The Whiskey Nomads

Fair fa’ your honest sonsie face!

Burns Night needs someone to address the Haggis, so we’ve found a bearded Scot who is going to do just that, sword in hand.

To toast the Great Chieftain o’ the Pudding-race, we’ll be pouring everyone a dram of Timorous Beastie. This is a Blended Malt from Douglas Laing and contains Highland whiskies from Dalmore, Glengoyne, Glen Garioch and more.
The name is a nod to Rabbie’s famous poem, To a mouse, so a perfect dram to sit with pals and watch the address unfold.

Please give the fine folks at a shout to get booked up 🥃

We’re buzzing to be joining the fantastic folks at this Burns Night for another Food and Whisky Pairing. This Saturday from 7pm on the Cregagh Road!

There’s no better way to celebrate Scotland’s national Poet, Rabbie Burns, than with haggis, Scotch and pals. After all, freedom and whisky gang thegither!

Please give a shout to get booked up 🥃

Final dram of the year needed to be a good one, so will see in 2025 with this Cameronbridge 37 YO Single Grain. Drawn from one Refill Hogshead that was laid down a month before I was born and bottled at 54.4% by Douglas Laing for their Xtra Old Particular range.

Slainte and lang may yer lum reek.

IB 40 YO Blended Scotch at 41.2%. Chucked into a Refill Sherry Butt in 1998 then bottled with a heavy dose of total waffle on the label.

Hashtag whisky.

Here we go.

Hinch Distillery’s 2021 Peated Single Malt from a 2nd Fill American Bourbon Cask. Selected by senior distiller, Jake, this was bottled at a mighty 62.1% and is one of only 211 bottles released at £39.99 😭 I’ve gurned for years, YEARS, about the pricing here alienating many enthusiasts, yet here we are: Cask Strength, Single Cask, NCF, NCA distilled and matured on site, and sold at a fantastic price. Be still my beating heart.

On the nose, the peat is super light. You’d think with a 2nd Fill that it’d be more prominent, but it’s taking a back seat to lemon sherbet, love hearts, white wine, flat sprite.

For the palate, there’s certainly a bit of youth to the dram. You’d expect a wee bit of hostility for its age, and it is spicy, but it’s a warming spice - very much reminds me of drinking hot spiced apple and cinnamon as a kid (Hey! Am fae Aberdeen! It’s a powdered drink you can buy in Costco). There’s also Honey and ginger with an almond aftertaste to round it all off.

Hats off. To have the baws to release a 3.5 YO whiskey as your first distilled-and-matured-onsite release deserves appreciation. To do it at that RRP with some of the ludicrous pricing that goes on makes me a wee bit giddy 😊

Some may call me biased! Very excited to see these new releases from Hinch. Congratulations to everyone involved 😎🤝🏻🥃

Tonight’s dram.

A secret Highland whisky from a renowned distillery beginning with M 👀

9 Years Old, it’s a vatting of two casks: First Fill French Oak Oloroso Sherry and a First Fill American Oak PX Hogshead.

Bottled at 57.7% NCF NCA and can be picked up for less than £50. Unbelievable value.

There’s also a fair few nods and winks on that label…

Clydeside Distillery Tour.

All a bit boring to be honest, including the whisky. Nae plaudits here unfortunately. Appreciative of the building being painstakingly renovated to hark back to the history of shipbuilding but it all felt like a big tourist trap.

Personal opinion that new distilleries are primarily designed to funnel the masses through, and because of this, they all lose a wee bit of romance and character.

Still, another one to tick off the list.

Sunday Dram is from one of Scotland’s finest IBs, Adelphi. A Ben Nevis 5 Year Old, bottled at 58.9% and released for import to the Netherlands.

Picked up at auction for £60, it’s one of only 379 bottles from a First Fill Oloroso Cask, and it hits the festive notes in full. Bit spicy given its age, but that works well with the cinnamon, nutmeg and treacle.

Slainte.

tour, Saturday 30th Nov. Scotland’s only solely triple distilled whisky.

Did the Essence Tour which was good craic. Their distillery exclusive 22 YO Cask Strength dram we enjoyed at the end was absolutely stunning. Bottled at 56.2% with full Oloroso maturation, it was one of the best drams I’ve had this year (if I ignore the £250 price and the fact their core range is absolutely awful).