Scotch tasting

[irul&ublo]

Got these 3 200s as a box set. Had a tasting with three friends, one of whom brought most of a bottle of Ardmore, 92 proof, but no age date.

Winner was the Lagavulin 16, followed by the Ardmore, Talisker and the Cragganmore.

[Benny Profane]

There is a bar in Saratoga Springs, NY, by the name of 9 Maple, that does (well, not now) a whiskey tasting every first Tuesday. Three shots of a whiskey (could be bourbon or Irish, too), followed by a mixed drink using one of those spirits. The cool part is watching 30 of the same cocktail made at once.

The Lagavulan is considered the holy grail there.

[Cruiser]

I like those little kits. There was a bruichladdich one and a glenmorangie one recently that we're both good. The one you got was the best of the ones I've seen though.

[irul&ublo]

It was 40.00 from k&l, plus shipping. Pretty good price as full size bottles of those are around 70-80

[Grange]

I've got the Glenmorange sampler and it was fun to compare with friends. Of those three I'd pick the Lagavulin 16.

[schuss]

Lagavulin is great stuff. Current faves are balvenie, their Caribbean cask and portwood both punch well above their weight.

[liv2ski]

Ha, was introducing my daughter to scotch last night. She liked a 15 year old Balvenie aged in sherry casks best. It was the least peety for sure.

[bennymac]

We had some thread drift in the “cheap liquor” thread within the past week with some good conversation about getting into scotch.

To make some sweeping generalizations here: the scotches that have a peaty flavor tend to come from the western islands of Scotland (Islay, Jura, Skye etc). The Scotch from the mainland tends not to have peaty flavor. Again there will be exceptions.

The scotch distilleries in the islands burn peat instead of wood when drying out the barley (because there aren’t many trees out on those islands but there is lots of peat in the bogs). This imparts the smokey peaty taste.

If you look up where Balvenie is that’s an area known as Speyside. Many famous and delicious scotch whiskies come from that area. Most will not use peat in their distilleries.

Usually a good idea to not start a scotch rookie off with peaty flavored scotch. It often takes time to develop the love so smoother less smokey whiskies are the way to go.

Try putting an ice cube in the glass for 20 seconds or so (then spoon it out) - this will chill the liquid and add a few drops of water (as the cube melts) and that can also help take some of the edge off when just getting into scotch.

[Core Shot]

This is a good read.

Scotch and covid. And humour

https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/d...rney-pandemic/

We agreed (tipsily) to the mammoth task of tasting 85 of the world’s best single malt scotches. We watched Scotch: A Golden Dream on Netflix and studied the scotch tasting bible, Whisky Classified. Particularly delightful was the “tasting notes” section, which read like the back of a Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans package: nail varnish, christmas cake, gun oil, butterscotch, waxed raincoat, venison (leave it to the Scots to find deer in their whisky), and, of course, vomit. We came up with our own descriptions, agreeing that Laphroaig 10 Year smelled like riding in a tuk tuk in Delhi traffic. My husband made use of all those college poetry classes, finding notes of “barbecued sushi roll” and “mushrooms in a rotting tree,” as I made use of all those acting classes by not laughing.