went hiking and drank my first bottle of wiskey every glenfiddach 12 and liked it alot and see how people are into it
now drinking laphriog 10 at airport
whisky seems to be pretty pricy here in nz/aus

Heading to Vegas next week. Are there any casinos that you can get good single malts comped while gambling? I have only tried a handful of single malts and would like to try more without having to buy bottles. Also are there any places on or near the strip that have a good selection of single malts reasonably priced, or any that have flights?

Ardbeg tasting at whisky live, tickets still seem available

http://www.whiskylive.com/england/39/london-2012

All,

Whiskies of the World coming up later this month in SF. Check out the preliminary pour list: http://www.whiskiesoftheworld.com/wo...s/Pourlist.htm

I have a VIP ticket, which I highly recommend if you ever do one of these things. They are usually not that much more (this one is $150 vs $120) and usually include a few special tastings, plus more importantly, an hour of tasting before it gets crowded.

+1 brother. One of my favorite's.

Just got a bottle of this



So far it seems a great middle of the road whisky. It's a blend of 3 Bruichladdich vintages (5,6 and 7 yr old per the interwebz) aged for a short time in French red wine barrels. What you get is a VERY lightly peated whisky with big sweet young whisky flavors. It's sort of a speyside with bourbon pop. Worth a go if you can get it for around $50.

I am "alcohol fasting" for lent. In order to motivate myself I will order one bottle of this to try on easter sunday:


I will probably get it in cask strength.

As I only need a few more bucks to get to the threshhold for free shipping, I will also order one bottle of Bulleit, because I want to try some of the cocktails in the bar thread. Good choice or should I get som other bourbon?

Had a pretty good week at work, so decided to treat myself to a nice bottle of scotch. With the selection not being all that great up here, and me not knowing a lot about scotch, I settled on a bottle of Dalwhinnie 15 year for $62.

Got home and poured myself a glass, and I like it. Its pretty smooth and has less of a bite to it then I was expecting. Then I looked at some reviews online and apparently that is the norm. Definitely not a peaty scotch. I guess that is underwhelming to big scotch fans. I've tried a few of the scotch's listed itt (a fair amount of the whiskey's as well), and stuff like Laphroig was a bit too much for me, so this one works out. I guess baby steps when it comes to really diving into the peaty ones. I'd hate to buy something fairly pricey and not like it because I wasn't ready for it.

Basically this seems like a good starter spot for scotch noobs (imo), but damn if I don't just like the taste anyway. I usually stick to whiskey's, but I could get into this I guess

Balvenie 16 + this thread got me hooked on scotch. Let us know how it turns out.

Hi!

Don't drink much but I'm tired of beer and my wine hobby has never taken off. Whisky is my favorite when it comes to alcohol. So I humbly ask for joining!

Sitting here with 5cl of The Famous Grouse. Not bad.

how do people feel about mixing scotch?

I read from a guide on the net that some 95% of all Scotch whiskies are blended. In spite of that I'll try a single malt next time . But apparently there's some gain by blending, otherwise it would probably not be done?

Do you mean you mix it yourself from a couple or three bottles to get the taste that's your favorite? Interesting in that case.

95% of whisky is blended because probably 90% of the whisky market is people who just want cheap whisky. There are some good blends available but I haven't personally tried any.

Yes, blending is done is order to dilute the single malts witch much cheaper to produce grain whisky, it also makes for a more "balanced" flavor that is more suitable for the general public. JW Black Label tastes a lot like a diluted and more spirity talisker imo, but it is OK, Ballantines 17 is nice also, but not my thing.

plaaynde try some Highland Park 12, or Balvenie double wood for a great start into single malts, most people will tell you to start with Glenfiddich but it's not as interesting.

