SMWS Festival bottlings 2019

Here is my review of 5 SMWS festival bottlings.

A festival in front of my laptop

SMWS 93.109 - Let Them Eat Hake

8yo 59.7%

Cask filled 1 April 2010 - 1st fill barrel ex-bourbon

(Peated)

SMWS, Scotch Malt Whisky Society, is an independent bottler that uses number codes to identify distillery and cask. 93.109 is cask number 109 bottled from their distillery number 93. Distillery number 93 is Glen Scotia

This was bottled for the Campbeltown Malts Festival, which takes place from 22-24 May

The nose is warm and welcoming. Sweet and meaty with medium fruity touch of peat.

This whisky is extremely oily the the extend it feels like actual drinking oil. It's dominated by a touch of both peat and salt, with warm almost olive oil flavour. No, not really, but the viscosity gives me that association. Later comes  a little meaty-ness and the finish is medium with some vanilla.

Rating 88/100

SMWS 10.169 - Obsidian Salmagundi

9yo 60.6%

Cask filled 22 October 2008 - 1st fill hogshead ex-oloroso

(Oily & Coastal)

This is the 169th cask bottled from Bunnahabhain, SMWS distillery number 10

SMWS operates with 12 colour coded flavour profiles. I have added them in paranthesis.You can also see the colour codes on the bottles on the bottles. The vertical line and age statement has a dark blue-green colour. This colour is the catagory "Oily and Coastal"
Colour coded flavour profiles is probably a good idea, but for me personally I have a hard time setting up a new system to box my whisky into it. I allready have a system and it's hard to learn old dogs new tricks.

This was bottled for the Islay Festival, Feis Ile, which takes place from 24th May to 1st June

The nose is dominated by the oloroso sherry notes and some sweet wet wood notes, likes the smell of just unbunged casks. Whisky does smell different from a cask than a bottle.

This is a sweet,  a little sharp, sherry dominated flavour. It's not a sherry monster, but one of those delicate woodforward sherry whiskies. As I often find in Bunnahabhain, the spirit have quite some maltiness

The finish is long and this whisky remninds me of drinking straighth from the cask

Rating 88/100

SMWS 7.216 - Champagne and Crepes Suzette

14yo 58.9%

Cask filled 17 November 2003 - 1st fill ex-bourbon 

(Juicy, Oak & Vanilla) 

Beside the number codes, each bottle also carries a name for the whisky. This whisky has the name "Champagne and Crepes Suzette". Let's see how it fares. I really dislike Champagne, but I love Crepes Suzettes. Number 7 is Longmorn from Speyside and this was bottled for the Spirit of Speyside festival which happened in the beginning of May

The nose is very dominant on vanilla. Vanilla whisky. Tasting it, I immidiately get a lighter and less oily whisky compared to the other ex-bourbon, the 93. It's a bit simple and one dimensional, it's good that that one side is vanilla. The only other thing I can find is a very faint soapy note

The finish is medium and doesn't reallt add much to this whisky

Rating 84/100

SMWS 30.106 - Succulent, Scintillating, Substantial

21yo 57.2%

Cask filled 17 April 1997 - 2nd fill butt ex-PX

(Deep, Rich & Dried Fruits)

SMWS is an independent bottler and you need to be a member to get access to their bottlings. They were founded in Edinburgh and have two locations in Edinburgh and one in London. Beside that they have chapters and partnership bars all over the world. I can sometimes be seen helping pouring craft beers at the one in my hometown. "Mig & Ølsnedkeren" in Aarhus, Denmark

Number 30 is Glenrothes. This was also bottled for the Spirit of Speyside festival

The nose is a classic sherry bomb. I am very sulphur sensitive, but I have to really dig into this to find the faintest hint of rubber. Or maybe not. There is also a faint hint of balsamic vinegar. 

The palate is huge sherry bomb, with a lot of licorise. Add a faint hint of rubber and balsamic vinegar. It's super dry as some dark sherry bombs but more on the fruity side. 

The finish is rather long and spicy

I am probably not the biggest fan of heavily sherried whiskies but I can drink this one. If you are a sherry whisky fan I suggest you check this out. if you can find it

 Rating 87/100

SMWS 29.261 - An Evil Dutch Dentist's Dram

21 yo 50.3%

Cask filled 1st fill hogshead ex-oloroso

(Old & Dignified)

Being a member in Denmark we have these great opportunities every 2nd month to taste all the new bottlings (usually around 14-16 bottles) at outturn casual days events set in various bars around Denmark. It's always good to try a whisky before you buy.

