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 April 1, 2010
- No, it's not a joke...
This part of the Malt Madness home page used to show
the latest entries in my Liquid Log, but since that log
transformed into an external Google Blogspot Blog
that's no longer technically possible. So, please visit my
'internal' Liquid Log for an overview of the log entries
covering 1997 to 2009, or the new Google Blog for all
fresh reports and other whisky rantings & ratings.
I'm not quite finished with the overhaul of the old log,
but I've already managed to reconstruct a few of the
most ancient parts of the site that seemed lost after
the massive crash of this web site in 2006; including
my Little Black Book (tasting notes on the first 500
single malt whiskies I ever tried) and the Stock List
(the contents of my liquor cabinet circa 2005).
The 'Beginner's Guide' is more or less finished, but
every week I receive several messages asking me
about the 'Advanced Beginner's Guide'. I'm afraid it's
still far from finished - I want to have the other four
sections of this site suitably wrapped up before I focus
on this new endeavor. The good news is that I've made
a big jump forward with the
Distillery Data section, after adding the brand new map of distilleries in Scotland.
I've already started
one 'final' refurbishment of the
distillery profiles, adding an overview of some recent
developments around the distillery after 2000. You can
track the progress on the main DD page - all finished
profiles also have a link to their location on the map.
The mAlmanac doesn't require as much work, but there
are still some tweaks I'd like to make in the foreseeable
future. By contrast, I haven't even started work on the
Deviant Drams section. All in all, there's
a LOT of work
to do on Malt Madness in the months that lie ahead...
For your entertainment, I'll keep a few of the last 'classic' entries on this page for now.
Scroll down for a handful of older entries, or visit the new Google Blog for recent malt whisky tasting reports.
You can find and overview of the entries covering 1997 to 2009 in my 'internal'
Liquid Log while fresh tasting notes will be added to the various distillery profiles in the Distillery Data section of this site.
Last but not least, there will be daily updates from the MM universe on Serge's WhiskyFun site.
I already enjoyed some excellent April Fool's material this morning...
Sweet drams,
Johannes
Entry #364 - Tasting a £10,000 Whisky... (?)
 October 15, 2009 - There are some 'perks' attached to running a
website that attracts a few thousand visitors each day. One of those
perks arrived in my mailbox yesterday; a sample of a real life version
of 'Glen Wonka' - the
Dalmore 1951 'Sirius' (45%, OB, Bottled 2009).
Nose: Heavy wood with a good dash of smoke, like the colour suggests.
A hint of menthol? After some breathing more mocca / coffee character.
Very dark chocolate. Tangerine. Fresh strawberries in the background?
Then more leathery notes emerge. Great balance, good development.
Hey, after maybe half an hour I got gummy bears! It keeps opening up.
Later in the evolution I found some pleasant musty and fishy notes.
Taste: Solid, sweet start. The smoke marches forward in the centre.
'Haagse Hopjes' (a Dutch kind of coffee / caramel candy). Tia Maria?
Powerful. Unfortunately, the smoke grows too dominant eventually.
A solid mouth feel; smooth on the surface but brooding underneath.
I detected traces of light fruits, but they were overpowered by smoke.
The finish is quite dry and doesn't show as much tannins as I expected.
Score: 90 points - which means that this is seriously good whisky...
I was inclined to give an even higher score based on the nose alone,
but on the palate the smoke was a tad too dominant for my tastes.
So, while this is
great whisky that deserves a spot on my Hit List I'm
not sure about the 'value' - is this whisky really worth £10,000, simply
because that's the price tag they put on it? Hmmm... I guess value is
in the eye of the beholder; a journalist, an investor or a whisky lover.
So, let's start by doing some thinking about the first group - journalists.
I guess that my ideas on 'value' as expressed in the Dalmore distillery profile haven't really changed...
That means that the mere fact that they put a £10,000 price tag on a bottle of whisky doesn't automatically convince me that its price and its value are the same. However, many journalists have no idea about the value of
a lot of the things they report about - and in their frantic search for fresh content to fill their pages (or airwaves),
they're usually more than happy to simply re-print a press release if they think it will infotain their readers. So,
press releases about outrageously priced bottles of whisky easily manage to find their way into the mass media.
As such, this is a relatively cheap way of advertising - you'll often get more media coverage than what you could possibly generate with your regular advertising budget. And thanks to the limited memory capacity of the
collective consciousness, you could repeat this trick again and again...
And what about the value for an investor or collector? Well, for them a £10,000 price tag makes more sense.
Single casks bottlings are relatively rare by defenition (depending on the size of the cask and the proof of the whisky you can usually get somewhere between 100 and 750 bottles from a cask), but in this case they made
only 12 decanters. So, the whisky will indeed be extremely rare - at least if we look at this particular packaging.
