New Blogposts on WordPress

I made a number of blogs on WordPress That May interest you:

• 2016 Whisky Nerd Awards
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2016/12/27/iladdie-whisky-nerd-awards-2016/
• Highland Park Fire Edition
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2017/02/03/highland-park-new-make-12-and-fire/
• Bruichladdich Black Art 05.1
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2017/02/03/bruichladdich-black-art-05-1/
• Highland Park 12 yo
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/highland-park-12-yo/
• Highland Park Fire Edition
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2017/01/27/unboxing-highland-park-fire-edition/
• Whisky Tasting Note: Kippery
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2017/01/24/rswfw-a-peaty-2-smokey-kippery/
• Whisky Tasting Note: Woodsmoke
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/rswfw-a-peaty-2-smokey-woodsmoke/
• Whisky Tasting Note: Ash
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/rswfw-apeat-1-burny-ash/
• Whisky Tasting Note: Soot
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2017/01/15/rswfw-a-peaty-1-burnt-soot/
• Whisky Tasting Note: Tar
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/rswfw-a-peaty-1-burnt-tar/
• Whisky Tasting Note: Glossery
• https://iladdie.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/rswfw-whisky-congeners/

Bruichladdich LaddieMP4

As you may know I selected my blogger name to honor the Bruichladdich Distillery.

I missed out on the LaddieMP1 and Laddie MP2, but last year I was lucky enough to get my hands on a LaddieMP3 set.

This year I have been waiting for the mail by the Bruichladdich Distillery that informs people about the availability of the sets. So on the 17th of August 2016 the LaddieMP4 was announced.

Photo by Rombout Mastenbroek

We are about to embark on an exciting new chapter of our Micro-Provenance digital tasting programme.

Adam has selected three single casks for #LaddieMP4; you'll be able to join him online as he conducts a video tasting live from the distillery.

The release will be entirely in sets of three beautiful 20cl ‘Wee Laddie’ bottles – at an extremely attractive price point of £50 per set, plus postage and packing.

Minutes after reading the mail I placed my order, but for what? What had Adam Hannett selected this time?

Contrary to the blind tastings of the previous expressions the website now has some details on the three drams. Only 860 sets will be available.

Photo by Rombout Mastenbroek

Photo by Rombout Mastenbroek

Photo by Rombout Mastenbroek

• Cask #361 - distilled in 2008 and matured full term in a French ex-Syrah (red wine) cask.  It is at 58% alc. vol.
• Cask #16-062 - distilled in 2006 and matured in ex-bourbon before being finished in an ex-sherry cask is also at 58% alc. vol.
• Cask #1062 - distilled in 2005 and matured full term in bourbon is at 59% alc. vol.

I am particularly interrested in the ex-Syrah, since that grape is one of my favorite grapes for red wine!

This facebook video link shows the emptying of cask #16-062.

This facebook video link shows the bottling.

This facebook video link shows the packaging of the bottles.

Photo by +Bruichladdich Distillery 

Photo by +Bruichladdich Distillery 

Some video's from the Bruichladdich youtube site:

I will be on Islay on the time when the Bruichladdich Distillery will air the YouTube Webcast. I hope to be in the shop at that same time, so who knows, you may see my friend and me then.

My bottles are in!

instagram: iromby

Instagram: iromby

Instagram : iromby 

There is a bit of a spoiler alert with the printed labels on the bottles, but I'm sure the reason behind this will become clear at the tasting October 13th.

Maturing my own whisky

For my birthday, I got a small barrel and two bottles of Wasmund's Single malt whiskey. I want to experiment with comparing new make single malt and different times of aging. So I plan to put this kit together, fill it with 62% spirit and let it mature for 3 month, draw a sample, repeat drawing a sample every month and seeing how it matures. I have written multiple blogs about the influence of fresh American White Oak, but till now I just had to sample ready made spirits and some new make samples. See this blog link to a comparison between new and ages Journeyman Spirit.

