Feis Ile 2015

I am just back from my first Feis Ile.

You can skip to the bottom for a review of the 2 rarest Feis Ile bottlings

I have been to Islay a few times before, and I must admit that after a few days I usually get cabin fever. This year I decided to go to Islay for twice the length of time I usually stayed there. So I was a bit worried

And this time I also didn't stay in one of the major urban hubs as I usually do. Before I stayed in Port Charlotte, Bowmore or Port Ellen

This time I stayed in a cottage 2 miles outside Port Ellen

But it's hard to get cabin fever on Islay during Feis Ile. It's a bit more crowded than usual. The Island is loaded with happy whiskyentusiast. This is what makes the festival what it is.

It's an 8 days festival. Every distillery has their own "Open Day". This also includes Jura who shares its day with Kilchoman.

The biggest problem with Feis Ile is accomodation and event tickets in my opinion. Accomodation must usually be sorted a year in advance, if not earlier if you want a specific place. Event tickets sell out too fast online, so if you don't sit in front of a PC 24-7 you won't get any. Not for the good events. The Islay distilleries should look to Campbeltown to see how this is done. They just set up more similar events when things sell out. On Islay you need to be fast, lucky or know someone.

The different Open Days are somewhat similar . There's a bit of music, quite a bit of whisky, the same seafood shack, and a lot of queues. Especially for bottlings.

I managed to get to Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Bruichladdich, Caol Ila and Ardbeg Open Days. I visited Bunnahabhain and Jura outside the open days and also had a tour at Port Ellen maltings.

Lagavulin Warehouse tour

I did the Lagavulin Warehouse tour twice. It's one of the best distillery events to do, and you can do it outside the festival as well. This is a must for all whiskyfans. Iain McArthur does a cracking job presenting a handful cask samples

Here is my short review of the five Open Days

Lagavulin
Free whisky, Lagavulin 16yo and Lagavulin DE to be tried. A fun blind tasting competion where you had to guess age on three cask samples as well. There was a long queue for buying bottles and no queue for being served whisky, so there is no price guessing where I was :-)

Caol Ila
Similar style as Lagavulin.Well organised. Big thumbs up to Diageo for their two open days

Laphroaig
Another great event. They hosted a big array of "Pick and Mix" tastings lasting twenty minutes. There was tickets enough, as far as I could see. I came down late and still got a ticket for one of the ones I wanted. It was three whiskies with the theme 2015. It was the Cairdeas 2015, The new 15yo and the upcoming 21yo. Three magnificient whiskies and that's for just a tenner. I should have come earlier

Ardbeg.
Many small fun events all over the distillery. People were throwing sheep, dipping their hand in a barrel ofsheep shit for a lottery to aee what they could find. Vaporized whisky, Ardbeg museum, food stalls, music, several themed bars and loads of Ardbeg whisky

Bruichladdich
Very crowded, You paid to get in. 5£, but that entitled you to one free dram whisky. Weather was not the best, but not too bad either. This was my least favourite event, probably because I had to drive home...

Jura
I went to their events the day before the open day. Great they decided to offer events on other days so it was possible to get in and do something there. I did a boat trip where we tried a few of the current Jura's, and a beer/whisky tasting that was great fun. I was especially fond of the Jura Tastival beer made by Drygate. Lucky to taste that one, only 500 bottles. Jura also had a bar where you could taste some of their whiskies, including their festival bottling

Bunnahabhain
I did a warehouse tour outside their festival, but there was a chance to get some BYO whisky from their new warehouse setup and that was great whisky. 3 casks to choose from, with 20cl bottlings

I think most distilleries sold one or more special festival bottlings. Some were cheap, some where expensive, Some were good, some were not. My favourites were the Laphroaig Cairdeas and the Laphroaig 15yo. The latter isn't really a Feis Ile bottling, but a special one-off to celebrate Laphroaig 200 years 1815-2015. The Cairdeas is made 100% from floor malted barley and they didn't use their big spirit still in the production but a balanced distillation of their other 6 stills. That means they paired the three wash stills with the three spirit stills.

