Reviews

The Isle of Raasay Core Batch R0.01 is an exciting addition to the distillery's portfolio. With a double award at the Scottish Whisky Awards, the team shows that they can produce outstanding whisky.

The colour of this whisky is inviting and speaks for its maturity. The 12/2006 - 04/2022 bottling has a quota of 9,000 bottles and is not at all as rare as we are used to from bottles from the Springbank distillery. Nevertheless, the price is - well... Fortunately it has come back a little over the last few months.

This small batch single malt whisky from Israel was matured in ex-bourbon casks and then aged for six months in pomegranate wine casks. A type of cask that we have never come across before.

Glenlivet is globally renowned and enjoys massive popularity among both connoisseurs and beginners alike. In the distillery's lineup, there's a Travel Retail expression, which, one might aptly say, is likely targeted towards impulse buyers at airports. The Distiller's Reserve has matured without an age statement in three types of casks. Sherry and American Oak are familiar to us. However, the label doesn't disclose what exactly is meant by "Traditional Oak."

The Gilors Sherry Duett from the Henrich distillery is a marriage of a PX sherry cask and an Oloroso sherry. After maturing for 7 years, it is bottled at 46.4% strength.

As the name suggests, this single malt from the Taiwanese Kavalan distillery was matured in ex-bourbon casks - more precisely in first fill ex-bourbon casks. The Solist series is Kavalan's product range for cask strength bottlings.

The Fettercairn Warehouse Releases are small batches from the distillery's traditional warehouses in the Scottish Highlands. In the third batch from Warehouse 2, 'Ex-bourbon casks (57%), rum casks (16%) and French red wine barriques (27%) were married together.

The fired oak in the Glen Moray Fired Oak 10 years represents a maturation in heavily burnt barrels made from fresh American white oak. The single malt matured for 10 years in ex-bourbon casks before being given a 10-month finish in the fired oak casks.

Glen Scotia 10 Years Unpeated focuses on the aromas and flavour profiles created by maturation in bourbon casks. The bottling has been part of the Campbeltown distillery's Core Range since 2021.

The Tamdhu distillery is committed to both naturalness and the use of Oloroso sherry casks. The 12, 15 and 18-years standards are released at over 46% strength, uncoloured and non-chill-filtered. Today we have the 18-years Tamdhu in our glass.

Our friends at The Westfalian have consistently surprised and delighted us in the past. We've often discussed their fantastic approach to whisky: using local ingredients, distillery expertise, and an honest bottling of individual casks, which combines German whisky with a Scottish soul. Barrel 181 promises a lot right from the label: a roughly 7-years full maturation in a first-fill Ruby Port wine cask.

Not so long ago, Glenrothes could only be found in blends such as the Cutty Sark or the Famous Grouse. Fortunately, there is now a good standard range with a wide variety of bottlings, as well as a large number of independently bottled single malts.