So when you get your own barrel kit, it look like the picture below. A compact well made cardboard box filled with 2 700 ml bottles of new make spirit. A single malt spirit is the version I got. I wanted this over their rye version, because I wanted to compare the new make and the ages spirit make from 100% barley. I choose to start with American White Oak, but I plan to get the same spirit and mature it in frensh oak too! Goal is to see if the result differs between Oak's , but keeping the spirit a constant.

After, sorta, reading the instructions I cleared out the debris that was left over from drilling the bung hole. This was more then I expected but there it is. 

Then I gave the inside a good rinse with clean tap water. Clearing it and refilling and draining a couple of times.  This is a lesson I learned from watching a Twitter friend do this also and getting an almost black result. 

So after filling it with water it is supposed to expand and become water proof. 

Now that I have filled the barrel with water I noticed that I have the opertunaty to smell the nose of wet American White oak, without any other influences of the spirit. This will help me identify the "oak" which is so often referred to in tasting notes/blogs and vlogs. I also have a piece of French oak laying around which I will make wet too! Sometimes you coincidently run into opertunaties that you were oblivious to before you actually ran into them. This was one for me. 

After putting the water in I found out the position of the thingy to close the drain is rather critical. I ended up spilling water on my table, but that's ok. 

After a day of soaking up water there are no more leaks (I think).

The only thing I'm now lacking is a funnel! 

17th of July 2016

So, after getting a funnel I drained the water from the barrel. I kept 100 ml of this water for future reference. The oak smell of it was remarkable even after just one day. 

I put 1300 ml of spirit in the barrel. I am keeping 100 ml for future reference. I added 200 ml of the "one day matured" water that I drained from the barrel back in in an attempt to not loose some of the flavours that already went into the water. 

Now the barrel is sitting pretty in my cupboard. I will let it be for at least a month and then draw a sample.

12th of August 2016

Today I cleaned two sample bottles by cleaning them with hot water. Now they can air dry so they can be used this Sunday. Sunday will be the 4 week marker of maturation. 

14th August 2016

After four weeks of maturation I am taking a sample from the cask. It is a 100 ml sample. 

For lack of a better filter I used an unbleached coffee filter. I am sure there are better alternatives but I had non available to me. 

The result is surprisingly coloured! 

I took a moment to make some quick notes:

Nose has vanilla, oak, banana, strawberry, milkshake, flowery honey, Tobacco, something smokey, salty? 

On the palette the arrival is slow, spicey, heat, smokey, oaky. Smooth at same time as heat. 

I actually quite like this and am debating if this needs more maturation at all? The color is absolutely beautiful. 

The thing is I don't know if it will get better in another four weeks or not, so I think I will just let it mature longer! That was the whole idea behind the experiment in the first place ;)

09 October 2016

I got two more samples from my barrel. One at 6 weeks in and one at 12 weeks in. I shot three photos using the same camera settings, lighting and post processing in lightroom. Then I combined the three images in the photo below.

There is a noticeable increase in color saturation between the 4 and 12 weeks sample. he increase in saturation and hue doesn't seem to be linear over time, but the increase seems to slow down. I will probably wait until the 24 week mark and then make a final bottling. At that point in time I will also try and do comparison onnose and taste. I cant wait actually.

With almost 400 ml taken from the original 1400 ml in the barrel the amount of air in the barrel is increasing. This will also increase oxidization of the content left still. Ones I take the final samples I can also find out how much is gone due to evaporation. Should still be about 0.9 liter in there.

More to come later!

Whisky Bottle Photography

Next to exploring whisky I also have photography as a hobby. 

I took some time today to make photos of two bottles of Caol Ila's and a bottle of Lagavulin. 

