasting at the distillery with the legendary Ian McArthur, which if you ask me is a hallmark of all the great Islays. They transport you back to their place of origin, even if you've never been able to visit in the physical sense.

I've pleaded with Laphroaig and Beam Suntory in the past when it comes to their cask strength expression, which we also don't get here, and I'm going to do the same here with Lagavulin and Diageo. Please guys, don't neglect us Lagavulin freaks down under, just throw a few dozen cases on to the next available boat! We'll love you for it. **EDIT - We're getting a small allocation of the 2017 release! Great news!**

Cheers!

Glenlivet Nadurra Oloroso Whisky Review!

It's been quite a while since I last tasted a Glenlivet, in fact I can't recall tasting one since the old Nadurra 16 Year Old was discontinued a couple of years ago. It was replaced by the non-age statement (NAS) "First Fill",  which was then joined by a peated cask finish, and this one: Glenlivet Nadurra Oloroso.

As you can guess from the name, this expression is matured in Oloroso sherry casks. Although it's a non-age statement bottling it still follows the Nadurra (Gaelic for "natural") recipe as it is now: being non-chill filtered and bottled at cask strength. Rather confusingly there are also duty free / travel retail exclusive Nadurra bottlings which are watered down to 48%, and usually sold in a 1-litre bottle. So I guess they're slightly less Nadurra than the regular Nadurra! I also note that there's no mention of natural colour on any of the packaging, which is a shame, but those Oloroso sherry casks are all first-fill (they haven't been previously used for whisky maturation), and with that in mind it is quite light in colour, so I don't imagine there's any e150a caramel shenanigans going on. The Nadurra range is also bottled in batches, so there'd be no need to add colouring for consistency purposes.

Glenlivet Distillery didn't make it to my list of visits on my pilgrimage to Scotland, largely due to timing constraints, and the fact that it's located a little off the beaten track in Speyside. I didn't venture any further south than Glenfarclas, and Glenlivet is around another 15 minutes drive further south. The distillery is actually named "The Glenlivet", with the "The" being added in the late 19th century after a number of other Speyside distilleries were using "Glenlivet" as an add-on to their distillery name, ostensibly to indicate that they were a Speyside distillery. The distillery is a huge one of course, being one of the biggest Scotch brands, and it produces just shy of 11 million litres of spirit per year from their 14 stills, which puts them amongst the largest malt whisky distilleries in the world in terms of production capacity. They're currently owned by Chivas Brothers, which is turn owned by Pernod Ricard, who have a significant Scotch whisky distillery portfolio, although the majority of them are not widely known as single malts.

I imagine the idea with this Nadurra expression is to take on the "sherry monster" market that is currently dominated by Aberlour A'Bunadh, Glenfarclas 105 and Glendronach Cask Strength, all of which are young, non-age statement cask strength whiskies that are fully matured in sherry casks. In fact I believe this is the only regular Glenlivet expression that is fully matured in sherry casks, the rest of the range are either finished in sherry or are a marriage of different cask types. Nadurra Oloroso is competitively priced against those competing sherry monsters too, actually coming in a little cheaper than most at $99-110 in Australia. This particular bottling that I'm reviewing is from batch OL0816, which as you can guess was bottled in August of 2016, and came in at a strength of 61.3%. So let's get to it and see how it lines up...

Glenlivet Nadurra Oloroso, NAS, 61.3%. Speyside, Scotland.
Matured in first-fill Oloroso sherry casks. Batch OL0816. Non-chill filtered, cask strength, assumed natural colour.

Colour: Amber.

Nose: Nutty, rich & clean sherry, very much Oloroso. A bit of an alcoholic nip too, but it is young whisky bottled at 61.3% after all. Dried fruit, date syrup, some sweet oak and sandalwood. A little leathery furniture polish, and some red & green apples in the background.

Texture: Hot & spicy, slightly oily, light-medium weight.

Taste: Hot & slightly harsh on entry, but only slightly. More fresh, nutty, dry sherry, more sweet toasted oak, and some slightly creamy vanilla behind. Over-stewed fruit, stone fruit, red apples and a few raisins.

