Review #109: SCN Ben Nevis 23 year (1996)
We've both been scarred so heavily by an Old Malt Cask bottling of Ben Nevis (review here), that we usually pass by any Ben Nevis offerings and spring for scotch from basically any other distillery.
tasting notes
Review #102: Springbank 18 Fresh Sherry Cask
Last Thursday, before the COVID-19 crisis quarantined us all starting this week, we went to Overproof. The reservations had been long outstanding – I made them early February, so I felt obligated to go (there was a $25/pp cancellation fee …
Review #100: Highland Park 30
We ended up doing the HP 30 in a very fancy flight: Bruichladdich 25, Bruichladdich 1990 26 year, and Highland Park 30 rounding it out.
Review #98: Bruichladdich 1990/25 Travel
As I mentioned in our Kavalan Manzanilla sherry cask review, my overwhelming cheapness resulted in San Francisco to Tokyo tickets that had us flying over Japan 3 hours to Taipei, Taiwan for a layover before returning the 3 hours …
Dalmore #97: Dalmore 18
The final dram of our Dalmore flight at OneUp in San Francisco (Dalmore 12 review at 7/10 here and Dalmore 15 of 5.5/10 score here) was the Dalmore 18. I had been toying with the idea of buying …
Review #96: Dalmore 15
As mentioned in our Dalmore 12 review, the reddit community does not like Dalmore much. There are some good points: they’re a bit watery (and a bit pricey). But the broader market likes Dalmore; some because of the shiny …
Review #95: Highland Park 2005 Octave
Vancouver is fun to visit, but there is a 90% chance it will rain at some point and then one needs an indoors activity contingency plan. For us, this typically involves liquor stores. In particular, I was very keen on …
Review #94: Dalmore 12
The /r/scotch community kind of has a thing going against Dalmore. I agree with a lot of the qualms. For one, it's relatively pricey. The biggest gripe seems to be because it is typically bottled at 40% and chill filtered, which reduces a lot of the strength that whisky aficionados enjoy. "Watery palate" is a good descriptor.
Review #75: Signatory Royal Lochnagar 1991
While we were having the Port Ellen and a sherry aged Port Charlotte at our new favorite scotch bar (Campbelltoun Loch in Tokyo), we decided to also veer off familiar territories and go with the Royal Lochnagar. It was mostly …
Review #60: Ichiro Malt Chichibu
We wrote about Bar High Five during our last trip to Japan. It remains my favorite of the excellent Ginza bars. The proprietor, Hidetsugu Ueno, is legendary on the Tokyo bartending circuit and considered on many lists as one …