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A few days ago I did a great Twitter Tasting with Steve Rush from The Whisky Wire and Ballantine’s. I really missed this kind of events. I have been away for four months but it looks like ages ago the last time I did…

Well, to be fair I wasn’t expecting a huge tasting, I have tasted a few Ballantine’s and I usually order Finest when I am out of home because it is better than the standard booze that they serve here and still cheap enough so you are not served so with a liver-crusher refilled whisky bottle. I love #Spain.

So, to the tasting… a few days before the tasting I got one of the hugest samples parcels that I have got in a lot of time. And I opened it and, oh, oh my, oh my my! Surprise! Five Ballantine’s whiskies to taste: Finest, 12yo , 17yo, 21yo and 30 years old.

I have already tasted some of them but I was particularly interested in two of them: the 30 years old and the 17 years old. I tasted long time ago the two of them and I wasn’t deeply touched by none of them.

So time to retaste them all!

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A few weeks ago I received an email offering me to taste a new whisky from USA called SIA. Umm, free whisky… umm too good to be true. Let me introduce you SIA and then I explain you a few things that really raised my expectations.

SIA was funded through Kickstarter by Carin Luna-Ostaseski using malts from Speyside, Highlands and Islay… well… so SIA is a Scotch whisky and bottled in Scotland by… guess who… Douglas Laing & Co!. Yay! The makers of Peat Monster and Scallywag. Yay!

The whisky is bottled at 43% ABV and has a decent ratio of malt/grain, with around 40% of single malts whiskies into the recipe…

Enough smalltalk… let’s taste this whisky!

SIA Blended Scotch Whisky

“Quite gorgeous! This blended whisky has three or four secrets inside... and the grain join to the chorus to make it even more yummy and delicious!”

88

This dram has a amber-like color.

Nose (88): more than average. honey, spices, citrus, cinnamon, peaches, vanilla, smoke, tobacco, corn.

Palate (87): light, powerful. honey, vanilla, spices, citrus, wood, smoke, peaches.

Finish (88): longer than average. honey, smoke, spices.

So based on other whiskies I have already tasted I rate this SIA Blended Scotch Whisky with 88 points over 100.

Miguel says…

Wooha! I have been taken by surprise! This whisky is really nice and I find quite surprising that in the leaflet is written: “What I found is so many consumers think of Scotch as heavy, smoky… something their father or grandfather would drink”… one of the things I love from this whisky is exactly that! It is slightly peated and definitively it isn’t a light poor whisky, here the grain whisky adds complexity and a extra layer of awesomeness into the blend. Damn! I really love it! [ Note to self: When wife isn’t looking at, order one or two! ]

And definitively… this is to good to by mixed! Enjoy it straight! Grow up!

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Oh my God! It is that dark and cold time of the year… no, no, I am not speaking about Winter, I am speaking about Jim Murray’s yearly edition of the Whisky Bible. There are two things that turn people against whisky: one is Johnnie Walker and the other is this leaflet, book, I mean book.

Seriously speaking, if there is any proof that alcohol has to be drink in moderation is The Whisky Bible… and Jim did it again: no, no, this year’s Best whisky of the year isn’t for another Ardbeg. No, this year the good old Jim named the five best whiskies of the World and only one is from Scotland. Not bad. My bet for 2016 The Whisky Bible’s Best whisky in the World is Jägermeister. But anyway… let’s review the winners.

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Another day, another peated dram! I love Lagavulin. I love their Lagavulin 16 years old because it is affordable and really… it is so hard to get any better bang for the buck!

“[Note to self: Get one] Very nice Lagavulin with a welcome extra layer of complexity over their fantastic 16 years old”

91

Originally released exclusively for the Friends of the Classic Malts, this is one of five triple-matured bottlings across the Classic Malts range that are matured in refill casks, American oak hogsheads and finally European Oak refill casks before being bottled at 48% abv. (The number of bottles is limited to 24,000 across the five releases.)

This dram has a cooper-like color.

Nose (91): more than average. peat, honey, wood, spices, vanilla, citrus, cappuccino, liquorice .

Palate (91): powerful, oily. peat, honey, salt, citrus, wood, spices, cocoa, earthy.

Finish (91): longer than average. peat, citrus, spices.

So based on other whiskies I have already tasted I rate this Lagavulin Triple Matured Edition (Friends of Classic Malts) with 91 points over 100.

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