Tag Archives: NAS

Bowmore “Dusk” (50%, OB, Bordeaux Wine Casked, Circa 2002)

Here we have a Bowmore oldie. This is the Bowmore Dusk, that was finished for two years in a Bordeaux Wine Cask (sometimes called a Claret finish). In 1999 Bowmore Claret was released, also a Bordeaux Wine Casked Whisky (12.000 bottles, 56% ABV), and was at the time a lot more expensive. Bowmore Dusk was introduced in 2000 whilst Bowmore Dawn, that had a second maturation in (Ruby) Port pipes, was introduced one year later. Both got the same look as Bowmore darkest, that had a second maturation in Oloroso Sherry Casks. Darkest wasn’t considered a speciality as Dawn and Dusk were, so Darkest was more accepted as part of the “standard” range and still exists today. Dusk and Dawn are no longer made, and hardly available anymore. The three were also sold together as a three-piece set (3 x 200 ml). Back to Dusk. There is some batch variation over the years, so there are versions available that are much lighter in color than the one I’ll be reviewing here…

Bowmore Dusk (50%, OB, Bordeaux Wine Casked, Circa 2002)Color: Copper Gold

Nose: Smoke pops out first. Very nice organic and peated smoke. Peat smoke, bonfire at the beach, at night. That sort of thing. Next some coastal freshness, with butter and something smelly from the animal world. Animal sweat? Clean oak, without any toast. A little bit powdery. Most definitely a wine finish. Caramel and vanilla, but the wine doesn’t allow them to be full, or round. They are around as an aroma, but more spiky in nature. Still this is all about smoke and luckily the wine doesn’t take over or ruin the bonfire at the beach party.

Taste: Sweet, caramel, toffee, fatty peat and lots of licorice. Medicinal. Great body, full and balanced. Long finish. After a long time, the finish that started out creamy, shows some woody sourness and the wine part shifts the whole into a slight unbalanced state, that is less sweet and creamy. But as I said that is way in the back of the finish. Not overly complex, but the wine finish is done with taste. Very drinkable. The ABV seems just right, and I can’t imagine this needing any water.

When I had this a long time ago, the taste is what I always remembered, the nose, well I completely forgot how nice this actually smells… I have to admit this is a tastefully crafted Whisky and I appreciate it better now, than I did back then (old score was 84). Here everything fits together nicely. Well done.

Is it just me, or do these older bottles look way better than the new ones? (Also true for Old Malt Cask bottles imho).

Points: 86

Smokehead (43%, Ian MacLeod, Circa 2012)

After the extremely rare and expensive Glenfiddich (what?) I reviewed earlier, time for a more affordable and more of a heavy hitting dram. Sitting inside, hearing the wind outside, it seems an appropriate choice. Smokehead is a Islay Single Malt Whisky marketed by Ian MacLeod, who also have their Chieftain’s series of Single Malts and also own the Glengoyne Distillery, so they know their way around Whisky.

I said marketed, since I have to admit I like the look of this bottle very much, or have a look at the special website they made for this bottle alone. Yes it’s a standard Scotch Liquor Bottle, but keep in mind it’s a very affordable Whisky, but the rest looks great. Just look at the lettering and look of it all. I don’t care much for the choice of words though 😉

Color: Light Gold.

Nose: Peat, peated malt, citrus and then smoke. Peat smoke and paper smoke. Very clean. Clay and butter, hot butter like you get from smelling popcorn. Spicy smoke, like burning off your kitchen cabinet with all your dried herbs in it, or the smell you get when walking outside in a winter evening and smelling all those wood fires coming from chimneys. Still it comes across as very honest, young and untouched. The nose is great, no doubt about it, hope it tastes as good.

Taste: Smoke and burnt wood. Dry peat, very young and un-complex, but also a bit un-balanced. Ash and a stunning absence of saltness. The best Islay Whiskies I know always have a sort of hidden sweetness to it, that this example lacks. It has some sweetness, but it comes across as diluted. Don’t get me wrong, 43% ABV is all right, but tastewise there isn’t that much happening here, which makes it a good first kiss if you’re interested in peated malts. Did I mention the rather short finish?

