LMdW Artist #8 – Glenturret 30 year 55.3%

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Carissa Hickling

We continued exploring the full range of the new La Maison du Whisky Artist #8 series with a Highland dram from Glenturret.

I nearly forgot having tried the Glenturret 10 year back in 2013! Somehow Glenturret just isn’t one of those distilleries our merry Mumbai malters manage to encounter in our travels around the globe.

To then have an opportunity to sample a rather fine specimen of some 30+ years? Well, what a treat!

Glenturret 30 year (1987/2018) Hogshead Cask #371 55.3% (214 bottles)

Nose – Peach and other orchard fruits, complex, subtle dusting of sugar, a deeper French vanilla, a sweet perfume… utterly delightful
Palate – Delicious!! What a class act and how marvellously balanced. Honey sweet yet not too much so, a bit more depth with a zesty spice.
Finish – Long delicate fruits, berries, sweet spices… and oh how it lingers

Truly a lovely whisky with tremendous balance and beauty. Really quite superb. My sampling companions were amused as I was clearly in my “happy place” with this whisky! I would have loved to enjoyed this simply on its own and not part of a teaser sampling with 10 in this series!

Just to keep things in perspective, what would this beauty set you back? If buying in Singapore, it would be SGD 595 (approx US 435).

And what do the folks at La Maison du Whisky have to say?

Nose – Ample, rich. Very jammy (mirabelle, queen-claude) and vanilla, the first is also herbaceous (cut hay, alfalfa) and candied (lemon, pear, apricot). At aeration, the malted barley spreads with extreme delicacy over the entire aromatic palette. Then, he becomes more and more greedy (oat cake, leavened bread, raisin bread) and powdered (cocoa bean)
Palate – Creamy, creamy. A spicy sequence (star anise, clove) infuses a lot of pep to the attack of mouth. Then, in the process, bunches of white grapes release a wonderfully tart juice and notes of green grass give it a lot of freshness and going. Very gourmet, the mid-palate invites us to pick a variety of vegetables (zucchini, pumpkin, tomato, eggplant). The finish is honey (lime) and oily (sunflower).
Finish – Long, fluffy. From now on, it is the exotic fruits (mango, passion, pineapple) which take the leading role. They are accompanied by some red fruits (raspberry, strawberry) and black (blackberry, blackcurrant). This taste development is a real bath of youth for the taste buds. He also demonstrates that this Glenturret is never short of arguments. The retro-olfaction is spicy (star anise, ginger), vanilla and menthol. The empty glass reveals notes of porridge.

—- From LMdW website with an imperfect google translation from French.

La Maison du Whisky Artist #8 sans Sherry

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LMdW Artist #8 – Benrinnes 20 year 49.4%

Posted on January 3, 2019 by Carissa Hickling

We kicked off exploring the full range of the new La Maison du Whisky Artist #8 with a non-Sherry Benrinnes.

This was a far cry from my first encounter with Benrinnes which was a Single Malts of Scotland bottle of a 24 year old cask strength. That one was harsh and medicinal. And this one? Read on…

Benrinnes 20 year (1995/2018) Hogshead Cask #9063 49.4% (279 bottles)

Nose – Started a bit dusty, light fruit, mild and subdued… then started to evolve… even more pronounced fruits, vanilla sponge cake, sweet dry grass
Palate – Again soft and mild, gently sweet and exceedingly easy to sip, slightly “rusty”, then a bit spicy
Finish – Lightly bitter and nutty, sweet, spice and a bit metallic

Much more enjoyable and interesting than my previous encounter. When I later read the tasting notes, I thought they were rather apt!

As for what it would set you back? SGD395. Yikes!

And what do the folks at La Maison du Whisky have to say?

