Hello whisky fans! How are we all doing today? I, for one, am doing very well indeed! Why so happy, you ask? Well, a little while back I received a few mini tasters from Master of Malt and I’ve just had one of them now – the 1991, 20 year old, Cragganmore – and it is Delicious! So delicious, in fact, that I’m going to order a bottle later on today. In all honesty, I couldn’t think of anything I would rather spend £49.95 on just now.
The time during which the Edinburgh fringe festival is on – just under a month, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, of non-stop madness (there are some 2,500 different shows, most of which run 6 days a week, and an endless number of visitors) – is both knackering and invigorating, fun and soul-destroying, not to mention ridden with borderline alcohol abuse for the vast majority of its visitors; residents included. Indeed, I have only experienced sleep paralysis (where you become ‘aware’ before your REM cycle has finished, thus you’re paralysed and hallucinate) twice and both times were during the festival – it can be caused by sleep deprivation and excessive alcohol consumption, you see, the two hallmarks of a good fringe festival.
If you’re looking for a Christmassy whisky but don’t quite fancy Glenfarclas 15 – which is arguably the most Christmassy dram you will find – I’d recommend you keep reading, because Dailuaine 27 from Master of Malt is a good contender for the honourable title of Christmas Dram of the Year 2011 – which I just made up now, and for which, if I’m honest, there are currently no other runners. Don’t let the admittedly thin starting field fool you, though – Dailuaine 27 would put up one heck of a fight if it had to.
Johnnie Walker is without doubt one of the most well-known whisky blends in the world, and for good reason; their whiskies never fail to offer not only good value for money, but indeed high quality regardless of price. For those of you who like to read a bit of distillery history with your review, I would recommend that you check out my review of the Johnnie Walker Black Label as I have presented what I could find there.
Located in the lovely town of Pitlochry, Blair Athol is, in my opinion, a distillery that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Even I have taken longer than I should to review one of their expressions, so I thought it about time to do so now. Thus I proudly present to you: Blair Athol 12 year old, a fine tipple indeed.
Delving straight into the aroma, it presents a very light and summery bouquet of citrus, flowers, honey, and tangy apple. By no means an outstanding nose, I wouldn’t put it in my top 10, but it does have something distinctively unique about it, and that is the very summery feeling that fills your entire chest as you take a long sniff of it. That said, the nose isn’t quite as forceful as I would like – it doesn’t approach you with quite enough confidence, but what is there is very pleasant. Had it been just a bit bolder, a bit deeper, it would have been much better.
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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