Last weekend I already made photo's of a bottle and container of Bruichladdich Laddie Classic_01 

Lagavulin 16 year old

Bruichladdich Classic Laddie Edition_01

Caol Ila 12 Year Old

Noah's Mill Bourbon

Corsair Tripple Smoke Single Malt USA Whiskey

Corsair Tripple Smoke Single Malt USA Whiskey

DenHool Dutch Single Malt

Compass Box Spice Tree

Compass Box Oak Cross

Turv Exloo, Prime Whisky

Buffalo Trace, Experimental Collection

Port Charlotte Valinch

Port Charlotte Valinch

Port Charlotte Valinch

Port Charlotte Valinch

Nespresso vs Whisky prices

The reason for this blog entry was to find some calculated way to use money spend on daily intakes, by your partner, on coffee as an excuse, a motivation, anything really, to allow you to spend the same amount of money on whisky ;)

There are multiple ways to "motivate" the purchase of a dram based on comparing to coffee price levels. I will try some and see if they "work"!

So first up are the Nespresso drinking partners. 

I want to find out how many cups of Nespresso I, ehm my partner, would need to drink in order to spend just as much money on lets say an Ardbeg 10yo, 700ml. 

In Holland the price of 700ml of Ardbeg 10yo is about €37,50. For 1000ml the price is €51,50. 

At a price of €0,39 per pod the Nespresso can be ordered per 10 pods, €3,90 per 10.

So, at €3,90 per 10 pods, you can buy 13 packages for the price of 1 litre of Ardbeg. That's 130 cups of Nespresso. At 40ml per cup, that works out to a total of 5,2 litres of coffee for each litre of Ardbed. 

Let's see how many servings a bottle of Ardbeg would give. 

Depending on the location a standard serving is anywhere between 20ml and 35ml. So out of a 1000ml bottle one would get between 50 and 28 servings. 

Per glass that would cost you about €1,- to €1,80. 

I was hoping to find a calculated argument that drinking coffee is more expensive then having a dram, but that only works out if you happen to drink 4 cups of coffee a day! 

Hey! Did I just make the argument I was looking for? I .....erm, no no, "my partner" drinks about 6 cups a day! Ok ok! At "her" work it's free ;) argument down the drain! But if she was actually paying for each cup, you could work out an agreement for yourself. 

One could argument democracy and equality. How many weeks would it take for "your partner" to drink 130 cups of Nespresso. 

Let's be modest and say two  Nespressos daily. 130 / 2 is 65 days. So that would mean the break even point would be about bi-monthly for you to buy a bottle of whisky. If "your partner" happens to drink more Nespressos even better! 

Now let's see! I, I mean "my partners" spends €2,- for a cup of coffee each morning while commuting to work. 

At 5 cups per week, 52 weeks a year that works out to 5x52x€2,- = €520,- per year! 

Wow! That kind of money can buy me just about any dram I could think of! This will help me to motivate buying a bottle monthly! Or an expensive one at a lower frequency!

So, here are the morals of this blog! Have "your partner" save money on coffee so you can spend it on whisky! 

Or, encourage your partner to drink more Nespressos and use the "quid pro quo" excuse to motivate a dram or two ;)

Hunting for Bruichladdich Octomore 07.4

Normally when I do a "hunting for" blog I look up the price levels of a Dram on websites in Holland and some other sites that ship to Holland. 

Right now I'm hunting for the price level for the just released Bruichladdich Octomore 07.4 / 167 ppm Virgin Oak.

I can put information in this blog about this dram, but it is much better if you go look at the source: http://www.bruichladdich.com/article/new-octomore-074-released

At this point in time, 21 of January 2016, the only place that has Octomore 07.4 available for ordering is the Bruichladdich.com online shop. It retails for £151,25 (€198 incl. shipping to Holland)

I will add more site when prices become available! 

First sites to mention a price are:

- www.bottleworld.de/ : €229,99

- eBay.de: €299,-

- www.masterofmalt: €206,51

- drankdozijn.nl: €175.- (discount) normally €199,-

- www.wijnhuisdenboer.nl: €199,-

Prices are dated on 08-03-2016.

So, for now, the discount price of Drankdozijn is the lowest I can find, but after that ordering at Bruichladdich itself is the best option if one lives in Holland. 

A Laphroaig 10yo to warm me up?

Today I went for a rather long bicycle ride with my 6 yo son! It's around freezing point here in the Netherlands so it was brisk to say the least! 

Ones home the little dude is happy to sit at his WII U Lego game, which gives me the time to enjoy a wee dram to warm me up! 

Standing in front of my "non-Bruichladdich" part of the cupboard I was thinking and debating which dram to have!

It was definitely not going to be the Akashi White Oak! That was a mistake to buy but you only find out what you don't like by trying. 

So the Aberlour then? It's warming yes, but more a dram for later at night! 

So maybe the Ardbeg 10? The Talisker Storm? Nope I choose the Laphroaig 10yo to warm me up! 

So while the kids watch Dora and play on the WII U, dad gets to put his feet up and nip on his dram! While at the same time writing this blog! 

So does it warm me up? Well that's where it gets weird! I do enjoy the Laphroaig 10yo a lot but somehow it's not bringing me the warmth I was looking  for. Yes there is peat! Yes there is a peppery note for sure but ones swallowed it doesn't quite warm me inside as I would have hoped! 

Can this be the "only" 40% vol that just doesn't give the warning effect? Maybe! Can I be that the room I'm in is cold? Plausible! Most probably it's the combination and these facts and that my 3yo daughter keeps pressing her cold hands in my face and that bear of hers! 

So now I have finished my dram, this blog is about to end with an observation. If you want to get warm with a dram, don't have cold bears around! 

Now that if had my dram and I'm correcting spelling errors I do feel some warmth from within but not the rush of warmth I was hoping for. So next time I want to warm up with a dram I will select another of my bottles and see how those do! 

This only shows that the only way to learn about whisky is by experience! To quote Adam Hannett:"interesting!".

 

Hunting for Bruichladdich Laddie Classic Edition_01

The For some time now I have been checking out Bruichladdich Laddie Classic Edition_01. I cannot precisely say why this dram is getting my attention but it does. For me it seems to represent the "Bruichladdich" style as much as anything even more as the "resurrection dram" version.

I bought the resurrection dram some time ago, but I'm reluctant to start drinking it, since it set me back a cool €171!

The edition_01 is not as highly priced as the resurrection version so I would feel less reluctant about actually opening the bottle and having a dram. 

Question? If I'm not investing in whisky, why should I keep myself from tasting the resurrection dram? Why am I reluctantly waiting? Do I need to get past a point? Thought?

Anyways, let's see what I would need to pay for a bottle of edition_01 at the regular sites I check out.

• Drank.nl : € Not Available 
• Drankgigant.nl : € Not Available 
• Drankdozijn.nl : € 79,50
• Mitra.nl : € Not Available 
• Gall.nl : € Not Available 
• Bestofwhisky.com : € Not available 
• onlinewhiskybestellen.nl : € Not available
• Whisky-on-line.com : € Not available 
• passievoorwhisky.nl : € Not available
• Masterofmalt.com : € Not available
• Vooreenmooiglas.nl: € Not available 

This dram seems to be hard to come by! Question to you all. Should I get it?

I think I should if I ever want to get my hands on a bottle! I ordered it at the only place that had one bottle still available. It should be delivered on Tuesday the 19th of January. I look forward to having a wee dram out of this bottle! 

The bottle was delivered! 

It's standing proudly next to his brother on in the Bruichladdich section of my cupboard! 

I opened it up and poured myself a wee dram! It's wonderful! Too early for tasting notes, but this is a dram I like! 

Preparing a trip to Islay, Scotland

I want to visit Islay, Scotland, with my wife!

This blog entry will be my notebook on how to get there, where to stay, where to eat, what to see, etc. 

Useful link I got from people on Twitter: http://www.islayinfo.com/travel.html

How to get there

By plane, Schiphol to Glasgow then on to islay airport. The only way to get to islay seems to be flighing in from either Oban or Glasgow. So Glasgow it is! The air service from islay to Oban is not flying to Glasgow as far as I can see, but I was not intending to go to Oban anyways. Well not on this trip I am not. 

Just for fun I tried looking up what a trip in the beginning of March would cost. Turns out the costs are not to bad! For about € 250 per person we can make the  trip! The prices are dependent on for when you book and how much time in advance. I will do some further checking on Flybe.com to see if I can find a most cost effective connection. 