Distillery number 29 is Laphroaig. And this Laphroaig is also a Feis Ile bottling

The nose is sweet, sherrried and very peaty

On the palate I get eucalyptus, hint of red berries and loads of peat and it's quite light on the viscosity surprisingly. 

The finish is long with medicinal notes

Rating 88/100

You can find a decoding of the SMWS distillery codes here:

http://www.whiskynyt.dk/index.php/whisky-faq?id=1626

Danish Whisky Blog awards 2013

Distillery of the Year

Four Roses

Four Roses is one of the few distilleries that just do it right. An almost endless set of releases of single barrels and small batch bourbons in various price ranges. Apart from their standard yellow label bourbon, they have an ongoing set of cheap single barrels that is not much older than the barrels they use for the yellow label. They also have more expensive, but still very affordable single barrels, some of which have been in the barrel for longer than 15 years. Everything is not just single barrel, Four Roses have their "Small Batch" range, which, as the name implies, is a vatting of of barrels. The speciel edition of this, "Small Batch Limited Edition" has been named the favourite bourbon the last couple of years by several of my bourbon entusiast friends. An eyeopenener for me in 2013 was visiting the danish bourbon/cocktail bar Salon 39 in Copenhagen, which makes a fantastic Old Fashioned based on Four Roses Single Barrel Bourbon

Here is my review of one of their cheap single barrels:

Four Roses Single Barrel 50%
Warehouse QN, Barrel 36-3T

Nose: Fantastic balanced bourbon nose, where the sweet corn and rye parts are very well integrated, with a lot of spice, archetype bourbon floor varnish lacqeur,

Palate : Very creamy, vanilla, rye and spicy all at once. Great oomph factor and a bit of wood, quite intense on the wood and rye and the creamyness is profound. The youth of this is showing with a faint alcohol burn

Finish : medium and creamy

A somewhat simple, but very delicious bourbon

Rating 85/100

Unfortunately the european releases don't have the recipe information as the US releases have. My guess for this would be OBSV. When you look at the price for these single barrels, it's one of the best bargains in the big world of great whisk(e)y.

Independent Bottler of the Year

Cadenhead

Cadenhead has totally revamped their line up here in 2013. The line up is turning toward small batch bottlings of single malts and a series that is called "Creations", which is blends, small batch blands that is. The small batch bottlings is actually very small batches of 2-4 casks. So far I have tasted several really great malts Caperdonich 1977, Highland Park 1988, Glenlivet 1970, Tomatin 1978 and a great Creations 20yo consisting of of 4 casks (Mortlach 1992 butt,  Bruichladdich 1993, Cameronbridge 1989 and Invergordon 1991 hogsheads)

So far I have liked everything in this range a lot, apart from a Clynelish that was too sulphury for me. If the new Master Blender of Cadenhead, Mark Watt, can keep up this quality I think we are all in for a lot of good treats in future

Caperdonich

Caperdonich 35yo 50.2%
Cadenhead Small Batch

Nose : heavy sherry, musty and earthy
Palate : Sweet, sherried, raisins, faint medicinal, quite robust and earthy
Finish: Long, and here the oak spicyness hits with a touch of vanilla

Rating 90/100

It's a very lively whisky, very intense and powerful

Bottling of the Year

SMWS 35.71

Like a hug from your mum 47.7%

40yo Distilled 11th October 1971

To be honest this was actually bottled late in 2012, but came to my attention in the summer of 2013 and was one of the 2 best whiskies I had in 2013, the other being Martin Mills which was botled in 1999. SMWS is right now sitting on a range of splendid casks of their distillery # 35, and this is just one of three 35's I purchased in 2013. If you are looking for a whisky and haven't really decided, try one of the SMWS 35's!. Expect a review early in 2014 of 35.71 

Tasting of the Year

Diageo Tasting with Donald Colville, Spirit of Speyside

There is various ways to set up a tasting at a whisky festival, where you know that most of the people have tasted a lot of whisky. I think Donald Colville nailed it here and brought us guests a nice tastings. It was a perfect mix of what Diageo has bottled, past, present and also in the future

The setup was

Inchgower 1976 Rare Malts Selection 27yo 55.6%
Talisker Port Ruighe 45.8%
Caol Ila Feis Ile 2012 60.40%
Cragganmore 21yo 56%
Mortlach SoS Festival Bottling 48%
Talisker Storm 45.8%

A good mix of brand new releases and rare bottlings is what makes coming to Scotland and doing festivals worth it.

