So, what are you drinking now?

Enjoying an after-dinner dram of Wild Turkey 101. I’m shocked at how much I like this bourbon. It’s very sweet and approachable and doesn’t really feel like a 101 Proof whisky. The coconut note I’m getting on the finish is a fun bonus after the candy corn sweetness and sour cherry candy I get on the palate. A very respectable flavour development. Maybe I like it this much because it’s a pleasant surprise and it was not much money. Dare I say it? I think I like this as much or maybe a bit more than my recently-reviewed Compass Box Oak Cross....

@OdysseusUnbound wait till you try OGD 114...

@OdysseusUnbound, that's a scary looking turkey on the new 101 label.

Old Grand Dad 114 - Freshly cracked bottle.

I opened it to pour off a sample and since I managed to order a Lot 40 CS this week I thought it would be fitting to celebrate with an excellent, high proof, hard to find whisky.

Poured off another sample and...... oops, about 10-15 cc of Stagg Jr. 64.75% "spilled" into my Kentucky Bourbon Glass.

Reading this thread makes me thirsty . . .

I generally have a few malts and a bourbon or two on the go. At the moment that consists of:

Arran 14 Aberlour 12 Glenfarclas 101 Kilkerran 12 Ledaig 6

Wild Turkey 101, Eagle Rare 10 and Buffalo Trace @40%

I'm having to ration the Arran in particular as it so easy drinking but feeling the more peaty ones as the cold weather starts to bite! Just opened the 101 and love the ER - will do a few bourbon reviews soon.

@Nozinan - The Stagg Jr is very much on my wish list . . . seems to get very good reviews

@RianC I highly recommended. Last night I chose to use a few CC of water to a 15 cc pour and it was quite phenomenal.

Chieftain's Glenburgie 13 yo, sherried. I am loving the nose on this one tonight. This was a great bottle when freshly opened, but after having taken a lot of air, it became very clear on the palate and to a lesser extent on the nose, that the sherry casks used here were not clean. Most of you would love the palate now. I have to wince when I drink it though, because of the sulphur present.

Followed by Auchentoshan Three Wood, same comments as above, but the sulphur influence is stronger than had been present in the sample of Glenburgie 13.

@Victor, is that Chieftain's Glenburgie 13 the same you reviewed here?

connosr.com/ian-macleod-chieftains-glenbur…

@MadSingleMalt, yes, it is. I still have about half the bottle.

@Victor, thanks! I wasn't sure because you call it "sherried" here, but the finish (at least) on it was a regular red wine cask. Do you know, was it in a sherry cask before it was finished in that red wine cask?

I'm so interested because I have a bottle of that myself, but I can't easily check the label again because I have it packed up for a move.

I don't plan to open mine for a very long time, but I think about it every so often. I bought it during a brief period when I was buying a number of vintage-dates bottles from the 1990s, with the notion that they'd be really cool to open with my grown-up children one day (born 2011 and 2013). Won't bottles like that just seem so old and cool??? I'd think so if my dad ever busted out some stuff from the 1950s—which ain't gonna happen.

Anyway, I always had the impression that would be an easy-to-appreciate dram, even for people who are very much not guaranteed to like whisky 20 years from now. It sounds like it'll live up to that expectation when I first open it, but maybe not so much down the road. Works for me! I always imagine it making the rounds after Thanksgiving dinner one day many years from now.

Cheers for all your valuable input over the yeasrs on so many oddball whiskies!

@MadSingleMalt, no, I stand corrected. Not sherry here. The Chateau Palmer Bordeaux Cask maturation noted in the review is accurate. I just hadn't bothered to go check it again before posting. I do not know the casks' history prior to the Chateau Palmer Bordeaux usage.

The nose is still very nice, five years with the bottle open. If you don't notice sulphur, it will taste like a very nice refined wine palate, too. If you are sulphur sensitive, then drink it in the first 6-9 months open.

