Distilleries Archives - Page 14 of 22 - More drams, less drama

Bowmore 2001 Artist #7 part 2 LMDW

6th December 20216th December 2021Coldorak

After a couple days in Tasmania and a quick trip to Japan (yesterday’s dram was a Nikka Taketsuru 21, already reviewed by your servitor last year), we’re back to Islay but this time from the eastern shores of Loch Indaal, above the hands of the witch. I’ll just do a brief introduction about Bowmore since with (almost) a review a day, I cannot take the time to cover the story of the distillery with its two and a half centuries of existence. And after that, I’ll review the Bowmore 2011 Artist #7 part 2 LMDW.

Hellyers Road 2002

4th December 20214th December 2021Coldorak

We’re still in Tasmania this evening for our fourth dram from the advent calendar, and still at Hellyers Road. But we go a bit older and unpeated this time, so it will be interesting to see what’s different (to the one in the back saying “This one is not peated”, thank you, I’ve already said it, please listen next time) compared to the 2004 Peated from yesterday. As I said yesterday, Hellyers Road sits near Burning, in Tasmania, and was founded in 1999. Australian whisky, including Tasmanian, has really exploded since the beginning of the 21st century. Before the year 2000, there were only four distilleries in Australia, of which three of them were in Tasmania. Lark, founded in 1992, Sullivans Cove, founded in 1994 and Hellyers Road saw the light of day and the spirit flow in Tasmania. The fourth one is Bakery Hill, founded in 1998 in Victoria. And what about now? Well, now there are more than 70 distilleries running or about to, including the very well-known Starward founded in 2004. The exponential rate at which distilleries pop of the ground with whisky flowing soon after is mind-boggling. However, many of those distilleries are not widely distributed yet and I may not have the chance to try what they do. But today I’m back at Hellyers Road, and I’m very happy about that.

Hellyers Road 2004

3rd December 20211st December 2022Coldorak

Hellyers Road is one of the largest whisky distilleries in Australia, with a capacity of 120.000 litres of pure alcohol per annum. Located near the town of Burnie, in Tasmania, it was founded by dairy farmers in 1999, and is named after Henry Hellyer, an explorer and cartographer who carved a bushy trail into a road in 1827. The distillery features a 60.000 litres wash still and a 20.000 litres capacity spirit still, and I must admit their capacity compared to the global capacity of production of the distillery eludes me. But I couldn’t find a lot of information on this distillery. Anyway. Dram 3 of my whisky calendar is a Hellyers Road 2004 that is 16 years old and peated, so let’s try that!

Port Charlotte 2003 Hidden Spirits

2nd December 20212nd December 2021Coldorak

Today we open the second sample from my advent calendar. After a new riddle that didn’t help my hair grow back, my friends and I finally guessed it was a Port Charlotte 2003 bottled by Hidden Spirits. You probably know that already, dear reader, but Port Charlotte was an Islay distillery. It was founded in 1829 by Colin Campbell on the north-west bank of Loch Indaal and was also known as Rhins Distillery and Lochindaal Distillery. It ran for a hundred years between 1829 and 1929, changing hands several times during that period. In the mid-1880s, Alfred Barnard reported Lochindaal was producing 128.000 gallons of spirit per annum, to compare with Lagavulin’s 75.000 gallons and Ardbeg’s 250.000 gallons at the time. Back in 1920, JF Sherriff & Co, then the owner of Lochindaal, was bought by Benmore Distilleries. Nine years later in 1929, Distillers Company Limited (DCL) purchased Benmore and closed down immediately Lochindaal. Then, in 2000, the nearby distillery Bruichladdich was acquired by the independent bottlers Murray McDavid, who wanted to revive the Lochindaal distillery by creating a new distillery in which to produce heavily-peated whisky, but the plans never saw the light of day, and since Bruichladdich’s acquisition by French company Rémy Cointreau in 2012, it seems highly unlikely that distilling will return to the Port Charlotte village.

