Most of you will already be familiar with the ‘movember’ concept; the basic idea is that during the month of November, men grow silly (for the most part) moustaches and get sponsored for doing so – a bit like a “fun run”, except for the fact that movember is actually fun. The money raised goes towards men’s health issues, with focus on prostate and other cancers.
In honour of this, Master of Malt and Glenfarclas teamed up to create a special Movember whisky, and they recruited a fellow Edinburgh-based whisky blogger – the highly knowledgeable Chris, from over at the Edinburgh Whisky Blog – to give them a hand. He was invited over to Glenfarclas to choose two 9-year old casks that he thought would marry well, and these then went on to become the Movember whisky. I really don’t do the story justice, but I figured there’s not much point in my retelling another blogger’s adventures! So if you want to read the story, head on over to the Edinburgh Whisky Blog.
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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.
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Whenever I review something other than whisky I feel the need to explain myself. As such, I was going to start this post by saying how, while whisky is king, it can occasionally be nice to tickle your taste buds with other drinks as well; having said that at least two handfuls of times already, however, I would feel silly doing so again. So, from here on out, I will not excuse myself – so there! Now, let’s take a look at a cognac!
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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.
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Receives thid press-release that I thought was worth sharing with you. I’ve yet to try the 21 year old expression (I suspect it might be hard to come by these days though), but I found the 12 y.o. very interesting.
Old Pulteney 21 Year Old scored a record-equalling 97.5/100 points and secured the World Whisky of the Year title in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2012, the 9th edition of the world famous annual whisky guide. This is the biggest accolade the Northern Highland distillery has received since it was established in 1826 in Wick. Whisky Bible is considered to be the single most important publication on the subject of whisky. Pulteney is only the second Scottish distillery to secure the title in the history of the award.
Explaining his decision Jim Murray said: “I was on the home straight after four months of continuous tasting. By that time I was pretty sure I knew what the winner was going to be. With what I still had to taste it needed something exceptional to knock the leader off its perch. But that’s exactly what happened. To be honest, I was amazed. I knew the Old Pulteney 17-year-old was likely to be exceptional, and it was. However, I had never come across a Pulteney 21-year-old like it. Talk about coming out of leftfield…”.
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.
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