Log Entry # 100 - December 31, 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(This report was so huge I had to put it on a seperate page; CLICK HERE
for reports #101 - #109) It's snowing. Oh yes, the Islay season is upon us once more! At the beginning of 2001, fellow For tonight, I selected 14 different Islay contestants from my shelves;
Of course, I didn't plan on sampling them in alphabetical order.
So, these are tonight's H2H battles; 1 - Bunnahabhain 12yo vs Bruichladdich 15yo (old) It's 18:27 sharp. 1 - Bunnahabhain 12yo vs
Bruichladdich 15yo (old version) It's too early for graphic violence, so I started with two relative weaklings. I bought a bottle of the 'Bunny 12' especially for the occasion - it was the only Islay malt that wasn't on my
shelves already. And it would be a good match for the Bruichladdich 15 because all the other Islays on the table would probably overpower it.
Nose: In the start, the Bunnahabhain 12 appeared sweet & sour while the Bruichladdich seemed a little fruitier.
All in all, they are remarkably similar with an obvious sherry character and a glimmer of oil shining through. After 5 minutes, the Bunny 12 becomes much stronger and peatier; the Laddie 15 quickly follows. It also shows some less
pleasant 'veggy' notes. Spicier than the Bunny. After 10 minutes, the Bunny proved to be the one with the most endurance; the Laddie turned distinctively oily/spirity/veggy. Conclusion: 2 - Port Ellen 18yo 1981 vs Caol Ila 26yo 1974/2001 OMC I proceeded with the two 'oldies' of the evening because earlier tastings indicated that the McGibbon's Provenance Port Ellen and the Douglas Laing OMC Caol
Ila were a little bit milder than most Islays. The bottle of Caol Ila was donated by Arthur when he came over for the Laphroaig JOLT last week. He left the bottle when he... erm... left. There was still enough whisky in the bottle
for five or six serious samplings - plenty to add it to 'the final pages' of my old Nose: The Port
Ellen showed organic, earthy notes in the start, the Caol Ila was lighter and sweeter - almost citrussy. Over time, the Caol Ila remained fruity in comparison and much cleaner. Fresher too. Both become smokier after a while.
Neither one showed a lot of peat, though. Conclusion: 3 - Laphroaig 15yo vs
Bowmore NAS 'Darkest' People who look at my scores for these malts in the matrix (88 and 65 points, respectively) might think this isn't a fair match. Well, since the price lies around 60 Euro's in both cases, I figured
they should both offer similar value. Tough noogies when one of them should turn out to be an overpriced freak of a whisky. Nose: Hey! The Bowmore finally seems to
have improved. A lot, actually. Smoky sweetness, with deep sherry and woody tones. Some fruity elements as well. The character hasn't changed, but everything is much more balanced than before. The Laphroaig seems much more subtle with organic ('forest'?) and oriental notes over the peaty, sulphury base. The bourbon aging of the Laphroaig is really obvious when confronted with a sherry monster like the Darkest. In this case, I prefer the bourbon subtlety over the screaming sherry.
Conclusion: Oh, boy - who would have thought I'd live to see the day. A long time of breathing in an 3/4 empty bottle has
finally softened up the rough edges of the Bowmore Darkest. It has improved a full 10 points worth, but since I opened the bottle more than a year ago (see 4 - Lagavulin 16yo ('White Horse', 1999) vs Ardbeg 17yo
After a short break to give my senses a rest, two of my Top 3 malts went H2H. I've performed this H2H before in the past, but that was with previous bottlings of Lagavulin 16.
I've noticed a slight slipping in the quality of the Lagavulin 16 over the years, so I'm curious how the fresh bottle on my top shelf compares to its competitor. It's from the same batch as 3 of the 7 others in my reserve stock,
bottled in the 2nd half of 1999.
