5 things to do in Edinburgh if you like whisky (and beer)

Or things to do in Edinburgh at least 500 times before you die...particular no. 5


1. Visit a whiskyshop

The Royal Mile, mainly a pedestrian street, leading from Holyrood palace at the bottom up to Edinburgh Castle at the top, hosts two of my favourite whiskyshops in Edinburgh.

Royal Mile Whiskies, about one third from the top is one of Scotlands leading speciality stores for whisky of all kind. The staff is well educated and the selection is very big. Especially considering the small size of the shop. It's a tight little shop, quite old. When a heavy guy like me moves around in the room, the floor is slightly dislocated and you can hear and see bottles moving one millimeter here, one millimeter there. If your wear a backpack, watch when you turn.

Further down The Royal Mile, about one third from bottom is another small excellent whisky shop, Cadenhead's Whisky Shop. Whiskyshops are speciality shops, but this is a speciality shop amongst speciality shops. Cadenhead's Whisky Shop mainly sells whisky from Springbank and the associated independent bottler Cadenhead's

The staff is extremely knowledgeable about whisky and if you want to bring a bottle of whisky home that noone tasted before they more or less only got bottles here that fits that description. 

2. Join a Jolly Toper tasting

If I am in Edinburgh on a thursday, I always try to go to one of Jolly Toper's whiskytastings

http://www.jollytopertastings.co.uk/whisky-tasting-dates/

They are usual on every 2nd thursday or so, but if I happen to be in Edinburgh on a "wrong" thrusday, I have before succeded in talking the host to schedule an extra tasting :-)

The host is also one  the guys behind the counter of Cadenhead's but he serves all kinds of whisky, and often something unusual is on the agenda, it can exceptional rare, exceptional good or strange. The guests are always a good company and very opinionated about what they drink in the good way.

Kilderkin, the pub that hosts these tastings are also worth a visit. It has some of the best pub food in Edinburgh (I have tried), nice little selection of whisky (and rum) and a couple of good casks ales on tap

3. Visit the Scotch Malt Whisky Society

Their various bars around the world (some better than others...) They have a huge selection of their own bottlings, excellent food and good beer. A good place to try haggis in my opinion, it's delicious.

Their bottlings is not focused on distilleries but on their own, over the top, sometimes obscure tasting notes. I usually go in their bars and let everything else but distillery names decide what to drink, and often went away with a bottle that was a litle gem from an unknown distillery

4. Scotch Whisky Experience

Near the top of The Royal Mile, you find the Scotch Whisky Experience. This is a whisky experience made for the numerous tourists visiting Edinburgh, but it also got something to offer for the more experienced whiskydrinker

The place will take you through a fairy fun ride, sitting in a "barrel" and getting introduced to what scottish whisky is. After this there is sensory tasting session (various choices), The Diageo Claive Vidiz Collection, a collection of 3500 bottles on display, big fun for any whisky geek as there is many older bottlings. The place also have a bar and a restaurant.

5. A Pint

Edinburgh is an abundance of great pubs of all kinds. I am a big fan of scottish real ales and use time in Edinburgh on beers as well as whisky

I allready mentioned Kilderkin, but the list is almost endless and I am far from having visited everywhere. A random place seldom dissapoints me, but here is a few places I have been that are a bit different, and that I liked

Guildform Arms: Big selection of scottish real ales, well served, can be busy
Malt and Hops: Cosy little pub in Leith (near the SMWS Vaults) with a good selection of real ales
Bow Bar: real ales and whiskies, old fashioned speciality pub, with good selection
Whiski: huge selection of whisky, mainly OB, but if you want to try out the recent offering from Macallan, this is the place
Brew Dog: Modern Bar, serving modern style beers, mainly their own, and some great food


Next list will be: 5 distilleries worth visiting that you might not have thought of

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!

Visiting Kavalan

King Car Distillery or Kavalan is located a couple of miles outside of Yilan on the east coast of Taiwan, around one hour from the capital Taipei

The distillery is about the size of an average distillery in Scotland.

This summer I had the pleasure of visiting Kavalan. Taiwan is tropical, so the enviroment is quite different than what I am used to when visiting similar distilleries in Scotland

Tours are in chinese. Some days there is english guides available, but not the day I had my visit scheduled

You have the possibility of doing a self guided tour and have a look at the distillery. You simply walk around in your own pace in a special tourist corridor that takes you through the distillery and also into a viewing platform in a gigantic warehouse. There is plenty of signs explaining thing, also in english

The Stills at Kavalan

Warehouse

Next to the distillery is the biggest visitor center I have seen in any distillery. Above the visitor centre is a coffee and cake cafe the same size. The company behind Kavalan is also have Mr. Brown Coffee, a big coffee brand in Taiwan. It is a good coffee by the way

Kavalan visitor centre. In July!