The bottle looks great, but I liked the nose even better. Tastewise it’s a wee bit to thin for my taste, and lacking some Islay components, you get from more aged Islay Whiskies (the sweetness and the saltness). Excellent choice for those who like peat and smoke, but also excellent for peatheads or Islay-o-philes that have lost at the stock market. At this price and this quality, it’s the Johnny Walker Red Label of the peated malts!

Points: 77

Säntis Malt Säntis Edition (40%, OB, Old Oak Beer Casks)

Well we all know the Scots have a lot of success with Whisky. Just like the Irish, the Americans, the Canadians and the Japanese. Today a lot more countries try to figure out how to make a good Single Malt. As far as I know, Switzerland already has 5 reasonable distilleries, or maybe even more. This Säntis Malt comes from the Locher Brewery from Appenzell. Locher has a long history in brewing beer and distilling spirits. It’s in the family already for five generations. Locher started with its malt in 1999, before that it was illegal to distill grain spirits in Switzerland.

Säntis Malt Edition SäntisQuite hard to figure out how to call this malt. On the label is stated: Säntis Malt, Swiss Highlander, Appenzeller Single Malt, Matured in Old Oak Beer Casks. On their website, this is called the Säntis Edition.

Color: Full Gold.

Nose: Malty and sweet. Very appetizing actually. Very fresh and clean. No off notes. A small hint of minty wood. A room that was painted a week before. Something fruity, maybe apples? Quite young. Hay and caramelized toast. It was aged in old beer barrels. In the nose there is hardly any wood, and certainly no beer, so I gather the casks don’t do a lot for the nose, so it’s all the aged spirit. Not bad!

Taste: Very mellow. Apple sauce. Syrupy sweet. Short attack from the wood, a sort of liquorice note, but vanishes very quickly. Very easy drinkable and again no off notes. Very short finish. The whole is too simple and too mild.

The nose was quite up to par, so I expected something with more oomph and complexity. Still I didn’t expect much from this, but it’s not all bad, not bad at all. It’s quite reasonable actually. A more aged spirit in a more active cask and at higher strength, has a potential to become a very good malt. Well worth to check out the rest of the range. Especially the distillery only Cask 1130 (Pinot Noir) at 64% ABV (less than 20 left).

Points: 70

Thanks go out to Erik for this sample.

Bourbon Week – Day 4: Four Roses “Single Barrel” (50%, OB, BS 38-3O, 70 cl)

And now we return to Bourbon. A Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky from Lawrenceburg Kentucky. First of all, when writing about Four Roses we have to look at their ten recipes. What? Ten recipes. Four Roses has ten different recipes for making Bourbon. They combine two different mash bills with five different yeast strains. The ten recipes are called OBSV, OBSK, OBSO, OBSQ, OBSF and OESV, OESK, OESO, OESQ, OESF.

The letters V, K, O, Q and F designate the yeast strain used. V is described as giving light fruitiness, light vanilla, caramel and creamy notes. K gives light spiciness, light caramel and a full body. O gives rich fruitiness, light vanilla, caramel and also a full body. Q gives essences of floral aroma’s and finally F gives essences of herbal aroma’s.

The letters B and E are used for the Mash Bill. B is 60% corn, 35% rye, and 5% malted barley. E is 75% corn, 20% rye and 5% malted barley. You might wonder what the O and S stand for. O stands for Four Roses Lawrenceburg, and S means Straight Whiskey. If you want some more information about how a specific recipe might taste, have a look over here.

I think this is genius, because this scheme allows for a lot of variation (you hope) in the finished product. There are some people in the USA, that bought some single casks from those ten different recipes, if not all. I know for a fact that Binny’s just did that, but there are more. So if you’re interested in the differences between those recipes, you can have a go with those specific single barrel bottlings.