Nose: The Lagavulin starts of much stronger, smokier and more sherried than the Ardbeg, which seemed lighter and fruitier - more oily as well. Wonderful complexity and
balance in both noses, but the Ardbeg seems a little lighter. The Lagavulin seems sweeter than the fresher Ardbeg. Cookies in the Ardbeg? The Lagavulin has just SO much! Old leather. Fish and shoepolish? I'm sure that doesn't sound
appetizing, but it's amazing. Conclusion: 5 - Lagavulin 14yo 1984 vs Laphroaig 15yo 1985 OMC Two independent bottlings go H2H
in the fifth bout of the evening. The Lagavulin was bottled by Murray McDavid, while the Laphroaig is a Douglas Laing Old Malt Cask bottling. Both are bottled at a percentage somewehere between 'standard' and 'cask strength'; 46%
for the Lagavulin and 50% for the Laphroaig. Nose: Bourbon aging is obvious in both noses; fresh and almost sparkly. Neither one shows a lot of peat. The Laphroaig is more expressive at first; sweeter with more organic notes. Fruitier
with time. The Lagavulin shows much more salt and brine - and a little peat after a while. Overall, the Laphroaig appears more subtle in the nose than the Lagavulin. Especially after 15 minutes, it is much more expressive
with a wider range of fragrances. The Laphroaig is the undisputed winner in the battle of the noses. On the other hand, the Lagavulin shows more pride in its Islay heritage. Conclusion: Tasted apart from 'official' Laphroaigs, the 1985 OMC performs much better. Tasting it
after (and against) the overwhelming power of the 10yo Cask Strength may have masked out some of the more subtle elements that shine through on closer inspection. Or maybe it just needed to breathe for a few days to bring out its
true spirit. I'm affraid I seriously underscored it with 85 points - tasted in other company it holds up remarkably well. It scores a whopping 5 points more than at the JOLT. 6 - Ardbeg 10yo vs Caol Ila 1989 Mackillop's Choice
German correspondent Klaus Everding has been pestering me to open this bottle of Caol Ila ever since he muled it over about a year ago. It's not available in Holland so I
have to find out wheter or not I want to order any spare bottles when Klaus visits again next year. The Ardbeg 10 needs no further introduction - it has been rising steadily through the ranks since I bought my first bottle two
years ago. Nose: Neither one starts very 'Islay' in the nose, but there's plenty of peaty power after a minute or so. The Mackillop's seems slightly dusty
while the Ardbeg showed more fruity notes. Both noses are very expressive, but hard to describe after 12 drams. The Ardbeg wins by a nose-length; it's notably more complexed and balanced. Conclusion: The Caol Ila does quite well for such a young malt, although the taste of the Ardbeg is notably better. I'll investigate the Caol Ila further in future tastings; wheter Klaus has to bring me
spare bottles depends on the price, I guess. 7 - Laphroaig 10yo Cask Strength vs Bowmore Cask Strength And now (02:15 AM) for the latest H2H of the evening; two cask strength Islays will fight until the
finish. Both are litre bottles; the Bowmore is bottled at 56%, the Laphroaig is slightly stronger at 57.3%. Let's hope I don't get drunk... Previous results: Laphroaig = 90 points, Bowmore = 81 points. Nose: Remarkably enough, the Bowmore is much stronger in the start than the Laphroaig. The Bowmore is rough with lots of
alcohol in the front of the nose. In comparison, the power of the Laphroaig is much more subdued. There are layers of complexity around a strong peaty/smoky heart. A touch of iodine. Simply amazing. Next to the Laphroaig, the Bowmore seems unusually unbalanced and chemical. There is sherry, but very little refinement. Water brings oilier notes to the Bowmore while the Laphroaig became fruiter - and much more powerful.
Conclusion: Phew - it's 2:45 and I have survived the Amsterdam Ardbeggeddon. This ranking confirms what I already knew. For a moment, I contemplated opening one of the old Ardbeg OMC's in my - - - > OK - This was an evening well spent. After tonight's session, I can add two more Laphroaigs and Caol Ila's to my infamous
That means I've kind of finished phase 1 of For one thing, I've sample far more malts than the 200 mentioned in my little black book.
200 if I only count the big bottles of SMSW that have passed through my collection between 01/01/1997 and 01/01/2002) Of course, I would be very happy to run around
bragging about the 750 malts I sampled, but I can't in all honesty say I sampled all of them 'seriously' - not even 1/3 of them if I use the criteria I used up until now. The problem is that I didn't keep ANY notes on the tastings
I didn't deem serious at the time - and now I very much wish that I had. I had forgotten that one of the most important parts of scientific research is the accumulation of as much raw data as possible. You can always determine
later if it's useful or not. How? I will start a Apart from data like distillery, age and alcohol percentage the Track Record will contain scores for all malts. During phase I of the mission I used to give
'preliminary' scores to the first few drams from a bottle; only after I had (almost) finished the bottle I felt secure enough to declare a 'final rating'. Usually, I just 'averaged' the scores of the drams I've tasted to arrive at
a final rating for the bottle. But there are just so many different factors that influence a particular tasting experience; factors like 'nasal condition', type of glassware, temperature, amount of water, dinner consumed before,
other malts tasted before, time the bottle has been open, etc. As a result, I frequently find a deviation in ratings for drams from the same bottle. Often it's just a matter of one or two points, but in a few cases it's almost like
I've been tasting two completely different malts. The problems with my old system of 'final' ratings became even bigger when I discovered that considerable differences could occur between different batches of the 'same'
official bottling. I've sampled many different batches of Lagavulin 16yo for example, scoring anything between 92 and 96 points. This phenomenon forced me to keep adding different batches of OB's to my old 'Best-to-Worst' list.
That list was growing out of proportion anyway, partly because of the large numbers of SMSW's that scored 'average' during the years. The new At the same time I've said goodbye to preliminary ratings. From now on, I will try to
give a rating as soon as I've opened a bottle. That rating will be likely to change while I take my time to finish the bottle, but at least 'highly recommendable' malts will appear on my hitlist as soon as I've discovered them. The third addition to the black book is the You would think that after seriously sampling 200 different bottles in five years compiling a 'Distillery Hitlist' would be easy. Let me assure you that it isn't. Since the start of my mission I've grown to understand that it's
nonsense to try and judge a distillery by a single bottling. Nevertheless; I have made a list of the results of my tasting efforts so far. The list gives an overview of 91 currently active distilleries and 28 more that have been
closed or mothballed. Hundreds more have been active over the last centuries but listing them would be pointless because their product is no longer available to the general public. PRELIMINARY DISTILLERY DATA - 31/12/2001 Distillery = the name of the distillery |
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Score |
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. So, in a nutshell, that's what I've learned so far. |
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