Håvard Eide

The people that know me have over the years *slowly* figured out that I’m a big whisky fan: I’m a member of the norwegian malt whisky association, me and some friends come together to taste whiskies and enjoy the flavors that it brings. If I have to choose I’d go for some Islay whisky, but tasting is fun, so every now and then I’ll gather up some notes when I taste something new or have had a tasting night with the nmwl or my friends.

Today I’ll go through a couple of tasting sessions from this summer and up until now.

The arran tasting

Arran is a distillery that I’ve had some experience with over the last couple of years, and earlier this summer we got together to taste no fewer than 6 arran bottles that we collectively had ( or bought for the tasting ), in the order we tasted it

• 10yo
  This is the standard Arran bottle that you’d get in Norway, a typical summer whisky for my part: some honey, apples, citrus and a fair bit of malt and the oak cask it spent a decade on. This is a bottle that I try to have at home: summery and affordable, great buy!
• 7yo
  This is a special bottling for Jon Bertelsen ( mostly know for his Cognac bottlings ) that has aged 7 years: this was the “worst” of the bottlings we had: it shines through that it’s just 7 years, but you can absolutely see where it’s going compared to the 10yo. Some fruit and vanilla when nosing it, but it was a bit raw on the taste.
• Single cask #1038
  Bottle 220 of 240 from this bourbon cask. The single casks from Arran are beautiful bottles, we’ve had some arrive in Norway that are just stunning, and this is one of them: smelling of caramell and vanilla, taste: you could really feel the cask here, some liquorish in-between and a splash of water got me some peach. At this time we were sitting 4 people around the table just smiling, and we had still 3 more bottles to taste!
• Single cask #2131
  Bottle 23 of 196. This cask reached legendary status in Norway last year when it came out: a bourbon cask so dark you wouldn’t believe it! This is one of the better bottles that I’ve ever had in my possession, on the nose there’s a explosion of smells: rum, vanilla, cocoa and the taste is smooth, so smooth that the entire group went quiet and all you could hear was the people enjoying the taste: dark vanilla, liquorish, cocoa and the longest finish I think I’ve had in a bottle of whisky! Winner of the night!
• Single cask #24
  Bottle 364 of 669 from a sherry cask. Here the sherry cask came out and the summer associations that I always have with the 10yo came back, just a lot smoother.
• Cask strength
  The last one of the evening: vanilla, spices, liquorish, maybe a bit harsh on the tongue, but a little water and it went down very well.

We ended up discussing the arrans over a Macallan 18yo long into the night. A very special tasting!

Balsam

Me and some friends got together at Balsam in Oslo one night and tasted:

• Glengoyne 10yo
  Not the big taste experience, quite dull actually
• Glengoyne 18yo Billy’s Choice
  This one came from a Amontillado Hogshead, nosing it there was a lot of chocolate and orange, but then it came to the taste: cask, and a lot of it! This was not a very plesant experience, I could taste some chocolate in-between, but in my opinion it was ruined by the cask. Maybe some like it ( actually: at first I could not figure out if it was a whisky or a cognac ), but this was too sweet and colored by the cask

nmwl meeting

Last week me and a friend went to the nmwl meeting where there was a competition: 5 whiskies tasted blind, question: what cask was it stored on? This one was hard, really hard! But interesting, we sat down on teams of 5 and tasted and discussed the following bottles:

• Glen Douglas 2001 Unpeated American Oak #333 45%
• Springbank 1991 16yo Rhum Wood 54,2%
• Strathisla 1987 21yo Port Wood 57,1% (Cadenhead’s)
• Inchmurrin 2002 Unpeated Madeira Puncheon #3 45%
• Croftenga 2003 Heavily Peated Sherry Butt #1 45%

Some very special casks there ( me drinking a lot of islay whisky ) and the taste on a couple of them was….. not interesting, just bad. But it gave us a opportunity to taste some different casks.

Before the tasting I also got to taste a 1991 Bruichladdich ( Berrys own ) that was very good, and a 2001 bottling from Bruichladdich that was specially bottled for the norwegian market ( and marks the start of the new batch after they got acquired.

Dr.Jekylls

At Dr.Jekylls in Oslo I got the chance to taste the brand new Ardbeg Renaissance that is the first 10yo from the new batch: this is one to buy if you ever have been into Ardbeg of Islay whisky! The peat, honey and the loooong aftertaste was absolutely worth it! If you are ever in Oslo and want to taste some good whisky ( even though they are a bit pricy at times ): drop by this pub, they have a excellent sellection and a very good staff!

That’s it, a couple of whiskies tasted this summer, think I’ll blog a bit more often about this ( so that I can remember more on the taste! ) until then: slainte!