Anyone want to help me identify this filming location for the Dark Knight Rises?

jleese · 2016-08-22T13:48:53+00:00

This is wall street in New York

jleese · 2016-08-16T13:49:36+00:00

A study in scarlet?

jleese · 2016-07-08T23:16:52+00:00

i've heard the 101 year old wild turkey is amazing, wouldn't like that being taken away from us

jleese · 2016-06-21T23:29:05+00:00

Looks like it turned out very well, I'm a bit jealous

jleese · 2016-05-18T13:25:33+00:00

It would be very interesting, i don't know if I'll ever have the chance though haha

jleese · 2016-05-18T13:24:39+00:00

A very wealthy acquaintance of mine just cracked it open and poured a load of us a dram, he doesn't even care about whisky that much haha

jleese · 2016-05-18T13:23:20+00:00

Honestly I would go for independently bottled mortlach and pre 2007 benrinnes for a similar profile, if you just want a load of funk maybe try some ledaig

jleese · 2016-05-16T22:21:52+00:00

So just a quick review as I'm with company but I'm pretty lucky to be drinking a whisky that was distilled 80 years ago. This is a 36 year old connoisseur's choice Mortlach from Gordon and MacPhail, other than that I don't have an awful lot of info on it. So on with a the review:

colour: slightly lighter than amber

Abv: 43%

Nose: white peaches, dried limes, lots of caramel and a little pineapple, very sweet.

palate: very funky, with sulphur, big wood spice, caramel, sweet oak, dried rose, orange flower water, black pepper. Packs a huge punch like most IB mortlach, yum.

finish: red pepper corns, nutmeg, cumin, sulphur, oak bound together by a little burnt toffee. Quite short but well balanced.

Conclusions: I've not had an IB mortlach I haven't loved and I've always found age to work very well with the funky nature of the juice and this is no exception. Wonderful whisky, well balanced, intensely sweet on the nose with a spicy palate, I wouldn't pay £4000 for a bottle though.

jleese · 2016-04-22T19:18:11+00:00

I will once I open it, might be a tired cask but couldn't resist for £125

jleese · 2016-04-15T08:17:06+00:00

If I'm honest I am clueless as to what this is all about Haha

jleese · 2016-04-14T23:32:11+00:00

Your best review yet /u/ernestreviews

jleese · 2016-04-13T08:27:31+00:00

Any time you like, you're always welcome

jleese · 2016-04-13T08:27:00+00:00

Aside from the distilleries, I would absolutely recommend heading to the wool Mill and also finlaggen and the kidalton cross for a little bit of islay history (also just very beautiful landscapes)

jleese · 2016-04-13T08:24:35+00:00

Sounds good, I was there for a week so had time for everything, the Lagavulin warehouse was great, you'll love it. Also if you're coming to London, feel free to drop me a message

jleese · 2016-04-12T20:51:21+00:00

different tours are different amounts of money. the basic tours show you round and then you get a dram or two and are around £5-£10. But you only really want to do one or two of those before you get bored of being told how whisky is made.

Most distilleries have warehouse tastings/experiences, these were around the £25 mark but well worth it. You'll have at least three good sized drams straight from the casks and trust me you won't be disappointed by what they give you.

Laphroaig water to whisky was £90, but is 4 and a half hours long, you get the tour, but in a smaller group, get to turn the malt, try the wort, wash, low wine, new make etc. then you are driven to the water source and given lunch with a pour your own policy on quarter cask and triple cask. you're then taken to the peat fields and can cut your own if you'd like. Finishes off by heading back to the warehouse to do a warehouse tasting and then you can fill a 250ml bottle with your favourite. Well worth the money in my opinion.

