Aberlour 18yo 1994/2012 (59.6%, The House of MacDuff, The Golden Cask, Bourbon Cask CM 193, 234 bottles)

Back to core-business! To finish off the month of March, here is a review about an indie Aberlour. Aberlour is a very interesting distillery that in my opinion keeps on producing good malts, correction, good Sherried malts at affordable prices. Just have a look at my review of the excellent A’bunadh. This here is the first independently released Aberlour, and as with most Aberlours that are released by independent bottlers this is from an Ex-Bourbon cask, they probably need all the Sherry casks for themselves.

Aberlour 18yo 1994/2012 (59.6%, The House of MacDuff, The Golden Cask, Bourbon Cask CM 193, 234 bottles)Color: Light gold.

Nose: Fresh at first, creamy and very fruity. Biscuits and slight hints of mint. It smells somehow sweet, caramel and toffee in a good (not added) way. Pencil shavings. It seems like a good spirit with quite a nice full on sweet, cookie dough, and funky, body. In the distance it does remind me of White Wine (Barrel aged and buttery Chardonnay).

Taste: Spicy wood and not as sweet as the nose suggested. Wood, pears and a little bit of vanilla. Although not the most complex Whisky, the cask gave off more woody notes (all in check), and less of the Bourbon notes the cask could have given off. Having said that, the Whisky is actually quite nice in a toned down sort of way. It’s almost a shy Aberlour, not confident about itself,  because it didn’t come from a Sherry Butt, quite unneccessary so. It’s nice but only a little bit quiet and introvert in character. The high-proof matches the sweetness, the creaminess and the cookie dough perfectly. Not hot at all. Finishes off with oak, again toned down.

A very interesting malt. Without the independents we would hardly have a real clue about the quality of the Aberlour spirit, since most Aberlours that are released by the owners themselves have a huge amount of Sherry cask thrown in. This is more a naked version of Aberlour. It reveals a lot that the spirit behaves well in an ex-Bourbon cask. It would be quite nice to compare this to an independently bottled Oloroso Sherry cask at cask strength.

Points: 85

Berghs Bier (6.5%, 33 cl)

Martin OstendorfAfter Santpoorts Bier, here is another local Beer. Where Santpoorts Bier was linked to Santpoort, this Berghs Bier is linked to Berghem, a town in between Den Bosch and Nijmegen in the Southern part of The Netherlands. The Beer is brewed by Martin Ostendorf in his Muifelbrouwerij in Berghem, so this is the Beer Martin made for his own home town. I have come across some other beers of Martin’s and they usually are pretty good, so expect more Muifel Beers on these pages.

The Muifel brewery started up in 2006 and its mission is to produce excellent beers in styles as diverse as possible. The name comes from the words ‘Megen’ (again a town) and ‘Duivel’ (the devil, after the Belgian Beer “Duvel”). The Muifelbrouwerij started out as a hobby brewery where a Duvel-style Beer quickly was known as ‘Muifel’.

Berghs BierColor: Beautiful dark amber, nice brown and red hue, with a fine dark cream foam (not quite Cappuchino).

Nose: Wet dog and dishwater. Spicy and a nice light hoppy freshness. Malts and caramelized sugar. Warm apple sauce and hints of cinnamon. It actually is quite hard to describe the nose. It’s almost like it doesn’t want to come out of the glass, especially when it drunk at the advised temperature of 8 degrees Centigrade, which for me seems a bit too cold.

Taste: Warming at first and deep. Slightly too low in alcohol, because after the initial sip the beer seems very light and sweet. Light body. Not what I expected. The taste is actually at its best just before the finish kicks in. The finish is more Pilsener in style (a bit sour), but most of the flavours emerge just before the slightly bitter finish. That middle part has some nice complexity too it, it’s refreshing and sometimes it even reminds me of a nice Alsacian wine. The middle part is stellar, if only the rest of the beer would be as good.

A pretty decent beer, but I have to admit, pretty light, and slightly unbalanced. The start somehow doesn’t match the beautiful body, and after this beautiful body the finish is a bit sour and a bit weak. Luckily Martin isn’t afraid of experimenting and is learning on the spot. Soon it will be apparent that some of his other beers really are hitting the bullseye. This one is good, but not one of his best. Still, there is a lot to enjoy in the middle part, so I’m now going to enjoy the rest of what’s in my glass.

