So, what are you drinking now?

A wonderful Karuizawa Spirit of Asama. Truly sumptuous stuff.

Monkey Shoulder. Really enjoying this stuff. Have a great night, guys.

On a delayed trip to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, last night, visited our favorite liquour store in Vancouver BC and sampled the following;

21 year Benrinnes (SMWS 36.62 - Ocotober 1991) "The Italian Job" from a refill hogshead

16 year Benrinnes (SMWS 36.72 - August 1997) "Zorba's Dram" from a refill barrel

21 year Aultmore (SMWS 73.57 - March 1992) "Jamaican Rumtopf" from a refill barrel

21 year Glen Scotia (SMWS 93.57 - March 1992) "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of this!" from a refill ex-sherry butt

18 year Caol Ila (SMWS 53.200 - August 1995) "A day at the beach" from a refill ex-sherry butt

The 36.62, 93.57 & 53.200 were our favorites.

Later at the hotel, a Glenmorangie LaSanta before dinner.

Tonight, visited Fet's Whisky Kitchen for dinner (with over 100 Whisky Society bottles, plus another 650 bottles of whisky, it's like being a kid in a candy store.)

My wife and I shared the following;

22 year Rosebank (SMWS 25.64 - November 1990) "Manzinilla Sherry Trfile" from a refill hogshead

27 year Clynelish (SMWS 26.89 - November 1984) "An Exotic Tearoom Experience" from a refill sherry butt

16 year Glenrothes (SMWS 30.77 - April 1997) "This is Nuts!" from a refill sherry butt

6 year (heavily peated) Bunnahabhain (SMWS 10.77 - October 2007) "Beware of The Monster" from a refill hogshead

All 4 of these were exceptional!

@bwmccoy - A great list to mark a great occasion.

Opened a bottle of compass box spice tree tonight. Had nearly forgotten how beautifully balanced this is, a real sweetness on the nose, big oily mouth feel and a wonderful drying finish. Masterly stuff.

Macallan Cask Strength with a splash of water; a nice dram before dinner.

Thanks @paddockjudge! - We had a great weekend. Home now, getting ready for the work week ahead. Tonight, Glenmorangie LaSanta followed by a 9 year Caol Ila single cask Signatory bottling.

Hepburn's Choice 5 YO Caol Ila CS single cask from K&L. It has more of a youthful nastiness in it than I was counting on. Young, aggressive peat is one thing, but this has a sour "down" note that is minor but still quite enough to distract.

Clynelish 14yo. A sample from about 2010; it's been in a decanter, in a 100ml. sample bot. and finally in a 50ml. sample. It never changed much, never improved much, either - It disappointed at every stage with a finish that simply disappeared. The nose was inviting, floral with citrus notes, the palate delicious with a rather engaging maltiness which I really liked but the finish was a non-starter. I've seen finishes that were a bit quiet, some that were low key but this Clynelish, at each tasting, presented much the same with no finish at all; it was briefly there, than fell off. I looked at it many times and it was always the same, no finish!

I'm told the current expression is rather special but understandably, I'm reluctant to 'fork out' best part of a hundred dollars.

Cheers.

Longrow CV...fantastic!

Had some Amrut Portonova recently, fantastic stuff. Different to the Intermediate - I found this to be a meatier, heartier dram.

@sengjc: if you had to choose between either the Portonova or the Intermediate Sherry (where prices are comparable), which would you choose ?

Ridgemont Reserve 1792

I tried the palate cleansing method with Green Tea as suggested by a fellow Connosr member (?) -It seems to work well. A Whiskey I have open and that I regard very highly was the template, a 'Wild Turkey 101' and after a Tea( about 20min.) a small second pour of 101 and I have to say that it was better in the mouth by a good margin, somehow sweeter and even more delicious! The W/T 101 is the most recent edition in the cardboard box with the cut-out panel in the front, a 'spanking good' Whiskey and, absolutely, the best 101 I've tried!

I seem to remember doing this same exercise some years ago with good quality German Beer and Glenmorangie, a particularly 'good drop' as I recall, but I don't think the improvement was quite as pronounced,... (memory).

Priek?.

Near the end of a busy workday, at my desk in the office with a dram of Port Charlotte.

@talexander, which PC?

Last night I combined two disappointing whiskies to good effect.

