What was the last bottle you finished?

Finished this very pleasant Balblair ‘91 Third Release 46% abv., natural colour, non-chill filtered. Surprisingly bright for a 26/27 YO single malt. This is the second bottle I’ve drained… one or two resting in the bunker

@paddockjudge this is a thread I would LOVE to be posting on more often. To make way for new bottles in my bursting cabinet.

@Nozinan, I think a yard sale would create some space in your cabinet. You could do it in the afternoon preceding our next tasting.

Focusing on low-fill bottles in my cabinet and emptying them to create space for a couple of new acquisitions.

This 18 YO blended malt is a favourite of my son. He was weaned on Macallan 12 YO sherry cask (old brown box, not the new blue box sulfur-bombs), his favourite distillery release. Glen Grant bourbon casks are in his wheel house too. This blended malt leans heavily towards the sherry cask style, at a cask strength of 46.4% abv. and weighty mouth feel, it is an easy sipper. No sulfur, but as good dose of minerality on top of apricot marmalade. Nicely balanced with moderate complexity. A hint of honey in the entry and slight oak bitterness on the exit. Short to medium clean finish. One in the bunker and one at the young lad’s house….. should have bought a case of this one, not at all hard to drink.

A tip of the hat to Igor at Heads&Tails, Canada for importing this gem under the label of The Whisky Agency.

In my seemingly never ending quest to finish off less than half full bottles, today saw the departure of Douglas Laing’s Rock Oyster.

This was a bottle I picked up in Chicago in 2017 when my 18 month old niece got to experience her first baseball game, at Wrigley Field no less (well, at least two innings, before the crowd noise got to be too much for her young ears). The trip was fantastic for that experience (the Cubs won too!) in part because the Cubs surprised her with a fantastic gift bag to celebrate her first ball game. While she wasn’t able to make it through the game, her dad (my brother), uncle (myself), and grandpa (my dad) were able to take a picture in the Cubs on-deck batters circle after the game…too cool for this life-long Cubs/baseball fan.

I enjoyed the whisky itself as a good summer sipper as it is lighter in style overall (some peat, no smoke…brine and citrus with other light fruit elements). Another open Laing bottling in my cabinet, the Timorous Beastie, will likely replace the Rock Oyster as go-to in the ‘summer sipping Scotch’ category.

@Pudge72 I am envious. I was hoping to finish off a few bottles this year and work towards making room for some new openings, but COVID has all but shut down my ability to appreciate whisky. I will try again this weekend.

@Nozinan my best wishes to you for a full recovery, so that you may be able to dive back in to your extensive cabinet. Do post the pour that confirms said recovery. All the best to you!

Tamdhu 15, good to the end.

@fiddich1980 I appreciate the sample of this expression that you gave me. I quite enjoyed it myself, in the days when I could taste whisky...

Gone, but not forgotten.

The first family vacation with my fiancée, her son, her (grand)daughter saw the unexpected finish to my bottle of Powers John’s Lane 12 yo this week.

I brought it on the trip in anticipation of winding down each evening with a small pour for myself as no one else on the trip is a whiskey enthusiast. My future son-in-law, who has been willing to dip their toes into the whiskey sipping waters from time to time, took on my invitation for a pour one night and an impromptu introduction to sipping whiskey resulted.

We had a great conversation, both about whiskey and life in general, and they did a great job in picking out the primary notes of whipped/creamed honey (ie missing the excessively sweet notes specific to liquid honey), dark chocolate and fruit notes that I have loved from this bottle. The honey notes in particular developed more fully over the almost three years that the bottle was open.

I picked up the bottle in Michigan, prior to going to a concert, as it simply has never been available in Ontario (to my knowledge at least, only the Gold Label has been here before)). I would happily pick this bottle up again if the LCBO had a clue (Ed. Note - lol) and added it to shelves here.

@Pudge72 when I first tasted my sister's bottle of Powers John's Lane 12 yo I was quite disappointed in it. Jim Murray had raved about it, rated it around 95 points, and named it Irish Whiskey of the Year, so I was expecting greatness. But...wait for it...Yes, as time passed and air altered the contents of my sister's bottle of Powers John's Lane 12 yo the contents of that bottle became truly great and a highlight with which I looked forward to reacquainting myself when I visited her house. I've had my own unopened bottle of Powers John's Lane 12 yo for about 10 years now and one day look forward to enjoying it greatly. I just hope I won't have to give it two years of air time to get the full effect when that happy day of opening arrives. Whiski flavours from a given bottle are like evolving videos of motion and change, not still photographs, even though at any one tasting the still photograph is all that we will experience. .

