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Prohibition three ways

or

I must remember to renew my passport

 
 

Time to play a little more catch-up as I suddenly realise my passport expires in literally just a few days time. I rang the local Consulate in Munich only to be told "make an appointment online" but then I couldn't find any way to do this, so back to the good old telling-bone on Monday methinks. Meanwhile, the thought of prohibition from travelling offered some inspiration for this trio of reviews:

 
 

Passport Scotch a Scotch whisky for import to Italy from the 1970's. "100% Scotch Whiskies, produced and bottled by William Longmore & Co. Keith, Scotland" So, it's an old 1970's blend which my old mate Oliver brought to one of our little get-togethers last year, but is it any good?

The quite pale colour of light straw is no surprise, but a very aromatic nose which I referred to as being grainy was indeed a surprise. By grainy I'm referring to the hints of butterscotch which I often detect in grain whiskies. It's also lightly fruity with just the slightest suggestion of old peat in a mildly chemical way. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad, just somehow lightly chemical.

 

  

 
 

The palate manages to linger on and on whilst being quite watery or 'thin'. In fact it emphasises everything I found in the nose, especially a kind of chemical peatiness. The finish again lingers, no let's be polite and say it's pretty long and even offers a hint of liquorice root. Non-chemical liquorice root. My overall impression is one of a decent old blend, very interesting and worth  a 79-80 point score. Not bad and certainly not as bad as my 'chemical' comments may have suggested.

 
 

 

Cutty Sark Prohibition is my second dram of the day and comes thanks to the nice people at Cutty Sark who sent me an official sample sometime last year, so my apologies for my tardiness once again. Anyway, the colour is a vibrant light yellow gold and the nose initially offers a light and fresh woodiness which develops to include some autumnal leafiness. With yet more time I suddenly get an impression of (a Sunday) traditional roast pork. The palate again offers everything from the nose (including that wonderful Sunday roast) and then a hint of fruity schnaps (obstler, comprising mainly apple and pear). The finish is pleasantly long and my overall impression is summed up by refreshingly different. (I love that Sunday roast!). A fine 82 points from me.

 
 

And now for something completely different as they say; Firstly let me say that I'm not 100% certain exactly what this was. I think, in fact I'm almost certain it was a whisky flavoured drink called ArKay, in fact I'm 99.999% certain that's what it was, but for reasons that will soon become clear I'll settle for using the picture on the right rather than an actual picture of a bottle or can of ArKay. Yes, it comes in cans too.

This is another note which I've taken my time over publishing, mostly because I've had to pontificate long and hard to summon the strength and courage to unleash this onto the world. I'm not saying it's bad, Loch Dhu-gly was bad, this is in a whole new league of its own, but more of that later.....

 

 
 

The colour is a nice hue of light, bright, golden yellow. Nice colour! The nose ... how can I put this nicely? Difficult, let's just say that someone hung up a very unwahsed, sweaty sock for Santa and he filled it with very sweet, over-ripe raspberries, honey and strong (probably blue) cheese. As for the palate? Is there one? Could we have one please? Oh, wait a minute ........ eventually faint hints of leafiness appear in a watery, very watery, kind of way. Finish .... One would definitely improve this drink. There again; maybe not. My overall impression is one of ........ thinking .... give me time ..... ahh yes; nice colour.

OK, let's be serious, or at least honest for a while; this cannot be called whisky, or at least in a Scottish way as it's non-alcoholic. It doesn't even pretend to be called whisky, it's officially a "Whisky Flavoured Drink", or at least according to the manufacturer although I personally may take umbridge on that. So far in my whisky adventures the infamous Loch Dhu-gly is the worst whisky I have yet tried as it scored a measly 9 points (out of 100) in my scale of awfulness. Even the dreaded Cu Dhub managed a very creditable 39 points in comparison so where would this stand if I were to pretend a 0% abv offering could stand on the same scale? Can I move into negatives? If not then I have to at least acknowledge the fact it has a nice colour with something like 1-3 points. Thanks a lot to my old friend (not yet ex-friend) Pit Krause for depriving himself of this sample and passing it on to me.

Prohibition? It bloody well should be prohibited.

 

 

 

 

It's been a while

or

Getting back on track

 
 

After months of inactivity or at least when it comes to my website, I've finally managed to find some much-needed time to update things a little. Most of last Autumn was taken up with trying to fit work around my usual organisation of The Malt Maniacs' Awards, then came Christmas, the new year, more work ... etc .... in fact I almost missed two rather big numbers at the turn of the year; Firstly December last year saw my website's total number of visitors reach a million, yes 1,000,000+ visitors. This was followed in January 2015 by the total number of page clicks reaching 2,000,000. My heartfelt thanks to you all for making it all worthwhile.

I've spent the last couple of weeks performing some necessary annual maintenance and now I've managed to bring my Dram-atics blog-esque page up to date too. You'll see below here I've created graphic links to what I consider to be my most important features and the rest are listed by date of entry below those.

