Single Malt Report: Longrow 11 year old "Red" Fresh Port Casks

The Longrow train keeps running on time...

Today's review is of the Port Cask edition of the Longrow Red series.  Other Red members include Australian Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, and New Zealand Pinot Noir finished Longrows.  Unlike the other three this Port version seems to have spent its entire maturation in "Fresh" Port casks.

Ralfy loves this whisky.  Serge does not.  But Serge doesn't like port cask matured whisky.  I do.  It's been the most reliable wine cask for my palate.  I'm excited about this one since I had so much luck with yesterday's 8yo shiraz cask.

Distillery: Springbank

Brand: Longrow
Region: Campbeltown

Age: minimum 11 years

Maturation: "Fresh Port Casks"

Alcohol by Volume: 51.8%
Limited Bottling: 9,000
(Thanks to Smokypeat for the sample!)

NEAT
Its color is rosy.

The nose reads a little sherry-ish at first, as the port takes moment...  Cranberry juice, dark chocolate, chlorine, and a hint of sulphur up front.  Then rubbery smoke, sometimes roses, sometimes clover honey.  Hotter than I expected from the ABV.

Ah, the port is louder on the palate.  Very berry.  Some of the nose's rubbery smoke.  A bit of ginger along with menthol and tart limes.  The sweetness gets very aggressive.

The finish is very sweet.  Lots of cranberry juice and grape drink.  Sour limes that grower sourer.  Just a whisper of smoke.

WITH WATER (~46%abv)
Still a hot nip to the nose.  Actually it feels hotter, which is weird.  There's rubber, sulphur, new sneaker peat, honey, roses, and cassis.

The palate is narrower, bitterer, and drying.  Blackberry Manischewitz, ginger, rosewater syrup, mossy peat, and tart berries.  Again, it grows ever more sugary sweet with time.

Again the finish is very sweet.  Cranberry juice, cassis, and tart berries.

COMMENTS

I don't think I enjoyed a single thing about this whisky.  At the same time I didn't hate it either, though the finish was aggressively saccharine.  To be honest, I wasn't crazy about the 11yo Red Cabernet Sauvignon either when I'd tried it last month.  Yet, I did like Longrow's 14 year old Burgundy cask (a whisky Serge hated).

Not all "wineskys" are the same.  And not all of them suck, no matter how often we've been burned by McEwan and Lumsden.  Sometimes the wine barely registers; sometimes it overwhelms the spirit.  Sometimes it merges perfectly with the malt creating a crazy new creature; sometimes it clashes, farts, and falls apart.  In this whisky's case, these very sweet port casks take front stage, often stepping all over the spirit's dialogue.  When the whisky part of the whisky can actually get a word in, it sounds like gibberish.  And we get dissonance.  If your palate trends towards the sweets then this might work for you, otherwise I'd have difficult time recommending it, especially at its price tag.

Availability - US and UK specialty retailers

Pricing - $95-$110 in US

Rating - 77 (if you have a sweet tooth you'll like it better than I)

Single Malt Report: Longrow 8 year old 2001 Shiraz Hogsheads for Open Day 2010

If I haven't mentioned it before: Peatin' Meetin'.  This was a bottle at the Members' Table -- of which I was the bouncer -- at the 2015 Peatin' Meetin':

Since 2009, Springbank distillery has taken part in Kintyre's annual "Open Day".  It's largely a community/heritage/architecture event, but on the day the distillery gives free tours and release an exclusive whisky, like this one, that the attendees may purchase.

I have no idea how Andy (el jefe del LASC) obtained this bottle, nor how you may obtain it (other than auctions).  Aware that this was a unique situation, I made off with a sample of this whisky before the bottle was emptied.

Distillery: Springbank

Brand: Longrow
Type: Single Malt
Region: Campbeltown

Age: 8 years (October 2001 to May 30, 2010)

Maturation: Shiraz Hogsheads

Limited Bottling: 414

Alcohol by Volume: 58.5%

NEAT

Its color is a reddish gold.

The nose leads with bandages and berries, and it somehow really works.  There's milk chocolate, cinnamon, Three Musketeers nougat, pipe tobacco, and a whiff of a seaweedy pier.

