Which bottle did you just buy and why?

@Victor

I hope your sister gets the bottles faster than I get mine... Mine are scheduled to arrive in Florida tomorrow. Then they need to get in line to be brought north, competing with 2 bottles of Bookers and 3 bottles of Bladnoch. I may ask my friend to bring one of these next, seeing as one of my three from the order are slated for my far north Connosr friend and I want to have it on hand when I see him next.

Benromach Peased: It is genuinely independent, un-coloured, non chill-filtered and acceptable ABV.

whisky-emporium.com/UK/Features/…

@A'bunadhman: Another typo....Peased read Peated; can't blame the key-pad either!

Because this is the main thread in which I've discussed my ill-conceived purchase of Leviathan III, i want to note that after finding it nasty despite all all my usual tricks--neat, ice, decanted, blended--I decided to write K&L about it and they promptly issued a gift card refund. Nice service!

So now I have $55 to spend at K&L. Luckily enough, they just announced a bunch of cask strength, single cask, scotch IBs that give me a few desirable options. And I have one last drop of my Christmas whisky money still burning a hole. Combined, I do believe I'll soon be ordering a Caol Ila iB and a Longrow Peated NAS. First, though, I'm gonna see what's on the shelf in my brother-in-law's town (Iowa City) when I go see him next weekend. I'm about 8% afraid the K&L Caol Ila will be sold out by then, but if it is I'll just order the Ledaig instead.

Other bottles I'm considering: "Lost Distilleries" Gerston and Springbank 10. I'm entertaining nominations and votes if anyone cares to throw in their tuppence.

Caol Ila 15 Year Old.

An unusually unpeated Islay malt distilled in 1998 and bottled at cask strength for the Diageo Special Release program.

Unpeated Islays are hard to come by.

@OlJas, are you referring to the Hepburns Choice Caol Ila? I've had my eye on that one, but the fact it is only 5 years old has given me pause. The official 12 yo bottling is only a few dollars more, although at a far lower ABV.

@broadwayblue , yep, that's the one. I'll take peaty ABV over age, typically. In this case, it's just that we KNOW it's five years old. When you buy a NAS, you just HOPE that it's more. It's probably not.

I had a six-year-old CS Caol Ila IB about a year ago, and it was awesome. On Islay, I'm not afraid of relative youth.

@OlJas, Good to know you had a great young Caol Ila recently. I may still go in for the 5 yo. It's just last year K&L sold a 5 (i think) yo Talisker that wasn't so well received. One of my favorite bottles is a 10 yo Cask Strength Caol Ila by G&M, but that one went for nearly twice the price. I'd love to see a review or two (outside of K&L salespeople) before pulling the trigger.

@mscottydunc

I tried Octomore 6.1 at spirit of Toronto. It was VERY good. But you can get a comparable peat and flavour blast from other drams like Caol Ila CS.

A gifted couple of bottles of the Laphroaig An Cuan Mor by my mate who was travelling overseas.

A little something for minding his dog while he was away.

A bottle of Compass Box Spice Tree, on offer at M&S.

A bottle of the "I was there!" valinch from Bruichladdich at an auction. Cask 5079. Should be a treat in 5 years time!

@Anxyous why 5 years?

@Nozinan Could be 10 or even 20. Not saving it for anything particular, but it'll be opened at a special occasion for sure. Sadly, these bottles aren't coming back...

A couple of bottles of Jefferson's Reserve Very Old Straight Bourbon Whiskey and a bottle of Zuidam Millstone 100 Rye.

Expanding my palate a bit.

@sengjc, I'm curious to know which batch(es) your bottles of Jefferson's Very Old are from.

@broadwayblue , reviews of those K&L Hepburn bottles are coming out now.

Sku: recenteats.blogspot.de/2015/03/…

And he linked to The Whiskey Jug: thewhiskeyjug.com/whisky/…

And after reading both those reviews, I'm all but sold on that 5 YO CS Caol Ila for $50. I'm waiting to hear whether a whisky buddy wants to go on the order with me to share shipping costs, but for my part I fully intend to order that Caol Ila and the Longrow Peated OB NAS. And I might take a spin on that K&L Faultline 50% blend for $25. Fun stuff.

Bunnahabhain 12 Benriach 10 Curiositas Laphroaig 10 Cask Strength Ardbeg 10

The first two because I want to try them and the second two because I needed to replenish.

2 different batches of Four Roses Single Barrel and Auchentoshan Three Wood. I have heard great things about the three wood and happened to see a bottle on the shelf today. