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Three Recipes of Classic Laddie Compared

The Transparency Debate started by Compass Box and followed by Bruichladdich has given Malt Drinkers like myself an oppertunaty to get insight into the barrels and quantaties used for making the Classic Laddie Single Malt Blends.

As listed in my previous Blog the kind people of Bruichladdich have provided an option to check out the content of a specific bottling.

The Laddie Recipe information you get is is quite insightfull! I have taken some time to enter the component parts of 3 bottlings into a Wee Spreadsheet.

I compared the 14/009, 14/345 and 15/244 components. See the image below. Click to enlarge the image.

What I learned is that in all bottlings the age statement would have been 7 Years, but the components are 7 upto 11 Years old. The 14/345 seems to be less complex then the other two, with less content comming from European Oak with different kinds of previous content.

On average calculated over these three recipes The main body, about 60%, of Classic Laddie is made out of spirit matured in 1st fill American bourbon barrels and these are augmented by adding all kinds of European sourced woods and previous content into the mix. The complexity of all these different blend is depending on the availablity of stock and the choices made by the Head Distiller or Master Blender.

The barrels used in these three bottlings alone are 19 different types or previous content.

1. BOURBON USA BARREL 1ST FILL
2. BOURBON USA BARREL 2ND FILL
3. FRANCE LOIRE SWEET WHITE HOGSHEAD 2ND FILL
4. FRANCE BORDEAUX PAUILLAC RED HOGSHEAD 1ST FILL
5. FRANCE BORDEAUX SAUTERNES SWEET WHITE HOGSHEAD 3RD FILL
6. FRANCE BORDEAUX PAUILLAC HOGSHEAD 1ST FILL
7. FRANCE BURGUNDY RED HOGSHEAD 1ST FILL
8. FRANCE RIVESALTES SWEET RED & WHITE HOGSHEAD 2ND FILL
9. FRANCE BANYULS VDN RED HOGSHEAD 2ND FILL
10. FRANCE RIVESALTES SWEET RED & WHITE HOGSHEAD 2ND FILL
11. FRANCE BANDOL RED HOGSHEAD 2ND FILL
12. MADEIRA HOGSHEAD 2ND FILL
13. PORT PORTUGAL HOGSHEAD 2ND FILL
14. SPAIN RIBERA DEL DUERO RED HOGSHEAD 2ND FILL
15. SHERRY SPAIN BUTT 1ST FILL
16. SHERRY SPAIN BUTT 3RD FILL
17. SHERRY SPAIN BUTT 4TH FILL
18. SHERRY SPAIN HOGSHEAD 3RD FILL
19. ITALY TUSCANY RED HOGSHEAD 2ND FILL

You could say that, if you see this, you could argue that non of the Classic Laddie's are the same. We all knew this and you would be correct in saying so, but since the consistency of Classic Laddie is protected by the Head Distillers Jim McEwan and Adam Hannett you can see why these guys are payed for the job they do. Blending all these different casks together and making sure that the Classic Laddie is and stays the Classic Laddie is an art on its own.

There is a risk to all the openness given by Bruichladdich. People might really dive into this and start to over-analyse this Dram. I think I will just stop doing so with this blog, but I am going to find that one bottling with as much casks used are possible. Why? Terroir and Complexity. 

I can now scan for that one bottling with port / sherry / wine etc notes, or the hint of Italy! How frigging fun is this!!

So yay to Bruichladdich and Yay to Compass Box! 

Bruichladdich Classic Laddie rotations / batch codes

Following the initiative of Compass Box the Bruichladdich distillery decided to join in the campaign for transparency informing the people what the content of the bottle they bought was made from.
I looked up my own rotations/batch code and decided to put in some effort in finding out what rotation numbers were used in 2013, 2014, 2015 and up till today the 2nf of October 2016. 
Link to website off Bruichladdich :http://www.bruichladdich.com/the-whisky/bruichladdich/the-classic-laddie

No bottlings in 2011.

The rotation / batch codes numbers are:

• 13/148
• 13/211
• 13/232
• 13/246
• 13/278
• 13/279
• 13/286
• 14/009
• 14/023
• 14/033
• 14/041
• 14/112
• 14/119
• 14/129
• 14/130
• 14/205
• 14/205
• 14/217
• 14/237
• 14/240
• 14/290
• 14/335
• 14/345, P140936, 80/30, 11-01-2015, 200ml bottle in gift set 
• 15/032
• 15/054
• 15/059
• 15/113
• 15/145
• 15/146
• 15/205
• 15/207
• 15/223
• 15/224, L/150218, 28-09-2015 at 14:55 pm. Classic Laddie Gift Set with 2 glasses 
• 15/304
• 15/305
• 16/003
• 16/004
• 16/023
• 16/047
• 16/048
• 16/065
• 16/080
• 16/087

Below you can see the content of 14/345. Some of this batch was used in the gift set that contains 3 200ml bottles, one containing classic laddie.
I will have fun doing some statistics on the content! Looking forward to it already!

