Advent Calendar Archives - Page 3 of 5

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?

2019 Advent Calendar recap

30th December 201930th December 2019Coldorak

We’re already reaching the end of December and the year after it, and all the doors of the 2019 Boutique-y Advent Calendar are open and long gone. It’s been a fun ride for Ainulindalë and me. And it was a roller coaster, with highs and lows in several directions, whether it be age or rating. Time to do a 2019 Advent Calendar recap.

Quick review: Cambus 28yo batch 11 TBWC

24th December 201924th December 2019Coldorak

It’s already Christmas Eve, and behind the twenty-fourth and last window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we reviewed each day since the 1st of December was hidden a Cambus 28yo batch 11 single grain, bottled at 47% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. Cambus was among the first distilleries in Scotland to convert to grain whisky production. In 1806, John Moubray converted a old derelict mill to a pot still distillery. He began production in 1823 after he gained title to the ground, with possibly an early Coffee still or something similar. John’s son, James took over, and when James’s son Robert succeeded to his father, he installed a bigger grain still in 1851 and eventually made Cambus one of the largest grain distilleries in Scotland. Under his management, Cambus became a founder member of DCL in 1877. Cambus expended, and thanks to its size and strong position in DCL, survived most of the storms that beset the industry in the early 20th century, until a disaster stuck on the 24 September 1914, a fire broke out in the maltings and grain stored and engulfed most of the distillery. Only the bonded warehouses survived, but the distillery closed until 1938. Despite extensions and new apparatus, the distillery closed in 1993 as grain production was concentrated at Cameron Bridge. Cambus still stands though, and is used as a cask-filling centre and for bonded warehousing. The outturn of this 28yo batch 11 was 435 bottles, and it’s still available on Master of Malt for £114.95.

Quick review: Ben Nevis 21yo batch 8 TBWC

24th December 201924th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the twenty-third window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a second dram from a distillery covered earlier in the calendar, a Ben Nevis 21yo batch 8, bottled at 48.9% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. The distillery, as said in the review of the 23yo dram hidden behind the 13th window of the advent calendar, has been built near and named after Ben Nevis, the highest mountain of the British Isles, standing at 1,345m (4,411 ft) above sea level. Its Scottish Gaelic name, Beinn Nibheis, means “Venomous mountain” or “mountain with its head in the clouds” depending on which etymology you consider for the word Nibheis. First ascended in 1771, Ben Nevis now attracts 100,000 ascends a year. The summit, the collapsed dome of an ancient volcano, hosts the ruins of an ancient observatory which was continuously staffed between 1883 and 1904. The outturn of this 21yo batch 8 was 931 bottles, and it’s still available on Master of Malt for £147.95.

Quick review: Heaven Hill 9yo batch 1 TBWC

22nd December 201922nd December 2019Coldorak

Behind what is already the twenty-second window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a Heaven Hill 9yo batch 1 American Whiskey, bottled at 48.4% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. Heaven Hill distillery is the biggest independent and family-owned American distillery, with brands like Elijah Craig, Evan Williams, Rittenhouse Rye, Old Fitzgerald and many others. In 1935, just two years after the end of prohibition in the United States, five sons of a Lithuanian store owner, the Shapira brothers, invested in a fledging distillery and soon became the sole owners. Nowadays, the second and third generations are managing the distillery which is one of the biggest barrel holders, with 58 rickhouses hosting 1.6 million barrels! Though on the 7th of November 1996, a disastrous fire ravaged Heaven Hill’s Bardstown plant, with flames 300 to 400 feet high and that could be seen up to 20 miles around, burning 90 000 barrels in a mere 4 hours but amazingly without nobody hurt. This batch 1 had an outturn of 1 177 bottles and can still be found on Master of Malt for £44.95 at the time of writing.

Quick review: Clynelish 21yo batch 7 TBWC

21st December 201921st July 2020Coldorak

Behind the twenty-first window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a Clynelish 21yo batch 7 single malt, bottled at 47.8% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. The story of Clynelish is a little bit complicated. The First Duke of Sutherlands created the first Clynelish distillery in the Highlands, in the town of Brora, in 1819. After a few bankruptcies, John Walker & Sons bought a stake of the stocks in 1916. However, they mothballed Clynelish in 1931, but started production again in 1939. 1967 saw the construction of a new distillery, also named Clynelish, adjacent to the existing one. Soon after that, the “Old” Clynelish was mothballed in August 1968, and reopened the next year, renamed as the famous Brora, to be unfortunately mothballed again in 1983 (they will reopen soon as the distillery is being rebuilt). The current Clynelish is a vital part of several Johnnie Walker expressions and especially the Gold Label one. The outturn of this 21yo batch 7 was 1174 bottles, and is unfortunately sold out. It seems it was sold for around £130.

Quick review: Linkwood 10yo batch 8 TBWC

20th December 201921st July 2020Coldorak

Behind what is already the twentieth window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a Linkwood 10yo batch 8 single malt, bottled at 48.2% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. Linkwood is a distillery located at Elgin, in Speyside. It was created in 1821, changed hands several times, and in 1971 a second distillery, called Linkwood B (the original one being Linkwood… A) opened with 4 new stills in addition to the existing two of Linkwood A. However, in 1985 Linkwood A closed down (with its original stills) until 1990 where it came back in production for a few months each year. Owned by Diageo, Linkwood is mostly used for its Johnnie Walker blend and there’s almost no single malt except for the 12yo Flora & Fauna, a couple very old ones, and mostly independent bottling. This batch 8 had an outturn of only 417 bottles and can still be found on the German website whiskytaste.de for a mere 37.90€ (around £32.30 at current exchange rate).

Quick review: Tomatin 11yo batch 4 TBWC

19th December 201919th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the nineteenth window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a Tomatin 11yo batch 4 single malt, bottled at 51% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. Tomatin is a Highland distillery created in 1897 near Inverness. The 50s to 70s saw a huge growth on Tomatin’s production capacity, going from two to four stills in 1956, then 6 in 1958, going up to 11 in ’61 and a massive 23 stills total in 1974. Of course it couldn’t last as in 1974 they were already signs of a downturn in Scotch. Tomatin never run at full capacity and closed in 1986. However, two of its Japanese customers bought it, and Tomatin became the first Japanese-owned Scotch distillery. I couldn’t find the price of this Tomatin batch 4 nor the outturn. However, batch 2 which was a 16yo had a RRP of £59.95 so I don’t expect batch 4 to be expensive.