Of course, there was more whisky in the cask, but that might have all been used to fill samples like the one I got, or to spice up some ultra premium blend. Anyway, the RSP is £10,000 and "Sirius will only be available to private buyers and through a limited network of World Duty Free (WDF) stores." The Dalmore's Brand Director, David Robertson added: "Our partnership with World Duty Free allows us to reach an elite group of investors and whisky aficionados across the globe. We will be focusing on key target markets in Taiwan, USA and France." I guess only time
will tell if the 'elite group of investors' that fork over ten thousand pounds for a bottle got it right. We'll have to
wait for one of those bottles to pop up at an auction to see what value it has on the open market. I know that collectors can go very far in their passion for whisky, so the value might actually increase...
Last but not least: actual whisky lovers - what is the actual value of the Dalmore Sirius to them?
Well, I'd like to think that a lot of them tend to look at the 'intrinsic value' of a whisky; how 'good' is it.
Undeniably, this Dalmore is good whisky - but so are a lot of other whiskies... And as luck would have it, I happen
to have a 'forgotten fossil' on my shelf - another very old malt whisky that I forgot about when I tried some bottles in the 'Fossils' range last month. This is a unique opportunity to compare two geriatric malts.
(Incidentally, I can't divulge the identity of this 'bastard' whisky, but it's not Dalmore...)
Speyside Single Malt 39yo 1970/2009 (54.4%, The Perfect Dram, First Fill Oloroso Butt, 240 Bottles)
Nose: Heavy fruits. Polished wood. Some exotic Indonesian spices. Hint of mint? Little development.
I like the profile quite a bit, but I have to admit that the Sirius shows more complexity and evolution.
Taste: Wood and smoke. Very nice, but it feels quite harsh - harsher than the Dalmore Sirius, in fact...
Yes, this is another 'wood & smoke bomb', especially on the palate. Smoke really dominates the finish.
Score: 88 points - highly recommendable, but not quite as spectacular as the Sirius I just enjoyed.
But then again, the price is circa 2% of the price of the Sirius, so it doesn't look too bad ;-)
That's it for now. I reluctantly have to agree that the Dalmore Sirius is actually very good whisky, even though I'm
not a fan of these 'Glen Wonka' type bottlings. Fortunately, Whyte & Mackay decided to submit a few more mainstream expressions of Dalmore for the Malt Maniacs Awards 2009 - so we'll be able to rank those soon.
Sweet drams,
Johannes
Entry #363 - MWY2010 Is Here!
 October 12, 2009
- If I would have received a penny for each
time I've told colleagues and clients that they needed to work
SMARTER instead of harder, I would have been able to buy a
bottle of whisky by now. Granted, it would be a bottle of very
cheap whisky (a blend, and not an enjoyable one), but still...
Perhaps it's about time I started to follow my own advice. ;-)
During the first years of Malt Madness my particular 'skill set'
has allowed me to poorly mimic the functionality of a content
management system - mostly by simply throwing lots of time
at a problem until it eventually went away. However, I feel
that this approach is starting to severely limit the potential
of Malt Maniacs. Even with some maniacs picking up some
of the work involved with the site (for example Serge and
Luca that have taken care of the MMMonitor recently), I felt
we needed to streamline some processes. Fortunately our
own little egghead Robert from Sweden stepped up to the
plate and we're now working on our very own database.
Join the MMMailinglist if you want to stay updated...
Meanwhile, there's some good news for malt whisky lovers
worldwide - the MALT WHISKY YEARBOOK 2010 has just
been published. As a Dutchman, the first thing I checked
was the price. I'm very happy to report that the price hasn't
changed since last year; it's still £12,95 - just like last year.
So, if this year's issue (the fifth edition) is just as good as
last year's, that means that it actually became cheaper, if
we take inflation into account... ;-)
So, let's browse through the latest edition, shall we?
Just like last year, the first sixty-or-so pages are dedicated
to a handful of solid articles. The 2010 edition has one by
fellow maniac Charlie MacLean and another article where
fellow maniacs Serge Valentin & Bert Bruyneel are quoted.
Next, we get to the 'meat' of the book; updated profiles for
all the malt distilleries of Scotland and Ireland. There are
two notable differences with last year's edition in this part
of the book. First there are the 'Meet the Manager' pages
with concise interviews with the managers of a couple of
selected distilleries (including Ardmore and Glenglassaugh).
That's an improvement as far as I'm concerned...
However, there are 'In Focus' pages as well, sprinkled
throughout the distillery profiles. They provide sort of a
'Beginner's Guide' to the production process for whisky.