I wasn't a big fan of Ardbeg Perpetuum which I found added nothing to their current lineup and I didn't like the Bruichladdich Open Day bottling. The Caol Ila and Lagavulin was basically their DE versions aged for about 7-8 more years in inactive (their own words) Puncheons and were good drams. I also had a wee sip of the Bowmore Virgin Oak, which I really liked, The Jura tastival was also a good one. Especially if you like Jura whisky in general and the style of Whyte and Mackay malt whiskies.

The worst thing on Islay is probably the lack of good beer. I am not a big fan of Islay Ales and not much exciting goes on beer wise on the island otherwise. At Ardbeg they had Beck's and Miller's, it's a bit like if the Brewdog bars only sold Bell's in their pubs

Highlight was, as mentioned above, the beer tasting at Jura, and then cleaning out the Coop's for good beers. Which I wasn't the only one doing. The good shelves were usually empty or almost empty at most times. Whiskyentusiasts love their good beer for sure. Luckily we stocked up on good beers at Loch Fyne Ales on the way over, but that stock dissapeared to fast really

The distilleries wasn't the only ones bottling special Feis Ile bottling. SMWS and Douglas Laing both had special Feis Ile bottling out

1. SMWS 3.243
Bowmore 17yo 57.1%
Dark, Smouldering Flamenco Gypsy

Photo by J. Hamilton

Bowmore's are hit and miss for me. The further away from the eigthies they are distilled the bigger chance for a hit. This was distilled 25 Spetember 1997 and bottled April 2015. This whisky is warm, gentle, sherried, quite peaty, floral and very drinkable. There is a hint of lavenders growing on a bed of newly molten lava in there. It has a major sherry influence, licorise especially, and a long finish

Rating 88/100

2. Old Particular Laphroaig
Feis Ile 2015 14yo 48.4%
Douglas Laing

Photo stolen from DL facebook page

As expected for a Laphroaig this punches a lot of peat. This is bottled at around the same strength as Ardbeg Perpetuum. It has a little more oomph though. It resulsts in a tender and flavourful whisky. Beneath the peat, there is a lot of wood-cinnamon like spices, some citrus and vanilla. Easy drinking peated whisky, quite complex with a lot of flavours and with a medium-long vanilla-peaty finish

Rating 88/100

I would like to thank the deerhunter(s) for the samples

But the best thing at Feis Ile is all the whiskyentusiast present. They really makes this festival great. I will say I LOVE you all for making this a great week and for all the good whisky you decided to share with me

A sunny day at Caol Ila

A couple of new Bowmore's

This easter, or a couple of weeks after actually, I got a small present from Bowmore. A box with a chocolate easter egg (it was shattered in thousand pieces) and a couple of designer chocolates (more about them in a future post), as well as two miniatures of some of Bowmore's recent releases

1. Bowmore small batch 40%
Bourbon Cask Matured

The first thing I note is the low ABV and the print "Mit Farbstoff/Farven justeret med karamel". According to german and danish law, whisky and other spirits has to be labeled if any e150 (caramel colouring) has been added.

From the colour it doesnt look like much e150 have been added, unless the whisky was very pale from the cask. The colour is best described as light golden. I seldom refer to the colour of the whisky when blogging, but here is an exception

The peat is quite present in this. It's an archetype Bowmore, with a lot of floral notes mixed in tropical sweet fruits, resulting in a sweetish whisky,  and the low ABV makes this very easy drinking

Quite oily for the low ABV and a hint of vanilla in the background. The floral part of this Bowmore is quite present, much more than in recent independent bottlings I have tried, and just a bit too much for my taste

rating 81/100

No batch number on this miniature, but the letters L4141 is printed on the side which probably refers to something

2. Bowmore Darkest 15yo 43%
Sherry Cask finished

Also labeled with colouring warnings, but again, the colour is much the expected. My main problem with colouring whisky is when colour and taste doesn't much (the blue ketchup effect), and that is not the case with any of these two

