Limited and Glorious: Hedonism Maximus

There is something charming about limited editions. They represent that which is low yield, excellent and desirable. Limited releases and editions offer a peek into an exclusive world inhabited by the privileged and fortunate. What I like about whisky is that limited editions and releases are not always priced excessively highly. Some like the Lagavulin 12 year old and the stunner that is Aberlour's A'bunadh are not only good value for money but thanks to being batch released not too difficult to source. Other bottlings such as the drinkable Snow Phoenix from Speyside distillers Glenfiddich was very limited but not overly expensive. This isn't to say all limited release whiskies are inexpensive and available or what would be the point? But whisky unlike many other luxury products is one where at any price bracket you can experience some exclusivity if you look hard enough.

The joy of limited editions is knowing that you are a member of a clique who have tried the whisky and that in years to come the whisky will be mostly extinct. The icing on the cake is that limited editions are often of a higher quality, although this is arguable. Recently, I got to try a limited release I thought I had missed the chance to try. Better still I had only just become re-acquainted with its standard release brother the Compass Box Hedonism. The whisky I was lucky enough to be offered was the limited release Hedonism Maximus. A blended grain whisky of superb quality and old age (I was told minimum of 37 years). Here is what I thought of both the standard and the limited release:

Hedonism
43% - Blended Grain Whisky - Bottled by Compass Box
Nose: Coconut and a slight almondy character complimented with vanilla and a medicinality.
Palate: Light but very rich with toffee and syrupy vanilla sweetness.
Finish: Fairly hot with a clear spiciness.
Overall: An example in how grain whisky can excel, perfect dessert whisky or digestif.

Hedonism Maximus
46% - 37 Year Old - Blended Grain Whisky - Bottled by Compass Box
Nose: Roses arrive first tailed by a sweet sugary syrup with raspberry colis.
Palate: Light with that sweet richness of the standard release enhanced with summer fruits cutting through the swirling sweetness.
Finish: Intense vanilla holding its own for a good time to come.
Overall: I really enjoy the standard release Hedonism, but the Maximus leaps ahead with its rose, raspberry and summer fruits combination that lend it a complexity that makes this syrupy dram stand out from its peers.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Tonight's blog is a little different. For a change I'm going to review a beer. The beer in question hails from my homeland in the West Midlands - Shropshire. It is a county that easily slips into obscurity despite its rich history of war with the Welsh and its few prestigious alumni including war poet Wilfred Owen, evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin and Peep Show writer Jesse Armstrong. Despite all of this and its beautiful scenery, no-one really knows all that much about it. This is a shame as it is from this rural province that my favourite beer is brewed. The beer in question is the Station Bitter from the Stonehouse Brewery that is located outside the Marches market town of Oswestry. I am fully aware that I am a little biased when it comes to promoting this ale. It is only readily available locally and this causes me great pain as I sit here in London, typing this. I associate this beer with country pubs, banter and most of all a land where a pint costs less that a fiver. Fanatical upselling aside this beer has won multiple awards including the SIBA Wales & West 2011 silver award for Standard Bitter and bronze for Bottled Beer. Enough nostalgia - here's my review:

Copyright: Mike-in-the-Pub

Station Bitter
3.9% - Brewed at Stonehouse Brewery - Malt & Hops (unspecified)
Appearance: Amber coloured with gently receding head.
Nose: Leathery malt provides undertones of nuts followed by green fruit notably apples and pear with a slight raspberry quality. Perhaps a little meaty gravy on closer inspection.
Palate: Light and creamy yet full-bodied with an acidic edge creating a crisp bitterness amidst its fruity flavours.
Finish: Soft, rich and fruity.
Overall: Excellent balance between malt and hops. This is a bitter for drinking, maybe not as complex as some but great beer garden fare. Occasional beer reviews to follow in the future.

Lesson Learnt: Nikka All Malt

A quick lesson today: Don't judge a book by its cover. For months I have avoided Nikka's All Malt with a vengeance. The combination of plain packaging, low price and uninspiring name repulsed me, and then of course I tried it. No surprise here; it was actually very good. I'm still getting to grips with how it is made but as far as I understand it, it is made entirely of blended malt whisky from Yoichi and Miyagikyo except some has been distilled in a Coffey still (traditionally used for grain whisky) rather than the classic pot still. However it is made it is highly enjoyable and is a point-and-case example of why a whisky shouldn't be judged by it name, price or packaging.

All Malt
40% - 100% malt/blend - Bottled by Nikka
Nose: Mounds of toffee and fudge on top of a cinnamon bun with soft spices dusting this sugary mess.
Palate: Vanilla and mocha are imminently available but strawberry ice lolly commands the stage with highlights of fromage frais.
Finish: Espresso closes this full-flavoured dram with Demerara sugar lingering on.
Overall: I was very surprised by how delicious this whisky was. Lots of clearly defined flavours packed into one whisky. A bargain!