This is also a change that enhances the 2010 edition of
the Malt Whisky Yearbook - but I have to admit that I
would have preferred to see that information collected
neatly at the beginning or end of the book, so it would
be easier to look up certain information. The same goes
for a few pages with information about whisky websites
and whisky books - those seem to be put in at random.
That's just a minor quibble though; just like in the four
editions that went before, there's an overload of solid
information about the 'celtic' malt whisky distilleries.
The 'finish' of the Malt Whisky Yearbook 2010 is, once again, solid.
In fact, I think editor Ingvar Ronde managed to further improve this part of the book. It's filled with a lot of
information about malt whisky distilleries in the rest of the world, 'the whisky year that was', two pages about
independent bottlers (a section that could be expanded a little in further editions), an overview of the new
bottlings per distillery, six pages filled with reviews and details of whisky shops throughout the world. Finally,
there are lots of interesting statistics and a map of Scotland with the distillery locations. So, it looks like Ingvar did it once again: produce the all round malt whisky book that offers the best value. Great work!
Sweet drams,
Johannes
Entry #362 - Malt Maniacs Awards 2008 Revisited
 October 1, 2009
- The arrival of the package for the Malt Maniacs Awards 2009
is just around the corner; Olivier, Serge, Davin, Krishna and their little helpers
will be filling the miniature samples this weekend in France. That means that I
have to create some shelf space to store the fresh sample bottles. After last
year's MM Awards there were a few dozen miniatures that were still half full.
Sometimes half-filled samples don't survive a year of breathing, but it seems
that most whiskies that were entered into last year's competition were solid
enough to stay in shape for almost an entire year. Here are my tasting notes
on a selection of releases that are worth hunting down for different reasons.
If my first impressions are anything to go by, it seems that most bottlings in the
competition can stand oxidation (exposure to air) very well.
Not everybody agreed on the Glenlivet 1971/2007 (46%, Berry Brothers, C#6450); Serge and Krishna voted
for gold, four jurors voted for silver and four voted for bronze. Davin and Pit didn't even feel it deserved a medal.
Nose: Well-rounded and a little sweet. Something floral? Hmmmm, not terribly expressive and complex. A very solid profile though that hangs together very well. Some organics emerge after a few minutes. This definitely
needs time; it slowly climbed from the lower 80's to 85 points. Taste: Seems quite big at first, but gradually
flattens out. It reminds me of rum. Remains smooth throughout, though… Smoky finish, fairly gritty. Just like the
nose, it really requires some breathing to reveal its full potential. Lovely passion fruits in the finish.
Score: 85 points - which was the average score as well...
The Glen Grant 38yo 1969/2008 (51.7%, Duncan Taylor Lonach) had a lot of fans amongst the MM Awards jury
last year; eight jurors voted for silver and two even for gold! The nose had loads of polished wood and fruits,
really a classic profile. It showed faint hints of heather and something floral which made me guess it was a
Highland Park during the blind tasting. Chocolate? The fruits keep developing over time; wonderful rich fruit cake.
Excellent, even after the whisky had spent almost a year in a half empty sample bottle. Taste: Powerful and fruity
with a strong woody undercurrent. Maybe a touch of something medicinal? Settles down after a few minutes with
a brilliant sweetness. The mouth feel is just excellent. If we hadn't agreed not to change our scores after the MM Awards I might have lifted its rating into the 90's - but as it is I'll keep my score at 89 points
.
An excellent dram that can stand a lot of time in the bottle...
Opinions were divided about the Carsebridge 29yo 1979/2008 (56%, Duncan Taylor Rare Auld, C#33032, 175
Bts.), a grain whisky that received six nominations for silver but didn't convince Michel, Pit and myself that it
deserved a medal at all. Let's see if time has been kind to this whisky. Almost a year ago the nose was fragrant, but fairly MOTR. More grainy notes over time, sweetening out. After a lot of breathing the nose had grown
sweeter, heavier and altogether more complex. The taste hadn't really changed; clearly a grain whisky but frankly too bitter for my tastes. Smooth but simple. The harsh, bourbony finish keeps the score at 78 points
for me.
The nose of the Glengoyne 19yo 1988/2007 (58.3%, OB, Pedro Ximenez butt, C#718) showed heavy treacle
aroma's. Loads of wood with some organics in the background. The profile grows bigger and more complex after
breathing. Subtle fruity sweetness in the background. Definitely improves after some 30 minutes; climbs from 85
to 88 points eventually. The taste was woody and powerful with evolved fruits in the centre. A strong finish with a hint of smoke. Another one that stood the test of time; 88 points is very well deserved.
Quite a few different batches of the Talisker 25yo (58.1%, OB, 6894 Bts., 2007) have been submitted to the Malt
Maniacs Awards. Nose: Polished but not very expressive at first. Chloride? Slowly some organics emerge, but it
remains subdued. After a few minutes some gentle fruits pop up. Oh wait - it exploded with fruits after I added a few drops of water. Taste: Feels more solid than I had expected - and again the peat came as a surprise.