The nose of this is very pleasant. I am very sulphur sensitive and whenever I get a sherried whisky which is untainted, I get a happy smile on my face. The nose is classical pure sherry mixed with peat. On the palate I get a bit of rubber, just the faintest. At this level I consider the rubber a benefit to a whisky, it's quite delicious. It also add some texture or mouthfeel to the whisky. This is very complex, with dried fruits, licorise and peat partying around my palate

Very good. A lot better than the Devil's Cask in my opinion, which also were a recent sherried Bowmore, which seemed to be very popular with everybody else but me.

rating 88/100

Leave this in the glass for a short bit, and it evovles into something even better. It gets more balanced, loose some bitterness and gains some nice spices. Very well done Bowmore

7 whiskies to taste before you die

A lot of the lists I see floating around the internet, books etc., "best this", "try that"," read now", "die later" seems quite random and made by people who just shouldn't have made a list. My problem is usually not what is NOT on the list, but what's on it!

I decided to make some lists for others to disagree with. Here's the first!

7 whiskies to try before you die
and a few extra recommendations

This is the real thing. You ain't gonna turn around in your grave if you miss out on Jim Beam Black whatever Ian Buxton says

The seven whiskies is more a catagory or groups of bottlings, than a specific bottling. 3 specific great whiskies to search for is mentioned below though.

1. Ardbeg from the 70's
Around the turn of the millenium there was quite a big stock of old Ardbeg lying in their warehouse. This was before Ardbeg was the talk of the town and before Ardbeg was one of the most popular malt whiskies out there. So a lot of quite old Ardbeg was bottled, a lot cheaper than today. The best were those distilled in the 70's, early 70's particulary.

Here's a few legendary bottlings: Lord of the Isles, Ardbeg Provenance, Old Malt Cask did a range of bottlings, like the Ardbeggeddon for the PLOWED society and the distillery itself did a range of single casks.

2. Brora
Short version: Clynelish distillery was "copied" in the late 60s and the owners renamed the original version Brora, and kept the name Clynelish for the new modern distillery next door. Brora, the original Clynelish, was closed in 1983.

In the early 70's, while Caol Ila was being modernised by DCL (now Diageo), they used Brora to produce some peated whisky for extra supply. While Clynelish and Brora are similar, but still different whiskies, they differ a lot in this period, when one was peated and the other not. Personally I found Brora around 1972 to be the most peated. Brorageddon from the PLOWED society and OB 30yo 2002 are my two favourites, but I sure wished I bought more of this, but who doesn't ?

3. Bowmore from 60's
Bowmore from the 60's is legendary. It's not just the super-expensive Black Bowmore, White Bowmore and Gold Bowmore, but also Bowmore like the 1964-1979 Bicentenary:  http://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies.php?merkid=4&whiskyid=7299

Most people, but not all, agree that something went wrong with Bowmore in the late 70's up to mid 90s, particular in the 80s, but they seem to be back on the very right track now. I wonder if they dare to make a bottling called "Phoenix" one day!

4. Caperdonich 1972
Duncan Taylor was essentially based on a huge stock of "forgotten" casks. Amongst them were quite a large amount of Caperdonich casks filled in 1972. These were bottled more or less one by one over a period of around a decade. From being a distillery that was regarded as a nothing, Caperdonich became one of the recent legends in the world of whisky. It's not just Caperdonich 72 that is great whisky, aged Caperdonich in general is marvelous. There just happened to be a lot more from 72 around than other vintages. Caperdonich was mothballed in 2002 and is demolished today.

5. Stitzel-Weller
Stitzel-Weller was closed in 92 and is arguably the most legenday bourbon distillery. The blame or cause for this is probably the bottles released as Pappy van Winkle. Pappy van Winkle is a brand, and as the stock of old Stitzel-Weller is dissappearing the whiskey is replaced by similar aged whiskey from other distilleries. It looks like there is no problem keeping the quality up, basically telling us that the recipe combined with carefully cherrypicked barrels is the key, not the distillery itself. But the legacy is there, and it is there for a reason. Look out for older bottlings of Pappy van Winkle 15 and 20 and Jefferson Presidential Select labeled as Stitzel-Weller. The original brand from Stitzel-Weller was Old Fitzgerald (now owned by Heaven Hill) I hope I one day will be able to try bottlings like Very Old Fitzgerald, Very Xtra Old Fitzgerald and Very Very Old Fitzgerald from Stitzel-Weller. And hey, rumours says Stitzel-Weller will reopen!