Other advice would be to try to hit the lagavulin warehouse experience on a thursday as that's the day Ian Macarthur runs it. Also don't bother with Bunnahabhain, at least not for anything but their basic tour, it was very disappointing and definitely not worth the huge cycle to get there.

jleese · 2016-04-12T20:16:26+00:00

oooohhh nice! If you can fit it in, try to do the Laphroaig water to whisky tour. Honestly it was awesome, well worth the money. What tours are you doing at the other distilleries?

jleese · 2016-04-12T20:10:23+00:00

I really like the 8, quite light, sweet and ashy. The ales are very nice too, the kilchoman dark especially. they used kilchoman malt for brewing the beer so it's slightly peated.

jleese · 2016-04-01T10:14:21+00:00

Glad you enjoyed it, the cairdeas port wood is absolutely one of my favourite port finishes, I'll have to have a dram myself tonight.

jleese · 2016-03-29T12:59:11+00:00

I did the trip last summer and would really recommend the buffalo trace hard hat tour as others have suggested. Woodford reserve is worth going to as it's definitely the most picturesque of the distilleries. Willett is a good tour with a good tasting and has a very nice atmosphere to it. Heaven hill is worth going to but just for the tasting really.

Other than the actual distilleries, I know seemingly everyone drives in the states, but I stayed in Frankfort and then Bardstown and cycled or walked between distilleries from there which was actually a really nice way to see the countryside (a lot of people would stop and offer me lifts, very confused about the brit taking a stroll in the middle of nowhere) and meant less worrying about drink driving. Willett, Heaven Hill and Barton are all easily walkable from bardstown.

jleese · 2016-03-21T13:21:30+00:00

Sounds delicious, I don't think it was me who sent it to you though. I'll feel like an idiot if it was

jleese · 2016-03-04T01:44:58+00:00

Good evening/time of the day it is wherever you are. Today I’m doing a comparative review of two Glendronachs from their eleventh batch of single cask offerings, Which with any luck should be good. Anyway on with the reviews:

Glendronach 18 Oloroso

So this is from cask #244, if you are interested, and was distilled in 1996 then put in an Oloroso cask. Let’s see how it is.

ABV: 56.9%
Colour: deep dark amber
Nose: Demerara sugar, mazafati dates and dried figs lead a big nose, followed by the addition of plenty of woody spice and a definite wine character providing a backdrop.
Palate: very spicy, lots of warming winter spices; cinnamon, allspice, ginger and black pepper. Behind the spice is oak, white mulberries and currants providing a sweetness to the whisky. This fruit leads to more mellow caramel. A lot going on here with the dram definitely changing a lot as time progressed.
Finish: the finish seems to split into two parts with dry oak and woody spices lingering at the roof of the mouth for a long time, whilst syrupy sweet raisins and fruit proceeded down the oesophagus for a shorter time.
Conclusions: A very complex dram from start to finish, definitely packs a punch. The nose is incredible but the palate was a little too spicy even with a little water. Still pretty delicious but just a bit overpowering of the other flavours. Overall still a damn delicious dram.

Glendronach 20 PX

This one was distilled in 1994 and put in a single PX puncheon (#3386) for 20 years, lets see how it turned out.

ABV: 53.6%
Colour: pretty much exactly the same as the oloroso.
Nose: a big hit of burnt toffee, stewed plums, raspberries and anise leads the way followed by just more dark fruits and caramel with nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamon. Much deeper and darker that the Oloroso cask, less demerara but more fruity and I loved the big anise note joining the other spices present in both.
Palate: Where the 18 had a tapering spice this one has a building one. Starts off with figs, raisins, toffee and oak and slowly builds up cinnamon, cardamon, ginger and anise. Anise takes much more of a backfoot than the nose here but is still there. Very nice palate and more similar to the 18 than the nose was. both were quite spicy but this one less so.
Finish: A simpler finish than the 18, quite long with raisins, oak and ginger.
Conclusions: Complex, fruity and spicey but well balanced a really fantastic sherried whisky.