Now, we have here a Single Barrel (100 Proof), do we know which recipe it is? Yes we do! It’s OBSV (60% Corn mash bill, Rich in Spiciness, Full Body). I’m very curious. I love the concept, and the looks of it. I once had the previous version of the Single Barrel (43% ABV), which I didn’t like too much. Too weak, very light and too floral and girlie for my taste. OK, let’s have a look at this new one and see if its more masculine 😉

Color: Dark Gold Copper

Nose: Dusty, slightly woody, fern, not overly complex, or is it? Give it some time, creamy, vanilla ice-cream and an exotic sweetness you can smell in a good Gewürztraminer. It also had a meaty component, like gravy. All in all, a very intriguing nose. I like this.

Taste: Spicy, licorice. Hints of wood only, almost no toast. This rose has quite a firm body. Since it’s a “B” and not a “E” I’m surprised at its sweetness. But is definitively tastes as a Bourbon with a high rye content. It’s like a ping-pong match between the corn and the rye. It’s not balanced in a way that you have a ‘married’ taste, that tastes always the same, but it’s balanced. It goes to and fro, your palate never gets a rest, and is always surprised with each sip. There goes a coconut by the way…

For me this is a work of high quality and more than one step up from the old Single Barrel. It seems to me this is like a sponsored bottle: for the quality you get it’s really dirt cheap, even without the discount I got, so I bought me a case of this. 50%ABV is excellent too. Again kudos, this time for the people at Four Roses. Excellent.

Points: 83

Bourbon Week – Day 2: Buffalo Trace (45%, OB, Single Cask for Binny’s, 750 ml)

Day two of the Bourbon week on Master Quill. This time a bottle from Buffalo Trace simply called Buffalo Trace. Again a Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey but this time from Frankfort, Kentucky. Buffalo Trace make a lot of different Whiskey’s. Bourbons, Ryes and Wheaters. Also a lot of different brands come from Buffalo Trace, and some are not the worst on the market. Just think of the Staggs and Sazeracs of this world. Wow!

For this review I’ll use and oddity of Buffalo Trace, well it’s definitively and oddity for us Europeans. They already bottle a lot of different whiskies that also taste quite different, lot of different mash bills. Here we have a single barrel version of the regular Buffalo Trace. A single cask picked by Binny’s (from the Chicago Bay Area). So the bottle is the same as the regular one, except for an elliptical golden sticker. Issued in 2010.

Color: Orange Gold

Nose: Honey, and a lot of it! Even the waxy part is there, honeyed furniture wax. Hints of toasted oak. Fresh sea air and meaty. Like sitting on the porch of your sea-side cabin, and the smell of  freshly made meatballs float by. Chocolaty and vaguely spicy. Very balanced. Nothing in this overpowers the rest.

Taste: More wood, and again a lot of honey. It tastes just less sweet than honey. It’s not overly complex, but very likeable. It’s not too sweet nor to dry. Texture is thin, even water seems thick. Just don’t confuse this with a thin taste, because that would be unfair. The people from Binny really did choose a nice cask. One that shows us what kind of whisky is (mass) produced for this ‘standard’ bottling, and it shows us what a damn good whiskey they make at Buffalo Trace. Kudos!

Yeah this is not bad, not bad at all. This will be no problem to finish, no problem whatsoever. Before finishing this piece, I already poured it four times. Very good standard bottling! Ok,ok, Single Barrel of a standard bottling. A shame really that I don’t have the standard version at hand…

Points: 82

Bourbon Week – Day 1: Labrot & Graham Woodford Reserve Distiller’s Select (43.2%, OB, Batch #49, 70 cl)

Here at Master Quill I’ve explored some Scottish Whiskies and I think it’s time to expand a little. There is a lot more out there and I feel it’s time for me to look into what America is capable of. The journey started for me with a Bourbon, as can be read here. Since I don’t have any Tennesee Whiskies, or even bottles from micro distilleries, I will focus for the time being on Bourbon, with the odd Rye-Whiskey thrown in for good measure.