Spirit of Speyside 2013 - part 4

This is a holiday report

Monday morning our group took a detour out of Speyside and visited Tomatin Distillery. We were welcomed by distillery genereral manager Graham Eunson, who took us around the distillery. 

Tomatin might not be the most beautiful distillery in Scotland, but it has one of the most interesting tours. The giant warehouses when you enter the distillery grounds under the too small railway-bridge is almost breathtaking. The distillery has a feature I haven't seen in any other distillery. Back in the 70's, Tomatin had 23 stills and 2 mash-tuns, and were more like a twin distillery, two almost identical distilleries in the same building. After 1980 some of the stills were cut down and one of the mashtuns became redundant. It is now set up for display for people taking tours. There is a big hole in the side so you can actually climb inside to touch and see how a mashtun is laid out and works

Climb inside a mashtun at Tomatin

Tomatin Spirit Still

The stills at Tomatin has a peculiar setup. The wash and the beer stills are identical. The spirit safe is placed beneath the stills and the top of the stills are out of sight. So no windows on the washstills as you can't see them from the spirit safe anyway. From below, the stillman can ring a bell-like string to check the sound of the washstills and the corresponding head of the boiling wash.

Tomatin also features a small cooperage for repairing casks.

Casks ready to be filled

After the tour we had a tasting of the Tomatin core range, one of the strongest core ranges in the industry. Graham told us that it was the 18yo that convinced him to move to Tomatin. I totally agree, the 18yo was the eye openener for me as well. A bottle that draw my attention to this distillery. We had a wee taste of the new Legacy, which is a NAS Tomatin. It is a mix of ex-bourbon and virgin oak matured Tomatin. This is a very good complement to the core range. We also had a cask sample of a 6yo virgin oak matured Tomatin. Give me some of that please! That was delicious. Fresh, crispy, vanilla and minty

Thanks to Jennifer from Tomatin for arranging the tour and to Graham for taking the time to show us around. 

After the tour we drove back to Speyside, having lunch in Muckrach Lodge near Dulnain Bridge on the way, it's a fantastic restaurant and absolutely worth a big detour.

Muckrach

Best lambchops I had in my life

Returning to Dufftown we had a couple of tasting left. The two tastings I had the biggest expectations for on the whole festival. And I wasn't dissapointed. These two tastings are essentials of why it's worth coming to Dufftown and Spirit of Speyside. The first tasting was presented by Donald Colville, Diageo's Global Brand Ambassador who brought some special treats for us. Donald, being a participator himself for many years, new enough about the festival to satisfy his customers for sure.

Mortlach SoS 2013 bottling

Donald served the following for us

Mortlach SoS 2013 festival bottling

Cragganmore 21yo 2010

Inchgower Rare Malt 27yo 1976

Talisker Storm

Talisker Port Ruighe

Caol Ila Feis Ile 2010

Way to go! Donald, 3 very new releases and 3 hard to find limited releases.

The Danish Drinking Team are tough to beat as we allready had a sample of the Inchgower in our cottage :-)

After this we had a wee break, which as usual was spent in the Royal Oak (They ran out of beer!).

The next tasting was a world premier, or something like that, of the new Cadenhead range. Cadenhead are going back to dumpy bottles and everybody knows that dumpy Cadenheads taste really good so I think it's a very clever decisison...

The tasting was presented by Mark Watt, who in an earlier life had hosted tastings for another company that always were among my favourite events. I wasn't dissapointed this year. From what we tasted the excellent Cadenhead range is getting even better

Look out for:

Craigellachie 1994

Camenronbridge 1989

Creations 20yo Blend 

Glenlivet-Minmore 1970 (Why not Glenlivet-glenlivet ?)

Highland Park 1988

Bowmore 1998

After this we went to the dram party at the Whiskyshop Dufftown which is the perfect end to a great festival, it's a mini fair with last chances for some purchases, last chance to taste some whisky and talk to the other festival goers, at lot of usual suspects as always.

