Oh yes. Sorry. TBH, I have never heard of it. My gut reaction would be that if I have never heard of it in 12 years in the industry it can't be any good. But I could be completely wrong. Is it a single malt? Or a cheapo blend?
single malt, very expensive (allegedly) it was given as a gift to a mate after installing his personal cinema. the fella was/is a whisky exporter, my gut instinct suspects it's shit relabeled and papd of to the land of the rising sun.
Warning: totally off topic Had a quick Google. All is clear. It's not a single malt, it's a vatted Malt, now known legally as a blended malt. What this means is that it is a mixture of several different Single Malts. I see there are two versions, an Islay and a Speyside. They will both be totally different, so that if one is pants, the other may be delicious. The quality of the whiskies used is not in much doubt. What is going to affect it is the blender's art - i.e. were they mixed together in good proportions? If you take a load of fantastic paints and mix them together, the result you generally get is brown, if you don't know what you are doing. And so it is in whiskies: take several great malts, mix them together in the wrong quantities and you end up with the taste equivalent of brown. The second major factor is the age of the whiskies used. If they are very young (and thus cheaper) the result won't be half as good as if they were older (say 12 years). I notice that Glen Denny doesn't seem to have an age statement. This may well be because in order to have one, it is always the age of the youngest whisky in the blend. If one whisky is 5 years old, they would have to say "5 year old") on the label. The alternative is to say nothing at all. Also as this is very small batch stuff, the ages may vary from batch to another, creating labelling problems if they have an age statement. Also, if it is to be sold expensively (which seems to be the case), then people are going to expect at least 12 years old on the label, if not 18 or more. Johnnie Walker Blue Label has no age statement, but the whiskies in it tend to be very old. Looking at the colour of the Islay version, it is very pale. This would imply either very young whiskies, or whiskies which have been matured in 2nd or 3rd refill casks. You might find them less rounded than you would like. It should be pointed out that some Islay whiskies, such as Ardbeg, are very pale. The Speyside version is much darker, implying either that it has been "coloured up" or that older whiskies have been used, or that some of the whiskies used were matured in sherry casks rather than bourbon casks. The two versions are likely to be very different. Speysides are usually more floral, Islays tend to be quite smokey and peaty. So it will also depend on your taste. You may have the Islay version and detest that sort of taste (many people do - it's fairly Marmite. Islay lovers won't really drink anything else). Laing is a reputable whisky house, but they don't own those distilleries. They have bought in specific casks. Glen Denny could be anything. They might be using up stock they have (of stuff that wasn't good enough to be bottled as a single malt), have bought in some cheap stock for creating something for unsophisticated export palates, or have produced a very good whisky with expensive stock. Without tasting it, I can't tell. But it's manifestly not a relabelled scam.
cheers very interesting. . i do like an ardbeg in fact i like almost all whisky. this will probably sound pretentious but when drinking the good water i can go west to east but not east to west. why don't whisky company's sell bottled water that match the water used in the distillery. . maybe should of started another thread
Bet it's the Speyside then. You can quite often find nail varnish notes in Speyside whiskies. This is intriguing me now. But you're not very close for me to taste it.
1. Because there is nothing that special about the water, so long as it is quite soft. Oban uses the town supply. 2. Because logistically, it's a nightmare. You can bottle whisky and keep it in a warehouse for years, if you don't sell it. You can't do that with water. Whisky companies aren't set up to deal with the supply chain. 3. Who'd stock the water? Not the big supermarkets. Imagine if you had one water per distillery: nightmare.
will get a wee peek at it next time i see him he wont give me another nip after my critique or nor do i want one.
Whatever the whys and wherefores,this all has a horribly familiar ring to it.... Interesting to see how the EU deals with it though....the Germans won't be up for too much as Putin might turn the gas off,and our French neighbours will probably employ the Gallic shrug and nothing to do with us attitude..I doubt it will be a unanimous show of hands and lets take turns at kicking Putin up the arse... The Yanks might learn from history and throw a couple of cruise missiles at the Kremlin if Putins at home Better to nip the problem in the bud than let him keep pushing the boundaries to a potential World conflict like the Austrian Corporal did And no-one likes the Yanks anyway,so if they do it won't make any difference to the rest of the worlds opinion of the Great Satan....
Right then,let's build very big/long peace wall along the western border of the soviet union, oops sorry Russia and leave them to stew.
