Whisky Tasting: Thirty Years of Tastings at Regional

 The 30th anniversary tasting by Daniel at Regional. Discussions between our cabal suggests we've been going (in various guises) for 25-26 of those years. Either way, we've had a few drams. Some of them have been quite drinkable. 

Tonights line-up falls under the 'quick drinkable' category. 

We opened with a welcome dram, Auchentosh 1L Dark Oak 43% which was adequate and qualifies as a non-challenging quaffing whisky. 

Ardmore 30yo 47.2% 1987-2018

• Nose: pears, sweet and savoury, medicinal, leather, fruity, coconut, wood
• Palate: white pepper, green apples, sweet, fruity, bitter, lemon, oily
• Finish: long, hot, minerals

8.5/10 A lovely, actually great, whisky. Complex, interesting, challenging. Came 5th with 8.83.

Springbank 15yo 46%

• Nose: toffee, sulphur, perfume, sweet, parmesan, phosphorus, wet dog, rubber
• Palate: light, hint of salt, spicy, liquorice, sweet, wet wool, dry
• Finish: medium, dry

7/10. Look, I'm just not a fan of SB, the nose is amazing and after that things are a bit mild. Probably good it was early in the lineup as I doubt it would have fared well after some of the later drams. Came 6th= with 7.98

Lagavulin 16yo

• Nose: band aids, medicinal, suppurating wound, bleach, rubber, coastal, damp, 
• Palate: salty, bacon, smooth, ash, peat, dry
• Finish: ash, long

9/10 This was the mystery. It's a consistently great whisky and whenever its thrown into tasting line-ups it always does well. I love it. Which reminds me my bottle died recently. Must fix that. Came 6th= 7.98

Berry Bros Rudd Glen Grant 1995 2022 barrel #119467 49.1%

• Nose: lemon, cheese, spritzic, fruity, sweet, apples, fruit salad, bourbon, green apples, coconut/vanilla
• Palate: fruity, light, sugar lemons
• Finish: medium-long

9/10 I may not have made masses of notes, but again a great whisky. Balance and complexity. Beautiful. Came 4th with 8.93

Glendronach 26yo 16/7/1993-2019 PX 8634 54.4%

• Nose: very fruity, vanilla, bourbon - hint, sherry, berries, metallic
• Palate: milk chocolate, wood, tannins balanced.
• Finish: medium peppery

8.5/10 the odds of a Glendronach brown and gold doing well? yeah i know, surprising innit. Came 3rd 9.07

Ben Nevis 25yo Blackadder St.41 51.9% 5/12/1996-6/2022 Raw Sherry Butt 2203

• Nose: sherry, xmas cake, woody, apple, tobacco, maple syrup, great !!! charred
• Palate: apples, chocolate, xmas cake, treacle, caramel, rubber, sulphur, coffee
• Finish: salt, long, chewy, complex, dry

10/10. It's great. Everything I want in a whisky. Came first with 9.66. Suggesting others were equally smitten.

Inchgower 20yo Blackadder 57.6% 7/1995-9/2015 Raw Sherry Butt #692

• Nose: sherry, fruity, lighter (than the 'Nevis), floral, musty, banana, linen, ?mouldy?
• Palate: sherry but hint of salt, coconut, sweet, waxy, parma violets, 
• Finish: med-long, complex

Somewhere between a 9.5-10 /10. In any other tasting, probably a 10. Truly lovely dram, came 2nd 9.2

Fair to say one of the top tastings we've had. When the worst is a Springbank, you really can't complain. 

Slainte Daniel !

Last.FM update #2

 Number 2 in what might be a regular series! who knows! I'm excited!

Target for the year was to hit the 20,000 individual track plays for the year, to which end I'd set up a spreadsheet to analyse how things were going, what my current run rate was, and what I had as a required run rate. My aim was to try and hit 20,000 by end of October as that gave me a couple of months if I needed them. Also, 2000 tracks a month was a nice round number. 

How are you going ?

Quite well thanks, certainly managing to keep above the 2000 / month required RR. At the start of June I was sitting around 10350 tracks, so over halfway for the Oct finish. 

Whisky Tasting : Caol Ila (independents)

 A Caol Ila independent bottles tasting you say? All cask strength you say? On a Monday night? Actually I'd bought tickets before I got to 'independent' in that opening.