Sleepy tuesday morning in Dufftown

  

Spirit of Speyside 2013 - part 3

This is a holiday report

Sunday morning the weather was turning from winter into spring and almost summer. We had booked an event with Strathisla Distillery called "straight from the cask", which consisted of an in-depth tour followed by a tasting of 6 different expressions of their Cask Strength Editions.

The event started in Dufftown with a ride with the Dufftown-Keith Railway. It mainly runs in the summer, during weekends and is staffed totally by volunteers. It is like ridding a train 50 years ago I reckon.

In about the first two minutes the train passes 4 distilleries, Balvenie, Glenfiddich, Parkmore and Glendullan, with a chance of a glimpse of both Convalmore and Kininvie as well, if you know where to look. As you enter Keith, the train passes right next to Strathmill and the Keith station is just beside Strathisla and Glen Keith.

The ride is a scenic tour through some of the more soft and farmed, but hilly areas of Speyside

Strathmill

Arriving at the distillery we were greeted by our guide of the day, Tony, who toured us through the distillery with a good knowledge of Strathisla, Chivas Bros and also whisky in general.

Strathisla

Strathisla is amongst the most picturesque distilleries in Scotland, both inside and outside, with everything cramped into small spaces. This results of a very labyrinthic feeling when touring the place, but it is really just an A to B walk through the production area.

Feeling the temperature differences on the condenser

At the end of the tour we had our first dram. In the warehouse and appropiate it was the Strathisla Cask Strength Edition. This is from a series of cask strenth whiskies in 50cl bottles, all from Chivas Bros. distilleries. The price is competitive at around 40£ and the age is typical between 12 and 17 years old. Tastewise you get exactly what you hope for. 

This sight met us when we entered the tasting room

The menu consisted of 

Scapa 12yo batch SC 12006 55.1%

Glenburgie 14yo batch GB 14005 60.5%

Miltonduff 14yo batch MD 14003 48.3%

Glenlivet 17yo batch GL 17011 59.3%

Glenugie 30yo 1980 52.13%

My favourite of these tends to change from season to season. This time it was the Scapa and the Glenburgie. I bought a bottle of the Glenburgie.

I don't understand the lack of attention these bottlings gets in the whiskysphere. It's cask strength, the price is fair, and it's very good. Sometimes I feel whiskyfans are digging their own grave by mainly talking about the whiskies made and designed by marketing departments and prices accordingly. By the whiskysphere I mean blogs, forums, twitter, facebook etc.. Instead of whining over Chivas Bros. latest release from their marketing department (Alpha) why not praise bottlings like these. They were probably made for YOU in mind, while Alpha is not, to put things on an edge.

We had a little food break in front of the just reopened Glen Keith Distillery, before getting on the train back to Dufftown where our next event was taking place. During the whole festival, several times a day, the Whisky Shop Dufftown organised a series of events, concerts, tastings and fairs. We usually sign up for as many as possible of these. They are affordable, they are fun and easy to fit in a busy schedule. Tonight we had a tasting with Adelphi and a concert/whiskytasting with Robin Laing.

At the Adelphi tasting I decided to just put just "1-2 words" on each dram

Clynelish 23yo 52.1% Waxy, vanilla, citrus

Highland Park 26yo 47.0% Archtype HP

Longmorn 27yo 53.2% Creamy

Glenrothes 21yo 55.5% Citrus

Bunnahabhain 25yo 44.0%  Bunnahabhain like in the good old days

I liked them all, and would probably rate them around 86-89 in a more controlled setup.

After a few pints in the pub, I was late for the Robin Laing concert. A few funny stories and some scottish country music if you are into that kind of things. Not sure if I am. But there was also a whisky tasting of 6 whiskies served, all from travel retail. Not my favourite thing either. It's more about marketing than whisky and everything tends to be watered down to 40%

I remember liking a Dalmore and a Dufftown and really disliking a Highland Park Einar, which tasted like sewer to me. It was probably just me, Three stars of the whiskyworld I asked for 2nd opinion didn't agree with me. But still a bit surprising to have the two brands you least expected to be your favourites of the tasting.

The Royal Oak in Dufftown has really evolved the last years. The selection of whisky is big and for this festival they had real ale on the tap. First time I see real ale in Dufftown, and Cairngorms Sheepshagger was a really nice one as well.

