2020 has been quite the year, and your Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus celebrations are likely to look a little different than normal, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be buying whisky for your friends and family! We’ve put together an updated 2020 Gift Guide to help you find the best options at the LCBO! WHISKY $61 AND UNDER Wild Turkey 101 – a great bourbon for $38 currently … Continue reading 2020 Holiday Whisky Gift Guide
(This distillery write-up was written by Toronto Whisky Society member Stephen Sheps. Another big thanks to him for sharing the experiences he had visiting Islay back in 2019!) Part 3 of my Islay Journey is a bit of out chronological order, but it was so good that it needed to be saved for last – Bruichladdich. I should probably preface this review with 2 caveats: … Continue reading Bruichladdich Distillery Review
So it’s the dawn on the first morning on Islay. Bowmore is lovely as could be as the sun begins to shine onto Loch Indaal, but I won’t be staying for too long in Bowmore this morning. A quick hour long bus ride from Islay High School takes us to the pier of Bruichladdich, just minutes away from our destination, and our first distillery tour … Continue reading Bruichladdich Warehouse Tasting
So I’ve used the picture above multiple times, and I guess I could have grouped these all together, but… Nah. We had two Bruichladdichs picked by Maltbarn. If they had picked an Octomore recently we may have had one of those too, and done all the Bruichladdich made. But we didn’t. Oh well. Up first we have the non-peated Bruichladdich of the lineup. It was… Continue reading Bruichladdich 12 2006 Maltbarn / Bruichladdich Port Charlotte 17 2001 Maltbarn
Thanks to /u/lol_oilers for sharing this dram If you’re ever lucky enough to visit Islay and make your way to Bruichladdich, then you’ll come across a group of distillery exclusive Valinch bottlings. Some of them will be named after the hard workers, some will by given Gaelic names that most of us will butcher, and all will be pricey. Usually for a good reason. I’ve never been… Continue reading Bruichladdich Port Charlotte Valinch – Cask Exploration 19 Cuan Dorcha
Thanks to?/u/distillasian[+14]?for pouring me this sample. So picture this: You’re sitting at your desk, getting work done. You enjoy your job enough and making good time. My phone goes off, and there’s a ton of pictures. A friend of mine, let’s call him distillasian, is on Islay. And while I’m having a coffee with work, he’s meeting Dionysus, based on his excitement. Well, I elaborate.… Continue reading Bruichladdich Port Charlotte MRC:01
Travel retail typically gets a bad rap. And it’s from me as well, don’t act like I’m going to say otherwise. It’s typically used as a place where experiments that just didn’t make it belong. However every so often a company puts something there that perks us up. Previously Bruichladdich Port Charlotte CC:01 was one of them, their peated (but not as peated as Octomore)… Continue reading Bruichladdich Port Charlotte MC:01
Thanks to /u/bananavanman[ for pouring me a sample. So as some people know, I GM Pathfinder games. Or for those of you not down the collective rabbit hole of Pen and Paper Role Player Games, I play a version of Dungeon and Dragons that is similar to the third edition. So I’m the GM, or Game Master, and thus I do a bunch of talking, saying all… Continue reading Bruichladdich Laddie Crew Valinch 31 – Steven Vanbockrijck
Thanks to /u/Bananavanman for pouring me a sample. Frazer Matthews is a tour guide at Bruichladdich. To you or me that may seem like a cool summer job, and frankly, most of us at our summer jobs didn’t end up with a bottle pick (or whatever the equivalent is of being a waiter, shelf stacker, or cement maker, in my case). No Frazer not only worked… Continue reading Bruichladdich Laddie Crew Valinch 30 – Frazer Matthews
Thanks to /u/kinohead for pouring me a dram of this So I’m at this tasting. And I showed up late, what with working normal hours and curling or whatever my excuse was. Nonetheless, when I asked “what should I be drinking”, the list was… huge. Reckless abandon seems to be the name of this tasting. Thus a bottled used for a split was put in front of… Continue reading Bruichladdich 22 1990 Micro-Provenance Château Latour
Thanks to /u/xile_ for this sample. Port Charlotte came up during a tasting the other day. We were discussing a new bottling of it from a different independent bottler, and someone mentioned that it was “the oldest Port Charlotte on the market”. When asked how old, the reply was “17-years-old”. Which makes everyone pause for a second. Port Charlotte is still fairly new, yet it’s become the… Continue reading Bruichladdich Port Charlotte 16 2001 Archives
Thanks to whoever poured me this, I can’t remember. When trying out Bruichladdich, you have to remember it’s roots. Heck, you gotta remember your roots when reviewing too. So tit for tat: Bruichladdich went through a silent period after pumping out tons of whisky with questionable quality of casks. Once they re-opened, they went about re-casking various barrels in order to revitalize what they could… Continue reading Bruichladdich 25 1990 Signatory Cask Strength Collection
