Latest from Edinburgh Whisky Blog

The Balvenie Tun 1401 batch no.2

You snooze you lose, right? Not quite. I may have missed the initial buzz when this important Balvenie was released in November last year but the sample I received survived just fine at the bottom of my ‘to do’ box and has now been dug up and poured. Much to my delight but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The Balvenie Tun 1401 batch 2 comes from 10 old casks married for three months in the eponymous tun. Seven standard hoggies and three sherry butts from the celebrated warehouse 24 were involved, the company refers to them as ‘rarest treasures’. It follows the original Balvenie Tun 1401 (obviously) which was available at the distillery in 2010.

The Balvenie Tun 1401

Batch number 2
50.6% ABV
£150 Europe only (scarce)

Nose: Candy shop orgy of sweetness and processed fruit, deep leather aroma and oranges galore. Thyme honey and shortbread follow. Great intensity, complexity and clarity. Impressive.

Palate: Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan and no whisky does honey like Balvenie. The truth. But this time it’s a whole different ballgame, the honey is pronounced and manifests itself from aggressive entry to the last spasm of a lovely long finish, going from sweet to bitter and to sweet again. Lemon thyme, pink grapefruit and oaky darkness. Firm texture.

Overall: The Balvenie Tun 1401 batch 2 is an exceptional whisky, one I will remember for a long time. It has been a pleasure to review as it is quite simply flawless. It delivers the Balvenie house style with an oomph and is a great display of how great some of the stock at the Balvenie distillery must be. Shame we didn’t get batch 3 in Europe (US exclusive) but then, the Americans didn’t get batch 2 so we’re square. I’m looking forward to more and starting to campaign with the missus for a green light to buy a full bottle (how sad am I?).

Lucas

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The Third Birthday Party is Here!

It’s this time of the year again and, let me just say, this one is truly special. Not only is the blog turning 3, which in the whisky world as you well know is the legal drinking age, but also we are celebrating the arrival of our brand new super duper fancy website. It was supposed to be a surprise for the attendees but the site will have to go live a few days prior to the bash to allow us to iron out the details and all that.

The tradition dictates we should hold the parté at The Scotch Malt Whisky Society venue in Leith and it shall be so. On Monday the 6th of February we would like to see all of our Edinburgh-based friends there for a few fine drams. If you’ve been to one of our birthday bashes before you know what to expect. Great food, whisky, music, familiar faces and then probably waving our hands in the air until wee hours. Kick off at 7pm. Please kindly RSVP on Facebook and remember:

Monday 6th February, 7pm, SMWS Vaults in Leith

Budgie’s beer 101

In the last few weeks or so Edinburgh Whisky Blog has had its fair share of beer blogs. Now I don’t know about you but my beer knowledge is limited to the beers that I can taste in the local and wether they hit the spot or not. I have never really bothered to delve into the depths of brewing and look at the how and where’s of beer making. I have therefore enlisted self confessed beer geek and occasional fellow drinker Andrew Budge to fill us in with a little 101 on beer. Hope you guys find this as enlightening as I did – Graeme

Whisky geek’s beer 101

As a home brewer and what can only be described as a poorly educated beer geek I constantly find myself fascinated by the shear range of taste, appearance, smell and well… ABV that beer encompasses. As such I’d like to talk a bit about what makes one type of beer different from another. If I had my way I could ramble until the word count of this blog reached truly disgusting levels, but I have been told by the powers that be not to bore you all and more importantly to recommend some very tasty beers for your pleasure.
Apart from the Reinheitsgebot! (Bavarian beer purity law), which states that all beer made in Germany can only contain four ingredients (water, hops, barley and yeast), which to be fair in this day and age is little more than a marketing tool, there is not really much else (speaking legally) saying what makes a beer a certain type of beer. Either way I shall endeavour to give my opinion the matter, giving examples of what I think is a prototypical beer of each category and some of my personal favourites.  

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A Quick Dram or two

Two Speedy Whisky Reviews

Glen Elgin 1990/2010 (20yo)
First Cask
Ex-bourbon
46% ABV

Nose: Pink lady apples and some pears. Quite creamy and fresh. Bit like freshly cut grass.

Palate: Honey, fruity, grassy and a slight bitterness. Very drinkable. Not a massive dram, but quite nice. On second taste, the bitterness (burnt toast?) comes through a little more.

Finish: Cocoa

Overall: Quite nice. Not mind blowing, and a little light for a 20 year old, but still tasty.