Additional comment, the Chieftains's rep gave this as the highest of his recommendations the night I tasted with him, despite it not being one of the whiskies on the menu, but merely for sale in that liquor store. It was a very big favourite of his, and I think he said that he picked out the Casks for it himself. Ed Klein was his name? Maybe. I think so. Older gentleman, probably retired now, or in his 70s. He was shocked that a bottle of it remained unsold a few months after it had come out...so good he found it.

Good luck with your bottle, and thank you very much for your kind words!

@Victor, good stuff there with your additional comment! When was that?

I got mine on clearance from a Chicagoland Binny's in 2015. (They were wiping out tons of oddball IBs, and it was marked down to $50 from $85.)

@MadSingleMalt, I was hoping that you'd see my edited expanded comments. I love the immediate-edit feature.

I am sure that I reviewed the bottle within a couple of weeks after having purchased it....so I bought it in October or early November of 2012.

Finishing my last chart and to help me, finishing the last 15 cc of Old Scout that I had put away after doing my review. Using a round water glass with a slightly tapered opening, because I'm upstairs and all my whisky glasses are 2 flights down an this is what I have on hand...

I had a dram of Lagavulin DE after dinner and I’m following it up with some Ardbeg 10. It’s amazing how light, bright and malty the Ardbeg is by comparison.

Enjoying a dram of my rapidly disappearing Glenfarclas 15 tonight. Lovely stuff. I'm glad I have another one in the bunker.

@OdysseusUnbound , would "heavy" be a good summary of the Lag DE, then?

@MadSingleMalt Deeper and richer for sure. And the peat character of each is quite different. The Lagavulin is far more vegetal, earthy peatsmoke while the Ardbeg is a campfire type smoke with a bright citrus note underneath....

@OdysseusUnbound I often find that certain whiskies that I am quite familiar with take on a different 'apparent' profile when sampled after something else - especially when peat is involved. It makes for some interesting experiments.

Enjoying a decent sized dram of Benromach 10 on a Friday night - this is a quality whisky for the price.

@Hewie - It really is. One of my faves. Will hopefully be getting the 15 at xmas; which i've tried and it was awesome!

Highland Park valkyrie. Not your usual HP to say the least!!

Sitting down with a generous pour of delicious Henry McKenna, a 10 YO, Single Barrel, BiB bourbon that as far as I'm concerned is one of the best bargains in whisky. I paid $27.99 for this bottle at Total Wine in Boston.

I'll be sipping it while watching Ghost in the Shell. The live action remake, not the animated original. I've heard bad things about this one, but I'm a sucker for sci-fi, so I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. Maybe Mr. McKenna will help smooth over any plot holes.

Tonight is bourbon and rye night. Started with JEF Larceny, had Weller OWA 107, and thinking about Lot 40 next.... maybe the CS!

Glenlivet 12 yo, Glenlivet Founders Reserve, Chivas Regal 12 yo, Chivas Extra, at a free commercial tasting.

Well, being in this company makes Glenlivet 12 yo look pretty good. It is clean, at least, which is more than I can say for the others. That Founders Reserve goes to a pretty unpleasant place into the finish...I see why it is not popular. The Chivas 12 was better than some I've had, hovering around tolerable, but nothing to sign up for. The Chivas Extra had some bitter wine cask effect which took it down somewhat.

Now that I'm back home I will have glass of Aberlour A'bunadh Batch # 45. Something more predictably good.

Having a pour of Old Pulteney 12 yr. I am down to the last 1/4 of the bottle and I must say I have enjoyed the last 1/2 of the bottle more than when I first opened. This one always reminds me of the sea!

Macallan 12yo with a 20oz Delmonico steak. Bartender was a classy gent. Gave me a very generous pour.

I had two tonight that I realized I don't particularly care for: Oban 14 which I find too sweet, and Jura Superstition which I find thin and characterless. I got the Jura in a trade for the remains of my Glen Grant Majors Reserve. Beyond being cheap that one has very little going for it.