Danish Whisky Blog Awards 2014

Distillery of the Year

Deanston

Bung hole sniffer spotted at Deanston

The last 3 or 4 times I have visited Scotland, Deanston Distillery has been the most popular distillery in my groups when it comes to amount of bottles purchased. It's a distillery not on the radar of most entusiasts and that's a shame

The distillery itself is very interesting to visit as it is quite different to other distilleries. The buildings used to host a cotton mill, but was rebuilt into a distillery in 1966. The distillery also produces it's own power. It's a waterturbine where water from the river Teith is giving it's powerful contribution to the whisky lovers

Beside the interesting tour, the distillery buildings, which may not qualify as the most pretty in Scotland is situated in a very beautiful spot on the river bank. They do have bottle your own whisky available and usually there is a special bottling available as well if you are lucky. It may be a festival bottling or the latest batch of Deanston Toasted Oak. Especially the Toasted Oak has been a major hit in our group. Beide a range of tours, there is a shop and nice cafe. The only thing I miss on the tour is the guide opening a cask and giving us a wee taster

Independent Bottler of the Year

Smooth Ambler


Smooth Ambler is a distillery in east West Virginia. It is very limited what they have bottled from their own production still. When it comes to whisky that is. But until they are having aged stock from their own distillery they have set up a very succesful independent bottling range called Smooth Ambler Old Scout. Beside being totally open about this as sourced whisky (which not everyone sourcing whisky in the states is) they also manage to bottle a range of excellent and well vatted bourbon and ryes. And these are available in Denmark as well. The whisky is sourced from the distillery in Indiana that someone need to name. But it is usually referred to as MGP or LDI. Some of the whisky is also originating from Four Roses, probably barrels left by Seagram's in Indiana. This is the whisky of today that people will regret not have bought in five years. Unless you bought some off course

Bottling of the Year

SMWS 39.97 
23yo distilled 1990 45.7%

My whisky of the year. It has to be something good, I purchased a bottle and it have to be bottled in 2014 (or late 2013). At least it has to be something I got my hands on in 2014.

This is from Linkwood

The nose is delicate and fruity. I am talking apple and pears here. It's one of those whiskies where you can nose and dream away forever. The whisky itself is quite woody, maybe too much for some but I like this profile. It's a little bit weird whisky, it's delicate on the first taste but woody on the finish.  The whisky changes like a snap when I drink it. 

Easydrinking, complex, and my impression from when I first tasted this, was that this tasted like good whisky used to taste before the (whisky)world went crazy.. This has been the highest scoring whisky from all over blind tasting runs we have done (and that made it to a blog post, not all did)

Score 90/100

Tasting of the year

Cadenhead tasting at the Malts of Campbeltown whiskyfestival.
With Mark Watt and Grant Macpherson

In 2014 I went to the festival in Campbeltown. That was a very positive surprise. There were tours, tasting and events covering all three Campbeltown distilleries and also tasting and warehouse-tours with Cadenheads. My two favourite tastings were the Cadenheads warehouse tasting and the Cadenhead tasting. The Cadenhead tasting was presented by Grant Macpherson and Mark Watt in a very good shape. The first dram up was a blind, which caught quite a few. It was the delicious bourbon from Heaven Hill. Aged for 17 years and in Scotland since 2015. It was a cask sample but it was bottled just a couple of months later. In the tasting were a range of Cadenhead bottlings, including the very good Tomatin 1979 35yo. The highlight was a cask of 25yo Rosebank, rolled into the room (It was held in the maltings room) and sampled straight from the cask. And anyone who wished could purchase a bottle, which was drawn with a valinch straight into a your bottle on the spot. Tastings like this, or a festival like this is what it still makes it worth for me coming back to Scotland

5 distilleries worth visiting you might not have thought of

Visiting Distilleries...

It's a hobby of mine. I've been around 130 or so and all the visits have been fun. That's how it is with hobbies. Others say, have you seen one then you have seen them all. Obviously I don't agree :-)

Some distilleries are known for their nice visitor centres, others for great tours or fantastic scenery. When people recommend distilleries to visit it is very often the same names that pop up. And I don't disagree.

But here is five distilleries that I found particular interesting and they are not mentionend that often compared to others. So if you have seen a lot or a few distilleries, here is 5 that might have something to offer.


1. Four Roses Warehouses

Four Roses warehouses and Four Roses distillery are located 50 miles apart. The distillery offer two different tours, the warehouse tour needs an appointment first

It's called the Warehouse and Bottling facility. Four Roses Warehouses are unusual for Kentucky as they are single story warehouses. Opposed to the "standard" multi story warehouses. There is around 20 warehouses and a bottling facility on the site. You get inside one or two of the warehouses and then you get to the bottling facility where barrels are emptied, vatted and then bottled. The day we visitied they were doing single barrels. It's a great operation to watch and first hand see the barrels dumped.

Getting ready to empty this

2. Indian Creek Distillery

Indian Creek distillery is a revival of a distillery that has been silent since 1920. It was a smaller farm distillery that was forced to close when prohibition hit in 1920. The distillery was founded by Elias Staley around 1826 and run for almost a century until 1920 (with a break or two). Now 6th generation on the Staley farm, Melissa and Joe Duer has reinstalled the old original stills in the original setup and has started producing whiskey again. Using original recipe involving rye, barley, corn and hops and hickory wood for maturation (or partly) this distillery is probably so traditional that modern understanding and rules of whiskey has surpassed them in the century that has passed. It's a very nice place to visit and the Duer's has done a great job resurrecting this distillery, and visiting is a bit like going back in history.

http://www.staleymillfarmanddistillery.com/distillery.htm

Staley farm stills

3. Deanston

If you have visited distilleries in Scotland and want to see a distillery that is a bit different than the rest I recommend Deanston near Doune Castle. It's an old cotton mill that after 180 years was transformed into a distillery in the 60's. It is beautifully located on the bank of the river Teith. The whole distillery is located inside one building which is somewhat unusual as warehouses are normally set aside the rest of the distillery. The place has an interesting story and it's one of my favourite tours. After the tours there is a chance to taste the great whisky from the distillery. The destillery is powered by it's own water turbines, that produces enough power to also supply the nearby village with power (or used to). The giant turbines is an unusual sight for a whisky tourists. When "The Danish Drinking Team" group of 8, visited Scotland and around 10-12 distilleries in May this year, Deanston that was most popular amongst the bottle shoppers amongst us!