6. A. H. Hirsch
A. H. Hirsch is a range of bottlings from a distillery in Pennsylvania, all distilled within the same week in 1974 and most of it dumped from the barrels in 1990 as 16yo. I recommend that you read Chuck Cowdery's book "The best bourbon you'll never taste" for further info.

7. Rosebank
To me Rosebank is THE legendary lowlander. Closed in the 90's. Triple or 2½ times distilled (or both, people are arguing about this). When people are talking about the Lowland catagory and how it's supposed to taste, they basically talk about how Rosebank tastes. Or did taste. The rest of the Lowland is more or less as different as the rest of Scotland without being peated.

If you think Old Benriach, Port Ellen, Convalmore, Lochside, St. Magdelene and Old Glenglassaugh should have been on the list, I can't really disagree

Should this rare rye have been on the list. I think so

You don't have to go way back in time to find spectular AND affordable whisky.

SMWS 35.71 "like a hug from your mom", released 2012

Benromach 55yo.

I wish I had a bottle

(Photo stolen from TWE)

Martin Mills. Best bourbon I ever tasted. Who wants to sell me a bottle ?

Next list will be: Things to do in Edinburgh, especially  if you like whisky!

Distilleries improved

We all have our favourite distilleries, well most of us I guess. We also have some distilleries we have some problem getting along with. Well I do...or did

Things change. A distillery might change their production, or the company owning them might change their bottling style, that can be a change in age, a new bottling range, alcoholpercentage, they might drop chillfiltering their whiskies, or just vat different types of casks together. And my palate changes as well. First time someone gave me a Laphroaig I thought it was the worst thing I ever tasted..that opinion changed fast.

Here's a list of some whiskies which I used to find very bad, just bad, or just plain boring. Bad whisky is often due to some kind of fault in the production, boring whisky can be caused by bottling from casks thats too plain, that is casks that haven't given as much to the whisky as they should, maybe they have been used too many times.

1. Bowmore
Bowmore bottles some fantastic stuff, but in the eighties, something went wrong at the distillery. A lot of bottlings from this era is too soapy and too floral. Any soap is too soapy. These flaws goes for both OB's (The distillery's own bottlings) and IB's (Independant bottlings). This became so bad, a PLOWED Bowmore fan coined the tasting note FWP : French Whore Perfume to describe his experiences with Bowmore. Employess associated with the distillery usually denied this, and some even took offense (You're just a of self-styled connoisseurs was a reply to above when he questioned the distillery, self-styled whisky connoisseurs is now the offficial PLOWED logo)
Well Bowmore isn't like that anymore. I did avoid them for something like a 5 year period, but visiting them in 2007 and trying a few of their drams made me realise that this distillery was worthy again. Avoid anything disitilled before 1994 and after 1979 just to be safe :-)
It must be a company flaw as I have experienced the same flaws in Glen Garioch occasionally and Auchentoshan rarely. Visiting Auchentoshan in 2007 I mentioned this to one of their staff and it was quite entertaining watching this poor lad pretending he never heard about it before
Anyhoo, its 3 great distilleries that has overcome these troubles

2. Isle of Jura
I went to Islay in 2001 and at a bar I ordered the 10, 16 and 21 if my memory is correct. They all tasted of sour socks to me, really really bad. I'd actually revisited these bottlings and other Juras occasionally, the 10 at Fringe 2009 and it was still the same. I must have been complaining too much about Jura, to such an extent, that several of my friends has caught me praising Jura's when serving them blind to me, much to the fun of the donator. So therre is good Jura around. I've tried good Jura at SMWS (better than good actually, it was brilliant). At the entrance to a whiskyfair in Hadsten, Denmark 2009, the welcome dram was a 10yo Jura from Chieftain's, another brilliant bottling. Recently the distillery has changed their line, added some peated malts to their vattings etc.. I like the Superstition and its on my to-do list to try their new bottlings, especially their boutique barrel series which have been praised to me by trusted whisky friends