Points: 79

Humala IPA (7.3%, 33 cl)

Humala is a Spanish Beer brewed by The Nómada Brewing Company at Companyia Cervesera del Montseny in Catalonia, Spain. I don’t quite understand the workings of their website, but they have an interesting page on Facebook (if you can read Spanish).

Pale ale originally was an Ale that had been brewed from pale malt, lightly hopped and quite different from later pale Ales, with less smoking and roasting of barley in the malting process, and hence produced a paler beer. The East India Company requested a more strongly hopped pale ale for export to India. These early IPA’s, were only slightly higher in alcohol than most Beers brewed and would not have been considered to be strong Ales. In general more of the wort is well-fermented, resulting in fewer residual sugars, and the beer is more strongly hopped.

Nómada Humala IPAColor: Orange yellow, with heaps of shiny Sugar foam (peach yoghurt in color).

Nose: Very Sunny and fresh, very appetizing. I have to spoon out the foam to get to the Beer. Lovely fruity and very perfumy, but also a whiff of pee. This has really a great nose, and the pee-bit somehow seems to fit, although it would have been nicer without it. The whole comes across as refreshing, and does reminds me of half-sweet white wines.

Taste: Greatly balanced, all the flavours are behaving as a whole. Again a lot of fruityness and seems lighter in style than it is. Never would I have guessed this has more than 7% ABV. It seems so terrace in style, enjoying it watching people pass by, but it does have a kick, when you downed the whole bottle. Excellent, but when I sit down outside, in the city, with a beer to enjoy the sun and the people passing by I usually order a Duvel, which is widely available and also quite high in alcohol.

Well I have never looked at Spain as a country to look for beers, but that is probably a huge prejudice since most countries produce good beers. Don’t drink this too cold as you would miss a lot of great aroma’s. Not a perfect Beer but still I consider this a true find. Lovely stuff I wouldn’t mind drinking again and most definitely will order if I would find it in a bar.

Points: 86

Santpoorts Bier – Blonde Tripel (8.5%, 33 cl)

Santpoorts Bier logoSantpoorts Bier is a very locally brewed and sold beer. It is made in Hillegom by Brewery “Klein Duimpje” (Tom Thumb) and made for the “community” of Santpoort (near Haarlem in The Netherlands). With the proceeds the instigators hope to fund their own brewery in Santpoort (2020). This first Santpoorts beer is called a Blond Tripel and boasts a hefty 8.5% ABV. Blond as in blonde or a lightly (colored) beer, and Tripel after the Belgian Abbey and Trappist beers. Looking at the list of ingredients: Pilsner malt, Carapilsner malt, Munich malt, wheat malt, Challenger hops, Saaz hops and yeast. It doesn’t seem to be a Belgian Style Tripel, since a lot of typical Pilsner malts are used, so somehow I’m expecting a more Pilsner style Beer that is higher in alcohol.

The beer I’ll be reviewing here is from the first batch (best before date: July 2014, I aged it a little). By now, a second batch has been released called ‘Reprise’ (orange label again) as well as a winter beer (blue label) and a just released Spelt Weizen Beer (green label), that isn’t even on their website yet!

Santpoorts BierColor: Lively, yellow, almost orange gold. Murky, with a lot of yeast deposit. A lot of ivory foam.

Nose: Fresh and spicy, fruity (banana and peach without the sweetness). Very appetizing. A city after the rain and a distinct hint of warm plastic. The beer starts out fresh, lively and fruity, but quickly turns into something more broody. Can’t quite put my finger on it. Pretty “dirty” if you ask me. Fresh egg-white and new wood. Whiffs of cold dishwater. A very unusual nose. After half a year of ageing the nose didn’t change much (I’ve tried this beer when it was just released).

Taste: Dark, and a nice hoppy bitterness which almost seems woody. Pretty fruity, hot butter and has a lot of fresh (baker’s) yeast and a note of polyester. This polyester component is also easily recognizable in Hoegaarden White. Polyester is a maybe bad word here, but I’m using it for lack of a better word. Santpoorts Bier isn’t warming so it seems a lot lower in alcohol. This beer is advised to drink at 10 degrees Centigrade, but I like it better, when its colder. It finishes a bit like a Pilsener does, with its typical acidity, but the perfect bitterness this beer has, does a lot for balance. When freshly brewed, it was said to be nice already, and doesn’t need a lot of ageing. I tried it a few times and not a lot happened in half a year. The beer seems young (easily recognizable in the yeast taste, it has a lot of fresh yeast notes, ánd a lot of yeast in the deposit), but most definitely has it’s potential.

