Read stories about Tasting of A Wardrobe of Whisky blog.

When I first read about Balvenie Tun 1401 I was quite excited because I love the idea and lots of people seemed to love the whisky. I was quite dissappointed when I learnt that it was beyond my pocket size at launch time…

So I forget about it until I recently found a sample of it for a reasonable price. And so I tasted…

“All the lovely Oloroso character of Balvenie with a touch of sweet sherry. SImply gorgeous...if only it wasn't so expensive”

91

The long awaited follow up to the distillery only first batch, Tun 1401 Batch 2 is named for Malt Master David Stewart's favourite marrying tun, used to create this whisky. It's a multi-vintage combination of sherry and bourbon cask whiskies from the late 1960s through to the late 1980s and elegantly blends age and (comparative) youthful vigour.

This dram has a cooper-like color.

Nose (90): more than average. nuts, wood, honey, citrus, sulphur, peaches.

Palate (92): powerful, oily. nuts, honey, citrus, spices, flowers, pepper, vanilla, liquorice. Fantastic flavor!

Finish (91): longer than average. honey, liquorice, wood.

So based on other whiskies I have already tasted I rate this Balvenie Tun 1401 - Batch 2 with 91 points over 100.

My advice is Buy if you can afford, it is a sensational dram, but it is too expensive for my pocket. Much like the excelent Balvenie 30 years old… Damn!

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The guys at CaskStrength are aboard the task of bottling a whisky for every letter of the alphabet, so after a very nice Arran whisky they have bottled this Benriach and recently a cask strength Cutty Sark and a vatted whisky of three distilleries starting with letter D… wisely named 3D.

“Is this from a refill cask? Very interesting notes of sultanas and figs but not the overwhelming character of PX casks aged whiskies. A gentle sherry dram”

90

This single cask whisky is the second release from Caskstrength.net and represents the "B" in their A-Z of drinks.

Released in conjunction with BenRiach, this rich and powerful dram was distilled in 1996, aged for 16 years, and bottled at cask strength (55.2%). It comes from one cask (5614) and thus has a limited release of only 296 bottles.

This dram has a cooper-like color.

Nose (89): more than average. honey, fruits, figs, vanilla, citrus.

Palate (90): powerful, oily. honey, wood, citrus, spices, raisins, white chocolate.

Finish (90): longer than average. honey, citrus, raisins.

So based on other whiskies I have already tasted I rate this Benriach Caskstrength and Carry on with 90 points over 100.

A great whiskies. Highly recommended.

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anCnoc is a distillery that creates a great whisky but it isn’t widely known… and I think it has to do with the fact that they love to change their name from time to time.

“Great whisky! With that great fingerprint of anCnoc. But if you want to listen to me, get the 12 years old, it is better value for the money”

90

This dram has a gold-like color.

Nose (90): more than average. honey, vanilla, wood, citrus, floral. anCnoc's seal on this one. Unmistakable.

Palate (91): powerful, oily. honey, vanilla, citrus, spices, cinnamon, candies. Fantastic! but it doesn't looks like 22 years old. It is more vibrant and young.

Finish (90): longer than average. honey, spices, candies.

So based on other whiskies I have already tasted I rate this anCnoc 22 Year Old with 90 points over 100.

It is a great value whisky, but bang for the buck I would buy the 12 years old.

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Jim Murray named Old Pulteney the best whisky in the world a few years ago… that was when I was young and I believed that the poor guy even care about tasting his whiskies. I bought a Old Pulteney 21yo because everyone was mad about (buying) it. So it came the day when I open the bottle and tasted it… it was much like when Dorothy meets the Great Oz.

But forget it… this Old Pulteney 30 years old is made with the same stuff dreams are created.

“Respect! Maybe the best Old Pulteney whisky I have had. This could really have been Best Whisky of the World”

92

70cl / 44% / Distillery Bottling - A much-anticipated addition to the Old Pulteney range, this 30yo has had extremely favourable reviews and, thankfully, this looks like living up to expectations and justifying the pricetag.

This dram has a fino-like color.

Nose (91): more than average. candies, flowers, citrus, vanilla, spices. Respect!

Palate (93): smooth, oily. candies, spices, citrus, flowers, vanilla, wood, cinnamon, pears.

Finish (92): longer than average. candies, spices, vanilla.

So based on other whiskies I have already tasted I rate this Old Pulteney 30 Year Old Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky with 92 points over 100.

Well, it is expensive but it is also damn good. I would buy it if I have the money… and I can’t say the same about their 21 years old.

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Dailuaine was founded in 1851 in the Speyside region ( and have been there since that time ) and was the first distillery to feature a pagoda roof for its malt kiln, a successful design that rapidly was adopted by other distilleries.

Quite interesting, but is it the whisky good? Well, this whisky has been bottled by Douglas Laing ( it is hard to get a whisky that I don’t like from them… but still possible ) and it is part of their Director’s Cut range, a batch of whiskies from chosen casks and bottled at cask strength without chill filtration or anything added but single malt whisky.

“Fantastic! Dry floral awesome single malt! Excellent work”

91

Dailuaine 40 Year Director's Cut Speyside single malt Scotch whisky bottled by Douglas Laing is a malt from a single cask refill hogshead #8186 and distilled in December 1971 and bottled in February 2012 with a result of 117 bottles.

This bottle is part of the Douglas Laing Director's Cut range

This dram has a gold-like color.

Nose (92): average. honey, flowers, spices, vanilla, citrus. Fantastic nose.

Palate (91): dry, powerful, oily. honey, wood, eucalyptus, spices, pepper, vanilla.