The PC8 - The Gorgonzola of the Whisky World

Sometimes I say, think, raise attention to, something only I can see. No matter how much I insist and argue other people adamantly disagree with me and tell me I am uttering utter heresy for even daring to make such observations. I like to think I am a twenty-first century Galileo but in truth I am most likely just misguided. However it is very difficult to let such things go because they always stay imprisoned in my head waiting for somebody else to realise the truth behind my revelations.

Recently I ran a peated whisky tasting and I concluded the night with the peat troll that is Bruichladdich's PC8. I made a claim that aside from the intense peatreek there was a very real stink of cheese about it. This resulted in sneers and jibes as my tasting notes were ridiculed and thrown to the lions. I should say my audience were actually very pleasant and enthusiastic and were wholly polite in their calm and measured destruction of my final tasting note. Yet no matter how much I insisted no-one agreed with me. Maybe I should treat this as a lesson and learn to understand my nose can be wrong, or... I could stubbornly put my notes up here.

Port Charlotte PC8
60.5% - 8 Years Old - Bottled by Bruichladdich
Nose: Reams of thick peat rising like a noxious fug off the surface of the whisky with gargantuan notes of gorgonzola and smoked cheddar creating an earthy cheesy quality with later notes of sawdust.
Palate: Thick peat again followed by burnt sugar and caramel lending this dram a sweet undertone.
Finish: Peaty with a chemical solution of chlorine and salt. Shorter than I expected but powerful.
Overall: Well I get cheese even if no-one else does. This is truly a peat-ridden whisky to satisfy even the most hardcore of peatfreaks. My only criticisms would be the finish could have endured longer and there was an overall lack of complexity. Still, smoked cheese anyone?

The Whisky Wire's Compass Box Twasting

A little while back I received a message from Steve Rush of The Whisky Wire asking if I would be at all interested in participating in a Twitter tasting or more concisely put, a ‘Twasting’. For me this was a no-brainer. All the more so because the whiskies that would be tantalizing our taste-buds would be the ever excellent Compass Box whiskies that I have enthused about before. I eagerly replied to accept my invitation and a few weeks later I received my three precious samples. The first, Compass Boxes new offering - the Great King Street Artist’s Blend, then the stylistic Spice Tree and finally the effervescent Peat Monster. I stored them away carefully for their grand opening on Wednesday 21st September. On Wednesday evening a minor disaster struck. My girlfriend’s laptop that I had been borrowing spectacularly crashed and left me without the internet access I required to participate. Thankfully not deterred I found a solution. With cunning, I strapped two Blackberry’s together, each with Twitter access and with these and my samples I was ready to roll. On one screen I had a feed running for the evening’s hashtag: #CBtwasting, and on the other my own live feed that I could update. As 8pm approached Steve began the countdown, I had my drams poured and my fingers itching to type. Then the clock struck eight and the tweets began to roll. At first I was worried that the sheer number of tweets would cause confusion and make it difficult to keep up, but my fears were quickly put to rest. It became a great game of tasting, writing a note, commenting on fellow Twasters’ own notes and retweeting everything I agreed with. The hour and a half it took passed quickly. Each whisky receiving what seemed short at the time thanks to my immersion in the Twitterverse approximately thirty minutes. So what can I say about them? Well, firstly it was hard to choose a favourite. I am a huge fan of all three, the GKS for me is an excellent aperitif whisky, the history of the original Spice Tree being banned appeals to me greatly, and the Peat Monster is a fantastic smoky blended malt. The second thing I would say is that all of them demonstrate brilliantly the potential of blended whisky. I would happily exchange a Compass Box offering for a single malt whisky any day, here’s to hoping other blenders catch the zeitgeist. As my fingers are still tired from bashing Blackberry buttons let’s jump to my notes, and do keep an eye on The Whisky Wire for any future events he runs, I can promise fun and dram related shenanigans will make for a very fun evening.

Great King Street Artist’s Blend
43% - No Age Statement – Blended Whisky
Nose: For me marshmallows and banana dominate or foam banana as was kindly suggested to me during the Twasting. I also got lemon and syrupy fruit.
Palate: Quite light but with substantial mouth-feel, bananas and cream and citrus fruits.
Finish: Butter icing lasting a surprisingly long time.
Overall: As mentioned a great aperitif and a great go to whisky if you want to settle back and relax with a dram.

Spice Tree
46% - No Age Statement – Blended Malt
Nose: Apples and mulling spices in a mulled cider kind of style with icing sugar on a second sniff.
Palate: SPICE! Is the active word here: Cardamon, cloves, cinnamon, cumin with a vanilla sweetness lurking behind.
Finish: Chewy and spicy clinging on for a long while after. Utterly satisfying.
Overall: Spice and sweetness complimenting each other perfectly, does what it says on the tin.

Peat Monster
46% - No Age Statement – Blended Malt
Nose: Warm embers, soft seaweed notes, gammon and grassy ashes.
Palate: A meaty maritime palate thanks to the presence of Laphroaig. Raspberry and tropical fruits in amidst a creamy quality swiftly follow.
Finish: Salty with a seaweed character but not at all overpowering, allowing the flavours to hold and intermingle pleasantly.
Overall: Excellent, smoky whisky, not harsh or abrupt a whisky to savour and a suitable end to my first Twasting!