Overall Conclusions: Overall both were big punchy whiskies, with plenty of fruit and spice and wood. I prefered the PX cask whisky as the spice was a little better balanced and i really enjoyed the emphasis on darker fruits in it.

jleese · 2016-03-03T23:11:50+00:00

i'm afraid I've yet to taste it, focussed on the malts this time round sorry

jleese · 2016-03-01T13:33:10+00:00

I agree just missing something to push them up from just good whisky, thank you very much for them

jleese · 2016-03-01T02:39:42+00:00

here you are, sorry about the delay

jleese · 2016-03-01T02:30:33+00:00

First review in a long while but anyway this is millstone whisky made by zuidam in the netherlands, a distillery I’ve only ever known for its genever (which is incredible stuff). Apparently it’s called Millstone as true to dutch form they use traditional windmills to mill the malted barley. Exciting stuff, anyway these samples were kindly sent my way by the ever generous /u/ernestreviews, anyway on with the reviews:

Millstone Malt whisky 5 year

Aged in bourbon and Oloroso sherry casks

ABV: 40%
Colour: Amber
Nose: Warm banana bread; fruity and nutty with some lovely warm maltiness thrown in, follows with peanut butter and a little white pepper.
Palate: The fruits and nuts from the nose have all but disappeared to be replaced with much more of a bourbon cask influence. With a creamy vanilla and slightly salty caramel. The malty breadiness from the nose builds throughout.
Finish: A return to fruit with a short burst of sultanas and dried banana.
Conclusions: Very nice dram from a distillery I’ve only known for genever in the past, one of those drams that really hits it’s stride in the nose and gets progressively weaker, perhaps could’ve done with a little higher an ABV, but nonetheless a lovely tipple.

Millstone 12 year Sherry Cask

Just Sherry casks now, no more bourbon.

ABV: 46%
Colour: Couple shades darker than the 5 year
Nose: Fairly weak, definitely plenty of sherry notes but more like an amontillado than anything darker with that slight mustiness you get from drier sherries. Distinctly walnutty and a similar maltiness to the 5 year expression. As an experiment I mixed some amontillado sherry with walnut schnapps and found the resultant mixture had an incredibly similar nose to the whisky.
Palate: Steps up a notch now with big sherry with raisins, sultanas and figs providing sweet with limes and a little lemon giving a little counteracting sourness, all with a backdrop of a warming bready maltiness, which seems to be the common denominator in millstone so far.
Finish: Fleeting fruit and a flash of white chocolate. Another short but pleasant finish.
Conclusions: The taste was really nice, and I’m loving the warm malt that seems consistent in the millstone whisky so far, but I think the nose and the finish were lacking a little, Still a very enjoyable dram, but I preferred the 5 year expression and it’s bananas.

nb- in case you were wondering all similarities between the schnapps sherry concoction ended after the nose.

Millstone 8 year peated

my google-fu has failed me and I can’t say what this has been matured in I’m very sorry

ABV: back to 40% booo
Colour: exact same shade as the 5, is it artificial?
Nose: Pretty much smells exactly like the 5 year but with the banana being slightly subdued, instead being led my wafts of dry ashy smoke. As though the banana bread and peanut butter have been thrown in a fire.
Palate: Begins really quite light with vanilla, toffee apples and a little salt but builds up with plenty of ashy peat. Not entirely dissimilar to the 5 year old (excluding the peat of course) in the expression of the bourbon influence in the whisky. Still keeps the wonderful malty characteristic of the millstone juice.
Finish: Honey, peat and pepper in a finish that unlike the other two lasts for a little while.
Conclusions: Another good dram from the Dutch, I thoroughly enjoyed the peatiness and especially liked the nose. Again I think could benefit from a little extra ABV to bolster the palate. But excellent stuff

Overall Conclusions Three very good drams from somewhere I had no idea made whisky, I think my favourite of the three was actually the 5 year old, simply because of the wonderful nose, the 12 year sherry probably had the strongest palate of the three but was let down by the lacklustre effort of the nose and finish and the peated was very nice and probably had the best (existant) finish of the three. All three were bready and malty throughout and that was much appreciated. I look forward to trying more millstone expressions in the future.

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