The palate is hot and peppery, with equal parts blackberry syrup and peat smoke up front.  Soon there's a big note of a serious ginger beer (like Fever Tree).  It's fizzy and occasionally reminiscent of a minerally champagne.

The finish is more focused.  More peat, black pepper, lemon pepper(?), and dry red wine.  A little bit of that ginger buzz on the tongue.

WITH WATER (~46%abv)

Still with the bandages and berries on the nose.  Darker chocolate.  Caramel.  Very aromatic, almost floral.

A chili oil sting appears in the palate, alongside the fizzy ginger.  Lemon lime soda.  Rocks and a bitter black coffee note.

The finish is earthy and rocky.  A little bit of dark berries and bitter coffee.

MORE WORDS

My old stance against wineskys continues to crumble.  This is such a fun whisky.  The nose is great, even gorgeous at times.  The crazy palate almost feels carbonated, thus my bubbly notes.  Meanwhile the earth and the ginger ride well with the wine.  It's a whisky whose entertainment value would be worth paying a small premium for, in my opinion.  It's not the sort of malt whose zaniness wears out its welcome after one glass.  It made me wish I had a whole bottle to enjoy and share and exclaim "You gotta try this lunacy!"  I have no idea how to score this.

Availability - Secondary market?

Pricing - ???

Rating - 88 (I just palindromed the palindrome age, a good scoring method)

Single Malt Report: Longrow 10 year old 100 proof (US version)

It's Longrow Week!  Because.

Longrow would be in my Top Five distilleries if it was its own distillery, but it's not.  It is one of three single malts currently being produced at the Springbank Distillery.  Longrow is like their Islay malt.  Distilled twice and peated at 50ppm (at time of malting), it can quite easily take on and surpass many of the whiskies made on that nearby whisky island.  On a curious note, the actual bottled Longrow peat experience is not as much of a blunderbuss as that of Ardbeg, Kilchoman, or Port Charlotte.  With some age on it (14-18 years), it can be surprisingly mellow or even floral.

For about a decade -- The Aughts -- Longrow had a 10 year old whisky.  Sometimes it was "Sherrywood", sometimes it was ex-bourbon, usually it was a mix of the two.  On a couple of occasions they released a 100 Proof version.  100 Proof in the UK = 57.1%abv.  In the US it's 50%abv.  So, technically the UK and US versions are two different whiskies.  When I reviewed the UK version I was promptly stunned by how little I liked it.  It was by far the least of the Longrows I'd tried up to that point.  Was it an issue of a bad sample from Master of Malt?  Or was it a subpar whisky?  We may never know, but it's been six years since they released a batch, and there's no sign of them doing it again.

Now I'm going to take a look at the US version, which I've only seen sold at a handful of stores.  Jordan picked up a bottle from The Party Source back in those golden years when TPS shipped things.  He included 2oz of it in one of our whisky sample swaps.

Distillery: Springbank

Brand: Longrow
Type: Single Malt

Age: minimum 10 years

Maturation: ex-bourbon barrels

Region: Campbeltown

Alcohol by Volume: 50%

Round 1

NEAT
A good old amber waves of grain color.

And those amber waves of grain (read: barley after it's been malted) are right up front in the nose.  Some wood smoke, dried leaves, and mossy peat.  The Longrow lemon note is in the distance.  Burlap, lavender, and a little earthy molasses.  It's quite nude.

Big medicinal peat on the palate.  A slight Dove soap note at first.  Small tropical fruit note.  It picks up a good sweetness with a few minutes of air with hints of violets joining in.  It gets big on lemons after 20+ minutes, though the soap note also expands.

In the mildly sweet finish there are caramel chews, lemon candies, and lemon zest.  Red pepper flakes, violets, and soap.

WITH WATER (~46%abv)
A straightforward nose.  Lemons, spearmint, peat moss, and some caramel sauce.

Lemon, sugar, and black pepper in the palate.  Some tart sharpness.  More violets and soap.

Sweets, flowers, pepper, and soap in the finish.

---

At this point, having finished half the sample, I was left with a conundrum.  While the nose was very good, the soap notes were cloaking the better parts of the palate and finish.  There really aren't very many online reviews of the US version of this whisky, so I was left wondering if there was a flaw in my approach.

