Håvard Eide

A couple of weeks ago the tasting of the evening was from five closed distilleries, a very enjoyable sitdown with a large crowd at the local nmwl.

Littlemill, 1991, 16 yo, 46 % (Murray McDavid)

Nose: this has to be one of the stranges associations I’ve ever had in a whisky – every year at christmas we eat dried sheep ribs that are steamed on pieces of wood, and when this cools down and you digg in late at night when you get that munchies it has a very distinct smell…. this is what I initially thought when nosing this for the first time! When the initial shock was over it smelled very salt and had a distinct wet/harsh smell. Right now I was worried about the taste!
Palate: eucalyptus, some citrus is there, but then a dry malt cocoa comes through.
Finish: malt, very malty, then some salt and a distinct dried piece of wood finishes up the taste.
A Interesting dram, but nothing more than that.

Rosebank, 1990, 18 yo, 48 % (Dun Bheagan) – sherrybutt 611

Nose: honney and lots of floral smells on this one, the sherry cask have had its influence.
Palate: intense sherry hit on the tounge, then more mellow as it goes over in a much smoother sweetness.
Finish: suprising spice finish after the smoothness experienced earlier.

Dallas Dhu 1975, 1975 31 yo, 50 % (Closed Distilleries)

Nose: starts out as sweet honey, but let this one sit in the glass for a bit: after a while it came through with a cotton candy sweetness that was very intens. Actually it reminded me of the Ardbeg Renaissance after it too had a bit of air.
Palate: oh, the sweet round honney from the nose is there! lots of fruits, especially after adding a couple of drops of water in it.
Finish: it just stays there, a nice long aftertaste that finishes up the very good balance that this bottle gives you.

This was the winner of the evening, no doubt in that! Not too many bottles left in Norway, and the pricetag is a bit high, but who knows, maybe one will find its way here soon….

Brora, 24 yo, 48,5 % (Dun Bheagan) – Fino sherry cask 1424

Nose: round butter-oil and some iodine?
Palate: sherry, no doubt about that, a bit harsh maybe? That put me off a bit. A few drops of water opened it up and made it much rounder around the edges, much more enjoyable.

Not the best Brora I’ve had, shows that Brora isn’t bulletproof all the time ( doesn’t come close to the 20yo that I tried at L&B in Amsterdam a couple of years ago )

Port Ellen, 1982, 46 % (Berry Brothers & Rudd) – cask 2030/2035

Nose: sweet smoke.
Palate: this has what I can descibe as a very long sweet smoke blanket in my mouth that went on and on! Port Ellen is absolutely one of my favourite distilleries!

To finish up after the official tasting a Caol Ila 12yo Dun Behgan ( where can I get a bottle of this!! ), a Linkwood 14yo Dun Behgan and a Longmorn 15. A very good evening for the closed distilleries, and the Dallas Dhu came out at the top, no-one even close to it (ok, the Port Ellen then, it was very enjoyable)

Last week the time came for a Ardbeg Supernova tasting at Jekylls in Oslo, hosted by Chris Maile. The basement of Jekylls filled pretty much up and we were presented with a introduction by Chris about the Ardbeg distillery.

Then there was the tasting, first we tasted the new Renaissance before we digged into the Supernova.

Renaissance

Nose: citrus, pineapple and a nutty backdrop.
Taste: peat and salt, classic Ardbeg taste on this one. With a bit of water: more distinct smoke and tar. The smoke really fills the mouth! Then the citrus comes back. This develops really nice with a tiny drop of water.
The interesting thing with the Renaissance was after it had aired a bit: a very sweet cotton candy on the nose, very sweet! I’ve never seen this in a Ardbeg before!

Supernova

This was what we came for: Ardbeg Supernova 2001, aged on first fill burboun and sherry casks.
Nose: the citrus is there, and some iodine. Some dried fruits and the smoke is absolutely on track here!
Taste: The initial hit comes with coffee and very dry cocoapowder on the tounge. The cask strength is absolute noticable but not to a degree where it’s not drinkable. It then develops with the smoke, tar and peat that hits hard, but not as hard as “the peaties Ardbeg ever” would lead you to think. With a tiny splash of water it develops a very dry smoke on the toung, very dry, I can only describe it as a dry pile of ash. Finally the finish: long, very long! It just wouldn’t go away ( in a good manner ), so a interesting experience with this new bottle!

Supernova is released the 2nd of may here in Norway at 829NOK and I do think I’ll pick up a bottle, but you should at least have a little taste of this bottle if you get the chance ( at least if you like peaty whisky ). Supernova is still young ( only 8 years ) and I can imagine that it will be a good one after a few more years in a cask to smoothen out a bit. For now I prefer the Renaissance over the Supernova of the new cask strengths that Ardbeg has released the last year.