What is Bourbon you might ask. The Federal Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits state that Bourbon must be:

  1. made from a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn,
  2. aged in new, charred-oak barrels,
  3. distilled to no more than 80% ABV,
  4. entered into the barrel for aging at no more than 62.5% ABV,
  5. bottled at a minimum of 40% ABV.

It is clear that Bourbon has to be aged, but no one knows for how long. Also there are more rules for a Bourbon to be called Straight, but we’ll get to that another time.

Lets move on to the next candidate. The first Bourbon we will explore is the small batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Woodford Reserve. This bourbon is made by Brown-Forman, but marketed under the name of the previous owners from long long ago: Labrot & Graham. The Distillery was built near Versailles (Kentucky) in 1812, but distilling activities started as early as 1797. Brown-Forman owned this distillery previously from 1940-1960 and now owns it again from 1996 onwards. The first batches were distilled ‘elsewhere’. Whisky is distilled partly in Scottish Pot Stills and partly from Column Stills from their Early Times plant in Shively (Kentucky). Besides this there are also Woodford versions made for the Kentucky Derby at a slightly higher ABV (45.2%, I don’t know if there are more differences, besides the illustrations on the bottle). There is also a small Masters Collection series and now a new Double Oaked version.

Color: Copper/Orange

Nose: Very Nice. Sweet/creamy character with spicy oak. Candied yellow fruits. Apples (skin), raisins and again some wood. Honey, almonds and cinnamon. Distant smoke.

Taste: Dry, more like spicy rye and spicy wood. Acetone and toast. Toffee and popcorn. Very elegant and nothing is in excess here. First a solvent like and slightly bitter finish, but after that somewhat late; a creamy finish and mouthfeel. And even later than that the toast from the cask. This really unwinds slowly. Still its a bit unbalanced, and thin. I would have bottled this at a higher ABV.

Pretty decent bourbon. But be careful, because for me this isn’t always as nice. Some day I like it more than on others.

Points: 77

Aberlour ‘A’bunadh’ (60.9%, OB, Batch No. 33, 2010)

There just had to be an Aberlour in one of the first posts here. Aberlour 10yo was my first single malt whisky ever! There’s no 10yo anymore in my lectern, not even a 10yo in stock. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a decent whisky, and it delivers a lot for the price it costs. But the good people at Aberlour also make this A’bunadh (of the origin), and compared to the 10yo this is really a steal. Very high quality whisky and it comes in all those neat batches. Oh, and it cask strength, and I just love cask strength.

A’bunadh, as it’s called, has no age statement (NAS) on the bottle, but is believed to be between 8 and 10 years old, and comes solely from Spanish Oloroso Sherry Butts. Well, if you could smell it now, or see it’s colour you would know this is true.

Color: Dark Copper or Orange/Brown.

Nose: Musty and meaty. Oloroso Sherry with oak. It even smells young and harsh. It misses some depth you can pick up from old sherry casks. (Just nose some 40yo+ Glenfarclas and you’ll know what I mean). Toffee, clay and some sourness (from the oak). It’s dusty and has a flowery note. Blackberry anyone?

Taste: Thick and full of flavour. Berries again, ashy and very nice. Some cardboard and a bit harsh due to its youth and strength. Hot! Lots of first fill casks in here. It smelled like a young sherried whisky and it tastes like one to and that is very nice for a change. There is nothing wrong with young whiskies, as long as they are well made, and this, this is well made, I can assure you. Great balance. Toasted wood in the finish.

Even though it’s young, strong and harsh I still like this neat. Water takes away the little sweetness it has and makes it a bit more harsh. Drinking this at cask strength, makes me happy. It’s a bit of a drug that way. Recommended. There are a lot of batches which have their differences. More than you would have thought. So it can be a lot of fun comparing different batches from different years. Some are less harsh, or more sweet or…You guessed it, come back often to A’bunadh, and you’ll be welcomed back every time by a very nice whisky. By the way, who said there weren’t any good sherry casks anymore, and who said those sherried whiskies aren’t affordable anymore?

Points: 87