So on the following day, I used a different freshly cleaned (hot water, no soap) glass.  I sat in a different room, at a different time of day, and had a second whisky to try alongside it.  Would there still be soap?

Round 2

NEAT
The nose is sort of reminiscent of bourbon cask Kilkerran with its leaves and soft moss, though with more cinnamon.  But yeah, it's all barley.  Salty, seaweed, hint of mezcal.

The soap seems to have retreated slightly in the palate at first and then it ramps again with time.  More sweets and pepper.  Some white fruit.  Lemons and violets.

Sweet and tangy finish with bigger peat notes than the palate.  Soap, pepper......probably same as Round 1.

WITH WATER (~46%abv)
The notes for the nose nearly match Round 1.

On the palate the soap turns bitter.  Lemons and violets.

It finishes with lemon zest, pepper, and soap.

---

Different day, different glass, different room, different time, different tasting setup, same soap.  Perhaps it was a lighter when neat, but it was heavier when hydrated.  Soap aside, there are some good elements present.  Though with the violets thrown in, it may scare some FWPhobes.  Meanwhile the nose is bang on.  No off notes and really decent stuff if you like naked malts.  Overall, I do like this one better than the UK version, but the soap in the palate is a bit too much as it distracts and I don't recommend adding water at all.

UPDATE!  Coincidentally, Jordan (the provider of the sample) posted his review of this whisky today as well.  Though he found different individual notes, he wasn't the biggest fan of this whisky either.

Availability - Scarce

Pricing - $100+, though Binny's usually has it for less

Rating - 78 (neat only)

Single Malt Report: Caol Ila 8 year old 2006 Càrn Mòr

Just to prove I'm not turning into Mr. Caol Ila (thanks to this review and this review), here's a CI that is not immaculate.

I took notes on this whisky five weeks ago and then I couldn't figure out where to fit it into my posting schedule.  It is a whisky that's still available in Europe, so maybe this review will actually be of use to someone.  Man, what another great intro.  Hmm, what else.  I nabbed this sample at the LA Scotch Club curling event a couple months back.  Curling is really difficult.

Distillery: Caol Ila

Independent Bottler: Càrn Mòr
Region: Port Askaig, Islay

Age: minimum 8 years (2006 - Jan 2015)

Maturation: two ex-bourbon barrels
Limited bottling: 600

Alcohol by Volume: 46%

(Note: Càrn Mòr released two 2006 Caol Ilas this year.  This is the batch with 600 bottles.)

NEAT

A light amber color.  So far so good.

The nose begins with minty peat, oatmeal, and an almost sherry-like nuttiness.  Cinnamon candy, vanilla, ash.  Mezcal.  Quiet for a young Islay.

The palate is sugary sweet.  Burnt things.  Bitterness from burnt things.  Mild peat, mild barley, a little bit of cinnamon.  Some ethyl heat.

More ethyl heat in the mildly sweet finish.  Smoke residue, saltwater, peanuts in caramel.

WITH WATER (~40%abv)

The nose is quite vegetal.  Mezcal and lemony soap.

The palate is the same as the nose but with some weird buttery caramel oak thing going on.  Buttery texture too.

The finish is all cinnamon and black pepper.  Very drying.

---

Not bad for a mezcal, I guess.  But it's a single malt, see.

It's not a total bust.  The nose is mellow and inoffensive if one's a peat fan.  But the palate isn't great.  Very raw, but not in a fun or informative way.  Adding water REALLY does not help.  It makes one wonder why these two barrels were dumped in 2015.  What was the rush?  Was one just a total turd, thus the need for a second?  They needed either more maturation time or to be traded off to a blender.

Availability - Some European specialty retailers

Pricing - minus VAT plus shipping $70-$90(!) for USers, otherwise €60-€80 in Europe

Rating - 72

Hanukkah Whisky Report: Caol Ila 20 year old 1975 Rare Malts (75cL edition)

Yes, you read that correctly.  This one.  Happy MFing Hanukkah.

