Thread: Scotch/whiskey of the day

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

My plan is foiled. I went to place an order at the store. When I spoke to the distributor, who just happened to be in, A'bunadh was out of my budget. They don't carry Glenfarclas or Ardbeg so I couldn't order either. I guess it's back to the drawing board. I might just go with The Macallan or something similar. I think they had The Macallan 12, 15, and 17 in stock.
They also had Auchentoshan, several bottles of The Balvenie (including Carribean cask), and Springbank 10. Of course, Glenfiddich and Glenlivet were also in stock.

I have not been that impressed with the Auchentoshan expressions I have tried. The triple distillation may be part of the reason. Not the complexity of other single malts. YMMV.

I have some boxed sets of mini bottles from Glenfarclas that I've been saving. I tried the 105 and I believe the 12, but I think the sets have 15, 17 and 25 as well?

ChrisL

So much to say! I like when the discussion gets going.

Leatherstockiings, how's the aberlour 12? I've only tried the A'bunadh and keep considering buying one of the other expressions for a comparison. I'm trying to hold off buying for a little while, I seem to buy whisky much quicker than I review it. Sorry to hear you couldn't get the A'bunadh, I think you would have enjoyed it. I'll PM you a link to my blog, I'm still a little unclear as to whether posting it here would count as advertising, which would break the forum rules. I haven't tried Auchentoshen or Macallan that i can recall, but springbank is very good quality but rather subtle and I would consider it a more "advanced" tasting experience if there is such a thing. Flavours tend to be minerally and less familiar. I was impressed by the Balvennie double wood not too long ago (12 year old I think?). I tried it maybe ten years ago and wasn't that excited about it, but had it again at a friend's place about a year ago and was very pleasantly surprised.

Pighog, I read it as "green welly top" the first time round and assumed you were referring to the colour of the tube, which is pretty much green welly coloured. The tasting notes they have on the site make it sound very similar to the 15 year revival. I'm very interested to hear more. With the 15 year revival the distillery say there's an orange taste in their notes, but I didn't notice anything I would call orange until I was halfway don the bottle. Interesting.

ChrisL, I was just looking at one of my blog posts because someone commented on it (I'm averaging nearly one comment a year so far) and I'd speculated a bit about double and triple distilling. My thought at the time was that maybe double distilling makes for a more complex whisky, but triple distilling might allow for subtleties of flavour that would otherwise be hidden by the heavier flavour compounds. I hadn't really thought about it much since, but right now I'm thinking that for triple distilling to reveal light and subtle flavours they would have to be there in the first place. I'm wondering if Auchentoshan is hampered by triple distilling or if it's just not that great, and wondering even more how someone would tell the difference without trying a double distilled version which doesn't appear to exist. What do you reckon?

I tried several single malts tonight. I'll try to give a brief report this weekend.