Finish: Short length, still a little hot and feisty, more dry here too. More of Glenlivet's (and Speyside's) trademark apples and light malt coming through. Plenty of dry wood spices here too, more sandalwood and a little cinnamon. Light toffee apples and dark chocolate towards the end.

Score: 2.5 out of 5.

Notes: An enjoyable dram that certainly packs a punch. It could probably use a drop or two of water, but that's not how I roll with these reviews. The heat doesn't ruin the experience though, it's a nice light spirit-y nip that isn't overly unpleasant. And again, it's young whisky at 61.3%! That said, it may be a bit too much for those that are used to having their drams at 40-43%. There's still plenty of actual spirit character present in this Glenlivet too, with those apples and lightly oily malt notes showing themselves, so the sherry casks haven't been allowed to overwhelm the spirit as is sometimes the case with these sherry bomb whiskies.

Unfortunately though whenever I try a new sherry cask-matured un-peated dram I can't help but compare it with my beloved Glendronach. And in this case there's hardly any comparison, although I must admit that the equivalent Glendronach is significantly more expensive. I'd probably put this one on par with Glenfarclas 105 in my book, and that one has a pretty serious following out there in the whisky world, so take that into account. Actually, I'd rank this one just ahead of the 105. Still, it never hurts to try something different, and at the asking price the Nadurra would sit comfortably on my shelves.

Cheers!

Kilchoman 10th Anniversary Whisky Review!

Until recently we didn't see much of the rarer Kilchoman bottlings in Australia, and if we did it was thanks to some parallel importing from some of the more astute online specialist stores. That's definitely improved with the change of importer / distributor, but there are still quite a few that we (understandably) don't hear a lot about. Thanks to a generous Kilchoman-obsessed mate, I'll be having a close look at a few of them in the near future!

We all know that Kilchoman was, until Ardnahoe arrived, the youngest distillery on Islay, having opened in 2005. Which means that while Laphroaig & Ardbeg were celebrating their 200th anniversary in 2015, the youngster was celebrating its 10th anniversary. There wasn't the huge fanfare and onrush of commemorative releases that the older Islays bestowed us with, and if you ask me that's not Kilchoman's way of doing things, but there was one very special bottling released to mark the occasion. Released during the Feis Ile on the 28th of May 2015, Kilchoman 10th Anniversary is a cask strength vatting of whisky distilled in each year between 2005 and 2012. So it contains both (roughly) 10-year old Kilchoman and 3-year old Kilchoman, with plenty of others in-between, which of course is why there's no age statement. If there was it'd have to be that of a 3-year old whisky, which wouldn't have come close to telling the whole story.

Kilchoman aren't at all afraid of young age statements either, since the majority of their bottlings will have both the year or even the exact date of distillation and the year or exact date of bottling printed (or hand-written) right there on the label for all to see. I'm sure that's helped by the fact that they're absolutely brilliant at producing mature young whisky- remember that age and maturity are two different things (a rule that also applies to much more than whisky). I've had the privilege of tasting some excellent 5-, 4- and even 3-year old Kilchomans, often at high strength, which have been remarkably drinkable, complex and mature for their age. In fact I can comfortably say that those young Ileachs have been the best 3-4 year old age stated whiskies that I've tried to date, and there's a review of one of those young'uns coming soon.

Islay's only farm distillery has started undergoing a bit of an expansion recently, with the goal of doubling the current annual production capacity by the end of 2018. There's already a new malting floor and kiln, giving a 50% increase in the size of each batch of floor-malted barley, with the capacity for further expansion in the future. There's also a new still house in the works, with the addition of two new stills (bringing the total to four), a new second mashtun and six new wooden washbacks for a total of ten. Crucially all of that new equipment will be built to the exact specifications of the existing gear to keep things consistent. Last but not least will be five new warehouses, to be built in the next few years. While doubling the capacity does sound like a large increase, it's important to remember that even when doubled it'll still be a very small distillery by Scottish standards, with an annual capacity of under 500,000 litres of spirit per year.