Deanston Still Room

4. Tomatin

An interesting distillery to visit in the scottish Highland. It used to be biggest distillery in Scotland, but the production has been scaled down to around 50% of what it once was. It used to run two mashtuns, and now the redundant mashtun has become a visitor attraction in itself. The distillery itself is a small village, quite isolated up in the Highlands between Inverness and Speyside, just on the A9. When entering through the narrow tunnel under the railway, you are met by giant warehouses reminding me of  Kentucky, if it wasn't for the heather highland surroundings. The place also have a visitor centre and bottle your own facility

Climb inside a mashtun at Tomatin

4. Yoichi

I covered my recent visit to Yoichi in another blog post here. This is exactly how it should be to visit a distillery. Everything was in japanese though, but maybe I should have learned that before I went :-)

Tasting Bar Yoichi Distillery

Next list will be: 7 of my favourite whiskybooks

Recent bottlings - Arran Westie and Deanston 12yo

1. Arran Westie 46%

This is the third icons of Arran bottling, following the 1996 Peacock (one of my favourite whiskies) and 1997 Rowan Tree. Drawn from 22 ex-sherry hogsheads, and named after the distillery manager James McTagger's dog Ruaraidh

Nose: Heatherhoney

Palate : Heatherhoney, butterscotch, a creamy slight bitter nuttyness, sweet

Finish : Medium and sweet

Rating 83

Comments: These icons of Arran's are very affordable good whisky

2. Deanston 12yo 46.3%

Nose : Vanilla

Palate: Spicy, nutty, tastes a lot older than 12yo. The woodspices sticks on your backpalate and gives this a woody spicy finish as if this was a far older whisky. Very intense in its flavours.

Finish: Medium-long

Comments: This is surprisingly good for a 12yo standard bottling. My favourite of the new Burn Stewarts. I hope they can keep up this quality. Did they put something in this mini ? :-). Wow

Rating 87

My bang for the bucks whiskies

If you have been into whisky for a bit and think you are well acquainted with the front row at your local supermarket and ready to venture into new territories, things can be a bit of a jungle. The amount of bottlings out there these days is high. Wonderfully high. There's more to the world of whisky than top brands like Glenfiddich, Highland  Park, Glenlivet and Macallan.Nothing wrong with those I will say before going on.

Amongst bloggers and in forums it's always a reoccuring subject to name cheap whiskies, which is looked upon as great value for money. Who isn't interested in good deal ?

Here's MY list of a set of whiskies, which might not be the cheapest whiskies around, but I think you won't get better value for money than these. I don't think it's a coincidince that 9/10 of these are bottled at 46+ ABV, as my personal preference is for unchillfiltered, not watered down whiskies

Deanston 12yo, 46.3%
The new revatted, unchillfiltered version of Deanston, and what a comeback. Creamy, delicious single malt. Available for less than 30£

Deanston mini

Old Pulteney WK499
Available in selected airports World of Whiskies shops...Heathrow and Edinburgh from personal experience. I have seen this at 50£ for 2 1liter bottlings making this the best deal in whisky I have ever seen. It's a NAS Old Pulteney cask strength in a typical style of the distillery. Seaside vanilla and mint!

Balvenie 15yo Single Barrel 47.8%
Cask variation will of course be there, but these are typical delicious ex-bourbon vanilla whisky. Yum Yum. Not more than fortysomething quids usually

Tomatin 18yo 46%
Another solid comeback and a living proof that whisky at 46% just is better. One of my favourites at the whisky fringe 2009

Amrut Fusion 50%
First time I got this blind I guessed it as 20+ year old lightly peated speysider. Nuff said

Back label of Amrut, bottle almost gone

Glenburgie 10yo Gordon and MacPhail 40%
Sometimes seen at below 20£ on offer in UK, and below 300Dkr as standard price in Denmark, this is a delicious continous bottling from Gordon and MacPhails. It has got special touch that I often find in G and M sherry casked whiskies

Bladnoch Forum Bottlings
Apart from their own whisky, Raymond bottles a big selection of other distilleries. Bladnoch Forum bottlings is probably the greatest value for money whiskies around! Even includes Bladnoch whisky itself now and again.

Bladnoch Forum Bottling example : Cambus Grain 

Lagavulin 12yo Cask Strength
Bottled at cask strength and 12yo this is one of my favourite Islays. 44£ in Edinburgh airport

Tweeddale blend 46%/ Black Bull 12yo
A pair of excellent delicious blends and delightful newcomers to the whiskymarket. And it's great to see a blend that's not watered down to 40%. Less than 30£

Aberlour A'bunadh
Legendary small batch NAS cask strength fullsherried whiskies. Beware, there can be some batch variations

And here is one that you might have missed.

Arran Peacock
This was out 1½ year ago and sold out most places. Still available at Juul's in Copenhagen. Voted whisky of the year 2009 by whiskywhiskywhisky.com. One of my favourite whiskies