I continue my exploration of new distilleries with The Glasgow Distillery. I have three of their Glasgow 1770 Small Batch Series in review today: the 2024 Unepeated Tokaji finish, the 2023 “Unpeated” Manzanilla cask Finish and 2022’s Red Wine Peated and Ruby Port triple distilled vatting.
After Glasgow and Arran my journey took me to Islay for a few days. Time being short, I had to make tough choices regarding which distilleries to visit. My fellow whisky geeks’ top suggestion was Bunnahabhain and their Warehouse 9 tasting.
Today I am looking at the Port Charlotte 10 year old Heavily Peated, for my series on entry level peated whiskies. This beloved whisky uses a different source of malt from many Islay siblings and a non-traditional cask ageing regime. Curious to see how this translates into the glass.
For the last leg of my Wee Toon adventures, I am off to Glen Scotia for the Master Distiller tour and the accompanying Dunnage Warehouse tasting with a chance to try some unique cask samples.
I continue my short break from reviews to share the second part of my highlights from a recent visit to Campbeltown. Today, part two: the Cadenhead’s Warehouse tasting.
Today’s review of the Classic Laddie started as the companion to the Bunnahabhain 12 review in the unpeated Islay pair. While that is indeed the case, while working on it I ended up going down the bunny hole of batch variations.
Today’s review of the Bunnahabhain 12 year old closes the series on entry-level ex-Sherry cask single malts and opens a separate mini series. This post and the next one will be dedicated to two distilleries which regularly bottle unpeated spirit and might be appropriately called Islay Splitters.
After Aultmore, I am looking at another one of Dewar’s/Bacardi under-the-radar distilleries with this review of the Royal Brackla 12 year old Sherry cask finish. As for Tamdhu 12 just a few days ago, I expected a Sherry forward bottle and got something else.
This review of the Tamdhu 12 year old is part of the ongoing series on sherry cask entry-level single malts. Once an almost forgotten distillery, the current owners are investing to raise the profile of this brand. Aged exclusively in Sherry casks, I bought this 12-year-old expecting a Sherry-forward dram.
For the second stop dedicated to Sherry aged single malt, I am reviewing the GlenDronach 12-year-old Original. Recently the star of GlenDronach seems to have dulled a bit. Is this change in perception justified?