The Living Bottle Project is slowly picking up steam. In the last iteration we ended up just a tad too much peat, as expected. This one, then, is all about bringing balance back to the Force. To this end I have chosen from among the ranks of sherried whiskies (I’ve checked, the ingredients say nothing about Midi-chlorians, but I guess it’ll have to do. Those of you who get that reference, congratulations, you are just about as nerdy as I am. Those who do not get it, you lead blessed lives). This is partly because I would like to get some of that sherried nature from the first version back and partly […]

As I have hopefully conveyed in the title of the blend, this one is supposed to be quite a bit more peaty than most of the blends on this blog. To achieve this goal I have selected two peated whiskies: Lagavulin 16yo, the sophisticated but savagely peated malt from the southern coast of Islay and, from a few kilometers along that same coast, Laphroaig Quarter Cask. This very medicinal single malt has been aged a further while on small quarter casks, which serves to couple the peat to a strong wood influence. To counterbalance the peat I based the blend on a sweet speysider: Glenfarclas 10yo. And last but not […]

Here’s another post to sate your lust for the blend. This time I’ll be chronicling a few testblends I did last night, so in contrast to most of the blends I talk about on this blog, these are unmarried and more or less freshly poured (I let them sit with a cover on the glass for 30 mins before tasting, but that’s it). Dalwhinnie 15yo is a subtly flavoured single malt, so I chose three more or less subtle malts to partner it with: Glenmorangie 10yo, Clynelish 14yo and Glen Elgin 12yo. My expectations beforehand were that the resulting blends would be rather similar, with differences in the nuances, but […]

Here’s one that builds on the Laphroaig+. This blend is based on a good amount of Talisker 10yo, with equal amounts of Laphroaig 10yo and Black Bottle added. My idea for this one was to create a true marriage between the harsh smoky character of the Laphroaig and the more benign maritime characteristics of the Talisker.

Here’s a fun way to get into homevatting: start a living bottle. A living bottle is a bottle into which you decant small amounts of different whiskies, and in which you always leave a decent level. The nose, taste and finish of the drams you pour from it change with every new whisk(e)y you add. After a while, there may be dozens or even hundreds of different whiskies in the bottle. One of the good things about this (besides it being a hoot) is that the whiskies get the time to grow accustomed to one another, to marry together.