Anyway, back to the bottle at hand. This 10th Anniversary commemorative bottling was limited to 3,000 hand-numbered bottles, and was only available either from the distillery shop or from a select few re-sellers (and now only secondary auctions). The original retail price was just under 90 pounds, which is quite reasonable for such a special bottling and is almost exactly the same as the "regular" distillery-exclusive expressions. I've mentioned above that this bottling contains some whisky that was distilled in 2005, the first year of operation, but it gets even better: that 2005-origin whisky was taken from cask number 1/2005. Yes, the first cask filled at Kilchoman Distillery! Now that's pretty damn special! It was bottled at 58.2% ABV, and like all Kilchoman is of course non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. Let's get to it!

Kilchoman 10th Anniversary, NAS, 58.2%. Islay, Scotland.
Vatting of vintages from 2005-2012, including the first cask filled, ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 3000 bottles, released May 2015.

Colour: Medium gold.

Nose: Fresh, soft and grassy to start with. Becoming earthy and slightly coastal with a nice underlying under-ripe tropical fruit note. Very reminiscent of the 100% Islay bottlings, and a little shy. Some milk toffee, lightly torched citrus peel, and soft herbal wood smoke. Slightly fizzy coke bottle gummy lollies. Some buttery oak shows itself with more air.

Texture: Light-medium weight. Soft, earthy and lightly fruity. Well balanced with no heat whatsoever.

Taste: Soft entry, more under-ripe tropical fruit and fizzy cola lollies. Building dry, earthy and bitter peat, and more milk toffee. The peat becomes quite big and spicy then fades again going into the finish.

Finish: Medium-long length. Some bitter dark chocolate, milk toffee again but it's less sweet here. Some spicy, ashy, dry peat and dry driftwood, and more of that sweet but under-ripe fruit.

Score: 3.5 out of 5.

Notes: A very nice easy drinking Kilchoman. You'd absolutely never guess that it was over 58%! Very well balanced too, nothing dominates and each note gets its chance on centre stage. Quite like that under-ripe fruit notes under the milky toffee, and those cola lollies remind me of the 100% Islay bottlings in a big way, but with more peat. I wonder if there was more than a few casks of the farm-grown floor-malted barley involved in the vatting? It wouldn't surprise me. For such a small distillery to make their 10th anniversary bottling so accessible and relatively affordable is great to see. Hopefully that has had the result of plenty of these bottles being opened and enjoyed, rather than being kept aside for collections. But then it's not exactly every day that you get the chance to see the 10th anniversary of an Islay distillery, this would be the first chance in more than a century to do so, so we can't begrudge the collectors that opportunity either.

It must be an incredibly stressful and worrisome task to start a new distillery. Especially when it's a privately owned one that doesn't have any big blenders or regular un-aged spirit sales to rely on for steady cash flow. But Kilchoman and the Wills family and the late John MacLellan have obviously done a great job, and their hard work has paid off. Here's to the 20th anniversary in another seven years!

Cheers!

Glenmorangie Bacalta Whisky Review!

My first Glenmorangie review! And it's one of the best examples that I've tasted to date.

Glenmorangie Distillery is located near the town of Tain in the Scottish Highlands, around an hour's drive north of Inverness. Originally a brewery, the site was converted to a distillery in 1843, and was purchased by Glenmorangie Distillery Co. in 1887. These days it's owned by LVMH, a.k.a Moet Hennessy, and is quite a large distillery with six pairs of very tall pot stills, the tallest in the industry, and an annual production capacity of around six million litres. Which makes it more than five times the size of LVMH's other well-known distillery, Ardbeg, in terms of capacity. Glenmorangie is also one of the top selling single malts in Scotland domestically, with their entry-level 10-year old 'Original' expression being the most popular.

Glenmorangie were among the first single malt distilleries to start experimenting with cask finishing, a.k.a. secondary maturation / double maturation, where the whisky is moved into a different cask for a brief period of maturation before bottling. The current head of distilling & whisky creation for both Glenmorangie and Ardbeg, Dr. Bill Lumsden, certainly picked up this concept & ran with it, and these drams are often finished in unusual or uncommon casks to help them stand out, and to provide a different experience. The distillery now regularly releases these 'finished' whiskies, both as generally available 'Private Edition' bottlings and as travel (duty free) exclusive expressions. They're often named in Gaelic, usually in homage to the type of cask used for finishing, or as an indicator of how that expression differs from the norm.