I’ve opened a lot of bottles of this to have people taste this and it is a very vigorous beer. You can’t Always open it without spilling some (and in some cases, a lot). In the glass the little yeast balls are moving around very quickly, like a speeded up lava lamp. Quite a stunning view. The beer is very lively!

Conclusion. To me, this first batch seems to be somewhat of a work in progress. It does have its charm, but it isn’t perfect yet. Overall I like the beer, but I didn’t care that much for the polyester notes and the “Pilsener” finish, but the start and the body (the middle part) are already quite good, as is the perfect bitterness of this beer.  The brewers are on the right road, but in my humble opinion, some more work has to be done. By now a second batch has been produced, called ‘Reprise’ which I haven’t tried yet.

Points: 74

Gabbiano Solatio Toscana IGT 2011

The surroundings of Tuscany in Italy are breathtaking, and I know that people who live there should be inspired too. I expect wine makers in Tuscany must be especially inspired since they make wine from the fruits of this land. This is the fourth bottle from this region, amongst others with two decent reds, but up ’till now, not a real stunner yet. I now got a bottle from a real wine specialist so I have high hopes for this Gabbiano Solatio from 2011 (Picture shows the 2010 vintage). I like the label, the orange color really stands out on the shelves and the knight and the sun, really look appealing, The wine is a blend of 50% Syrah, 45% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Sangiovese. Not a lot of Sangiovese for a Tuscan blend, and compared to others no Merlot. That leaves more room for the character grapes of Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. I guess we may be on to something…

Gabbiano Solatio Toscana IGT 2011Color: Dark ruby-red.

Nose: Smells spicy and most definitely of Syrah and a bit less of Cabernet Sauvignon, no sense in mentioning the Sangiovese. Although Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon can be pretty full-bodied, this blend smells fresh and lively. Sweet jam of red fruits, and the slightest hint of fresh acidity, yes all that on the nose. It leaps out at you from the glass. Very appealing, and appetizing fruity Wine. Strawberries and cherries, ain’t that lovely! Great balance. The nose alone is way better than the previous contenders!

Taste: Not heavy, but with a fair amount of body and soft tannins. Some slight wood influence matches the tannins. Not as heavy on the sweet fruits as the nose suggested, but very appealing never the less. I did suit our dinner fine, grilled chicken with rice and a creamy tomato sauce. It would have been less complementary to it, if it would have been much sweeter.

Just like the other Tuscan Red Wines I review earlier, this is an entry-level wine. Nothing very fancy, but even with pizza and pasta I’d like to drink something I really like without breaking the bank. A great Tuscan with easy drinkability and easy food pairing qualities, and in the first 24 hours after opening, very suitable for drinking by itself. Good one. Recommended!

Points: 85

South Island 21yo (40%, The New Zealand Whisky Company)

And here is already the third review of a Whisky released by Mr. Ramsay’s New Zealand Whisky Company. After the Dunedin Doublewood and the South Island 18yo, both very good Whiskies. Time to step up the stakes with this even older 21yo. Let’s see if it is also a step up in quality and taste.

South Island 21yo (40%, The New Zealand Whisky Company)Color: Light gold.

Nose: Fresh, citrus fruits, waxy and herbal. Quite complex and instantly likeable. Tarry toasted wood in the distance. Toffee and cookie dough that is also present in the 18yo. I really like the unusual grassy toffee this has. The fruits shift from the initial citrussy freshness toward more sweet an cloying yellow fruits like (dried) apricots. After some breathing there seems to be a hint of smoke and a floral note as well. Well how is this for complexity! Given time, the nose keeps developing, it gets better and better. (Even later again: grassy bonfire and pencil shavings)…

Taste: Wood and cardboard upfront (huh?), but that is quickly surpassed, yet again, with yellow fruits, but not as citrussy as the nose suggested. Small hint of bitterness from the wood to give the fruitiness more character, as does the little bit of sweetness this has. Just one sip and the Whisky already shows great balance. It all fits nicely together. As with the 18yo, this could benefit from a little bit more alcohol. Nice waxiness again.

What a wonderful nose, you kan sit comfortably somewhere and keep smelling this over and over. At 21 years of age this has remarkably little wood, and the wood that’s there makes for great balance. Lovely stuff and a good step up from the 18yo.