JHair, you talking about mixing it into drinks? I guess some interesting drinks could be obtained from using some quality single malts, a bar at my location offers a drink with Caol Ila, but feels like a crime to me :P

Regarding blending some single malts at home, I like experimenting with that. A few weeks ago I was with friends and we had a bottle of Glenlivet 12 which is quite boring and some Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban, adding a splash of GQR to a dram of Glenlivet made for a very different dram than any of the two by its own. Ralfy from youtube recomends doing 1/3 Talisker 2/3 Caol Ila and vice versa, which I will try as soon as I have a bottle of each. What should almost never be done is mixing single malts with blends, because there is too many stuff in blends.

Too late . I just already obtained a Speyburn, a Highland single malt. As a partial novice, I feel it bites quite hard, I understand that The Famous Grouse is sold more, and that's not just the price. I find it interesting though. Especially there's something thrilling about the aroma.

I'll keep your recommendations in mind. Preliminarily I plan to have five different whiskies to choose from at any given time. That could help me learn to know them and give the variation that's needed.

First impression of comparing single malt with blended:

Single malt Speyburn: best way to drink is sipping very small amounts at a time, finding out about all the flavors. Can envision myself doing that primarily.

Blended Famous Grouse: impression is it's whisky with added sugar to make it more pleasant to drink in larger amounts. Sipping, tasting and nose isn't as rewarding as with the single malt. Can envision myself getting it if going out.

So, because not a fan of snobbism, I don't want to be a purist single malt man. Maybe I'll do this: of the five bottles I plan to have, two or three could be single malt Scotch at any given time. Then one blended and/or burbon, and one from the rest of the world.

There are very good blends, I dont think you can do them justice with mass produced brands (muck imo) like famous grouse.

I'm a big fan of Compass Box http://www.compassboxwhisky.com/home.html.

Thanks, will keep that in mind. Added your link to my small collection of whisky links.

Here are my whiskies at this point:



I'll try to give my a bit noobish one word characterization of them:

Speyburn 10 Years Single Highland Malt: Refreshing

Balvenie Double Wood 12 Years Single Malt: Good

Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Tennessee Whiskey: "Brutal"

Hakushu 12 Years Single Malt: Classy

Ballantine's 12 Years Blended: Smooth


Any opinions about these?

How often should you treat the corks on your bottles? And by treat, I have no idea what I really mean, but was thinking just make sure they get wet via an upside down bottle for a few seconds....

Busted out a good bottle that I haven't touched in a while and accidentally pulled the cork at an angle and it basically came in half. It was very dry and made me realize I probably should be paying closer attention to these older bottles that don't rotate out of the collection very quick.

Will dig around, but figured I'd check in here. Been a while since I said hey. Consumption kind of dropped, so too many bottles collecting more dust than I'd care to admit.

I sometimes think about that too. If I haven't opened a bottle for a while, sometimes the cork is dried out and even slightly loose. I usually pull the cork out about halfway, turn the bottle upside down, then push the cork back and twist it. No idea if this actually helps or not.

To follow up on the poster above, here's my current collection....

As you can see above, of my five bottles three have a cork while the two to the right have screw caps. The caps are not a bad idea, imo, for avoiding the problems pictured here.

But there's a special feel when you open a cork, it goes up with a sound and you may get a bit of scent already then. I've noticed that the top of the cork is made of tree, as opposed to those of wine bottles. In addition to getting a better grip, I figure it may keep the whisky better from evaporating through it. Just a thought.

After checking again I found that the Speyburn actually has a plastic cap on the cork. Could be called a "hybrid"

Picked up a bottle of Laphroaig Cask and Lagavulin 16 based on this thread. Aside from some lower end Glen and Mac these are my first real scotch experiences. Haven't gotten to try the Lagavulin yet but was really enjoying the Laphroaig last night.

Thanks to all the contributors for an awesome thread!

I have been drinking the Laphroaig quarter cask as well.....really well balanced, and hard to beat for the price imo.

why the hate for blended? johnny gold is great.

my collection is all glenlivet and johnny atm.

glenlivit 12, glenlivet 18, glenlivet archive 21, and johnny gold.

the archive 21 is absolutely outstanding. smokey and not too harsh. only other one i drink w/o any ice is lagavulin 16