Spirit of Speyside 2013 - part 2

This is a holiday report

Saturday morning we were up early for a drive up to the north coast of Speyside. Just outside of Speyside really, as our next destination was the ultimate tour of Glenglassaugh. We were greeted by our host of today, Ronnie Routledge. Ronnie has hosted several of Gordon and MacPhail's tastings I have been participating in, back in the good old days, when whisky was cheaper and also better as we all know :-)

Glenglassaugh

It was a quiet day at Glenglassaugh, and we had an informative and relaxed tour of the place, getting to see wee bit of corners and places you don't normally get around to on standard tours. 

Casks ready to be filled

The tour finished with a few samples of various casks in the warehouse. I usually have a dislike for redwine casked whiskies and finishes, but a californian red wine cask was a joy to taste. It could be because californian red wine is bolder, sweeter and more fullbodied than other red wines, which I find sour and acidic in flavour in comparison, which converts over to the whiskies that has been put in the casks. It's nice to be positively surprised sometimes. Glenglassaugh had a gap in production between 1986 and 2008, so the whisky they have, are either very young or very old. It's almost like a brand new distillery, with the luck of a few rare and very old casks sitting in the warehouse. Just a couple of weeks before our visit, the distillery was bought over by the group also owning Benriach and Glendronich. I doubt they can affect what's currently being bottled as there is not a lot to toy around with, and whatever owner they have, they have to be innovative with the young stuff to grap consumers attention. As I will tell you in a bit, the rare old stuff will sell itself

Here is a short review of what we tasted

1. Glenglassaugh Revival 46%

Revival is a very young Glenglassaugh finished for 6 months in 1st fill ex-oloroso

The nose instantly reveals a very young whisky. The newmake-ish young impression quickly fades away for some sweet woody spices, and the oloroso influence. The finish is a bit rough but still well balanced and ending with a sour touch very common for young spirits. Not bad for a whisky this young. Rating 77/100

2. Glenglassaugh Evolution 57.2%

Another young Glenglassaugh. This time matured in 1st fill ex-tennesee casks (George Dickel). One of things that distuinguishes Tennessee bourbons! is their high corn content (80%). It is very different to the Revival. I am met by an intense vanilla, malt, slight mint. The newmake is more present in this one, but its the nice clean crisp stuff you get straight from the spirit stuff, not the sour thing I associate with whisky that has been matured for a too short time. The finish is newmakey, malty with a hint of caramel and butterscotch and the toasted oak shines through very clearly. Rating 79/100

3. Glenglassaugh 26yo 46%

This is the youngest expression of the old stock. It replaced a 21yo which despite the same age statement had had quite some batch difference. From the few independent bottlings I have tased over the years, this is vefry classic Glenglassaugh. A fantastic nose of candy fruity armagnac apple/pear meets me. This kind of gentle flavour often found in older whiskies, is continued in the palate, where suddenly a punch of woodiness hits me. A very nice dram, maybe slight to woody in the finish. Rating 88/100

4. Glenglassaugh 37yo 58.9%, sample bought in visitor centre, thanks to Michael Bach for the taste!

Quite different from the former dram. More punch and more crisp and clean, with a vanillaed touch. Its actually very vanillaed. Sample is actually too small for a review, but this is not that serious a blog, just a diary :-). Rating 87/100

5. Glenglassaugh 30yo 43%. The label lies. The small sticker around says its actually a 37yo. In style this reminds of the 26yo. Gentle candy, apples and pears, very drinkable. This is like whisky from the old days, when I could actual afford bottles like this. Rating 88/100

6. Glenglassaugh 1967 40.4%. The flavour follows that of no 3 and 5. The age has added a lot of extra depth into this, but it is not woody at all. It bears the mythical flavours of very old well balanced whisky. It's more fullbodied, more spicy, but still similar to the younger versions. Not knowing anything, this could be a cask bought from Gordon and MacPhail, as it bears some similarity to what I have tasted from some of their old sherry casks. One of the best drams of the festival.  Rating 92/100

After this tasting we hurried to the Tamdhu open day. Instead of a set event, Tamdhu had made an open day, with tours starting every 15 minutes or so followed by a tasting. Beside the old station were tents and booth with food, ice, coffee, music, softdrinks and beer from Speyside Craft Brewery. Fantastic beer I think.

