My Recap of 2024 – Part 2

Although I shared my recap of 2024 two days ago, I realised there were more personal and insightful statistics worth exploring. These might inspire you to reflect on your own whisky spending and how it breaks down across categories: official vs. independent bottlings, age, ABV, or even the total days of whisky you’ve purchased (assuming one dram per day). If that number exceeds 365, and you’re not drinking more than one dram daily, then your collection has grown! So, here’s my 2024 recap – part two.

A Few Raw Numbers

Let’s start with some raw numbers. In 2024, I added 58 new bottles to my collection. Of those, I purchased 48, while the remaining 10 were gifts. For transparency, six of those gifted bottles came directly from distilleries or bottlers. Here’s the list:

• Aberlour 17-Year-Old Small Batch: Gifted by Pernod Ricard at the conclusion of my contract with them for Whisky Live Paris 2024.
• Armorik 2014 20 cl Cask Sample: Gifted by Warenghem to all organisers of Malt in France 2024.
• Bimber Santa’s Edition 2023: Gifted by Bimber to several whisky bloggers at the end of 2023, though mine arrived in early 2024 due to being in Europe.
• Bows Benleioc Original: An open bottle shared among the organisers of Malt in France 2024, courtesy of distilleries that left or gifted us their bottles at the end of the show.
• Rozelieures Malt in France (Zero Nine Spirits): An independent bottling of Rozelieures by French indie bottler Zero Nine Spirits, gifted to the organisers of the Malt in France whisky show.
• Scapa 16-Year-Old: Another gift from Pernod Ricard at the end of my Whisky Live Paris 2024 contract.

The other four bottles were personal gifts from individuals entirely unrelated to the whisky industry or no longer affiliated with the distilleries at the time.

On the flip side, I ‘removed’ 48 bottles from my collection: 36 were killed, and 12 open bottles were sold to a friend. Now, let’s pay homage to the bottles that met their end with a quick Aqvavitae Recycled Review tribute, shall we?

Very Quick Review of the Bottles Killed in 2024

How did the bottles I’ve killed hold up, and would I recommend them? Let’s dive into some quick-fire, super-short reviews!