This particular bottling, named Bacalta, is the most recent of those private editions, and has been finished in Malmsey Madeira fortified wine casks. "Bacalta" is Scots Gaelic for "baked", which refers to how Madeira wine was traditionally produced, being baked by the sun's heat to alter its flavour on the Portuguese island of Madeira. These days cheaper Madeira wine is heated in large tanks to accelerate this process, called the Estufa method, while higher quality wines are still traditionally matured in barrels either directly under the sun or on the upper floors / in the roof cavities of buildings, which is known as the Canteiro method. This production method results in a much more stable wine which can be stored for months after opening without issue. Malmsey is the sweet & rich style of Madeira, much like PX is to sherry, although it still has the trademark acidity of Madeira wine. It's much more "quaff-able" than PX in my experience, that acidity and the nutty character really helps to balance the sweetness and richness, but it's still very much a dessert wine.

In the case of Glenmorangie Bacalta, the distillery had American oak 250-litre hogsheads coopered & heavily toasted (not charred) specifically for this whisky (Madeira is typically aged in 500> litre casks), which were shipped to Madeira to be filled with wine, and were left to 'bake' in the traditional method. They were then emptied and transported (whole) to Scotland, where they were filled with maturing Glenmorangie spirit taken from ex-bourbon casks at around 10 years of age. While a typical 'finishing' or secondary-maturation would be around 6-12 months, in this case the whisky was bottled after 2 years in the first-fill Madeira casks. So while there's no age statement, we have a whisky that is somewhere in the region of 12 years of age. Like the rest of the 'private editions' It's been bottled at 46% ABV without chill filtration, which is good to see, and while there's no mention of added or natural colouring, I don't believe there's much, if any, of the dreaded e150a in here. Let's have a taste, shall we?

Glenmorangie Bacalta, NAS, 46%. Tain, Scotland. 

Matured for around 10 years in ex-bourbon casks, finished for around 2 years in first-fill 250-litre Malmsey Madeira wine casks. Non-chill filtered, suspected natural colour. 

Colour: Yellow gold.

Nose: Nice, but quite mild. Honeyed malt, whole oranges and orange oil, quite prominent actually. Some buttered caramel, nutty oak and baked red apples. More cereal grains with more time, and a little raw spirit.

Texture: Light weight, sweet & malty. A little peppery spirit-y heat, but enjoyable. 

Taste: Sweet honeyed malt again, with more of an orange rind & marmalade note now. Some stone fruit as well, honeyed apricot and baked white peaches. Some dry wood spices and a little peppery raw spirit again, with a subtle apple note behind. 

Finish: Short length, with more spice and fruit, turning dryer overall. Some crumbly pastry and a slight bitter orange note, and more stone fruit. Then dry tea biscuits with currants. 

Score: 3 out of 5. 

Notes: Pleasant and easy drinking, although a little too light and mild for my personal tastes. Glenmorangie does often remind me of triple-distilled whiskies, no doubt that's largely thanks to those tall stills, with that peppery raw spirit note being present in most of their expressions that I've tasted. Signet is the sole exception there so far. I would love to try Bacalta at a slightly higher strength though, just to see what would happen. Not that 46% isn't enough of course, but it's still very light in this guise. Maybe the new (or old) Astar would fit this bill with it's higher bottling strength? That said I don't believe there are any cask strength Glenmorangie bottlings on the market, so maybe there's not much of a demand out there for such a whisky? 

This Bacalta is still an interesting dram though, with just enough point of difference to stand out from the crowd of your average light, fruity, straight ex-bourbon cask drams, and it's much more satisfying than the entry-level Glenmorangie Original for me. Well worth giving it a go, and it would certainly be a nice summer's day whisky. 

While we're on the subject the latest Private Edition Glenmorangie was released recently, named "Spios" for "spice" it's been finished in ex-Rye whiskey casks, which again is a very unusual thing, and might even be a first for Scotch single malt. I'm yet to try that one, but I'm sure it'll be very interesting!

Cheers!

Bellwether Cask Strength Whisky Review!

Bellwether? Yes, Bellwether! A small Australian single malt produced by a very small Australian distillery that has actually been around for nearly 10 years. And it's a good 'un!