So, welcome to 2015 and some more exciting articles around here. But just what can you expect? Well, I'll be heading off to Limburg once again in late April, then I have lots of drams on my desk awaiting my attention and you can certainly expect more than just tasting notes for many of these, especially as I quickly scan them to find some old Glen Mhor, Balblair, Longmorn, a 1953 Talisker, 1969 Linkwood, 1972 Millburn, 40y & 1959 Glen Grants, a couple of exciting looking Convalmore plus many more. Ahh, not to forget the MMA2014 award-winning Kavalans. Exciting times ahead indeed.

But all this comes at a small cost, I've decided to limit the pages which will be offered in German language format; sadly the first casualty will be this Dram-atics page, but if I'm honest the supposedly German version hasn't been published in German for a long time now, so to avoid confusion, or possibly create more(?) I'll only be updating the English version from now on.

Enjoy the links below whilst I carry on tidying things up around here and start to work out the batting order for those drams.

PS. Don't mention the cricket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A selection of previous Dram-atics highlights

 

  The Liquid
 

 Karui-WOW-Ahhh

Glen-CLASS-augh

Glen-DROOL-nach

Class of 64-65

 
 

 
 

Elementary my dear Sukhinder

Fab Fo(u)rties

Drams at Dawn

   
 

   

 

  Festivals & Events
 

Limburg 2015

An annual Pilgrimmage

Limburg Crooks & Nannies

Limburg - Whet Dreams

 
 

April 2015

A date for your diary

 
 

Autumn 2013 Speyside

 

 

     
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Getting About
 

St. Magdalene / Linlithgow

Islay Revisited

     
 

     

 

  The Maniacs
 

Motor Maniac meets Malt Maniac

Anoraks Bottles & Castle

Nosing New Make

Blend of Maniacs

 
 

 
 

MMA 2014 Unplugged

MMA 2013 Unplugged

MMA 2011 Winners

   
 

   

 

  Malternatives
 

A brace of luxury

Debussy plays Pitaud

     
 

     

 

Date

Other major features  

May 2013

Duelling Drams - Man vs Clipper  

April 2013

100 points - Perfect Percy, Eggs-otic Isles Egg & Mug, Sixy bunny  

March 2013

International Whisky Day - Raise a Glass & Raise Awareness  

February 2013

A Horse, A Bow & a Dear  

Autumn 2012

The Olympkins, Getting old and Grainy  

May-Jun 2012

Dalmore Constellation, Independence?  

Mar-Apr 2012

Investment grade madness, Glenglassaugh, 5th IWD, 1000th Review, April Fool, Going dotty, age verification  

Feb. 2012

It's a rum old do, Growing old gracefully, Four Imperial sisters  

Jan. 2012

Onwards & Upwards, Canadian Whisky Awards  

Dec. 2011

HP 70's Orcadians  

Sept-Nov 2011

Malt Maniacs Awards 2011 - A weekend in the life of a Postmaster General  

June-Aug 2011

Bits Bytes & Drams, Glen Garioch 1994, Angela D'Orazio - Mackmyra, Trinity of Two Earls

May 2011

Don't bug me with ads, A dram fine evening

April 2011

Cry me a River, Golden Oldies, The Shackleton Legacy, Two Weddings and a Whisky

March 2011

Masters of Photography, Memory and the Middle Cut, Sampling again, Dave Stirk 5, Choosing choice Choices

Feb. 2011

Festival time again, Spam Galore!, Drams & Trams

Jan. 2011

Lookback at 2010, New Job? Three Thirties, ToC, Overdosing on sherry casks

Dec. 2010

December's Advent-urous drams, Nant Distillery, The road to Certification

 

Nov. 2010

Journey to end of Scotverse, Wick, Pulteney, Balblair, Knockdhu, Homecoming, Tweetup, Chilling with Cooley  

Oct. 2010

The John Walker, Sampling with Master of Malts, Changing jobs, Whisky Round Table  

Sept. 2010

Playing Chinese whispers, Oktoberfest, SMWS Spirit Cellar, 500,000  

August 2010

Elementary my dear Islay, Handbags at dawn, Dram-arkable 500, Cheapo Challenge, Ah Dooagh, 1 from 3 left  

July 2010

Age matters. A series of whisky reviews concentrating upon 'Age'  

June 2010

Jules Rimet, pickles & crisps. Mon coeur, mon amour oh mon sherry. A taste of the great outdoors.  

May 2010

The highly-acclaimed and record-breaking "Desert Island Drams"  

April 2010

My peat's bigger than your peat, A foursome with a famous Scottish bird  

March 2010

Sample Mania tasting notes, The Good, the Bad & The Loch Dh-Ugly, A return to sanity, The Choice of Managers  

Jan-Feb 2010

Keep taking the medicine, It's Festival time, Maker's Mark, Sleeveless in Munich  

Dec. 2009

All power to bean-counters, protecting Scotch, seasonal drams, Definitive Xmas Drams, 2009 Whisky Awards  

Nov. 2009

How it all started, Bonfire night, Autumnal musings, EU Tax & Duty, What's in a (whisky) name?  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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