• Aberlour 12-year-old ex-Bourbon distillery exclusive: very good, recommended.
• Aberlour 13-year-old ex-Sherry distillery exclusive: very good sherry bomb, recommended.
• Aberlour A’Bunadh Batch #67: good, don’t bother looking for that specific batch, there are a few new batches each year.
• Ailsa Bay 1.2 Sweet Smoke: sometimes I really liked it, sometimes I didn’t, but it was nice overall.
• Ardbeg An Oa: I really liked it, I need to replace it.
• Armorik 10-year-old 2021 edition: loved it, I’ve already replaced it with a newer batch.
• Arran 18-year-old: very good whisky, highly recommended.
• Bimber Peated Cask: loved that ex-islay peated cask. If I can find one on the secondary market at a reasonable price, I might go for it.
• Carpathian Peated Cask Strength: that was nice, but I’ll wait for older whisky from them to give it another go.
• Cragganmore 2005 Distiller’s Edition: I had bought it after a great tour of the distillery, I’m not into Port finishes anymore and won’t replace it.
• Dingle Single Malt (core range): lovely, easy drinking, great to share, already replaced, and I have one or two backups.
• Dingle Samhain: I adore it, one of my faves of the Celtic Wheel of the Year range. I’ll review it soon, I’ve already killed two bottles and I have two or three backups.
• Fettercairn 2008 Douglas Laing: a good 12yo Fettercain with their signature funk and tropical fruits. Won’t replace it with the exact same one but I will buy more Fettercairn in the future.
• Glen Elgin 2008 The Dava Way: excellent Glen Elgin selected by Matt McKay. It was shared a lot and appreciated. 
• Glen Moray 2010 Peated PX Finish: it was a fantastic distillery exclusive back in 2018–2019. I’m glad I have a backup, I adore it.
• GlenDronach 15-year-old Revival: very good, but probably won’t replace it for now.
• Invergordon 1996 The Easy Sipper (Whisky Cellar): loved this 25-year-old grain, deserved its name, it was tasty and great value.
• J. J. Corry The Gael batch 1: An excellent Irish blend, if you find it at a good price, go for it.
• Kamiki Sakura Wood: bought to compare it to the ‘regular’ Kamiki (see below), it was nice but I won’t replace it.
• Kamiki Cedar Wood batch 1: nice, loved by several people I shared it with, but I won’t replace it.
• Kamiki Cedar Wood batch 3: well, I bought it because I was interested in the Sakura Wood one and they were together in a lot at auction. Very close to batch 1.
• Kilkerran Heavily Peated Batch 2: great whisky, I’m not home right now but I think I’ve replaced it with a newer batch. You can buy more recent batches, they’re very good.
• Lagavulin 8-year-old 200th anniversary: great young Lagavulin bottled at 48%, great value, recommended.
• Milk & Honey Islay Peated Cask Belgium Exclusive: loved it, won’t replace it but that was very good.
• Miyagikyo Single Malt NAS: very good, I’ll probably replace it if I find it on offer.
• Nikka Coffey Grain: nice, but I won’t replace it.
• Nikka Coffey Malt: same as with the Coffey Grain.
• Compass Box Orchard House: lovely fruity blended malt from Compass Box, I might replace it seeing how quickly I killed this bottle.
• Paul John Brilliance: another bottle I quickly killed, if I can find one at the price I paid at the time (around €40), I’ll definitely go for it.
• Penderyn 2013 SMWS 128.25: one of my favourite whiskies of these last few years, as I adore tropical fruits: this is like a pornstar martini cocktail at 60% ABV. I’m glad I have a backup, I’m very sad I only have one backup. Not perfect and a bit unbalanced, but what a fantastic whisky.
• Three Ships 10-year-old 2005–2015: nice whisky from South Africa, unfortunately not available in Europe and different from the 12-year-old released in the UK more recently.
• Tomintoul 15-year-old Port Cask: Tomintoul is subtitled the gentle dram, it’s too gentle for me, a whisky I bought when I liked port cask finishes and maturations. Not my thing anymore.
• Unnamed Orkney 2006 VanWees: nice secret Highland Park, inexpensive, won’t replace it, as there are tons of other very good secret Orkneys everywhere.
• Williamson 2010 The Whisky Jury: a really good secret Laphroaig, but same as the Unnamed Orkney just above: I’ll go for other secret Laphys.
• Yamazaki Distiller’s Reserve: nice entry-level Yamazaki, I reviewed it a couple of years ago. The price sadly crept up and I won’t replace it at current prices.
• Yoichi Single Malt: delicious and affordable peated whisky from my favourite Japanese distillery. It’s already been replaced.

Phew! Don’t worry – I didn’t drink all of that on my own, and it was spread out over several years. Speaking of not drinking it all solo…

Whisky is Better when Shared

A few years ago, I co-founded the Rennes Whisky Club with two friends. We meet monthly, except in July and August, and each session follows a specific theme. As founders, the three of us each bring a bottle from our own collections to share. That’s already 10 bottles shared with our members, with 20 ml pours for everyone attending each meeting.

I also host virtual tastings for friends from the Geekzone.fr forum and community. For these, I prepare 5 or 6 sample bottles (30 ml each) and ship them to participants. In 2024, I hosted 5 tastings, sharing a total of 27 bottles across various themes. These ranged from single distillery showcases and Scottish regions to world whiskies and even a Christmas tasting with an exceptional lineup, including 25+ year-old Islay whiskies and a 30-year-old single malt!

And, of course, there are sample swaps I do with friends – though a bit less frequently now due to Brexit. I used to swap far more in the past!

What Did I Buy in 2024?

Let’s dive back into the bottles I acquired in 2024 and take a closer look at the stats and the stories behind them.

Distilleries

As mentioned earlier, I added 57 bottles to my collection last year, sourced from 39 distilleries or blends. My spending clearly reflects my favourite distilleries: Balblair, Dingle, Springbank, Glen Moray, and Ardbeg. I picked up 5 bottles of Balblair, 4 each of Dingle, Ardbeg, and Springbank, and 3 from Glen Moray. It’s a pretty solid representation of my top choices!

