Coldorak and Ainulindalë's blog about whisky.
We’re back for another Walsh Whiskey Tweet Tasting, yay! Last year’s one was a really good one, with drams going from good to reaaally good. So what did they have for us in store for this year? Let’s find out what they brought for this Walsh Whiskey Tweet Tasting 2021. And if you want to know more about Walsh Whiskey’s history, go read my article from last year, then come back here to have a few drams with me.
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Ha! I don’t think you know this brand yet, right? Well, it’s not surprising, since first, it’s French, and French whisky is unfortunately still not as well known as its Scottish parent. And also because it’s a brand Warenghem did for Biocoop, a network of French organic shops, so… good luck finding them outside France. But anyway! In December last year, a bit more than a year after my first visit there, I went back to Warenghem distillery in Lannion (known mostly for its ArmoriK whisky) to meet with David Roussier, the distillery manager, and have a long chat with him. While we were discussing, he poured a few drams for me to taste, and one of them was a whisky I was not aware of, an Irwazh Tradition. While the rest of the chat will be the subject of another blog post (and I have a lot of work to do before it’s out), I wanted to tell you, or to be precise, let David tell you the story of Irwazh. Afterwards, we’ll obviously review the first two releases of this range.
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A few weeks ago my father turned 70. Lockdown prevented the family to be reunited to celebrate this milestone birthday with him and forced us to postpone a proper celebration. But we’ll just do that another time when it will be safer out there for everyone. Okay, probably not anytime soon. Anyway, a 70th birthday was calling for something special to celebrate when we would be able to see each other, and thanks to the wonderful generosity of a friend, I got a large sample of something even older than my father to share with him: a 1948 Glen Grant bottled by Gordon & Macphail. Younger by age count, but two years older by “distillation/birth” year… and definitely the oldest Glen Grant reviewed here.
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Back in April 2019 I had the chance to participate to a J.J. Corry Tweet Tasting, before Julien and I started this blog. It was for me the discovery of both J.J. Corry themselves and their Irish Whiskey, and the Tweet Tastings, as it was the first one ever I was selected to. Since then, I had the chance to join many other Tweet Tastings and I honestly cannot get bored or saturated of them, as they’re always great evenings tasting whisk(e)y and engaging with the brands, either distillery or bottlers (or bonders!), surrounded by people from the whisky community, exchanging tasting notes and having fun together. A bit more than a year and a half later, time for another Tweet Tasting with J.J. Corry, and I’m happy to see that I’ll be able to taste the newest batch of The Gael, as the first batch of this blend was part of the initial TT back in April 2019. But since this first J.J. Corry Tweet Tasting was before the birth of this blog, it means I didn’t introduce them yet, so let’s do that right now before reviewing the four samples we received.
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A couple weeks ago, my friends from the #LetsTrySomeWhisky group on Twitter joined me to the third tasting I had prepared a long time ago (just before my trip to Scotland, a year and a half ago!) Yes, three tastings in 18 months, you cannot think we overdo things, except taking our sweet time. Anyway. Our first tasting was about Yoichi single malts, while the second was about trying a few French whiskies. And this time? We were going to taste 4 Balblair single malts, one independant and three official bottlings, all around 10 years old. Only difference from the first two tastings we did : this time we would not do it blind. Why? Well, it’s a bit hard to discern a 10yo Balblair from another, right? I won’t present here the distillery as I usually do, as I’ve already covered a bit about Balblair in the two 1979 Balblair reviews I published, one for the official bottling, and one for a bottling by Gordon&Macphail. So let’s get directly to the point, shall we?
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Time for another Tweet Tasting! Today, I had the chance to be able to join yet another Tweet Tasting. This time the distillery taking the place of honour was The Glenturret. As usual, we received a pack of samples, the packaging containing this time 4 samples and a beautiful tumbler glass. But let’s talk a bit about Glenturret’s history before reviewing the drams we tasted this evening.
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Aberlour is a distillery that is well appreciated in France. You can find several core range releases in every hyper- and supermarket, and they’re the first single malt distillery in terms of sales in France, with back in 2018 a turnover of 40 million euros, while the number 2 in sales, Cardhu, was far behind at 25.9 million euros and the third, Glenfiddich, at 24.5 million euros. But before tasting a few Aberlour whiskies, let’s talk a (lengthy) bit about the distillery itself.
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Kininvie is a quite young Speyside distillery owned by William Grant & Sons. Created in 1990, the first expression of a Kininvie single malt had to wait until 2006 to be released, under the name Hazelwood, named that would later be reused for a blend. We reviewed one of those a few months ago with the House of Hazelwood 18yo. Let’s introduce Kininvie a bit more before reviewing their 23yo single malt, this time wearing the distillery’s name.
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I guess you’re getting quite used to reading about Tweet Tastings from me now, as I’ve covered quite a few of them in the last 6 months… or more. Today, we’re back to an Irish bottler/blender, as we can see quite a lot these days. I guess it’s a sign the Irish whiskey industry is flourishing, so that’s quite good news! Let’s introduce The Quiet Man, before reviewing the three drams we got to try this time.
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Just as I have finished writing about a previous (and excellent!) Tweet Tasting, time for another one! The life of an amateur whisky blogger (it may sound pompous but well, I do have a blog about whisky so I guess that’s what I am?) is really hard, I know. This time, we don’t follow a specific distillery nor a specific bottler, but something new again: a person! Indeed, our guest was Gregg Glass, from Whyte & Mackay, as we tasted four whiskies he was deeply involved in creating or bottling. So as I said, time not for a distillery Tweet Tasting, but a Gregg Glass Whisky Tweet Tasting!
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