Chichibu The Peated 2018

1st December 20212nd December 2021Coldorak

We’re the first of December! While December means cold, wet or snowy weather depending on where you live, it also has more festive connotations with Christmas or other end-of-year festive events, and for many people from the 1st to the 24th of December: advent calendars! As the few years before, I’m doing a whisky advent calendar. This year again I couldn’t get a Boutique-y Whisky Advent Calendar (I reviewed one with Ainulindale in 2019) or another one from Drinks by the Dram, but Benjamin, a member of a French Whisky Discord server I’m a member of, and who spends probably way more than me on whisky, offered to do for a few of us our very own ultra limited whisky advent calendar. Five of us members ordered him one, gladly paid 300€ for 25 samples (yep, we have an extra one for Christmas!), and all we know is that the bottles used for the samples go from 150€ to 800€ a bottle… All the samples are just labelled with a number, and each day Benjamin gives us a hint or two in order for us to guess what it is. But first, where do advent calendars come from?

World Whisky Blend review

30th November 202130th November 2021Coldorak

About a thousand years after everybody (in the whisky reviewing world, which I’m trying to put a foot in, reviewing a whisky two years after the others might feel as a late as being a thousand years late with the sheer speed of releases that pop out during the time I write an introduction or ask a question), I finally got my hands on a bottle of That Boutique-y Whisky Company‘s World Whisky Blend. At RRP. And I’m especially happy to have succeeded in getting one, because since its release in 2019, their brand ambassador, the award-winning cigar and pipe smoking glorious beard growing World Whisky Blend by the case gulping Dave Worthington must have drunk a third of its outturn. So finding a bottle two years after its release in one of the La Maison Du Whisky shops in Paris was surprising and deeply appreciated. So let’s pop the cork out (and break it immediately), let’s get a Glencairn, and get on with the review. Oh wait…

Fuji Gotemba Single Grain at Aloha Whisky Bar in Tokyo

Fuji Single Grain review

17th November 202117th November 2021KanpaiPlanet

Our friend and guest writer Mac from Kanpai Planet is back today with the review of another Japanese whisky, this time the Fuji Gotemba Single Grain.

Most drinks fans are familiar with Kirin, whether through their Kirin Ichiban Shibori beer (Kirin Ichiban outside Japan) or through Four Roses Bourbon, which they own.

But outside Japan, not many know that Kirin is the number 3 whisky producer in Japan, behind Suntory and Nikka.

In November 1973, the Fuji Gotemba distillery began production. It was built by Kirin-Seagram, a joint venture established in August 1972 between Kirin Brewery Co., Ltd. (Japan) [50%], JE Seagram and Sons [45%] and Chivas Brothers [5%].

The Whisky Cellar Series 003 Tweet Tasting

12th November 202114th November 2021Coldorak

Keith Bonnington, Whisky Cellar‘s founder and who we interviewed for the first Whisky Cellar Tweet Tasting, likes to be busy. We tried his first series of releases during a Tweet Tasting back in September last year, but the second series was just a few months ago in August. And he’s already working on his fourth series that I really do hope I’ll get to try once again. But let’s talk a bit about indy bottlers first, then you thirsty readers will be able to check the review of the drams we tried.

Rebel Bourbon 100 & Tawny Port Finish

3rd November 20211st December 2022Coldorak

Rebel is one of the four brands of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskeys coming from Lux Row Distillers in Bardstown, Kentucky. You can trace back the history of Lux Row back to 1843 when David Nicholson, a St. Louis grocer, began making and selling whiskey in his general store. The Rebel Yell recipe was invented in 1849, but the Rebel Yell brand itself (though since then the Yell has been dropped) was created only almost a century later, in 1936, by Stitzel-Weller Distilling Co. to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Weller company. While this article is part of a Lux Row Distillers Flash Blog event for the launch of their third release in the Kentucky based brands limited edition cask finish series, we won’t just taste and review it, but also put it against their Rebel 100 bourbon.

Naguelann Cuvée Grand’Pa Eilvet

7th September 202116th June 2022Coldorak

Naguelann is a brand of whisky from Brittany created in 2014 by Lenaïck Lemaitre. He started maturing whiskies distilled by neighbour Breton distilleries, allowing him to release his first expressions in 2015, with Cuvée Grand’Pa, and in 2016, with Ed Unan. If he started maturing new make made by others, he’s now also distilling himself. Lemaitre also owns a whisky shop and bar in Saint-Malo called ArKoad, where you can buy his creations as well as whiskies he bottled as an independent bottler, and taste many other whiskies from everywhere around the world. Let’s review his first release, Naguelann Cuvée Grand’Pa Eilvet.