Two recent K&L exclusives haven't done it for me. The Hepburn's Choice 5 YO CS Caol Ila has a pervasive sour down-note that keeps it squarely out of the "clean zippy peat" category I love so much. The Faultline blended scotch at 50% is bland (though flawless and clean). Together, the clean neutral blend cuts the Caol Ila's sour note while not significantly diluting it like water would. The result: mostly clean young peat that still packs a punch. NCF, NC, very little water. Boom.

This home blend was so nice, that after I pour off a sample of the Caol Ila for future peaty comparison dramming, I'll probably top off the bottle with the Faultline blend to make it permanent.

Ardbeg Airigh Nam Beist 2008, 18 yo, 46%. Sure glad I was able to buy a couple of bottles of ANB awhile back. They are quite scarce now. Lovely whisky.

Earlier I had some Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban. That 4 year open bottle still tastes great now, despite taking a full year before it tasted even good.

Next on the agenda will be finishing off some small amounts of 40+-year-ago-distilled Daviess County Bourbon and some Elijah Craig Barrel Proof 70.1% abv.

@OlJas Standard issue Scottish Barley at 50% ABV. I have bids out on Scotch Whisky Auctions for a PC10 and a SMWS 127.42 Port Charlotte 12yo ("Peat Freak Heaven"). Wish me luck!

Amrut Portonova. Fairly good whisky!

Battle of Islay: - Lagavulin 16 Year Old - Lagavulin 12 Year Old Cask Strength 2013 Edition - Octomore 6.1 - Port Charlotte PC11

The Lagavulin 16 Year Old can hold its own among the cask strengths. I still like the PC11 overall.

Port Charlotte Scottish Barley - heavily peated.... Yum. Had our first rain in a while this morning, this seemed fitting

@chrisbator I've been dramming on that one this weekend as well - it's pretty great.

Teeling Single Grain Whiskey. What an excellent pointed Cabernet Sauvignon wine cask finish.

Next, Connemara Cask Strength. Mmmmmm...peated Irish.

Bourbon. Not just any bourbon. Willett 21 year old Single Barrel. 55.7% Barrel No. 3684 Unlike any other bourbon I have tasted. No burn, smooth as silk. Special stuff.

@whiskygoalie, that is quite a low ABV for a 21 yo Willett! Most of the old ones like that are up near 70%. Congrats on getting an old Willett. Those are getting to be rare treasures. A dram that is legendary to me is a 23 yo Willett Rye, named The Iron Fist, which came out in 2007. I had half a dozen drams of it back in 2009 and 2010 at a restaurant. I saw a post, on whiskybase, I think, that a bottle of it auctioned for 2,105 Euros in Feb 2015. I still want it, but there can't be much of it around anymore.

@talexander , any luck getting into (peat freak) heaven?

@OlJas Alas, I did not win those two bottles (I did win 4 other ones though: SMWS Macallan, Buffalo Trace Single Oak Project, Bruichladdich 10 Year Old (not the Laddie 10 but the prior incarnation) and a small 200ml hand-filled Cadenhead's Islay Cask Strength. So got one peaty one in there!

@talexander If I might bother you for some info, where exactly are you buying these bottles from? I'd love to view some auctions that are available to Ontario residents. Or are you buying them and having someone out of country bring them to you. Cheers!

@mscottydunc I bought them through Scotch Whisky Auctions (www.scotchwhiskyauctions.com) in Glasgow. You cannot privately ship alcohol into Ontario so through Kinek (www.kinek.com) I have a pick-up location in Niagara Falls NY. The first time I bought bottles through the SWA a friend of mine luckily happened to be in Glasgow so he brought them over for me. This time, though, I'm going to have to have them shipped - it's cheaper per bottle if I wait until I have 8-10 bottles to send, and they'll hang onto them for up to 6 months without charging storage fees. My ex-wife bought a bottle of rum through them so we will share on shipping costs.

However, I don't think I got any great deals on these bottles, when you factor in buyer's premium, shipping and duties/taxes. But it's a treat to get bottles I would not otherwise be able to obtain.

Bonham's used to have whisky auctions in NYC but they stopped last year - in previous years I had purchased a few bottles and it was fairly easy to ship to Buffalo and pick them up. Got some good deals there.

The LCBO used to have large wine auctions (in person and online), which included a few single malt lots. As there were few buyers of whisky participating, I used to score some great deals on seriously investment-grade bottles (Port Ellens, Ardbeg 1977, etc). However, they didn't have one last year; when I inquired they were considering having an online auction in late spring 2015 but I haven't heard anything yet - they are a mess.