Thank you to Lee Zaro, member of South Bay Whisky Tribe and an all-round good fellow.  He handed me this very sample at (you guessed it) this year's Peatin' Meetin'.  I really do recommend Peatin' Meetin'.

Excellent label by Mr. Zaro

So once upon a Diageo time......before this current era in which they're in the single malt business......before the previous era when they were not in the business of making single malts......but in the era even before that when they were in the single malt business, Diageo (and its predecessor, United Distillers) produced the famed bottling series, Rare Malts and Manager's Choice.  Most of those bottles are long gone now, finding a second life as big ticket items in the secondary market.  If you have an opportunity to taste any of the Rare Malts, I'd recommend seizing the moment.  Many of those whiskies are excellent.

This particular Rare Malt was distilled soon after Caol Ila reopened after its closure in 1972.  Distilling restarted in the new modern distillery in 1974.  This whisky is from '75 and was bottled in 1996 at an impressively high ABV after two decades in American oak.

Distillery: Caol Ila
Ownership: Diageo
Age: minimum 20 years
Distillation Year: 1975
Release Year: 1996
Maturation: probably ex-bourbon casks
Region: Port Askaig, Islay
Alcohol by Volume: 61.12%
Bottle #: 0337

NEAT

Its color is a light amber, which makes me think they left out the e150a.

The nose begins all oceanside: saltwater, sand, and a little bit of seaweed.  A gorgeous gentle peat.  Some savory notes like smoked finish and chicken stock.  Herbal notes like fennel and anise.  Soft vanilla and brown sugar, mint leaves and cocoa.  After 20 minutes, notes of cinnamon candy and lemon cake appear.

The palate brings plenty of heat but it's not hot, if that makes sense.  Sweet herbal peat, hay, dried barleycorns, and mild baking spices.  Then salted caramel and honeycomb amongst hints of floral esters and chili oil.

The finish is the smokiest point, like salty wood smoke.  A lemon note starts small but grows with time.  Some cassia cinnamon, honeycomb, and an oyster/ocean note.  It lingers and lingers and lingers and lingers and...

WITH WATER (~46%abv)

The nose is now fruitier and maltier.  The peat mossier.  The ocean quieter.  Some funkier mustier notes arise.  And also new carpet.

More -ers for you.  The palate is spicier, bitterer, and saltier.  Again the peat feels mossier.  More floral esters.

The finish remains long.  Bitter chocolate and tangy smoke.

---

What a lovely whisky.  I know that ABV looks imposing, but I insist this thing works better without water.  While the palate is quite good, the nose amazes.  Its ocean note is utterly transporting.  Close your eyes and you're at the beach.  I'm typing this post the day after the tasting, but the sense memory remains.  That's some good stuff.

We can debate what creates this ocean note in a whisky.  Many whisky writers have romantically claimed it's from the ocean-facing warehouses, but really most of the oceany single malts (especially Diageo's) are aged inland.  In fact, I'm closer to the ocean than Lagavulin's casks and I don't smell like that.  Yet.  Maybe it's from the water source, or the yeast strain, or fermentation time, or where the cooperage is located.  In any case, this whisky is of the ocean.

Availability - Auctions, good luck

Pricing - ???

Rating - 92

Hanukkah Whiskey Report: Heaven Hill 15 year old Bourbon for Whisky Jewbilee

Hanukkah arrived early-ish this year and caught me unprepared, without presents for others.  Well, if it arrived late, I still wouldn't have bought presents in time because I'm a dick.  BUT, I do have two samples given to me by members of South Bay Whisky Tribe (and Booze Dancing).

Today's item is the exclusive bourbon from the 2013 Whisky Jewbilee, the annual event organized by the fellows of Single Cask Nation (nice guys, but they were also the subjects of a recent lazy unfortunate puff piece in The Daily Beast; see the link for MAO's take and my comments at the bottom of his post).  I have yet to attend a Whisky Jewbilee, because money.  Maybe I will someday, but only if no one there says out loud, "hashtag whiskyfabric!"  That's an inside bloggie joke, but YOU PEOPLE know who you are.

Aaron Krouse, a whiskyfabrician (not a word) also known as aaron197172, handed me a set of remarkable samples at this year's Peatin' Meetin'.  Amongst them was this:

It's on top of a challah, see, because the whiskey
is soooooo Jewish.