Screen capture of 14/345

How to prevent buying addiction

This blog is mostly meant for myself. It is about restraint. 

With whisky it is good to prevent addictive behaviour. Either in drinking or in buying. 

How do I manage both? 

I prevent becoming an alcoholic by not allowing myself a dram during weekdays. It's a deal I made with myself. In the weekend I treat myself to one dram per evening. I do see the fryday nights as part of my weekend. The drams are in a glencairn tasting glass, so about 30 millilitres. 

That is it! Very simple preventive measures. Just make a deal with yourself. 

Would having 2 drams a day result in alcoholism? I'm sure it would for someone, but not for everyone. I made this choice and plan to live by it.  

I try to prevent becoming a buying addict. This is proving to be more difficult than I thought. 

As a whisky enthusiast I follow blogs, brows websites, read books, watch reviews, visit shops, tastings and festivals. All this information can be taken in at the pace you are able to take it in. (Duh! Lol) What I mean by that is this. If you are unaware of Lagavulin having a 200 year anniversary then you will probably not know about the 8 year old "limited" edition. You can't buy something you are unaware off. 

So awareness due to knowledge leads to possible purchases. Since most whisky retailers are perfectly aware of marketing strategies customers will probably follow accordingly. The tricks is to not fall for marketing but to make buying choices based on personal motivation. This however is very difficult since everyone can be influenced subconsciously buy all the information you take in, be it advertising or anything else.

I myself like to (probability not true) consider myself a prosumer. Which means I try to look past/around marketing. (Good luck with that!) 

So how do I limit my spending? Fact is, at the moment, I don't. 

How could I limit my spending?

- determine a monthly budget, 

- determine what is the goal I want to achieve with buying whisky. Do I want to collect everything? Do I want to expand my palette and buy accordingly? Do I want to hunt for collectables? Depending on the answer I can set limits to what I want to buy. The trick is actually limiting yourself to the budget set out and choices made! If I choose to buy only this, then don't buy something else, even if it's on discount 

- determine if I buy to enjoy drinking or buy to invest. I decided I do the first, but some bottles are left closed for future options ;) 

- make a conscious choice each time you buy if you can afford it or other need to spend the money on food for your kids! Or a new refrigerator! Anything more needed than luxury goods really. 

Tasting note: clove vs clover

Since I am a Dutchman I think I am well aware of the correct translation of English to Dutch. 

I say this because kids in Holland are educated in English from the age of 7.

Ever since I first started watching the whisky reviews of Ralfy on YouTube I have been hearing the tasting note of Clove. In my mind that translates to the cute little plant with three, but if you have the luck of the Irish, four petals. 

People that are English will have started smiling by now. 

I was getting a tad suspicious of my own know how where I read about the taste associated with "clove". Despripters were all herbal like "dried ground clove". I started asking myself:"how the hell do you grind a petal!?" The thought started to arise, in my mind, that there was the slightest possibility that my knowledge off English might be less then presumed! 😵

So long live Google! Enter "clove" and hit come to the conclusion that clove and clover are two different things! Cloves and clovers too! All off a sudden the tasting notes made a hell of a lot more sense! Lol! Doh! 

Just for myself an image of a "clove"!

The Glenlivet to introduce two new expressions

The Master Destiller's Reserve:

The Founders Reserve.

Hunting for Cotactin Creek Roundstone Rye 92 proof

This is another "Hinting for" blog. This time the object of the hunt is one of the versions of a Rye whisky from the USA made by the Cotactin Creek distillery.

Photo: from the website of Cotactin Creek

The Rye Whisky I am hunting for is bottled in four versions all called "Roundstone".

The versions are:

• Roundstone Rye, 40% ABV, 100% Rye,
• Roundstone Rye 92 proof, 46% ABV, 100% Rye, Distiller's Reserve
• Roundstone Rye Cask proof, 58,9% ABV (depending on the barrel), 100% Rye
• Roundstone Rye Limited Edition HMX 

Normally I would check out the obvious online stores here in Holland, but for these bottles the results were all negative. So I did some advanced Googling and that to resulted in very little hits. 

The website of Cotactin Creek gives retailer information and it mentions the Haromex Development. 

After some twitter contact with the guys from Haromex I was given a link to one online retailer that delivers to my city, Lelystad. The online retailer is called Neel Drinks

I myself have found some other retailers that offer Catoctin Creek and I have listed the price of the 92 Proof version below as found on the 3nd of April 2016:

• Neel Drinks: €71,90
• Luxuriousdrinks.com: €71,90
• En.drinkology.de: €67,20

I will add price information as it becomes available. 

For an online YouTube review of this whisky please check out E-Man Booze : http://youtu.be/4-j6GJsiAHY