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Please
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Prohibition three ways
or
I must
remember to renew my passport |
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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: |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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..... |
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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. |
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It's
been a while
or
Getting
back on track |
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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. |
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A
selection of previous Dram-atics highlights
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Dec.
2010 |
December's Advent-urous drams,
Nant Distillery,
The road to Certification |
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Nov. 2010 |
Journey to end of Scotverse,
Wick,
Pulteney,
Balblair,
Knockdhu,
Homecoming,
Tweetup,
Chilling with Cooley |
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Oct.
2010 |
The John Walker,
Sampling with Master of Malts,
Changing jobs,
Whisky Round Table |
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Sept.
2010 |
Playing Chinese whispers,
Oktoberfest,
SMWS Spirit Cellar,
500,000 |
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August
2010 |
Elementary my dear Islay,
Handbags at dawn,
Dram-arkable 500,
Cheapo Challenge,
Ah Dooagh,
1 from 3 left |
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July
2010 |
Age
matters. A series of whisky reviews concentrating upon 'Age' |
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June
2010 |
Jules
Rimet, pickles & crisps.
Mon coeur, mon amour oh mon sherry.
A
taste of the great outdoors. |
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May
2010 |
The
highly-acclaimed and record-breaking "Desert Island Drams" |
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April
2010 |
My
peat's bigger than your peat,
A foursome with a famous Scottish
bird |
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March
2010 |
Sample
Mania tasting notes,
The Good, the Bad & The Loch Dh-Ugly,
A return to sanity,
The Choice of Managers |
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Jan-Feb
2010 |
Keep
taking the medicine,
It's Festival time,
Maker's Mark,
Sleeveless in Munich |
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Dec. 2009 |
All
power to bean-counters,
protecting Scotch,
seasonal drams,
Definitive Xmas Drams,
2009 Whisky Awards |
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Nov. 2009 |
How it
all started,
Bonfire night,
Autumnal musings,
EU Tax & Duty,
What's in a (whisky) name? |
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© Copyright
2009-2015 by Keith Wood - All rights reserved - Whisky-Emporium |
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