Whiskey Lore Journal

Think you know Japanese whisky? Think again.

A well-aged 100% Canadian Rye bottled in Oregon.

A great starter scotch for bourbon drinkers.

Just the replacement for your hazelnut coffee creamer.

One of our members in the Whiskey Lore Whisky Community (Facebook Group) posted a link to a distillery's membership club. This sparked an idea. How about a list of all of the best distillery loyalty clubs and ambassador programs.

Two distilleries located in the Speyside region of Scotland, but not claiming it for some reason. Both feature nice fruit, but in different ways.

Recently a Macallan whisky was announced to hold a $58,000 per bottle price tag.

There are a lot of reasons a 67 year old whisky will cost an incredible amount.

The first is the rarity of it. It is actually very difficult to have a whisky live for 67 years in a cask. In Scotland, 1 to 2 percent of the whisky in a barrel evaporates per year. A ten year old cask will likely yield around 200 bottles of whisky. By the time a cask gets over 50 years, you’ve basically got maybe 10–15% of the barrel with liquid still in it. By 67 years, you’re likely getting just a few bottles of whisky out of a barrel. So, part of the cost is to make up for all of the loss through evaporation.

This is an interesting match up between a Campbeltown single malt whiskey aged 15 years and a corn whiskey from Ireland Teeling Single Grain.

Time to do some high proof tasting. Thanks to my Instagram buddy Todd Ritter (a great fan of the show) I had the opportunity to blind taste 5 different bourbons. All were great, one blew me away.

The tale of two Texas whiskey's. No, these aren't a perfect match - Balcones is 46% ABV and Ironroot Harbinger 115 is 57.5% ABV but both are corn forward whiskeys created in pot stills (one a Kentucky pot still, the other from Speyside Scotland). But my main objective was to give you an idea of the diversity of spirits coming out of the Lone Star State.

For having said I wanted to avoid putting a bourbon vs a scotch, it seems that Beam Suntory teased me into trying it out - since they were so willing to collaborate between Japan and Kentucky. And Dalmore 12 seemed like an interesting scotch to pair it up with.

Okay, trying something that I said I am not a big fan of - blind tastings, because I think branding is part of the overall enjoyment of a whiskey experience.