It's a Heaven Hill high-rye bourbon, approximately 15.81918 years old, distilled in 1998 (or maybe 1997) and bottled at full power.  There were "fewer than 100 bottles" of it issued in 2013.  Or as per my usual info:

Distiller: Heaven Hill
Bottler: Single Cask Nation
Type: Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Distilled: 1998 (or maybe 1997?)
Bottled: 2013
Age: 15 years
Region: Louisville, Kentucky
Maturation: New American oak
Mashbill: high-rye, as per SCN's notes

Alcohol by Volume: 61.3%

photo from the Jewbilee site

NEAT

Its color is dark, very dark, GlenDronach single oloroso cask dark.

The nose is closed at first.  Maybe some old furniture and furniture polish.  Slightly metallic.  Then gradually that becomes a (good) moldy basement, followed by Frangelico, vanilla extract, and pound cake.

Woo.  The palate is big.  Bigger than 122.6 proof big.  Stagg big.  Lots of fruit (oranges and limes) with the loud rye and oak spices.  A corn sweetness slowly builds.  Cherry snow cone syrup.  Aromatic and spicy, very woody.

Lots of pepper and caramel in the finish and an almost rum-like sweetness.  It eventually focuses in on drying oak tannins.

Lemme hydrate it...

WITH WATER (~50%abv)

The nose gets cornier.  Sugary, bigger vanilla, notebook paper.

The palate mellows out, but is super sweet.  Think orange hard candies and corn syrup.  Barrel char.

It's sweet through the finish with a hint of the rye spice.  Maybe a little citrus.

WITH WATER (~40%abv)

Well, it does not drown at this level.  The nose starts to feel like a younger spritely woody high-rye bourbon.  Mint leaves and soil.

Lots of rye in the palate.  Pepper, mint, and sugar.

A sweet and spicy finish with minty menthol.

---

Some things became very apparent during this tasting.  First off, the rye element sometimes reads bigger than it does in the current version of Rittenhouse and maybe even in the Pikesville 6.  That's good for my palate.

Secondly, when neat, this whiskey is tremendously oaky, as is the case with many older bourbons.  And, as is the case with many older bourbons, my palate doesn't jive with that.  Other palates may like it better.  I've noticed that long-aged dusty bourbons have oak notes that become silky rich vanilla, caramel, and maple syrup.  Meanwhile, current long-aged bourbons have oak notes that read like......wood.  Is it a change in maturation and barrel processes or is it an Old Bottle Effect?  I don't know.

Thirdly, this thing gets intensely sugary sweet once a little bit of water is added.  I don't have the biggest sweet tooth, but I know some of you do and you'd probably like this more than I.  Adding more water actually reduces the sweetness.

Funny enough, I liked this best at 40%abv.  It's as if the years and the corn have been stripped off and a rye whiskey remains.  The fact that this Heaven Hill can stand up to so much water works in its favor.  Most high powered bourbons that I've tried don't swim so well, but comparatively this one is Mark Spitz.

Availability - Gone, though it might pop up in auctions

Pricing - ???

Rating - 84, but only with a lot of water (79-81 otherwise)

NOT Single Malt Report: Pikesville 6 year old Rye (and Rittenhouse BIB)

WHHHHHHHUT?!  Yes, another of-the-moment whiskey.  I don't know what's gotten into me.  Okay maybe some whiskey.  I really do structure my reviews months ahead of time, but sometimes circumstances call for an audible.

Two weeks ago the man in the fedora belched out The New Murray Testament causing people with tastebuds to ponder his competence and/or his intent.  I have zero interest in reviewing his World Whisky of the Year, but I did have some interest in trying the runner-up: Pikesville 6 year old Rye.  Then just this week, a mensch known for his crisp reviews and sample labels and certain recent eats presented me with a sample of this Very Murray Rye.

And, it was just my luck that I had a bottle of Rittenhouse BIB Rye (Pikeville 6's younger sibling) open for comparison purposes.  To be honest, our home has had bottles of Ritt open almost nonstop for the past two years.  I've been finding the quality of Ritt BIB slipping with each successive bottle, and as a result this bottle has taken a long time to finish.  This decline is not fun, and I keep hoping for the next one to bounce back, but...