Independent vs Official Bottling

Out of the 57 new bottles I acquired, 32 were independent bottlings (56.1%) and 25 were official bottlings (43.9%). The largest portion came from Decadent Drinks/Whisky Sponge and Whiskybase/Archives, with 4 bottles from each. I also bought a couple of bottles from three French bottlers – Zero Nine Spirits (excluding the gifted one), Swell de Spirits, and Le Gus’t – as well as bottles from other sources.

Age

I remember Michael Henry (Loch Lomond’s Master Blender) mentioning in an episode of the Honest to a Malt podcast that he tends to buy mostly young whisky to experience the distillery character. As for me, it seems I gravitate toward slightly older whiskies, with a few bottles being quite aged. Of course, price plays a role in this too, as older whiskies tend to come with a heftier price tag.

I’ve acquired or been gifted 13 bottles without an age statement, 6 that are 10 years or younger, 20 bottles between 10 and 14 years, 11 whiskies ranging from 15 to 19 years, 5 in their twenties, and two bottles that are 40 years old: a blend and a Balblair single malt!

Alcohol By Volume

Origin of That Whisky

The majority of the whisky I’ve added to my collection this year comes from Scotland – 43 bottles out of 57! That’s nearly 11 times more than France and Ireland, each of which contributed four bottles.

Looking closer at Scotland, the Highlands and Speyside clearly dominate my collection, far outnumbering whiskies from Islay and Campbeltown.

Are They Considered Good Whiskies?

I’m far from having opened most of those bottles, as I already have so many open bottles. That’s why I try to kill more bottles than I open. But despite that, I have around 190 open bottles, so you’ll understand I don’t open the ones I buy immediately! So until I can judge for myself if the bottles I’ve bought are good (some of them well, were, as they’ve been killed already!), let’s trust – with a pinch of salt – what other people say, and look at their Whiskybase rating:

One issue with the 100-point scale is that 50, which should represent an average score, is often seen as awful, while an average whisky typically scores between 75 and 80, and excellent whiskies start at 90. That’s one of the reasons I switched to a 10-point scale at the start of 2024. Looking at it now, though, most of the whiskies I’ve bought are rated 87 or higher on Whiskybase, so I must be doing something right when it comes to choosing whisky!

Is This a Lot?

Well, 57 bottles – excluding 7 ‘old style’ new makes – account for 38.25 litres of whisky. If I multiply the volume of each bottle by its ABV, that’s almost 20 litres of pure alcohol. But let’s look at it another way: if a dram is a 30 ml pour and I drink one dram a day, that’s 1275 drams in total – about three and a half years’ worth of whisky. Fortunately for my liver, I buy quicker than I drink, though I’m not sure my credit card shares the same sentiment!

Final Words

Well, like previous years, I’ve bought a lot of whisky. Probably too much, but between the bottles that look so delicious (trusting word of mouth or excellent reviews on trusted websites), the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), the distilleries I cannot stop buying or the collection I want to complete (Dingle Celtic Wheel of the Year I’m looking at you), 57 bottles, on top of the ones I already had, are a lot. Now, everything I buy is to drink and to share; none of them are for speculation nor flipping. So in 2025, I’ll try to be reasonable. Do I even believe myself? Absolutely not. But I’ll try. At least by imposing a buying ban on myself in January. For whisky and for other spirits. I haven’t mentioned cognac in this one, but my spending on cognac is (almost) insignificant. Just two or three bottles in 2024. Beautiful ones, I admit (a Grosperrin 1964, a Famille Cabanne 1924 – that I will review in the coming days, and my advent calendar), but not numerous.

Anyway. I’d love to know how your stats compare to mine, your spending habits, the regions, ABV, ages you go to, and so on. And you’ll notice I haven’t talked about prices and total spending. I won’t. There’s enough in this recap of 2024 part 2 for that to be considered showing off, but that was not the point. So I’d love to know what you bought last yearand how that breaks down, so please leave a comment down below or on any social media you find me on.

And once again, I wish you a very happy new year 2025, and if possible, full (but reasonably) of whisky and great malternatives.