Music

The new owners of Tamdhu (Ian McCleod) has decided to bottle Tamdhu exclusively from sherry casks. They have released a new 10yo 40% and for this day they also had a special relaunch bottling, 1000 bottles filled at 46%, also 10yo. Beside these two whiskies, we also had two cask strength samples at the tasting (of which one was nice). I found the regular 10yo sulphured. Being oversensitive to sulphur sometimes I was happy I was not the first to mention this in our group. I liked the relaunch bottling, but didn't purchase it, as it was priced more than double what I would pay, and was clearly aimed for collectors and people with more money than sense, or for some unlucky bastards who just isn't aware of what is available out there. Of all the distilleries and shops we visited, this was probably the only place where my group of 8 didnt make any purchases during our 9 day visit, so I reckon Tamdhu are not doing things right. I often thought on my companions as mindless raiders more than regular shoppers this week. So not being able to sell anything at all was unusual. 

After the Tamdhu event, 4 of us went to whisky quiz organised by Chivas Bros. The quiz had around 25-30 participating teams. It was won by a tem of 3 dutch guys teamed together with the whiskycyclist. We ended a nice tied 2nd with a team from the Pot Still Glasgow. The end of the whiskyquiz was a tie-breaker followed by a sudden death, it was a little chaotic, where we didn't have a clue what was going on, until the winning team explained it to us in the Royal Oak in Dufftown :-)

The Danish Drinking Team

Spirit of Speyside 2013 - part 1

This is a holiday report!

Together with 7 friends, we had a group of 8 hardcore whiskyfans visiting this years festival - 7 danes and 1 american.

We based ourselves in Dufftown, where we stayed in a couple of farm cottages, Parkmore Cottages a couple of miles out of downtown Dufftown.

As we did in 2011, we started the festival thursday night with a little dram party, where we had invited a few people over. Teun and Dick, the Maltstock representatives and a couple of Canadian guys, Graeme and Dave, who are contributors to the Bladnoch Forum

Dramming at Parkmore

We started out with our first event friday, where I had signed up for a little bit more than I wished. The 6 hour event, which was advertised as two distillery visits, a lunch and a tasting + a smugglers walk, turned out to be 4 hours hill trekking up to the summit to Carn Daimh (570m), which was a little more than I thought. The weather turned out to be not very good, with rain, sleet, snow and wind.

Luckily the organisers decided to give the participants the choice the shorten the walk to "just" a couple of hours, which we gladly accepted.

We started out with a standard tour around Glenlivet distillery where we had a chance to see the new extension of the distillery

Glenlivets new extension

After our group had finished raiding the visitor centre shop, the rest of the hikers were anxious to start the hill trek. It was vet and windy, but after a couple of hours, which did indeed give us a few good views between the clouds, mist and fog we arrived at the top of Carn Daimh. Wet and dirty up to our knees. I was happy to be met by this sight !!

A dram at the summit, 15yo Speyside

After a short walk down, we took a ride with the Glenlivet Estate Rangers to Tomintoul, where a very nice lunch awaited us at the The Clockhouse Restaurant. This is one of the best restaurants in Speyside in my opinion. After the lunch we were directed over to the Whisky Castle, for a few drams and some more shopping, with the always entertaining Mike Drury, before driving over to the final distillery visit of Tomintoul distillery where we were greeted by Robert Fleming  and  then Tom Gerrie who gave us a very good in-depth tour of the distillery, finsihed by a wee tasting of some samples of some of their products.

This is a distillery is not normal open to the public, and a visit like this is exactly one of the reasons it's worth travelling to Scotland for this festival.

Tomintoul Stills

 Racked

Palletised

Angus Dundee Distillers plc., which owns Tomintoul and Glencadam distilleries has specialized in customer specified blends. But both distilleries produce a nice porto folio of single malts, Tomintoul even produced a nice peated version named Old Ballantruan, named after the water source of Tomintoul Distillery. Personally I have always considered Glencadam one of the hidden gems of scotch single malts.

After the Tomintoul visit, we were running very late to judge the roving whisky awards at Forsyth's Coppersmiths in Rothes, where we had to blind pick our favourites from three sets of whisky:

12 yo and under
1. Aberlour A'bunadh (#)
2. Strathisla 12yo (*)

13 - 20 yo
1. Glenfiddich Distillery Edition 15yo 51.5%
2. Balvenie Doublewood 17yo (*) (#)

21 and over
1. The Glenlivet XXV (#)
2. The Glenlivet 21 (*)

I marked my favourites with a (*) and the final winners with a (#). My overall favourite was the Balvenie.