Liquorice. Great wood in the finish - and a decent dose of sweetness too until it grows very dry in the end. Water
doesn't hurt the mouth feel one bit. Tannis remain strong in the finish. The average score of 86 points was a bit lower than my own 88 points
and three votes for gold from Serge, Olivier and Luca. Only Mark didn't feel it deserved a medal. Could it be that this whisky is particularly popular amongst wine lovers?
Hey, that reminds me... We had at least one other 25yo official bottling from an island distillery...
Highland Park 25yo (48.1%, OB, Bottled +/- 2008)
Nose: Polished with subtle fruits and a hint of spices. Settles down after a minute, losing some complexity.
Sandalwood? Something very vaguely fishy in the far background - fish and chips rather than smoked salmon.
I had it at 84 points for a long time, but it crawls into the upper 80's eventually thanks to emerging subtleties.
Taste: Powerful, solid, woody. Very pleasant, although it grows a tad harsh in the finish. Feels quite hot.
A little bit like dark toffee. Smoky too - but not peaty. The sweetness is just a little cloying. Feels very solid.
Hey, wait - now I get a touch of something medicinal, earning it another point. The tannins grew on me.
Score: 87 points
- there's a very slight astringency in the finish that keeps it from climbing any further.
The Karuizawa 1992/2007 (61.5%, OB for The Number One Drinks Company, American oak/Sherry Butt,
C#3330, 430 Bts.) was just one of many different bottles from the Japanese Karuizawa distillery that were submitted in 2008. The nose was big, smoky & powerful. Fruity notes and a whiff of rice crackers. Gunpowder.
Lovely leathery notes after a few minutes of breathing. Taste: Big, sweet & full. Fruity tannins in the finish. Quite a lot of smoke. My score of 85 points
was identical to the average of all jurors - but seems conservative in hindsight. People that loved the old smoky Glan Gariochs from the 1970's will love this one...
That's it for now, but I plan to have another review of the entries for the 2008 Awards in a few weeks.
Meanwhile, there may or may not have been some movement in the 'The Gap' dispute...
Sweet drams,
Johannes
Entry #360 - The Interactive Map is Back (Sort of...)
 September 6, 2009
- Those of you that have been following MM
for a few years may remember that there used to be a (primitive)
interactive map of Scotland on this site. After an update of 'Internet
Explorer' (the dominant browser at the time), the map didn't work
properly anymore - so I decided to remove it from MM at the time.
The more I learned about the way malt whisky is produced these
days, the more I started questioning the significance of 'terroir' in
the production of malt whisky. Nevertheless, I eagerly jumped at the
opportunity when my brother Franc offered to help me build a brand
new version of the interactive map. The location of a distillery may
not be as important for the character of the output as it once was,
but we felt an interactive map of Scotland could still come in useful.
For one thing, such a map might be inspirational for people planning
a trip through Scotland. If you think about visiting a few distilleries,
the map will show you where they are, so you can set out a route.
What's more, the interactive map provides an alternative interface
to browse through the distillery profiles in the Distillery Data section.
The map isn't yet working quite like we'd like it to work, but we felt
it was ready as a 0.95 Beta version
of what we're trying to realise.
There are some issues we need to solve at some point (like the fact
that it still works very clunky in Internet Explorer), but the current
version works like a charm in
FireFox and Safari, so we went for it.
So, the new interactive map of Scotland is now ready for some serious beta testing...
We're hoping that the readers of Malt Madness can help us iron out the last problems, so please feel free to play around with the map to your heart's desire. You can click on a distillery in the
distillery navigation menu in the upper left corner (toggle with the 'D' key) to reveal it's location on the map. Selecting a distillery will make the
focus of the map 'fly' to its location. Alternatively, you can use the minimap in the upper right corner (toggle with
the 'M' key). The rectangular selector on the minimap indicates the part of the map that is currently visible in your
browser screen; simply drag around the selector to explore the area of Scotland you'd like to see. Last but not least, you can toggle some useful help instructions with the 'H' key.
You can move around the map with your mouse, but you can use keyboard controls as well.
The arrow keys allow you to move the map up, down, to the left or to the right. Moving the mouse over a distillery label on the map will reveal some basic details
about that distillery. Clicking on a label opens the corresponding distillery profile in the Distillery Data section on Malt Madness. Just keep in mind that the map uses
a background image of more than a megabyte, so loading might take a while. Also, that means it's not meant for mobile devices. Feedback via e-mail or the 'Malt Maniacs & Friends' group on Facebook is more than welcome.
Sweet drams,
Johannes
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