Scotch Whisky Transparency

Hey everyone. You may or may not have heard about it but a week ago Glasgow based blending company Compass Box have launched a campaign for more transparency in Scotch whisky. Those of you who are up to date of what’s happening in the world of whisky may wonder why I publish this article now when the campaign started last week and there have been several articles about it. That has different reasons. The first reason is that I am just amazingly lazy and as a student a natural born procrastinator J. The second and more serious reason is that I didn’t want that important topic to be hot for a moment with thousands of articles being written about it and a few days later everyone forgetting about it. The truth is that I started writing on this article just when the campaign started and waited until now to try and keep the topic hot. I think this is a great campaign that is worth supporting so I will explain the background to you.

It all started in October 2015 when Compass Box released two limited editions; Flaming Heart 5^th edition and “This is not a luxury whisky”. The special thing about those two releases was that Compass Box decided to publish the whole recipe of the blends.

This action earned them a lot of compliments from all over the whisky world because it was full transparency which was really nice if you think about all those NAS (no age statement) whiskies that are released at the moment.

Whisky Rev-U 2 Bruichladdich Rocks

Hi Malt Mates. I hope you are all fine. It’s been quite a while since I last posted a whisky review so I thought now would be the right time to publish my second Rev-U. The malt that I’m going to present is the Bruichladdich Rocks.

Bruichladdich is a malt distillery on the Isle of Islay. It was founded in 1881 and was shut down twice: From 1929-1937 and from 1994-2000. In the year 2000 the distillery was bought for 7’500’000 £ by a Group of Investors led by Mark Reynier who successfully brought in Jim McEwan as head distiller. McEwan is a legend in the whisky industry and has previously worked as master distiller at the Bowmore distillery. In 2012 Bruichladdich was sold to Rémy Cointreau for 58’000’000 £. Generally speaking I really like what Bruichladdich is doing. It is a progressive distillery that focuses on using local resources, and giving the consumer a little bit extra. All their whiskies are natural colour and unchillfiltered.

The name “Rocks” is inspired by the fact that the water which is used by the distillery has filtered up through “the oldest rocks in the whisky world – the curious 1.8 billion-year-old geology of the Rhinns of Islay”

The whisky has no age statement and is bottled at 46% ABV. It has been matured in bourbon casks and finished in Grenache wine casks.

This has been one of the first bottles of whisky that I possessed. I got it as a gift for my 19^th birthday by my high school buddies. As I am writing this article I am enjoying the very last sips of this malt so thanks a lot to Rafi, Largey, Päsce, Vali and Simone if you are reading this J

Special Tasting at House of Single Malts

On Friday I went to a very special tasting. After I finished work I took the train to travel away from Zurich to a village near St. Gallen. The village is called Mörschwil and it is like the Swiss epicenter of whisky because two of the biggest whisky shops are located there. The shop where I went is called House of Single Malts and it is definitely worth a visit. After arriving at the shop I was greeted by the owners Ivan and Manuela who were really nice hosts. They introduced me to the other guests (we were only 10) and explained the plan for the evening because it wasn’t going  to be your everyday kind of tasting, we were about to attend a bottle killing session (or as it is also called a heelslayer session) and the whole tasting was designed to be a game.

Before explaining the rules of the game we were served a first whisky and I immediately knew that the long train ride was more than worth it. The first whisky we were served was the stunning Laddie 22 from the Bruichladdich Distillery. I got really excited because this whisky has sadly been discontinued and I haven’t had the chance to taste it yet. It was a fantastic start to the evening and I will give a more in depth review of this in another article. Meanwhile Ivan and Manuela explained us the rules to the game. There were around 50 near empty bottles that were lined up in 12 rows. In front of every row was a card which was Jack, Queen, King or Ace. Every card represented a certain kind of whisky. The bottles behind the Jacks were the least desirable most of them being Swiss whiskies. The bottles behind the Queens were some good whiskies like for example a Glendronach 18 port Finish or a Tobermory 19 by Cadenhead’s. The bottles behind the Kings were mostly peaty whiskies and the bottles behind the Aces were some true Jackpot whiskies, most of them being rather old and rare. There was another deck of cards which would be passed around the guests. Someone had to draw a card and the whisky would be the counterpart of the card he drew.

The person who was 7 places away from the one who drew the card had then to roll a dice and the resulting number determined how many people would get a dram of the whisky. The first person who didn’t get that whisky would then draw the next card. There were also two wildcards which allowed choosing a whisky of your liking. The game was so much fun and the people were really nice. After a while we didn’t only taste our own whiskies but we shared them.

3 New Japanese Whisky Discoveries

A few days ago I was working at a tasting event at one of the bigger wine and spirit shops in Zurich . To put it clear right away I was responsible for the less glamorous tasks like checking coats, clear the glasses etc.

When I was looking for a whisky related part time job last summer I applied at most whisky shops in Zurich and that wine and spirits store was one of them. They couldn't offer me a job however they told me that I could work at events that they organise once a month. At those events people pay a certain amount to enter and afterwards they can taste out of up to 50 different wines or spirits depending on the topic. 

Although my task isn't too glamorous I genuinely enjoy working there because I met some great people and  I can use the few bucks that I earn to buy whisky. Also I sometimes get the chance to get a little taste of some of the presented beverages.  That was exactly the case when I recently worked at a tasting with the topic "Japan". The beverages that were offered on this evening were Sake, Japanese beer and Japanese whisky.

In this article I want to present you the three whiskies that I was lucky enough to taste. It was quite busy and noisy so I didn't get the chance to take tasting notes. However I still want to tell you a little bit about the 3 drams.