Points: 86

Thanks Mr. C!

Master Quill’s Second Anniversary!

2 yearsAnother year has passed. One year ago I wrote that the first year of writing this blog passed very quickly. This year I almost missed the opportunity to write something for the occasion of the second anniversary! I was smiling away at birthday messages on Facebook, congratulating Master Quill. Smiling since March 4th isn’t my actual birthday, but the day this blog started.

So what did we do in the past year? The most exciting pieces to write are just like in the first year the “Weeks”. In the second year of Master Quill, only two more weeks saw the light of day, that’s a bit of a surprise to me! First we had a Glengoyne week and second a Bowmore week, all Single Malts, I know, but it’s sort of a core business here! Luckily one boasts to be the unpeated Malt and the second wouldn’t be the same without peat, so at least some diversity!

But that’s not all! The first year focused mostly on Single Malts, Wine, Cigars and Rum. As mentioned before Single Malts are most important to me. Wine was expanded, but this past year was a “bad” year for Cigars. Not a lot of good weather, and I have to smoke outside. Not as much Rum as I expected to write about, but I’ll make up for that in Master Quills third year.

The drinks categories got some new entries this second year around, with articles about Port and Sherry, both fortified Wines and with Whiskies from “other” countries like India and New Zealand. Quite exciting times since those countries produce some excellent examples. I can’t wait for another taste outside of Scotland.

Well the second year finished a bit slow, you might have noticed, with almost no activity (by me, the readers however keep coming back in large numbers even when temporarily not a lot of new content is being added). By the end of January I got a little bit sick. Something in between a big flu, a heavy cold or even pneumonia. I’m on antibiotics right now, so I’m guessing I can write a new review pretty soon…

Last but not least. I’m one of those people who a living the dream and found a job in the what I clearly love best. I’ve joined the Booze-Workforce! Maybe time for a Master Quill Inc. someday? Well to celebrate let’s open up a nice Longmorn from 1971!

Cheers, hope you like the posts and will continue to enjoy these pages. Enjoy Life!

Cooley 13yo 1999/2013 (51.4%, The Whisky Mercenary)

Cooley! How cool is that! As the label states, this is peated Cooley so probably spirit that was made to become a Connemara. But what is Cooley?

In 1985, Jack Teeling bought a former state potato alcohol distillery and two years later converted it into an independent Irish Whiskey distillery with a column still and two pot stills, located on the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth, hence the name. Cooley is known for distilling only twice, where other Irish distillers distill three times.

25 years later Mr. Teeling sold his distillery for €71 million to Beam Inc. On January 13th 2014 however, Japan’s Suntory Holdings sort of bought Beam Inc. for about €10.2 billion, making Cooley part of Suntory now. In the same deal our beloved Laphroaig, will enter the Japanese outfit wich already contains Bowmore.

Cooley 13yo 1999/2013 (51.4%, The Whisky Mercenary)After selling Cooley to Beam Inc. Teeling bought Diageo’s recently closed Great Northern Brewery in Dundalk with a group of investors and is converting it into a distillery. Great Northern made Harp Lager, Smithwicks, and Carlsberg (for the Irish market) and Diageo moved the production of these beers to their Guinness St. James Gate brewery in Dublin. Production of Teeling Whiskey should commence after the summer of this year. Today Teeling Whiskey is already on the market, obviously sourced from another distillery.

Color: White Wine.

Nose: Sweetish, light, lemony and young. Very fresh, lightly smoky, dusty and fatty peat. A long time ago, I had a tall bottle of cask strength Connemara (59% ABV), and this smells very similar. Grassy and lemongrass. Alcohol, chocolate and a bit fatty. Hints of wood. Lemon again which pushes the peat and smoke to the background. The smoke returns after some breathing. Bonfire. The wood and fire notes are really great. Small hints of toffee, cardboard and strangely enough some perfume. Empty glass has a lot of smoke and toffee notes.

Taste: Smoky sweet and quite a lot more peat than in the nose. Wood, ashes. Bonfire again. A little bit of bitterness from the peat (and the wood). Quickly turns dry and fatty. Soot, ashes and a lot of dust. Animalesk (there is that word again), with lemons. Quite some balls for an Irish Whisky. Cloying toffee with nice depth. Lacks some zest, or freshness, to be a proper Irish Whiskey if you ask me. Salty lips. Finish is half-long and somewhat introvert.