Thanks to Steve at The Whisky Wire, Compass Box and all involved for a fantastic evening. See my 'blogs I like' page to follow Steve.

One Of A Kind... The Glendronach Single Casks 1994

I love the unique and the different. I like things that are one-of-a-kind that don't run with the pack. I think this comes from an inward fear of being "normal"; the fact that most of our lives follow a fairly standard pattern terrifies me. Therefore anything that breaks this mass-produced lineage is appealing to me. One of the reasons whisky appealed to me when I was younger (aside from its fearsome flavour) was that it wasn't the poison of the masses. I think most stuff that says something different is worth a listen, and I can say my film, television, music and book tastes have been much improved as a result.

This naturally brings me back to whisky. The interesting and unique is a fairly common occurrence in the whisky world. Every single whisky claims to be different from the next. Many distilleries claim to be the 'oldest' (usually suffixed with a minor difference e.g. In relevent region) or the the 'only' (usually suffixed with a minor difference e.g. Family run). So being different isn't something as unusual in the world of whisky. However there is one aspect of whisky that will always be interesting beyond marketing mirages, and that is the phenomena of single cask whiskies. Undeniably every single cask imparts a slightly different flavour on the whisky to the next cask, hence why standard releases tend to be a blend of multiple casks. But when you sample a single cask you know you are trying something unique. There is one distillery, that I have written of before that does a particularly fine selection of single cask whiskies, and that is Glendronach. Today's review is a comparison of two single cask Glendronach's distilled in 1994 and their differences are striking.

Glendronach 1994
58.5% - 14 Year Old - Oloroso Puncheon - Bottled 2009
Nose: Demerra sugar, toffee, butterscotch dominate, but becomes more herbal with water added.
Palate: Creamy with mounds of milk chocolate and viscous stewed fruit in particular raspberry and strawberry in a red fruit compote.
Finish: Sherry wood, more chocolate and roast peaces becoming fresh peaches with water.
Overall: Punchy with a long finish, rich and oily but with a slight off-woody character when left in the glass too long.

Glendronach 1994
60.1% - 17 Year Old - Oloroso Butt - Bottled 2011
Nose: Much softer than the 14 year, with fudge over toffee and a gentle kiwi character plays with orange blossom and a striking aroma of curry spice and notes of saffron with water.
Palate: Spicy, chocolate orange and Christmas pudding rolling around in brandy sauce.
Finish: Curry spice returns; notably garam massala, tumeric and chili toward the end of this long complex finish.
Overall: I preferred this 17 year to the 14 year mainly for its lack of off-wood notes and abundance of curry spice and chocolate. A very well made whisky showcasing what Glendronach do best. I should also mention each whisky was very different in colour. The 14 year was golden whereas the 17 was a rich brown. Food for thought there... Hopefully more casks to follow!

Lake Placid... The Ardbeg Alligator

"Row row row your boat gently down the stream, if you see an Islay-gator don't forget to scream. Arghh!"

This is how I remember the nursery rhyme going... I think. Today's review has no unnecessary story precluding the stuff about the whisky. The Alligator is a story in itself. The basic background information you need to know is that Ardbeg charred ex-Bourbon casks to the maximum, leaving an alligator skin-like effect on the inside of the barrels and the result is a massive, hold that thought... MASSIVE whisky. To put that into context; aside from my good self I have seen two other people sample the Alligator, all three of us took a sip and went "Oh!?" Followed swiftly by, "Arghh!" as the finish took hold. The Alligator is aptly named: The nose is massive and meaty although softer than I expected leading me into a false sense of security, the palate took me by surprise, then the finish pulled me under the surface to a dark demise.

For me the Alligator has a sentimental value. It is the first whisky I have waited anxiously for and it was reading blogs about it months ago that inspired me to begin the one you are reading currently. Needless to say I was excited to finally get hold of this snappy (pun intended) whisky. Besides my sentimentality I was also excited to battle this Alligator because if there is one thing I like about whisky it is experimentation, so to try a whisky from an experiment that aggressively chars casks was always going to be a winner for me. But enough of this tittle-tattle; the whisky... [cue Jaws theme tune]

Ardbeg Alligator
51.2% - No Age Statement
Nose: A marshmallow smokiness I associate with Ardbeg quickly muscled out of the way by pounds of smoked bacon. As the dram opens up vanilla, bubble gum and soft fruits emerge with a smell I associate with sandy beaches. Finally a charcoal element crowds in reminding us of this reptile's Islay heritage.
Palate: Very rich with a snap of lollipop fruitiness, creamy with with white chocolate mixed in. Throughout all of this peat lurks in the background, stalking its prey...
Finish: Arghh! This is where the Alligator keeps its teeth, massive chimneys of smoke, an earthy quality that crashes in waves and remains for a very very long time. I woke up 6 hours later still tasting peat smoke.
Overall: A whisky to dwarf all whiskies. I don't remember the Supernova being this punchy, although like the Supernova the Alligator has perfect balance and an incredibly long finish. A big meaty barbecue of a dram. Now to watch some Crocodile Dundee!