Bellwether Australian single malt is produced by Geographe Distillery, which is part of the Old Coast Rd. Brewery located in the tiny rural town of Myalup in Western Australia, around 1.5 hours drive south of Perth. The distillery first opened in 2008 and their first release was bottled in late 2015, but you'll be hard-pressed to find any Bellwether whiskies on the shelves, even in Western Australia. Most releases sell out very quickly from the distillery's own website, despite the fact that the distillery is basically unknown outside of the more serious Australian whisky enthusiasts and local supporters. They're only released sporadically (when they're ready) and in tiny quantities, with the largest batch so far (Release 4) consisting of 300 x 350ml bottles. And that was a much bigger release than the previous three regular-strength releases, which totalled 520 half-sized bottles combined, so we're talking about a very tiny output here. The distillery currently produces around 100 litres of new make spirit per fortnight (one double-distillation run), with proprietor & distiller Steve Ryan doing the vast majority of the work himself.

Bellwether malts are generally made from imported Scottish barley, from Bairds maltings in Inverness, which is generally medium peated, to around 15-20 ppm, although there have been heavily peated releases. Since there's also a brewery on-site, the distillery obviously does its own mashing, brewing and fermenting, which is not always the case with small Australian distilleries, many simply source their wash "pre-made" from local breweries, albeit to their own specifications. The distillery is equipped with a single column still, but all whisky (they also make gin and limoncello) is double-distilled without the plates installed in the neck of said still, making it function like a pot still would. So far all Bellwether releases have been matured in French oak ex-port casks that were re-coopered in South Australia to a smaller size, typically 50-100 litres. There are currently over 40 different casks maturing on-site, including red & white wine, bourbon and fortified wine casks, with ex-cognac casks on the way, ranging from 50-litre re-coopered casks through to full size 228-litre hogsheads. Bellwether has so far released relatively young whiskies, often bottled at 3-5 years of age, but because of the smaller casks, and no doubt the roller-coaster Australian climate, they're quite mature for their age. All releases are non-chill filtered and naturally coloured, and have been bottled at anywhere from 40.8%-46%, with two tiny releases at cask strength getting up to 70% ABV.

I'm lucky enough to have a sample of the first Bellwether cask strength release, and there have only been around 85 x 350ml bottles of cask strength Bellwether released to date, so it's a pretty rare thing! This particular release consisted of just 45 x 350ml bottles taken from French Oak ex-Tawny (Australian Port) casks at approximately 5 years of age, and bottled at a cask strength of 61.3%. It was distilled from medium-heavy peated (30-50 ppm) Scottish barley from Bairds maltings in Inverness, and as mentioned above is non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. I'm sure the 350ml bottles may raise a few eyebrows, but I can completely understand why the decision was made, and frankly I think it's a great idea. Since they're such small releases if they were full-sized bottles they'd be near impossible to get a hold of, and the half-sized bottle also helps keep the prices down to a very reasonable $80-ish for the non-cask strength releases, and around $100 for the cask strength bottlings. That may sound expensive for the sized to those reading from Europe or the U.S., but even at double the price (so equivalent to a full-sized bottle) that's very reasonable for a very scarce Australian single malt. Releases from many other Australian distilleries often command far higher prices, even with much larger outputs and much larger releases. So this is a great approach!

Bellwether Single Malt Cask Strength 1st Release, NAS, 61.3%. Myalup, Western Australia. 
Produced at Geographe Distillery. Medium-heavily peated to 30-50 ppm from Bairds maltings Inverness, matured in 50-litre first-fill French oak ex-Tawny port casks, approximately 5 years of age. Bottled 9/2016, 45 bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Rust red.

Nose: Sweet, spicy and juicy port. Dark, sweet caramelised stone fruit, cough syrup, sweet grassy malt behind. Some powdered aniseed, slightly smoky toffee and white pepper. Juicy toasted oak and a little citrus.

Texture: Medium-heavy weight, juicy and spicy. A little heat, but not what you'd expect for 5 years and 61% ABV! Small cask ageing at work here.