At one end of the visitor centre there is a bar where the tours ends with a tasting. Doing the self guided tour you can just join in and have some tastes. One of the guides at work that day spoke really good english and was able to serve me a few tasters and took her time to answer a couple of questions about the distillery.

The distillery is located in tropical Taiwan. Beneath a steep mountain range raising from the sea. The area is full of springs, both hot and cold and the supply of water is not the problem here. The high temperatures makes the maturing enviroment very different to Scotland. The angels share are very high, up to 15% annually. Basically this is high-speed matured whisky. Now how is their whisky?. Here is my opinion from a range of miniatures I bought at the distillery. I hope these wee tasting notes will give you a little idea about how Kavalan tastes!

1. King Car Conductor 46%. 

Non chill-filtered

Nose: Very pleasant and tropical, reminds of the delicate nose of old fragile speysiders, with the dominant sweet fruityness

Palate: The youth can't be hidden with an initial burn on your tip of the tongue. That said, this is easy drinking, with some added nutty/maltness to the tropical start

Finish: Short and some bitterness

Rating 82/100

2. Kavalan ex-bourbon oak 46%

Hand selected ex-bourbon casks

Nose: less tropical, with a minty touch. Light and delicate

Palate: Sweet and oily, with some bitterness

Finish : Medium

Rating 83/100

3. Kavalan Podium 46%

A mix of virgin oak and refill Kavalan casks

Nose: Vanilla and minty with a sweet spicyness

Palate: Fresh and then the fruityness hits

Finish: Sweet and less bitter than the first two. Medium length

Rating 84/100

4. Kavalan Sherry Oak 46%

A very dark whisky

Nose: Licorise

Palate: Archetypical dry woody sherry. I am very sulphursensitive and tasting a clean sherry like this is pure enjoyment for a change. Nice spicy sherry, with more wood character than "dried fruits". My theory is that this is due to the climate enforced wood influence

This should be a must for all sherryfans to search out

Finish: Medium-Long

Rating 87/100

Now onto the Solist range, which is a series of Kavalan Cask Strengths

5. Ex-bourbon Solist 57% 

Bottled 25.12.2012

Nose: Tropical fruits, vanilla and mint

Palate: Minty and fresh, quite intense, with a hint of citrus. Burns a bit going down, also on my tip of the tongue

Finish: Medium-long

Rating 83/100

6. Solist Vinho Barrique 57%

Bottled 20.11.2012

Nose : Sweet and wine

Palate: I normally don't like wine flavoured whiskies but this works. The gentle wine impact surrounds the whisky and doesn't destroy nor overpower it. This is how to mature whisky on wine casks. The bitterness I do find in the Kavalan, probably due to the spirit working excessively with the wood in the hot tropical climate, needs some kind of sweetness to be balanced out. This works with new wood, sherry and also this winecasked whisky

Rating 83/100

7. Solist Sherry Cask 58.7%

Bottled 01.11.2012

Nose: Sulphur, then a lot of tropical fruits, and a fresh hint soap, almost like an unpeated Bowmore. This sounds a lot worse than it is :-). It's actual not that unpleasant and a bit intriguing

Palate: Dark licorise, hint of rubber. This is heavy licorise for sure. Dry and a faint bitterness. This is one of those challenging whiskies some entusiasts will really enjoy exploring

Finish: Medium and pleasant

Rating 84/100

My conclusion: I often prefer bourbon casks over other cask types, but this is not the case with Kavalan

********

Oh, and they got some german stills as well. When asked, she said they were making malt whisky on these to see how it turns out

Kavalan

Jiaoxi

I stayed in Jiaoxi, 5 minute train ride from Yilan. It was a very relaxed and friendly town, with few tourists but still lively and the only place in Taiwan I managed to find local microbrew, by finding that  was pure luck , as searching the internet for good beer around Yilan and Jiaoxi didn't give me any help.

Final Comment:

You see some quotes rating Kavalan well above 90 here and there on the internet. Up to 97. Don't get fooled, this whisky is not gonna make you fall down your chair and raise up again with a new whisky revelation.

It is indeed a good whisky, well worth searching out and trying. The whisky is young, usually revealed by some tonguetip burns and the wood influence is exceptional for this young age, with a lot of flavours I usually associate with a lot older whisky. Don't expect super soft whiskies, but expect some pleasant surprises flavourwise

Danish Whisky News - First bottling of whisky from Fary Lochan Distillery

Fary Lochan Distillery, the closest whisky distillery to me, has bottled it's first whisky on September 14 this month

The bottles has allready been for sale to shareholders and will be available to the rest of us on the September 28 and on their website from September 29

The first bottling won't be cheap, but still cheaper than what most other danish distilleries charged for their first bottlings, and from what I have tasted this is the strongest release yet to come out from Denmark

There will be an official release event in the afternoon of September 28, with speeches, music and food (and hopefully also some whisky!)