Our group of 8 were split even between two of the sets, but in the 13-20yo group, we were 7-1 for the Balvenie.

Apperently the sets were pre-chosen by a panel, but I find it a bit suspicious that it was three sets of intra company competions, with just two companies present. I do think Speyside has more to offer...but then, I probably have tasted more whiskies than most :-)

After this we finished the night with a dinner at the Highlander Inn in Craigellachie, a very nice inn with excellent food, and extensive selection of single malts and real ale on tap. Highly recommended

Spirit of Speyside

Since 2001 I have been visiting a whiskyfestival called Spirit of Speyside regularely. Not every year, but something like every 2nd year on average.

It scheduled every year around the first weekend in May, which is also a bank holiday weekend. The majority of events are friday to monday, but a few events are also scheduled both before and after, making this in reality a week long event if you wish.

The festival is made of of hundreds of events, where you pick and choose whatever you like. The most popular events are sold out more or less instantly when the events go online around January

Looks like the right place

All year round there are lots of distilleries in Speyside (and Scotland) that schedules tours, special tours, extra special tours and ultra extravagant special tours. These are still there at SoS with a LOT of extra added.  At the SoS weekend some distilleries not normally open to the public will have scheduled tours and some distilleries will have different and more special (better!) tours than normally available. The distilleries that open specially for the public this weekend tends to change a bit from year to year so there is always some reason to come back. It will take years to get around all the events you really want to go to

A lot of the events are centered around Dufftown and a lot of these are organised by the Whiskyshop Dufftown. Several tastings every day, often hosted by companies like Wemyss, Cadenhead, Duncan Taylor, Gordon and MacPhail, Adelphi and so on.

Bus trips will start from various points, most often Dufftown, taking smaller groups to special distillery visits and tastings all over Speyside and even slightly beyond.

Especially the later years the organising committee has also been listing a lot of possibilities of transport around Speyside which can make it easier for guests getting around. Speyside is a big area and this is something I really welcome and that has eased things a bit. A special thanks to Diageo for partly sponsoring buses and taxis, I really appreciate this

Some of my favourite events has been the day long bus trips centered around the three whisky towns Rothes, Elgin and Dufftown. These three events are very popular and usually among the first to sell out. These tours are Spirit of Speyside in essence in my opinion, and its nice to see the staff meeting up on a saturday to participate as happened at Glenlossie and Mannochmore in 2010

Sunny Dufftown in 2011. 

Gordon and MacPhail usually have a full schedule of various tastings in Elgin, there are various music events, dinners, quiz nights (they are fun), casual tastings, walks, canooing, wildlife trips, restaurents etc.. So many things do that for all kind of interests. Have a look at the official webiste here to get an idea: http://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

If you want to go, you need to start planning something like a year in advance. Planning a trip to this festival can be a bit of a pain. You need to plan events carefully, it can be a jigsaw puzzle to match things. Things you want to go might sell out. Events come up you want to go to when you have allready booked something and getting accomodation can be hard. Experience is clearly an advantage when planning this. The last few years the organising committee have tried to make all events go public at the same set time, but a few good events always pop up later and if you allready booked something else you can't really go

Expect rain though

The events are not the bargains they used to be and some events I simply find too expensive these days, but expensive events will regulate themself, if people stop signing for them

I have particular enjoyed the Rothes distilleries tour in 2009, the 7 Stills of Dufftown distillery tour in 2011, the whiskyquiz at Strathisla in 2011, Benromach visit in 2009 with a vertical Benromach tasting, a Mortlach vertical with Gordon and MacPhail in 2009, a visit to Benriach in 2011, Glenfarclas tour and tasting in 2005, the tastings in Dufftown are always fun and the dreg party at the Whiskyshop Dufftown is a great way to end the festival

Fun in the Whiskyshop Dufftown

In 2013 I will be with a group of 8 whiskyentusiasts, 7 danes (THE DANISH DRINKING TEAM) and one american (poor guy), with a full packed schedule of 5 days that looks like a lot of fun. We will be visiting Tomintoul, Glenlivet, the Quiz at Glenlivet, Strathisla, Longmorn, Tamdhu, Glenglassaugh, Tomatin, Miltonduff, Highlander Inn and several tastings. 

Benriach 2011