Nose – Refined, complex. At first, the aromatic palette is covered in a thin layer of arnica and peppermint aromas. Then, everything shatters, ceding to notes of green malt, cut hay and incredibly juicy fruits (white grape, canary melon, Louis bonne pepper). The longer it is left to breathe, the more concentrated it becomes. Vanilla pod and acacia honey bring lots of consistency.
Palate – Elegant, rich. On the attack, the vanilla pod has developed into a creamy custard and numerous aromatic plants (verbena, sage, rosemary), highlighting its pleasant freshness. The mid-palate is characterized by notes of polish (beeswax, emery cloth) and honey (still acacia). The spicy (grated ginger, cinnamon) end of the palate struts its stuff.
Finish – Long, airy. Green almond and fresh walnut appear alongside freshly cut hay. Then, unexpectedly and with originality, it develops notes of green olive and lime. The luscious (sorrel, lemon balm) retronasal olfaction is slightly peppery and sprinkled with a few grains of salt. The empty glass faithfully reproduces the medicinal notes of the initial nose, adding cocoa bean and praline.

—-From LMdW website translated from French.

La Maison du Whisky Artist #8 sans Sherry

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LMdW Artist #8 sans Sherry – Benrinnes, Glenturret, Bruichladdich, Caol Ila, Ardmore

Posted on January 2, 2019 by Carissa Hickling

La Maison du Whisky has created special Artist Series… at Whisky Live Singapore 2018 in Singapore, they featured their new 8 Series.

This time, they split the approach into non-sherry and sherry, with two different artists. We sampled them in the suggested order, alternating between non-sherry and sherry whiskies.

For the non-sherry whiskies, the artist selected was French photographer Jérémie Lenoir. As they share

“Immerse yourself in an ode to the purity of the elements and the natural graphics of the earth’s surface through the five labels of this new range.”

La Maison du Whisky Artist #8 sans Sherry

I personally thought each label remarkably fit the character of each whisky:

From the salty metallic earthy quality of the Benrinnes
The rosy delicate softness of the Glenturret
The sea and air of the Bruichladdich
Clearly the curls of smoke with the Caol Ila
Finally the sturdy trees of the Ardmore….

Brilliant choice of expressions and images to match!

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Whisky Lady’s 2018 Highlights (and Lowlights)

Posted on January 1, 2019 by Carissa Hickling

Hello 2019! And farewell 2018… What a year it was!

For this Whisky Lady there was a fair amount of travel within India but surprisingly little international travel… until November 2018 which kicked off with Whisky Live Singapore, a work jaunt to Turkey, Germany and closed with New Years in Dubai!

What this also meant was that I was mostly home in Mumbai, so missed very few tasting session this year – yeah!!

Bombay Malt & Cigar Club

We tried a few different blends from Douglas Laing & Sansibar Blends (combined with the Whisky Ladies), to a Compass Box Quartet to the Lost Distilleries archival reconstructions.

We also did some “virtual” travel to Canada, Europe and Japan for whisky, Columbian & Seychelles for rum. Plus some 21s, a Sherry Unusual eve… We even threw in a Bar Night for good measure!

Highlight – Really tough to chose as the gents have “upped” their game… we’ve had some remarkable whiskies, great themes however Compass Box’s Phenomenology is truly remarkable for how individual
Lowlight – This was easy… the Domaine Des Hautes Glace Organic Single Malt 42% from our European evening… whether it was “off” or just the opposite of what we seek in a whisky, absolutely NOT for us!

Whisky Ladies

We also had two rounds of our free wheeling contributor’s choice (Mar and Oct), “Bar Bottles”, Smokey Night and even had an evening dedicated to exploring Grains.

As for our “virtual” travels, we had rather a lot of fun with our Irish jig, Islay Adventures, Highland Hijinks and “Trans Tasman Tour.”

Highlight – For it would be finally cracking open the Whisky Exchange’s Sukhinder Singh’s Cask Strength Trio, carefully selected for our ladies to be affordable yet fabulous!
Runners up – The Islay Adventures were a terrific variation on Laguvlin whereas purely for the inventive theme, Northern Lights with whiskies from Canada, Iceland and Sweden.

Our Original Club

Not to be outdone, our original club found a way to explore Repeats in new ways, including our very own Keshav & Anjan Prakash’s Vault Collection, a classic Scottish Trio, Pedigree Malts, some standards plus different Sherry Expressions.