The event is described in danish in Fary Lochan's Newsletter #33 here

The distillery is located in the small danish village Farre, not far from Billund and Legoland. The village used to be spelled Fary several hundred years ago. The distillery is locatede near a small lake, or pond I might say, and this gave inspiration the "gaelic" name Fary Lochan. The distillery is quite small and is based on scottish distillery traditions, with pot stills from Forsyth's in Rothes

I had the pleasure of tasting a presample and I liked it, I reviewed it here

Since then the whisky has been on sherry for further 5 months and it is bottled at 48%

I  made a visit to the distillery three years ago (read about that here)

Since this first visit, the distillery has been expanded with a larger warehouse and a tasting room, which also functions as a base of the local whisky club.

Here is the founder of Fary Lochan, Jens-Erik Jørgensen's own tasting notes to his first release:

Color: Golden amber

Nose: Laidback sherry notes, the vanilla from the bourbon casks gives a good balance to the whisky - light sweetness and spicy nose. In the end a slight hint of dark chocolate and dried fruits.

Taste: Despite only 3.5 years, there is an intense bourbon vanilla, with a hint of sherry. Both the creamy and the dry whisky give a complex balance between grace and power to a spicy whisky. A few drops of water, and the taste of dried fruits and dark chocolate appear.

Finish: The heavy oil is giving a good feeling and taste of dark chocolate and dried fruits.

A very limited release of only 511 bottles of whisky has been produced. Every bottle has an individual number, and at the same time there is filled 555 bottles of 5 cl whisky.

Every bottle comes in a specially designed whisky package with gold and lovely design, and were officially released on the 28th of September 2013.

I'll be present at the release event and hope to meet a lot of other excited whisky entusiasts

10 facts about Japanese distilleries you might not know

1. Yamazaki and Hakushu (Suntory) have several stills which are formed in diferent shapes. This makes the Suntory able to create many styles and you can argue that there is no real distillery style from these distilleries, apart from what the blenders present to you

2. Japanese distilleries don't work together. Japanese blends use their own malts and grains or foreign whisky as a general rule

3. Distilleries with no grain distillery tends to look for Canadian grain for blending

4. Eigashima uses Shochu, a japanese pot distilled spirit as a component for one of their blends. This is grain based and matured. Shochu is not necesarily grain based and usually not matured

Shochu maturing at Eigashima White Oak

5. One of the barrel choices sometimes used is Japanese oak. Mizunara. It gives the whisky a spicy, woody, vanillaed flavour. And with spicy, I mean some kind of hot feeling as well

6. Chichibu washbacks are made from Mizunara. As far as I know this is the only distillery with oak washbacks

7. Suntory's big hit is Highballs, a whisky cocktail, based on whisky, ice, soda and a slice of lemon. Suntory Highballs can be bought from vendor machines all over japan and in all bars. After tours at Hakushu and Yamazaki, they give you Highballs. First a Highball based on the NAS and then a Highball based on the 12yo. If you ask you can try it neat, but you have to ask!

8. Fuji-Gotemba makes bourbon. A flavour component of their blends. I would really like to try this :-). Don't expect a japanese bourbon being bottled. Not under the "Bourbon" name as this is restricted to whiskey made in USA. Kirin owns two distilleries, Fuji-Gotemba and Four Roses by the way.

9. Like many scottish distilleries, most japanese distilleries use a pagoda roof as an easy recognisable part of their distillery. These pagoda roofs (originally the kiln chimnney in Scotland) looks like whisky to me and are built in the scotish style more than the traditional japanse style

Shinsu Mars Pagoda

10. Japanese whisky is quite comparable to scottish whisky in style and flavour. Japanese distilleries like Chichibu, Hakushu and Yoichi are making peated versions. I find that japansese and scottish whisky differs more and more the older it gets. The whisky simply matures in a diferent way. The difference at 12 years old might be hard to spot, but when we move above 20 years I find Japanese has matured somewhat differently. It tends to be less mellow and more wood character

Ah well. The 10th might not be a fact, it's just my opinion :-)

The Japanese Whisky trail

Visiting distilleries in Japan involves a lot of train rides. So far I am on 7/8 distilleries and have a total of around 50 different train rides including 1 subway ride

Japanese laws don't allow distilleries public tours in production areas, but to facilitate tours there is shielded areas with fenches or glass windows that lets the public around a distillery. Only one distillery so far didn't allow photographs (Fuji-Gotemba)

Fuji-Gotemba

In reality there is 8 working malt whisky distilleries in Japan (excluding Monde, which maybe should be added as well)

The distillery scene is dominated by three large operators, owned by the three of the major breweries dominating Japan