Taste: Soft entry, then more cough syrup, warm toasted spices, a big pinch of white pepper. A little ashy peat in the background, like cigarette ash, more smoky toffee, a little menthol and citrus behind.

Finish: Long, warming and spicy. More dark caramelised stone fruit, cough syrup again, and white pepper. Hints of bitter coffee grounds and more citrus, and more smoky & thick dark toffee. Grassy malt again towards the end.

Score: 3.5 out of 5.

Notes: Very impressive indeed. For such a young whisky at such a high strength it's surprisingly drinkable and disarming. I've certainly had much older malts and similar strengths that were far less approachable. The cask influence is certainly the dominant factor here, and it's hiding the peat quite well, so they must have been very fresh casks when you consider how relatively young this malt is. But then they're also smaller casks, which has obviously made a big difference. That's not a bad thing of course, just a different angle. It's quite a unique whisky actually, I wouldn't say it's close to any other Australian whiskies that I've tried. I'd say that's down to the Scottish peated malt and those fresh port casks, which makes for a unique combination, and it works. Keeping the pricing at a reasonable level certainly helps too, even considering the half-sized bottles, which means that this can be a whisky for drinking and enjoying, not squirrelling away or coveting.

For those reading from overseas this may not be the easiest malt to find, in fact it's probably impossible, but I suggest keeping an eye out for it if you venture down under any time soon. When you consider the size of this distillery and the number of whiskies it's released, and the very reasonable pricing, this really is a great product. I also remember tasting another cask strength release that was bottled at 70%, and I recall it being even more "easy drinking" than this one, so I'm sure we'll be seeing more of Bellwether and Geographe in the future! In fact the distillery's tenth anniversary is approaching this year, and the word on the grapevine is that there's something special in the works to mark the occasion. I look forward to that!

Cheers!

Octomore 7.2 Whisky Review!

A travel exclusive Octomore which like all of them, and unlike plenty of other travel exclusive whiskies, is absolutely delicious, and is well worth making the extra effort to obtain!

There have been a few travel (duty free) exclusive Octomores now, all with the _.2 suffix, dubbed the "Cask Evolution" releases by Bruichladdich. The first was the 5-year old 167 ppm Cognac cask matured 6.2 that was initially released way back in late 2013, and the second that we're looking at today: a 5-year old 208 ppm release that is a marriage of first-fill ex-bourbon casks and first-fill Syrah French red wine casks. The third travel exclusive release, 8.2, doesn't seem to have hit the shelves of many of the world's duty free stores just yet, but it promises to be very interesting. It will also be quite different to the usual Octomore MO, being significantly older than most at 8 years of age, and resulting from quite a complicated cask recipe: second-fill French Mourvedre red wine, second-fill French Sauternes dessert wine, and second-fill Austrian sweet wine casks, all matured for six years before coming together for 2 years of further maturation in first-fill Italian Amarone dry red wine casks. That's quite a mouth-full! I was lucky enough to try a small pour of the 8.2 at the distillery during my visit in 2017, but it was immediately following both a fantastic warehouse tasting and a few different drams in the shop, including this fantastic 7.2 that I'm reviewing here, so I'll reserve judgement on the new addition until I've had a chance to give it my full attention!

As frustrating and restricting as the whole "travel exclusive" thing can be for those of us who don't travel internationally on a regular basis, at least it tends to mean that stock of those releases last quite a bit longer than the other limited editions. At least it certainly does in Australia, and the distillery shop also had quite a few bottles of the 7.2 release still on the shelves during my visit. I do notice though that unlike its predecessor 7.2 doesn't declare what the size of the release was (6.2 and 8.2 were both 18,000 bottles), so perhaps it was also a larger release this time? Regardless, it was because of that little fact that I was able to pick up a second bottle of this excellent whisky through a travelling family member, and it was promptly cracked open a couple of days later! If memory serves me correctly Octomore 7.2 was actually the last Octomore release to be bottled under the reign of Bruichladdich's legendary former master distiller Jim McEwan, since both 7.3 and 7.4 were released under Adam Hannett's leadership following Jim's retirement.

