Boring, meek, shallow, average, foul – these are all antonyms to the words that would best describe Ardbeg’s outstanding Uigeadail expression, which sits before me as I write this very review, smothering me with its luxurious peaty smoke. This isn’t the first Ardbeg review I’ve written (keen readers may remember by previous brown-nose reviews of Blasda, Renaissance and 10yr old and once again I am going to end up sounding like a complete fanboy, which I suppose that I am.
As regular readers of my wee blog may remember, I have family in Sweden and as such I tend to visit at least once a year. Heck, we’re such good friends by now, you and I, that I suppose I may as well reveal that it is my dear parents who have moved here – that with one of them being Swedish, thus making me a half breed, they’ve retired right by the Swedish coast. There, my dirty little secret is out in the open. So I’m here once again, and immediately upon my arrival my old man proudly thrust a bottle of his latest acquisition in my face – a bottle of ‘Mackmyra Reserve – Bengt J.’ (the latter being his name) from his very own (sherry/smoke) cask of Mackmyra.
Dallas Dhu – it’s one of those names that you hear and go “hm, yeah.. I think I have had that, actually… a while back” but as soon as the words leave your confused tongue you know them to be untrue – too late to turn back now, though: “pretty decent, I seem to remember, nothing special”. Oh, you fool. You utter fool. Of course you’ve never had it! This is (roughly) what I caught myself saying, and thinking, a couple of years back. As luck should have it, however, I was recently offered a dram of Dallas Dhu 1976 28 year old. Before I get started on the review, I feel obligated to give you a brief bit of information about the distillery. Dallas Dhu can be found in Speyside, but rather unfortunately had to close down in the 1980’s. Today it is owned by the National Trust, and acts as one of their tourist attractions – for more information or to arrange a visit, head on over to their website.
Most of you will, no doubt, have heard of Edradour. It is, to my knowledge, Scotland’s smallest distillery, and it uses the smallest stills as well. Located in Pitlochry, they produce a range of absolutely beautiful single malt whiskies. I read somewhere – unfortunately I can’t remember where – that Edradour used to be one of seven distilleries operating in Perthshire, but unfortunately none of the other six are running today. In memory of days gone, Edradour have decided to name their heavily peated series – Ballechin – after one of the other six distilleries that was active in the region between 1810 and 1927.
A wee while ago I was contacted by a company called Arizona High Spirits. While it was the first time I heard of them, I gather that they are best known for their prickly pear (cactus) vodka and liqueur (which I shall search high and low for – sounds delicious!), though they also make a chilli flavoured vodka, spiced rum, gin and, of course, whiskey! Now, the whiskey is a rather new addition to their range – in fact, they’ve only made 1 batch and so far as I am aware it has not been released for general sale yet, as they wanted some expert opinions first (yikes!).
Having recently “rediscovered” Glenfiddich, I decided to make their standard 18 year old expression my dram of the day. Since I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m developing a cold, I also decided to make it my second dram of the day – just to be on the safe side.
Rather than blabbering on in my usual fashion, I’m going to get straight to business with this review. My very first thought when putting dram #1 to my nose was “I bet this would go well with a cup of coffee”, a theory I proved right some 5 minutes of impatient waiting later. Do note that I said with and not in, by the way. The nose has a lovely and well rounded scent to it, packed with sweet dried fruits (apricot, apple, raisins) along with a vanilla fudge note, as well as a lovely bit of citrus which brings a perfect measure of balance to the sweetness. I can’t quite decide whether it is better than the 15 year old, though… I suspect they may be on a par.
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