@Victor that absolutely correlates with my experience with the bottle. I loved the sample I originally tried (compliments of your sister’s bottle, iirc, thank you!), and had it on my short list of bottles to hunt for several years before getting it in 2019.

On initial opening, I too was a bit underwhelmed, and I noticed some, but not much positive development of flavours on subsequent samplings in the 6-18 months open range. It had gotten so the bottle was enjoyable, but not awesome. I think it had been close to a year until I opened it again this week, with the bottle sitting gassed, about 35% full. It finally reached its potential.

I would crack open that bottle now, and give it a try again at Christmas time, with the expectation/hope that late 2023/early 2024 would be the sweet spot.

This bottle is finally done. I opened it with my late brother in law, @nosebleed, on Hallowe’en in 2018. It has been a popular part of my cabinet.

Last fall I gave away the heel to a friend after a tasting, because he didn’t have his own bottle and I wanted him to try it and write tasting notes on a clean palate.

Early this year he gave up drinking alcohol. In an effort to help him I took some open bottles off his hands. He hadn’t had a chance to get to it. It’s been sitting in a big shopping bag with some of the other bottles for half a year.

Tonight, with a chance to sit and watch the Jays play (and win), I decided to pour it out - into a glass. It’s doesn’t quite have the fitness it did in 2018, but it was still a good pour from start to finish.

Poor fella didn’t stand a chance…….it was that good!

1996 Archives Burnside 25 YO ncf, non-coloured, matured in a Hogshead, bottled at 54.7% abv.

@paddockjudge Looks like it had siblings...

@Nozinan, a squadron of cask strength dragonflies.

@paddockjudge No mosquitos (or any other WW2 craft) in THAT cabinet....

Far too many near empty bottles await their turn but was able to polish off a Redbreast 12yo (opened in 2015) and Four Roses Small Batch (opened a most recent 2021).

Rating 84 Nose is better than the palate.

@paddockjudge Like the old saying [kill 1 mosquito and 10 more show up for the funera]

Old Weller Antique 107. What a fabulous bottle this one has been! This is the only bottle of OWA107 from which I have ever tasted. I bought this bottle in about 2009, and nursed it until now August 2022. This one has the then old label, and was probably bottled in 2008 or before: It retains the 7 year age statement which disappeared with the succeeding label design.

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I had this bottle so long because I didn't want it to ever end. At first the flavours from this bottle were so intense for me that I had trouble adjusting to them and thought I didn't like this whiskey. Then I realized that this bottle was mind-bogglingly delicious and this whiskey became a great favourite of mine. I do have 2 other unopened bottles of OWA107, one each with the two successive bottle labels to follow the one above. This may have been the bottle I have had open the longest in my collection. Good-bye old delicious friend! I will miss you!

Dry Fly Straight Triticale Whiskey, 44% ABV, Distillery Bottling. Thank you @bwmccoy for giving me this 375 ml bottle in September of 2018. This is quite a tasty and interesting whiskey, though its full charm did not become apparent to me until the bottle had been open a few months. The grain flavour is distinct, a hybrid of wheat and rye, but, not surprisingly the rye type of flavour is much the dominant force here. I find the study of different grain flavours in whiski to be quite an enjoyable pastime. .

Masterson's 10 year Rye PSA3. Sometimes bottles just get pushed to the back of the cabinet The last pour seemed a little flat since it has been monthes since I last tried it. Still was very good and very sweet. Have a backup bottle of this long forgotten Masterson's finished Rye.

Last night was my father's birthday. He would have been 88. I've taken to pouring him a dram of Canadian Club Premium on ice in a tumbler, the way he used to drink it when I was a young boy.

I opened the second 200 cc bottle 5 years ago and poured the last few CCs last night, and left it next to his photo. I took my customary sip a few minutes later.The plastic bottle will be recycled. Given the rate at which I "burn" through this expression, I will probably pick up another bottle of the same size.

@Victor I can only dream about tasting older versions of OWA 107. As you may know, I stocked up on the screw cap OWA 107 (sans age statement) before they just about doubled the price (and added a cork stopper) a few years back. Of the 6 bottles I purchased, 5 remain in my cabinet. It's one of those whiskis that doesn't last once it's opened. Must be evaporation or a faulty bottle design...

In my opinion, one of the better Johnnie Walkers

It's been open since Dec 2019...

@fiddich1980 Agreed. In fact, IMHO, one of the best blends around theses days. I'm on my third bottle.

@BlueNote Welcome back! How was the trip across the pond?