Nikka (Asahi) has Miyagikyo and Yoichi
Suntory has Hakushu and Yamazaki
Kirin owns Fuji-Gotemba

Beside this there is two smaller distilleries, Shinsu (Mars) and White Oak which had a somewhat on and off production resulting in very uneven age of their stock and Chichibu which is a new small distillery, in prodution for nearly 5 years. Chichibu is owned by Ichiro who is behind the Hanyo bottlings card series. Ichiro's family used to own the Hanyu distillery

In general the tours are very generous with the drams, but this generosity excludes drivers who are allowed only orange juice :-)

Approx. a third of the malts to try at the Yamazaki bar

Beside the 2-3 samples you get to taste, all distilleries so far had a bar where you can  try a range of very exciting stuff for a cheap price. So far this has always included all current bottlings available (within sense) and also sometimes components of these and single cask samples. I wish distilleries in other parts of the world had similar setups, as when visiting distilleries this is the kind of things you really want to do. I do for sure. This makes the Japanese whisky trails one of the best ones out there,but you have to be a little bit hardcore as there is quite some travels in trains and taxis included. Most of the distilleries are located in scenic mountain areas so there is something to watch while heading out there

Big thanks to Niels Viveen from Holland, a Japan and japanese whisky expert for organising this

Expect more reports coming soon from some or most of the distilleries. So far my Yoichi visit can be found HERE : A VISIT TO YOICHI

A visit to Yoichi

Yoichi Distillery was founded in 1934 by Masataka Taketsuru. Masataka spend 1918-1920 in Scotland learning whisky making, and after returning to Japan with his scottish wife Jessie Roberta Cowan better known as Rita Taketsuru they decided to start their own company and start producing whisky up north on Hokkaido, which has a climate more similar to the scottish than the rest of Japan.
 Yoichi is one of two malt whisky distilleries owned by the Nikka Company, the other is Miyagikio. Yoichi has a capacity of approx. 2.000.000 liter
 Yoichi, named after the village where it sits in its center, is located in this quiet coastal village around a 1 hour train ride west from Sapporo. Don't expect the Shinkansen, leaving the train I felt more like being part of the first scene of Once Upon a Time in the West. The distillery is located a couple of minutes walk from the station, on the banks of the river running through the town.

The visit to Yoichi free. It's a visit more than a tour. You are left to yourself when touring the distillery grounds, with the option of joining a guided tour that departs every 30 minutes. Japanese only, so I did the self guided tour. You get a guide leaflet and are allowed into a range of buildings around the distillery. In these buildings there are small displays and short videos to be seen. You get into the tun room, still house and warehouse no. 1 amongst. They have shielded or separate areas for the tourists to stand in. Other parts of the disitllery are display areas about coopering, kilning and the life of Masatake and his wife and other things related to the distillery.
 The distillery is build in what I would describe as a scottish japanese fusion style and is very pretty. The most interesting part of the production is the still room, as the stills are fired by shoveling coal into a furnace beneath the stills!!

Yoichi Still Room

On the ground is a big tasting rooms, where you have the chance to taste 10yo Yoichi and 17yo Nikka blend. Two very different whiskies, and both very delicious. Beside the tasting room, there is a whisky museum, which is mainly in Japanese, telling you about whisky, the history and a lot of the links to Scotland. Mainly in japanese. As my japanese is not that good I spend most of my time in the bar that is located halfway through the museum. Here you have a chance to taste more or less the full range of Yoichi and Nikka, beside a few scotch. This includes the distillery only whiskies available at the distillery. And this is quite a huge range. 4 casks strength versions of 12yo Yoichi, differentiated by their flavour profile. The couple I tried was named "Wood and Vanillic" and "Salty and Peaty"). Beside this there 5 single cask expressions available, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25yo. Added to this there is a big range of more regular Yoichi and Nikka whiskies, adding up to more than 20 different expressions. As the 25yo single cask is sold at a price of 900 Yen (52Dkr/6£/9$ approx) for 1½ cl, the prices are managable..

The only downturn to the bar, is that chlorinated water is served with the whisky. I thought it was very chlorinated and couldn't dream of adding this to the whisky. A local (well, he was from Sendai) standing next to me in the bar, said he couldn't notice any chloride, but also stated he was probably used to it from his home.

The distillery-only bottling shop 

There was also a restaurant, a visitor center, a gift shop and a single cask shop at the distillery. One thing I really liked is that all bottles were available as 18cl versions without any price markups. Somethings I really whished other distilleries would do. All in all one of the best visitor experienced I have tried when you just step in from the street. I wish my japanese were better or more info was available in english. The few people around the ground I tried to talk to found it very hard to communicate with me :-)

But I tried getting a few quesions through with somewhat limited success!

Warehouses