RITTENHOUSE RYE BOTTLED-IN-BOND
Brand: Rittenhouse

Owner: Heaven Hill
Type: Straight Rye Whisky (no 'e'!)
Age: minimum 4 years
Region: Distillery - Louisville, Kentucky; Warehouse - Bardstown, Kentucky
Maturation: New American oak
Mashbill: 51% Rye (per Cowdery here and here)

Bottle Code: B3474
Bottle Year: late 2014

Alcohol by Volume: 50%
(from my bottle, bottom 1/3 of bottle)

Its color is the lighter of the two whiskies.

The nose is very bourbony and corny, in fact I'd guess this was a bourbon if I'd nosed this blindly.  There's also caramel, rock candy, and hazelnuts.  Some flower blossom notes peek out here and there.

The palate is very nutty: walnuts, hazelnuts, halvah (yes, it's not technically made of nuts), and burnt peanuts.  Then comes salt and some rye-ish pepper.  There's a woody bitterness that starts out small but then expands with time in the glass.

The rye spices show much stronger in the finish, joining up with some wood smoke, walnuts, and burnt peanuts.  Like the palate it grows bitterer with time.

And now the older sibling...

PIKESVILLE 6 YEAR OLD RYE
Brand: Pikesville

Owner: Heaven Hill
Type: Straight Rye Whiskey (with an 'e')
Age: minimum 6 years
Region: Louisville, Kentucky
Maturation: New American oak
Mashbill: 51% Rye (per Cowdery here and here)

Alcohol by Volume: 55%
Thanks to Sku for the sample!

Its color is the darker of the two whiskies.

There's a mild soapy note in the nose at first, but it fades after a minute or two and is replaced by a green grassy note.  Meanwhile much larger bursts of cherry candies and caramel candies sound out.  Definitely some toffee.  Maybe a little mango.  A nice fudgy moment and an occasional perfumy floral whiff.  A barrel char note appears after 20+ minutes.

The rye grain is bigger in this one's palate than in the Ritt.  Louder spice.  Louder pepper.  Though there's a little bit of sweets, it's less sweet than the nose led me to believe.  The nutty note has been pushed way back, as has the bitterness.  It's still sort of bourbony though.  Mint leaves develop after 20+ minutes.

Quite a spicy zing at the front of the tongue, while black pepper hits the back of the throat in the finish.  Then rye bread and bourbon.  A mint/menthol note lingers the longest.

---

Well, Pikesville is without question the better of the two.  While my first two bottles of Rittenhouse (old label) were comparable or better than the Pikesville, this current Ritt bottle continues the quality decline.  Which sucks.  Two years ago, I would have been happy to pay $30+ for the quality in the bottle.  Today, I wouldn't pay more than $20.  In fact, this may be my last bottle of Rittenhouse BIB unless Kristen requests we get another.

The real quality difference between the Pikesville and the Rittenhouse is in the palate.  I do like the Ritt's nose.  While it isn't particularly deep, it's very pleasant.  But it's just not that enjoyable to drink.  The burnt nuttiness and woody bitterness is almost abusive at times.  Meanwhile the Pike is brightly spicy with a touch of sweetness and that good mint note.  Its finish is much more pleasant as well.

All that being said, I wouldn't pay $50-$60 for the Pikesville.  There's real competition in the whiskey world at that price range.  It does have the qualities that I would love Rittenhouse BIB to have at its $25-$30 price range.  I almost wonder if the first few batches of Heaven Hill's (DSP KY-1) Rittenhouse BIB were 6+ years old, like Pike, and the new Ritts are barely 4.  In any case, Pikesville 6yo is not only not the second best whiskey world, it won't even be the second best whiskey you drink this week.

RITTENHOUSE RYE BIB (code B3474)

Availability - Most US specialty retailers have Ritt BIB in general

Pricing - $22-$30

Rating - 78

PIKESVILLE 6 YEAR OLD RYE

Availability - Some US specialty retailers

Pricing - $50-$60, though some shops are now trying to sell it for $100

Rating - 84