As I mentioned in my fist blog post I visited the THW Whisky Show in London. Now is the time to write a little bit about my trip to the UK. I wanted to visit the Whisky Show last year but due to the fact that I got layed off in my dayjob a few weeks before the Show I decided to safe my money and plan my trip for the next year. I decided to just visit the venue, I'll visit London some time else - if I liked what I saw. The easiest way to do this is to fly in early maybe do just al little bit sightseeing and fly back in the evening. Funny thing is, my trip to Salzburg will take approximatly two and a half hours. That's about 20 minutes longer than the flight to London. But I digress...
The flight to London was uneventful and I'm That Whisky Guy, not That Plane Guy, so I'll skip just to the venue. In London I was greeted by a quite typical - stereotypical would be more accurate - weather for London: Rain. Fortunally right across the street of Old Billingsgate was a nice pub and Wolfgang (from the Whisky Consultants) and I decided to get a beer beforehand. In this particular pub a guy just walked up to Wolfgang (for everybody who want's to know: I was on the loo) and started a conversation. He saw the Poloshirts with the "Whisky Consultants" logo and concluded that we were going to visit the venue just as he himself. His name? Dave Alcock, better known in the internet as @whiskyrepublic on Twitter and as "The Whisky Dramalista". I suggest you check out his site thewhiskydramalista.com!
He told us - and I could not agree more on this - that Whisky and tasting is not only about color and taste. It's about history, stories and personal memories! At that particular moment I decided that I have to start my blog as soon as I get home. Even if nobody cares about what I write or have to say, I'll do it anyway. I want to share my thoughts and memories and if only one person somewhere out there has a better day because of what I wrote I'm happy.
Back to the venue. As the sky started to clear up and the line in front of Old Bilingsgate got shorter we finiehed our beer and started to explore the venue. The very first stop was at the booth of Kilchoman. Kilchoman is a very young (2005) Islay Farm distillery with very young (typically 3 to 5 years) but very good and interesting Whiskies. They had - as I hoped for - the new "Kilchoman Madeira Cask" at the booth! It's just four(!) years old and the color remembers me of Jurassic Park when they found the mosquito in the amber stone. After a little bit of nosing - butterpopcorn an a little bit of toffee - the taste could not hide the origin of this Whisky. It's like walking through a field of barley on a hot summer day chewing on some smoked meat on a rosted bread. A very nicley composed dram and surely in my collection as soon as it arrives in Austria. The new Single Cask Release (with a PX finish) was not bad at all but I had difficulties to find the PX cask in this Whisky. If I didn't know, I would never have guessed that this particular Whisky was matured for six months in a PX cask. Maybe a few more months in the PX cask would have been better for the Whisky but that is soley my personal opinion.
The next stop was at the booth of anCnoc, the Single Malt Whisky from the Knockdhu distillery. Besides their "standard" Whiskies with 12, 18 and 21 years, they had the "rescan" and the "cutter" both slightly peated with 11,1ppm respective 20,5ppm. While those two Whiskies were matured solely in exBourbon cask the other three Whiskies were matured in exBourbon and exSherry casks. The older the Whisky the more exSherry casks were used. My favourite of these five Whiskies was the 22 year old one just shy before the 12 year old. Why? They both are very refreshing and had a nice taste which reminded me of a Cidre! But the 22 year old was a little bit more complex with notes of barley, toffee and some oak wood.
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| Wolfgang from the L&P Whisky Consultants at the anCnoc booth |
Next stop after a lunch break (the vegtable lasagne was very good as was the rosted garlic bread) was the booth of Nikka Whisky from Japan. If you ever have the change to taste a japanese Whisky - do it! Unfortunally they are very rare in Europe and quite expensive. The nice lady presented us two new and interesting bottlings the "Nikka Coffey Grain" and the "Nikka Coffey Malt" Whisky. Both were distilled using a coffey still (as the name suggests) und matured in exBourbon casks. Although they are n.a.s. (no age statemant) Whiskies, we were told that they are matured for 12 years. They only difference between the two Whiskies was - again as the names suggests - that for the latter malted barley was used for the first unmalted barley. The difference in the taste is not that big but noticable. Especially the finish of the Grain version is much shorter and on the palate it is less complex than the Malt version. But I like the idea of bottlings where just one parameter is altered - just like the "Wood Finish Expressions" from BenRiach.
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| Wolfgang from the L&P Whisky Consultants at the Nikka booth |
The last stop of the day was the distillery Amrut from India. There are not many old indian Whiskies because of the hot and humid clima over there. In Scotland the "Angel's Share" is about 2-3% a year. India's "Angle's Share" is about 10-15% which is quite a lot. The typical indian Whisky is matured for just three to five years. Therefor it was a nice suprise and a pleasure the get the oppertunity to taste a ten year old Amrut called "Greedy Angels" reflecting the high loss of Whisky during the maturation. Matured in exBourbon casks you can smell tropical fruits like pinapple, very faint hints of oak wood and an interesting combination of some oriental spices. On the palate the Whisky is quite simple, well balanced and sweet. The color is a light gold as the Whiskies from Amrut are not colored and not chill filtered.
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| Wolfgang from the L&P Whisky Consultants at the Amrut booth |
To be exact we did more than these four stops, but it would be way to much for just one blog post. These four were the most interesing ones and maybe I'll post one or two tasting notes of the other Whiskies I tasted that day. Also if someone is interested in the picutres I've taken that day head over to my Flickr account. I'll post them tomorrow, when I'm back from Salzburg. That's it for today, if you have any suggestions where to go next or which Whisky to tast, please leave them below in the comments section!
Slàinte
Lukas
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