So as I mentioned, this bottling is a marriage of 5-year old ex-bourbon casks and 5-year old French Syrah red wine casks, both first-fill. It was distilled from Scottish barley peated to 208 ppm, and was bottled at 58.5%. Being a Bruichladdich whisky it's also free from added colouring and chill filtration. Syrah wine is known as Shiraz in Australia, and is a dark savoury red wine that tends to be quite heavy, although apparently most European Syrah tends to be lighter and less tannic than the Shiraz we're used to in Australia. Which suits me just fine! In the case of this Octomore the casks were sourced from the Rhone Valley region of France, one of the most prolific Syrah producing regions in the world. Pricing has hovered around the $250 AUD mark in Australian duty free stores, which puts it roughly in the middle between the 'standard' 7.1 and the 7.3 Islay barley. But that's enough talk, it's time to take a closer look!

Octomore 7.2 (Bruichladdich), 5-year old, 58.5%. Islay, Scotland.
208 ppm. Marriage of first-fill ex-bourbon and French Syrah red wine casks. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Deep gold.

Nose: Soft and refined for a young Octomore, but there's plenty going on. Fresh, herbal and meaty with hints of Bruichladdich's trademark sweet & sour lactic notes. Wood smoked pork with lots of sea salt, licorice, dried herbs (sage?), golden barley, dried red berries, and a few blueberries. Sweet buttery pastry, creamy vanilla and salty smoked bacon with time.

Texture: Absolutely beautiful. Medium weight, silky and voluptuous. No heat either, despite being just 5 years old. The magic of Octomore!

Taste: Soft, fruity and sweet entry, then building spicy & ashy smoke, more hints of 'laddie lactic notes, like a sweet & sour berry yoghurt. Wood spices, licorice and a little burning herbs. Chewy dark milky toffees, more red berries and vanilla, and hints of iodine.

Finish: Long length. This is where the peat shows itself in full - big earthy, spicy peat with lots of spicy smoke vying for attention. More sweet dried berries and creamy vanilla, slight wine tannins. Then more salty smoked meat, more burning herbs and lightly smoky golden malted barley hang around for quite some time

Score: 4 out of 5. But it's very close to a 4.5.

Notes: Absolutely delicious dram. To be honest I struggled with the scoring on this one for quite some time, in fact I had to have a second glass to help decide, but in the end the slightly restrained nose sealed the deal. Although I'm nitpicking really. Overall 7.2 is quite softly spoken for a 5-year old Octomore, it's certainly more approachable and perhaps also more complex than most. It's very, very easy to drink actually, which is remarkable for such a young whisky at high strength. Should we be thanking those Syrah casks for that? Or is it just the usual Bruichladdich distillery magic? I'm thinking it's probably a combination of both.

I really like the berry & vanilla notes in here, plus that lovely Bruichladdich lactic milky note, all combined with the peat and smoke which take a while to show their hands, but when they do you'll know about it. Also, the fact that the malted barley itself can still be detected in a 208 ppm peated Octomore is pretty amazing when you think about it. It's a little unfortunate that the "travel exclusive" thing means that even some hardcore Octomore fans may not get the chance to taste this expression, but I imagine that stocks would not have lasted this long if it were otherwise. Another great whisky from a truly great distillery with a great team.

Speaking of which, I was saddened to hear of the recent passing of Carl Reavey, Bruichladdich's head of communications. Carl was responsible for the distillery's web content and was behind the vast majority of official social media posts and PR and blog activity, and had been involved in a number of other successful projects during his 20+ years on Islay. While I never met Carl personally, I was a regular reader and admirer of his informative and passionate writing on the (excellent) Bruichladdich website, and I'm sure the distillery, the island and the industry will be feeling this loss for quite some time. Here's to you Carl!

Cheers!

Springbank 12 Cask Strength Whisky Review!

It felt like it took years for the re-packaged Springbanks to turn up in Australia, and for that matter we still haven't seen any sign of the newer bathes of the 10-year old. And as it happens, since the batch of 12-year old Cask Strength that I'm reviewing here finally arrived down under late last year, the superseding batch has now been out & about in Europe for almost six months, with another due shortly. We don't keep up with the rest of the developed world in many ways, and it's a little sad sometimes...