Blair Atholl 11yo
Berry Bros & Rudd
46% ABV

Nose: Nutty, raisiny, a bit earthy and the tiniest tiniest hint of sulphur. Bit meaty and oily with a tiny hint of cocoa.

Palate: Quite briny, hint of vanilla, hint of lime and a drop of Fino sherry.

Overall: Lovely stuff. Just wish it was a bit stronger in ABV. Did not mind the tiny hint of sulphur either. As long as it’s tiny.

Chris Hoban

Little Creatures Pale Ale + The Castle = A Match Made In Oz

A guest blog on a beer and a film from OZ

This excellent article was written by EWB’s guest blogger from Down Under (well she lives in London, but she is from OZ), Courtney. I met Courtney on a brilliant trip up to Speyside. On this trip I found out that she has a passion for alcohol and films. I suggested she combine the two into a blog form, and so this blog post was born. She sent this to me months ago, but because I am useless, forgetful (so forgetful) and very busy, this is the first chance I have had to post it up.

Thanks so much Courtney. I hope this is the first of many more (apologies for being so useless!)

Chris Hoban

Courtney here. As I sit down I am surrounded by Australian paraphernalia – The Castle DVD playing, A bottle of Little Creatures Pale Ale in my hand, and You am I’s ‘Heavy Heart’ providing the backing soundtrack for my maiden blog post – my mind wanders back to 2002, when I travelled to Fremantle in Western Australia with some like-minded individuals to sample the best of WA (read: consume alcohol in venues that did not differ vastly from the public houses that I would frequent back in Victoria). 

My unrefined palate was used to sampling the cheapest, most undignified of liquids that my university strained wallet could take, that would carry me to the desired level of inebriation.  This was all well and good, until we decided to visit The Little Creatures Brewery in Fremantle.  Stepping gingerly inside this vast space, with the taste of last night’s lost memories still burning strong; I sampled a variety of Bright Ale, Pilsner, Pale Ale and Rogers beer that would stick in my mind up until this point and beyond.   With the logo of the little angel holding a frothy glass of ale beaming down on me like a little malted god, I started to appreciate, daresay enjoy, the amber nectar that my palate had been deprived in favour of herbal laced shots abruptly dunked into various energy drinks and consumed at high speed.

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EWB question time: Brewdog’s James Watt

Last week, whilst out for a cheeky Friday evening beveridge, me and Tiger decided to hit up Brewdog on the Cowgate in Edinburgh. Lukasz was already there making his way through the menu and we decided that we should  join in. After a cheeky few we ended up chatting to a lovely chap at the bar, who turned out to be none other than co-founder James Watt. Using my half-cut wit and Tiger’s smooth man-charms, we managed to convice James to do an interview for Edinburgh Whisky Blog. Here is the chat that ensued:

Of your current whisky related range which beer do you feel is the strongest?

We love our new Paradox Jura – a 15% Imperial Stout aged in Jura whisky barrels for over a year. It is available in our Cowgate Bar!

What process do you guys use to select the correct casks for the maturation of your beers?

It all depends on the type of beer we are putting into the casks. As huge whisky fans we love ageing beers in Scotch barrels. For a lighter beer we need a more subtle cask so a old grain cask or a speyside is perfect. Only our most robust, dark, full bodied beers can handle islay casks!

Do you create the beer and match it to a cask, or select the cask and create the beer to match?

It depends on what we are doing. We recently did a spin on the Cranachan dessert. We made a 15% Imperial Milk Stout with raspberries, honey and loads of toasted oats. It is now sitting ageing in a speyside barrel.We once even brewed using some Port Ellen malts and then aged the beer in an Laphroaig cask – it was like drinking an carbonated Islay whisky. The beer was called Bitch Please and was a collaboration with US brewers 3 Floyds.

What would the Brewdog take on the traditional half and half be?

A gourmet take on a great whisky and beer side-by-side tasting. Punk IPA and Springbank is always good!

If you were only allowed to stock one bottle constantly in the Brewdog office, what would it be? 

It would have to be our flagship Punk IPA. Although our 18.2% Tokyo* is a great winter beer.

Do you guys have any plans to branch out of the beer industry, perhaps in to spirits? or content with whisky strength beers?

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Glenmorangie Artein

Glenmorangie Artein

2/3 15yo and 1/3 21yo
Matured in bourbon casks
Extra matured in Super-Tuscan casks
46% ABV
£70

Nose: Chestnut, rhubarb candy, roses, maraschino cherry, carrot cake, ripe melon. An unusual nose with lots of complexity. Dirtier than your Glenmorangie Original, as big as the 25yo but different, much fruitier.