3. Tobermory/Ledaig
The products from this distillery gave me similar troubles as Jura. Sour socks whisky. I tried some awesome old bottlings, but the general production just seemed bad from one end to the other. Well that didn't stop me visiting the distillery last year. Mull is a fantastic Island and Tobermory (the town) is one of the most picturesque villages in Scotland. At the distillery I had the pleasure of getting spotted by the guide showing us around. Two friends and I, who was on the tour, and never asked a question still got pulled aside from the rest of the group when we enjoyed our compulsary dram after the tour and offered a few more. Somehow we looked like people who like whisky :-)
We had the pleasure, and it WAS a great pleasure, to try their new Ledaig and new Tobermory, both bottled at 46.3%. Nothing wrong with any of these, which was a bit of surprise to me. I gently commented that this was a lot better than what I remembered coming out from the distillery. The guide straight away admitted that the quality of their whiskies had improved and that it used to be feinty. No denials here
Well - there's another distillery for you all to go out and try again.
The same Company also relaunched Deanston at 46.3%. I didn't find the old version of Deanston flawed, just pretty boring. The new version is a lot better

5 years ago I went through a few whiskybooks, magazines and online blogs and made a comparison of ratings of standard bottlings and took an average. The result can be seen here :

http://www.whiskynyt.dk/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=745

The post is in danish, but download the xls-document for the result, here's a key to the columns :
1st column is Jim Murray's Bible 
2nd column is MM Matrix 
3rd column is Whisky Magazine, recalculated 
4th colum is  Jacksons Companion
5th column is an average


As you can see Deanston is last. That wouldn't be the case with bottling available today 


4. Tomatin, Balblair, BenRiach, Imperial and others


Disitilleries can reinvent themselves or get some new owners that cares a bit more about the bottlings coming out. Or an independant bottler might put a distillery on the map

First time I tried the above malts it was something I drank and forgot about 5 seconds later. The distillery bottlings weren't anything worth remembering


Well Tomatin decided to revat their 12, 15 and 18 and going 46 on the last two. Well what a pleasant surprise. Going straight from below average to one of the best OB ranges available

My collection of 18yo Tomatins. Old and new OB's to the left

Balblair relaunched their malts as vintages around 2006 and what an improvement. Another great set of OB's


BenRiach had a change of owners. Billy Walker has been putting out one excellent bottling after the other ever since (except the Birnie Moss..but that wasn't even released as a BenRiach so I suspect they didn't fancy it that much themselves either)


Imperial. Anyone ever paid any notice to this ?. Well, Duncan Taylor did. They hoped they could purchase the distillery, which failed, but the sale was so close to coming through, they actually stocked up on a lot of Imperial Casks. And a lot of the stuff they bottled from Imperial the last couple of years has been awesome. 2nd distillery Duncan Taylor put on the map for me, first was Caperdonich.


5. Arran
Arran bottles a lot and they did so since their malt was 3 years old. Most of this wasn't very good in my opinion. A lot of the terribleness has been hidden by finishes, well, in my case, as I quite often don't like the winery taste of finishes it has been double faulted. I know others liked this, but whisky won't get worse than the Arran Champagne finish.

Arran Peacock and Arran Rowan Tree

Well things are changing. Arran is a young distillery, and some distilleries just need some years in casks before they start to work. As Arran has started bottling whisky 12years and older, it is the ugly duckling turning into a swan peacock. Recent bottlings has been very good. The 12yo OB is a huge huge improvement to the 10yo (look out for a 14yo coming out soon). As well as some excellent single cask bottlings, both from ex-sherry and ex-bourbon casks I do regard The Arran Peacock as one of the best bottlings of whisky ever bottled in it's catagory (Single Malt, several casks - around 12yo)


So, it might be time to retry some of the distilleries you abandoned years ago ?