I had the pleasure of tasting both Batch 15 of the 12-year old and the newer batch of the 10-year old during my pilgrimage to Scotland in September 2017, and they were both excellent. In fact I'd probably rate them quite similarly based on that first impression, despite the older dram being over 10% higher in strength. But we're a little slow in this part of the world, so we'll just have to make do with Batch 14 of the 12-year old for this review. Not really the end of the world of course! As good as all of Springbank's whiskies generally are, the 12-year old Cask Strength has long been my pick of the bunch. It consistently offers excellent value for money, and while there is some batch variation, both in quality, strength and cask types, all that I've tasted to date have made for very enjoyable drinking. By the way you won't find any batch numbers on the bottles or packaging, so the best reference is the ABV, which being unadulterated cask strength has - so far - been unique to each batch. There are generally two batches released each year, and most don't last very long.

Batch 14 that we're looking at today is a mix of 30% ex-bourbon and 70% ex-sherry casks which was released in January 2017, and was the first to sport the distillery's new updated packaging. Some older batches were all-sherry casks, but Batch 9 seems to have been the last of those. I've reviewed an even older release back in 2015, which was Batch 5, here in case you'd like a comparison with that one. I don't know this for a fact, but I'd have to assume that the introduction of ex-bourbon casks into the mix was mostly due to the increasing cost and scarcity of sherry casks in the whisky industry.

This release was bottled at a cask strength of 54.2%, and being a Springbank single malt of course it's non-chill filtered and naturally coloured, and is lightly peated and 2.5-times distilled. Springbank's Hazelburn brand is un-peated and triple distilled, and the Longrow brand is heavily peated and double distilled. It's worth a quick reminder too that Springbank Distillery floor-malt all of their barley in-house, they still use a direct-fired wash still, and they mature and bottle all of their whisky on-site in Campbeltown. The distillery suffered through a little negative feedback on their new label designs and the new outer boxes, but I don't mind them at all, I just wish they would have finally covered up that gaping bloody whole in the outer boxes!

Unfortunately I missed out on Campbeltown during my pilgrimage to Scotland in 2017, since despite my love of the region's malts I just couldn't spare the extra time. But I'm going to make up for that in late 2018 with a tour at both Springbank and Glengyle (Kilkerran) distilleries, and hopefully a quick visit to Glen Scotia, all of which I'm very much looking forward to. Let's see if this dram will be enough to keep me going a little longer...

Springbank 12-year old Cask Strength, 54.2%. Campbeltown, Scotland.

Batch 14, bottled January 2017. Lightly peated, 2.5 times distilled, 70% ex-sherry casks, 30% ex-bourbon casks. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 

Colour: Amber. 

Nose: Malty, fruity & quite fresh, but still has the Springbank musty-ness to it. Spearmint, sweet vanilla, golden syrup, stewed stone fruit, red apples. Damp earth and nutty wood spices, some musty old wood (pine?), light farmyard notes but they're subtle. 

Texture: Medium weight, malty, musty & syrupy. No heat. 

Taste: More farmyard-y up-front, with damp hay, light earthy peat, musty old barns / sheds and a little brine. Vanilla butter icing, damp barley and a little clean machine oil. Cinnamon sugar and white pepper. 

Finish: Short-medium length. More brine and light earthy peat again, creamy sweet vanilla icing and more damp old wood, and a little leather. More of the stewed stone fruit and musty malt to finish up. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. 

Notes: A delicious dram of course, it's not the best batch I've tasted, and certainly not as good as the Batch 15 that I tried in Scotland, but it's still a tasty cask strength Springbank, so it could be much worse! The finish in particular is where this one seems to fall a little short, it just doesn't quite have the staying power and volume of flavour that others did. The addition of those ex-bourbon casks is quite evident too, that's not a negative really, just a point of difference. That creamy vanilla does add sweetness and the whisky seems a little more malty overall, so perhaps this is a more approachable take on Springbank 12 that might suit the Campbeltown-novice a little better?

That said, I still love that oily, musty character in these Springbanks. I don't find it in Hazelburns or Longrows either, at least not to the same extent, which is why Springbanks are my pick of the three, although it's a little less up-front in this particular bottling but it's still there! It's what I assume to be a very "old school" malt, and I can't wait to see where it comes from!

Cheers!