Palate: Again very different here. Bitter-sweet pencil woodiness, carmelised fruit, a touch of chocolate. Lively and sweet.

Finish: Dying slowly through sweet and smooth to slightly vegetal.

Overall: A Glenmorangie extraordinaire it is not, fans of the Original and the 25yo may find this one strange. But if you’re quite open-minded and don’t mind that extra bit of sweetness, you will find Glenmorangie Artein a single malt of remarkable merit and worth going back to. A well balanced red wine finish is a rare animal indeed and all fans of weird and wonderful will want to add this to their collections. At £70 a bottle I personally will have to give it a miss though.

Person: Caterina Murino

Lucas

Human dimension

Fuck. Brian Ettles from Glenfiddich took his life on Saturday by drowning himself in a washback. This sad news reached us earlier this week and needless to say made us feel completely and utterly rubbish. I don’t think we knew Brian but he was one of our own. Our thoughts are with the family and the distillery staff. Please accept our sincere condolences and hang in there, guys.

Whisky brands like to showcase the human dimension of what they do. Beautiful black and white pictures of burly men propping up malt shovels in the goosebumps-inducing chiaroscuro of cosy stone barns decorate walls in distillery visitor centres. But human dimension is just that. Human.

Caol Ila 18 – truely brilliant or whisky myth?

When I was a youngster in the field of whisky lore, I was introduced to a fine wee bottle. I had only been partaking in the golden spirit drink for a couple of months and was cramming my mind (and palate) full of as many new and exciting whiskies as humanly possible. Working at a bar with over 300 whiskies meant that, thankfully, I was not short of material to experiment with. In this initial rush, one bottle stood out above all others and cemented its position above all other casualties in my one man war on whisky. This was the magnificent Caol Ila 18. Three years later, it is still imprinted in my mind as the whisky I offer up, when repeatedly asked to name my numero uno. However, in recent times, my faith has waned in Caol Ila 18. I have not managed to try some for about two years! It was becoming increasingly hard to get hold of, other whiskies I had originally held with high esteem, upon re-tasting had faded out of my mind and, as with all of us, my palate has changed considerably over the years. Therefore, when tourists at the Scotch Whisky Experience pressure me into choosing a favourite whisky (and boy, do they pressure! Round after round of questions until I give an answer, never accepting a truthful ‘It changes all the time’ or ‘it depends on my mood’) I eventually, and somewhat grudgingly, state that Caol Ila 18 is my favourite.

It had been so long since I last tasted it, that it had grown in to a legend, a myth in my mind, escalating it to the top of my charts. I had to get a bottle. Sadly this is easier said than done as stock supplies are very, very low and even my good friend the internet was failing me. Finally, I lucked in to a bottle when my parents stopped at Baxter’s, outside of Glasgow, and found one random, lonely bottle left. After remembering that I had been searching for this they called me and after much whooping and celebration, I finally received my bottle. The truth awaited, was the level of awesomeness-ness a trick of my mind (most likely)? Did it deserve the legendary status it had gathered from my young, inexperienced mind? Well it should be of no surprise that I wasted no time in cracking it open and giving it a gentleman’s chance of proving itself:

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Scottish Beer. You gotta love it

A beer review

Last week, as my first post of the  New Year, I tasted rum. Now I am tasting beer. Bloody whisky bloggers! We just cannot keep on topic, eh? I can’t help it. Rum and beer are new and exciting for me. They appeal to my whisky loving taste buds by being strong and complex, and because they are new flavours, I find it fascinating to taste them.

I can’t claim to be an expert, but I never claimed to be an expert on whisky. You don’t need to be an expert to taste stuff. Just the conviction to to know what you like.

The Scottish beer industry is going through a huge period of growth as we speak. More and more micro breweries are popping up, while micro breweries of the past are getting bigger, more successful and more accomplished. Good beer is appearing in more and more pubs. Variety is the spice of life, and the level of variety in the Scottish beer category is brilliant.

The venue of choice  tonight is the Red Squirrel in Edinburgh. It’s a really good pub, as they have a multitude of beer taps, it’s a nice place and has excellent burgers. What more can you ask for? On another point, I haven’t had a bad pint from this pub and none of my friends have either. They have a reputation for keeping their beers well, and so far, I heartily agree.

Beer of choice tonight is going to be from Williams Bro’s. The Williams Bro’s have been brewing since 1988 and they are based in Alloa. They are an example of one of those breweries that started off small; in the beginning, their output could supply about 5 pubs and they were based in a tiny railway station and now, they are really reaping the rewards for their hard work over the past 20 plus years.

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