Update 16/08/2016:

Turns out that I got myself a round way ticket for €54,-. I had saved up so many frequent flyer miles that the only things I'm paying now are taxes. Normally I would have payed around €150,-

Ones on/in Islay we we need to get around. The options would be to arrange transport by taxi, public bus, rental car or an organised touring company. 

Two car renstal are available on islay. Both Islay car rental companies offer pick up at airport, islaycarhire.com & carhireonislay.co.uk I won't be considering this option because of two reasons. One is left hand driving and the other is finding a designated driver. The extra costs are also a reason for choosing another option.

Since my higher education I have always traveled by public transport and since all the distilleries are all located near a bus stop I choose to take the public transport option. If need be I will get a taxi. 

Public transport is available and a timetable can be found here: Timetable

The photo below indicates the routes available on islay for public bus transport.

Update 16/08/2016:

After figuring out all the ferry sailing times I found out that, in my case, none really connect back well enough to allow me comfortable travel to and from Islay without not making the ferry or the flight back using the bus. Also the connecting bus to kennacraig departs from mid city Glasgow and this adds to travel time. 

So in the end we decided to get a rental car and this allows us to comfortably make crossings in time. I found out that my employer has a discount arrangement with Hertz which is saving 10-20%.

Update: 18/08/2016

I learned that booking the ferry works like this if you want a spot on the ferry. If you can book it, then its available. So, if you can select a time on the booking site of the ferry, it means that the ferry was not full at the moment you are booking. If it doesn't show up in the booking options while booking that ferry is full! At the end of the online booking session you get a two page pdf confirmation via email.

Where to stay

For accommodation I was adviced to check out multiple options by contacts on Twitter. 

Right next to Bruichladdich distillery is An Taigh Osda bed and breakfast. Great views and excellent food. For max of £80 per person per night. 

The ballygrant inn is good and price is ok and easy enough to get to Bruichladdich.

On the other side of the loch is The Bowmore House (about €114 per night) which is centrally located on the Island and would make excellent starting point for visits to both Bruichladdich on one side and Ardbeg / Lagavulin / Laphroaig / Caol Ila on the other side

Update 16/08/2016:

Here the date of booking really limited our options for finding an accommodation. My advice in retrospect is to BOOK EARLIER!!! Lol! Now we ended up in the hotel of one of the most popular pubs on Islay! The horror!! And that for €80,- pppn. The Lochside hotel in Bowmore is our home for three nights.

Where to eat?

I like to taste the local kitchen. Since Islay is obviously an island seafood would be on the menu. Filtering this on trip advisor I got this listing. 

Summering the estimated costs:
Flight : €251 (Amsterdam-Glasgow-Islay round trip)
Bed and Breakfast : €114 per night
Transport by bus on islay : €10 max per day
Diner : max €50 per person per day
Tour at Bruichladdich: €33,55 for the wearhouse experience
Bottle of valinch: £ 75,-

So in total a trip would cost about €618,- 

Update 16/08/2016:

- ticket : €55,-

- rental car : €150 (cost of €300 split by two)

- ferry : € 37,50 (cost of 65 split by two)

- Diner : max €50 per person per day
- Tour at Bruichladdich: €33,55 for the wearhouse experience
- Bottle of valinch: £ 75,-

- hotel : €80,- per night

Total cost for three nights will be about €650,- increased with cost for additional tours.

Personally I think it would be well worth the trip since this idea has become something of a "bucket-list" goal in my life. Why that is is not for this blog, but I believe more and more that delaying the opportunity  to life now is not a wise thing to do. You may not be around to live a dream. So don't delay what you can do now!

I have been talking to Matt Goodwin! He spend Some days on Islay and was kind enough to give me some advice. Please look at his trip on YouTube: 

http://youtu.be/yzeuOl4PaBU

Thank you Armin of Islay Blog for the answers to many questions!! Check out http://www.islayblog.com/ for his blog!