Tag: SMWS

Whisky 2016 – 147-151

I made it to 150 for the year and what a cracker 150 was, Heartwood’s 2 of 3. Simply an amazing dram. 

147 – Kilchoman The Trilogy Bourbon Single Cask 260/2010
Honey, roasted chicken and pork, potato chips, medicinal herbs, apple snow, leather and plasticine, sea weed and sea spray, stone fruit. Campfire, brown sticks and earth, caramel, green herbs, salt, lingering smoke

148 – SMWS 3.265 (Bowmore) Islay meets Provence
Caramel, sea salt, lemon zest, tobacco smoke, rosemary. Intense fruit, charcoal meat, lemonade, raspberries and dry herbs.

149 – Signatory Bunnahabhain 1997 Heavily Peated Cask 5516
Toffee apples, lemonade (again), hand cream, potato crisps, seaweed. Smoke, coffee, cocoa, grilled mackerel, preserved lemon.

150 – 2 of 3 Heartwood
Chocolate mousse, cocoa, stewed apple, toasted malt, rose petals, flat coke, egg custard, pancakes with maple syrup and ice cream. Toasted malt, roasted corn, sarsaparilla, brown butter, raspberry soda, milk coffee. Wonderful.

151 – Kilchoman The Trilogy Sherry Single Cask 199/2010
Honey, salt, fruit straps, caramels. Seaweed, medicinal herbs, flinty, coal, Xmas fruit, caramel, sea water.

Whisky 2016 – 91-96 (Westland Whiskey tasting)

91 – Westland American Oak 46%
Chicos, white peach, passionfruit, chocolate, pears. Didn’t enjoy the initial palate a bit plastic but coffee, peach, pears, vanilla, roasted barley tea.

92 – Westland Sherry Wood 46%
Honey, honey, honey, honey, honey, honey, butter, crumpets. Maraschino cherries, pears, cloves, toasted muesli.

93 – Westland Peated 46%
Medicinal, salted crisps, seaweed, honey, toffee, roast pork. Bracken, toffee, salt, apples – but that damn roasted note keeps coming back.

94 – Westland Garryana 56.2%
Banana split with caramel sauce, pound cake, chicos, pear, apricot, jammy. Rubber, spice, pound cake, strawberry jam, salty, stewed apricot, hazelnuts.

95 – Benromach Organic 2010
Green barley, mint, cold butter, malt, fresh garden peas cooked in butter, green bananas, cooked apples. Fresh and minty, malty, banana with cream.

96 – SMWS 66.81 Black Bun by a peaty hearth (Ardmore)
Oil paints, dry manzanilla sherry, beer nuts, toffee, pork crackling. Soy sauce, dry smoke, oily, sweetness, over ripe apple.

Whisky 2016 – 78-81

78 – SMWS 128.6 Rumbling, reverberating resonances (Penderyn)
Wood glue, turps, banana cream pie, Christmas pud. Huge caramel and banana, sweet and delicious, butter and honey.

79 – SMWS 76.125 Enticing sweetness and attractive wood (Mortlach)
Apricot jam, sponge cake, wood turps, salt and pepper. Rock melon, brown sugar, yoghurt, passionfruit vine, brandy butter, great tropical fruit.

80 – Gaiaflow Eigashima Sakura 2015
Wood, chocolate, cocoa, pepper. Honey to maple syrup, butter, pepper, clove, sarsaparilla, flight dusty note. Wonderful whisky.

81 – Yamazaki Whisky Shop WSO-005 2013 (Red Wine Cask)
Red apple, red wine tannins, maple wood, pastrami (?!?), chiffon cake, ginger. Apples crumble, clean and balanced, candle wax, cinnamon, cloves.

Whisky 2016 – 65-67

65 – SMWS 127.44 Cantina Mexicana (Bruichladdich)
Plastic, sulphur, salt, pulled pork, roasted capsicum and pickled chilies, peppery. Taken aback by the initial sweetness, peppery and chilies, bitter cocoa, mustard fruits, toffee and rubber.

66 – Riverstown Ben Nevis 16 Years
Cream, bourbon, tiramisu, caramel, stewed apricots, candied orange, toasted coconut. Marmalade, toffee, cucumber, cream, pepper, yoghurt.

67 – White Oak Akashi 14 Years (White wine finish)
Beef stock, brown sugar, varnish, turps, leather. Brown sugar, maple, slightly floral, heavy and delicious.

Whisky 2016 – 47-50

47 – Glenfarclas Whisky & Wisdom bottling 2007
Musk lollies, leather, glue, honey, maple syrup, sarsaparilla and chocolate. Short, hot and angry, wood, maple, cream, butter, marshmallows.