Finish (91): longer than average. eucalyptus, flowers.

So based on other whiskies I have already tasted I rate this Dailuaine 40 Year Old Director's Cut with 91 points over 100.

Highly recommended. If you see it and you can afford this malt you will get a very rewarding experience.

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Just two days ago it happened to me one of the strangest things I have done lately. I was doing with Steve Rush and other whisky chaps the #abbeywhisky Tweet tasting and then I tasted the #4 sample and definitively I knew I needed it. I bought the bottle on the very middle of the tasting ( Sorry Steve, I had to! ). Had I tasted it before I would have included on the Top 10 Whiskies to enjoy this Christmas.

I haven’t tasted any other Glendronach Oloroso single cask, but this one was fantastic. Oh, well, and we tasted other stuff… but really the Glendronach eclipsed everything else… and £89.95 a bottle isn’t much to think about it nowadays.

So the whiskies…

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Glendronach is one of my favorites distilleries ( even if I didn’t featured them in the list of ten whiskies everyone must taste this Christmas ) and they bottle great whiskies like the Glendronach 15 years old Revival or their amazing single cask releases.

So you can understand my happiness when I read that they were releasing a cask strength NAS version of their whisky. I taste here the 1^st batch but they are already on the 3^rd.

“Good Glendronach whisky! Seems a blend of Oloroso and PX casks which works really well. One ordered.”

90

The first batch of no-age-statement cask strength whisky from Glendronach, bottled at 54.8% and originally released in December 2012. It's a vatting of Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez matured whisky, shown in its colour and intense sherried flavour.

This dram has a tawny-like color.

Nose (90): more than average. nuts, honey, toffee, citrus, figs, cocoa.

Palate (90): powerful, oily. nuts, honey, citrus, wood, cocoa, spices, dates.

Finish (91): longer than average. nuts, citrus, chocolate.

So based on other whiskies I have already tasted I rate this Glendronach Cask Strength / Batch 1 with 90 points over 100.

Although I don’t usually enjoy PX drams, and this one has more than a bit of it, I liked the Glendronach Cask Strength a lot. I am happy to have bought a bottled. Good whisky.

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Oh My God! I did this incredible Highland Park Tasting ten days ago and I still haven’t find time to write this article… I have no excuses, well, no, in fact, I really have, a friend of mine told me about Homeland and I have been watching First and Second seasons since then. But no more excuses, you really need to know about these whiskies that unfortunately are Duty-free/Travel retail exclusives.

I am not a huge fan of Highland Park because they don’t send me samples because I can get as good whiskies as Highland Park for less money. A few years ago someone once told me that there are two kind of Highland Park whiskies: overwatered and overpriced. I though it was a joke and although there are fantastic whiskies ( and I mean really crazy good whiskies ) on this tasting all of them goes to one or the other category. That’s said I have to say that I love the 25yo and the 30yo. Outstanding malts!.

Oouch! If I keep writing like this I won’t be able to watch another chapter of Homeland before the day ends, so let me show you what we tasted on the #HPWarriorTT.

Highland Park has released a range of whisky called The Warriors to pay homage to famous Orkney viking chiefs and so named the range of six bottles after them. So let’s review the whiskies…

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I was talking a few days ago at Facebook about how stupid whisky prices are nowadays and I was particularly talking about Octomore. When I saw the Octomore 10 years old Limited Release for sale I were going to buy it but as soon as I saw it for £150 I decided to put it on a hold.

Paying £150 for a 10 years old is excessive by any means and well… all the point of this blog is to buy good whisky for better prices. So buying the Octomore ( I still think the same ) was a bad deal. Fortunately ( or unfortunately ) the whisky sold out in a few hours and now a few months later it is for same for twice its price: £300. Crazy.

What I was talking about?! A yes… I tasted the new Octomore 06.1 at The Whisky Show 2013. And I also discovered there that Octomore 06.2 and Octomore 06.3 are going to be duty-free exclusives.

“Fantastic! A real cracking pure peat pleasure”

92

This dram has a gold-like color.

Nose (91): strong. peat, earth, honey, vanilla, citrus.

Palate (92): powerful, oily. peat, honey, citrus, vanilla, earth, wood, spices.

Finish (92): longer than average. peat, honey, spices.

So based on other whiskies I have already tasted I rate this Bruichladdich Octomore 06.1 5 Year Old Scottish Barley with 92 points over 100.

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Is this whisky good enough to pay £100? I don’t really think so, but it is a quite nice whisky. If you really don’t mind the price tag, go ahead. You won’t be disappointed.

What do you think about its price? Did you buy it?

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Perhaps the main ingredient in the succesful Bells Blended whisky, it is not common to see Blair Athol as a single malt.
So this fact makes this Duncan Taylor whisky even more interesting.

“I don't enjoy floral dry drams. This is one of them. Not bad anyway. I could live drinking this”

88

This single malt was distilled in May of 1989 at Blair Athol and it was aged for 22 years in cask 2926 before bottling by Duncan Taylor for their Rare Auld range in November 2011.

A release of 277 numbered bottles at natural cask strength

This dram has a white wine-like color.

Nose (88): average. honey, vanilla, citrus, spices, flowers.

Palate (88): powerful, oily. honey, floral, vanilla, spices, wood.

Finish (88): longer than average. honey, floral.

So based on other whiskies I have already tasted I rate this Blair Athol 22 Year Old 1989 - Rare Auld (Duncan Taylor) with 88 points over 100.

Well, although it isn’t my style ( and I enjoy Bells whisky ) it is a very decent dram. For those of you that love floral light whiskies.

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