After the tasting I got on my bicycle and road back home, that was a experience in itself: the dry ash and smoke dried out my mouth all the way home and I had to cool down with a Ardbeg 10yo before going to bed that night.

A couple of weeks ago I sat down on a nmwl with 5 10yo whiskies in front of me to taste blind. This is always a good exercise since you don’t pre-judge based on the label of the bottle, everyone should try this from time to time just to see what happens. We got a list of 15 distilleries up front so that we had something to base our decision on. Here are my notes for the evening.

First up was Aberlour: sherry cask here? some vanilla and perfume, lots of perfume. some sulphur and the balance is not very good. Not a bottle I would buy. But: my initial thought that it had to be a Aberlour was correct
The second bottle smelled like green grass, had some pear and apple ( mainly fruity ) and a dry finish. It was a Glengoyne, and I did not guess correct.
The third bottle smelled like green apples and had a intense initial hit, then a salty taste that lingered, must be a burboun cask. This was Longrow 100 proof and I did not guess correct.
Fourth up was a odd one: smelled like a old wet fireplace, peaty and lots of wood. This was a Chieftain’s Choise Bunnahabain peated, I was correct and I bought myself a bottle of this the day after.
Finally Ardbeg was servered, this one I had correct ( Ardbeg is on my top 3 distilleries, wasn’t that hard to guess it ).

So: 3 out of 5 wasn’t that bad I think The suprise of the evening was the Bunnahabain peated that got a safe home the next day. Looking forward to opening that one!

I also got to taste a Glen Scotia 1999-2007 bottle 294/345, nose: dry hay, a liqurish hint and some spices. Mouth: bitter and dry liqurish with a hard liquor taste on it. It had a very short finish, this one should have a couple more years before shining through.
Then I tasted a Teaninich 12yo ( Exclusive malts ) that was a bit anonymous, and finally a Caol Ila Dun Behgan 12yo that was very good! I wish there was bottles of this one still available in Norway, I would get it instantly!

Today I have set up planet-whisky.com: a site that aggregates whisky blogs and news from around the world into one easy-to-read overview of what’s happening in the whisky world.

The site fetches RSS feeds from various sources that I have picked out on a regular basis (once every hour ). You can of course use google reader or any other RSS reader, but with a planet site you don’t have to go out and find the sites, I’ll find them and put them up there as they appear ( there is even a feed that you can use in your favourite RSS reader if you prefer that ).

I would love some feedback on the site and tips on others sites that could be included.

This week I ended up at the nmwl meeting where topic of the night was Flora and Fauna – this is the unofficial name of a series of malt whisky from Diageo/United Distillers ( originally coined by Michael Jackson after the decor on the bottles, and the term just stuck), we tasted 5 different bottles and was accompanied by a very good lecture on the different bottlings and general information regarding Flora and Fauna.
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The Drammies 2008 awards has been anounced, and you should take some time to send them a email with your votes: What’s with the email anyway, where’s the online form that I can submit? Anyway, I’ve submitted my votes and here are my votes for 2008:
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The Malt Whisky yearbook is now up to its fourth edition – 2009, and last weekend I finally got some time to read through it ( waiting on the airport always gives me the opportunity ). So I thought I’d put up a quick review of this edition.
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Last week I suddenly found out that a trip to Bergen was in order, I haven’t seen some of my friends for a long time, so tickets was ordered, hotell booked and then it hit me: I have recently tried the Ardbeg 1974 and knew that there was one bottle left at the state run bottle shop in Bergen. Monday night I noticed it was still available, but when I called on tuesday it was gone…. The last bottle of Ardbeg 1974, gone! Very disappointing, but saturday morning I was off for a very good weekend, and it turned out I wouldn’t be too disappointed when it came to whisky this weekend either.
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Wednesday the target for the evening was jekylls in Oslo, a wonderful pub with a range of good whiskies and a competent staff that alwyas is there to help you out with suggestions and information on bottles. It’s also the only pub in Norway with a cask behind the bar: a Highland Park 12yo sherry cask ( #1556 ) that holds a good 59% and is a sherry bomb! But, our venture was not to include this cask but rather a couple of Glenfiddich bottles and a bit odd Caol Ila.
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Working at the technology team in fronter I see a lot of code, and I review patches on a daily basis. One thing you learn after a while is to see beyond the code that is in front of you: patterns emerge, you start to see problems that can arise because of a patch that maybe looks clean from the outside. We have staging tools and review applications that helps facilitate the process that we go through, and we have a process now that makes patching much easier than it was earlier ( it’s a ongoing process – you can always get better ).
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