Sure I prefer a big sherry monster, but sometimes it's nice to go for a lovely coastal walk. 

Caol Ila Signatory 14yo 2009 57.1% Bourbon hogshead

Nose: sweet, not much peat, iodine, oak, vanilla, ?bourbon, apples, ?young

Palate: apple, lemon, salty bacon, sweet

Finish: salt, long, hot (smoke dies off)

8/10 I liked this (well it was Signatory). Nicely balanced, interesting, strong oak barrel influence. More than happy to have a bottle in the collection, if I needed another Caol Ila. 

It came last (7th) with 6.4. So obviously other people are stupid.

Caol Ila Murray McDavid 12yo 52.3% Stout Beer Finish

Nose: sweet, formaldehyde, light peat, rashuns, boubon, fruity

Palate: dry, iodine, salty, bacon

Finish: med-long, salt

7.5/10 for me. It was different, which is always appreciated. I don't know if it worked completely. For me, the aging of beer in whisky casks works better, but yeah, pleased I tried it. Overall 6th with 7.4

Caol Ila BBR 2010 b.2023 #318377 56.4% hogshead/oloroso finish

Nose: salt bacon, sweet, blue cheese, sherry, buttermilk, caramel, ash, rubber, methylated spirits

Palate: shortbread, stone fruit, blue cheese, ginger, 

Finish: medium, spicy (pimento)

6/10. Quite one dimensional and didn't work for me. Came 5th 7.69

Caol Ila Single Malts of Scotland 2011 61.2% Butt

Nose: chocolate, liquorice, salt, sweet, kinda slight

Palate: peat, smoke, sweet, salty, young? cologne

Finish: huge, salty

8-8.5 /10 This, this I liked. It's not subtle, but it is very very good. I don't think I've had anything from the Single Malts of Scotland before, but if this is indicative, they maybe worth checking out. Came 3rd with 8.11.

Caol Ila G&M 2006 1st fill 17yo Sherry puncheon

Nose: salt, rich fruit cake, sherry, yummy, metallic, iodine, sawdust

Palate: odd, salt, egg, spiced orange

Finish: bitter, hot, med-long

6/10. Not good, nose promised a lot more than actually delivered by the flavouring. And yet, it came 4th 7.7

Caol Ila Adelphi 10yo DramFest 2025 2014 54% Ex-sherry hogshead

Nose: iodine, peaty, vinegar, bring, caramel, paint stripper, sherry, charred

Palate: salt, peat, bacon, salt

Finish: dry, medium, salty

7/10 Had all the Caol Ila bits in a nicely balanced wee dram. Came 1st, 8.31 

Caol Ila Blackadder Raw Cask 58.1%

Nose: honey, caramel, sherry, brine, butterscotch, chardonnay, coffee

Palate: sweet, lemons, salt, complex, dry, sherry, meaty, 

Finish: med-long, hot, spicy

8.5-9/10 I really liked this. Wonderfully balanced Caol Ila which just got more interesting. It was the mystery whisky, and John (to his credit) had filtered the cask floaters out, mainly as he's a twat like that.

Came 2nd, 8.1

Great tasting, sure variety in the bottlings, but very much a tasting for the fans. Weird stuff, showing off how casks can affect flavour and why we all need independent bottlers to treasure this weirdness.

Last.FM scrobbling update

Last year I fell agonising short of 20000 tracks played (and scrobbled to last.fm), read about the pain of 19660 tracks here. 

Anyway, I decided to aim for 20000 this year, getting me back to the halycon days of 2013. That works out to 5000 per quarter (roughly), or 54.79 tracks per day. I decided, to give myself some breathing room, that aiming for 2000 per month was achievable, and if I managed that I'd break 20000 around Oct/Nov. Setting me up for a) actually managing the 20000 and b) a massive increase over the 20000. 

Sure I could just spin a lot of very short tracks (Napalm Death's "you suffer" seems ideal), but that seems like cheating. 

I have setup a spreadsheet to map current and require run rate. Because, of course I have. 

4 April update

halfway through the day and I'm sitting at 6434 tracks played this year, significantly over the 5000 I needed for the end of March. Here's snip of the run rates (data and graph - the green signifies it's over 60 tracks per day, there are colour changes as this drops before 65/day).