On the nose, quite a nice Cooley. Taste wise it’s also nice, but not very complex. WYTIWYG (What You Taste Is What You Get). Definitely a nice Cooley, but I have to say there are some more outspoken examples around. Great nose though.

Points: 83

Glentauchers 16yo 1997/2013 (54.3%, Gordon & MacPhail, Cask Strength, for The Whisky Exchange, Refill Sherry Cask #5580)

Yes, another first on these pages. Glentauchers. A favorite amongst connoisseurs! Independently of each other, I hear a lot of people who work in the Whisky-business, that this is somewhat of a guilty pleasure for them, so worth to check one out. I got a chance to try this Glentauchers bottled by Gordon & MacPhail just before it was bottled, and although it was bottled some months ago, finally it is now officially released.

Glentauchers 16yo 1997/2013 (54.3%, Gordon & MacPhail, Cask Strength, for The Whisky Exchange, Refill Sherry Cask #5580)Color: Copper Brown.

Nose: Raisins, butter and pretty winey. Quite floral. Fresh Sherry. Ashy and great wood. Bourbon honey and perfectly creamy. Looking deeper, it’s more leafy and paper-like, more dry. This doesn’t seem very complex at first. The distillery character is still there underneath and the Sherry is like a blanket on top. Smallest hint of salty smoke and even less of dried fish. Little bit of licorice and citrussy acidity. Bonfire (but not the smoke of it, more the presence, does that make any sense?). Nice balance.

Taste: Ha! great stuff. Full on Sherry, not to sweet, not too dry. Creamy and chewy with spicy wood. Wow. The middle drops quite a bit, but picks up near the end. Warming caramel and sweet and woody finish, with some bitterness. Licorice and a little bit of soap even, the floral bit returns. Again nicely balanced stuff. Bit of a rollercoaster. Salty lips.

This new Glentauchers just goes to show that the route taken by Gordon & MacPhail is the best way of doing business. Most other independent bottlers fish out of the same pond, and mind you the pond is drying out, like the Aral sea. Less and less (good) aged casks are finding their way onto the market, and with that also the quality drops. In the end a lot of independent bottlers will have to fold. Gordon & MacPhail have a strategy of clever cask management. They send their privately owned high quality casks up to the distillery, have them filled, and store them at their own humongous warehouse facility. This way they have good casks, and by that, control over quality.

Points: 88

Many thanks go out to Stan Reid for pulling this one out from under the counter.

Clynelish 16yo 1995/2012 (53.7%, Kintra, Refill Sherry Butt #2156, 90 bottles)

It’s funny how a big company like Diageo works. For instance, There are almost no independent bottlings available by Diageo owned Lagavulin whereas the is a vast amount available from fellow Diageo and Islay distillery Caol Ila. There are almost no independent bottlings available from Oban, but a huge amount from fellow Diageo Distillery Clynelish. Here is another independently released Clynelish from the massively popular 1995 vintage. Although vintages belong more to Wine, vintages also became popular in Whisky.

Clynelish 16yo (Kintra)This Clynelish, of which only 90 bottles were released (a Butt shared with others, and Butts are large casks), is marketed by Kintra from the Netherlands. A small outfit, but from a nice guy and with good looks (both the bottle and the guy). As the label states, this is from a Refill Sherry Butt, but even if its from a Fino cask, is doesn’t have a lot of colour. A somewhat inactive Butt?

Color: White wine.

Nose: Somewhat acidic malt. Vegetal. Drying. Does fit the Fino Sherry profile, it’s smells like flor. Herbal and dusty. Milk chocolate with distant hints of vanilla. A little bit dry grass and freshly cut, sappy oak. Freshly peeled almonds. Typical Fino Sherry Butt.

Taste: Again very malty and very Fino Sherry. Wood upfront, and after that some glue and toned down vanilla. There is some sugary sweetness in this Whisky, but that is “hidden” by the Fino and the active wood. No wax! Salty lips. Malt returns in the finish. Otherwise a little bit hot, and spicy.

This is absolutely a pre dinner dram. Tasting this I want to eat! Typical Fino Sherry Butt, playing with wood and grassy, nutty tones. Not as waxy as we are used to from Clynelish. Don’t let the colour fool you, the Sherry did its job here, as did the wood, without being dominant. If you like your whiskies Fino, than this will be no disappointment.

Points: 85

Get well soon Erik.