48 – Berry’s Laphroaig 1997 Cask 48
Oil paints, autumn leaves, salty caramels, plasticine. Honey, smoke, bitter caramels, sweet mint and basil, cream and leaves.

49 – Lagavulin 18 Feis Ile 2016 Bottling Bottle:5916 (American Oak Hogsheads & Bodega Sherry Butts)
Fresh, zesty, red apples, butter cake, autumn leaves, just the right amount of oiliness. Apples, autumn leaves, saltiness, cream, paint. Really well balanced.

50 – SMWS 72.47 Burnt Spotted Dick (Miltonduff)
Cottee’s caramel ice cream sauce, glue and orange zest, candy apples, formic acid, pina colada, pineapple upside down cake, vanilla essence, white pepper, creme caramel, slight Rosemary. Juicy grilled pineapple, toasted coconut, vanilla pudding, pain aux raisins, slight sweet rubbery notes.

Whisky 2016 – 25-27

25 – SMWS 82.20 Big bold and beautiful (Glencadam)
Aspirin, honey, rubber, sulphury, blackberries, salted butter, dusty. Mangoes, rubber, flinty, gunpowder, pink musk sticks, green leaves.

26 – SMWS 10.85 Live life on the edge (Bunnahabhain)
Honey, motor oil, chestnuts, huge nose that is difficult to define. Clear and luxurious honey, salt, the sweetness of raw scallops, salt, seaweed, floral, cocoa and dark chocolate truffles, blue cheese.

27 – Whisky Exchange Bunnahabhain 16 Years
Smoky raisin water, maraschino cherries, peaches and apricot log. Coconut, smoke, honey, dark chocolate. This is VERY good but I’m haviving difficulty describing it.

Favourites of 2015

I’ll probably have a few more drams this year but these have been my favourites for 2015.

49 – SMWS 124.4 (Miyagikyo) Full of Secret Pleasures
Muscat, port, Sherry fino, rubber, dry warmth, oil soaked rags, spices cloves and anise, maple. German spice biscuits, a rubber fire, cocoa, liquorice, toasted bran, so much going on. Jeezus!

70 – Heartwood Beagle 3
Pine resin, the sweet end of turps, marijuana, chocolate, crushed ants, tomato vine. Tobacco, leather, pepper, beef jerky, super powerful vanilla – it’s really chewy and salty. With time pina colada on the nose and beautiful rich thick caramel. Wow! Really impressed. One of the best for 2015.

121 – Ichiro’s Malt 2015 Tokyo International Bar Show Cask 2360
Wow just wow – favourite for the year!! Banana, ice cream, malty bread with butter, tomato paste, fruit tingles, slight vino cotto, CHICOS. Yeast, brown bread, vanilla, banana bread, prunes, plums, grapes.

143 – Whisky Base Ben Nevis
So much honey, aspirin, maple syrup, butter on crumpets. Melted salted butter, cloves and vanilla cream – it’s such a beautifully structured whisky nothing is offensive or is aggressive, pipe tobacco, tiny bit of pineapple and mango.

164 – Cadenhead Glenrothes-Glenlivet 24
Sulphur, gas, maple syrup, wood, chicos, brown tea and hay. Salt, wood, rubber, maple, dried strawberries or maybe strawberry jam, brown sugar, rum, brandy butter, caramel, chocolate and LPG. So damn complex.

Whisky 2015 – 165-166

165 – SMWS 70.10 Teenage Shenanigans Balblair
Peach Melba, almonds, slightly gassy, marzipan. Such a great solid mouth feel. Green bananas, cloves and cinnamon, banana bread, slight tobacco and cream.

166 – Balblair 2000 Single Cask 1343 14 years distilled
Beef stock, maple syrup, tobacco, dark chocolate, chicos, brown butter, rose petals. Sarsaparilla, coke, vanilla, cream, pepper, cloves, wood, earl grey tea, slight burnt rubber finish.

  

Whisky 2015 – 142-144

142 – SMWS 29.161 (Laphroaig) A bodega is burning
Wow – chocolate, plasticine, peat, leather. Slight iodine, medicinal notes that mix up with cocoa, smoke and chalk, some passionfruit(?!?), wet autumn leaves.

143 – Whiskybase Ben Nevis
So much honey, aspirin, maple syrup, butter on crumpets. Melted salted butter, cloves and vanilla cream – it’s such a beautifully structured whisky nothing is offensive or is aggressive, pipe tobacco, tiny bit of pineapple and mango.

144 – Heartwood Any port in storm
Sarsaparilla, dark chocolate, musk, musty, dark leather, coffee liqueur. Perfume, gasoline, butter, maple syrup, wood, caramels, cloves, leather, salty, dried stone fruits. So good.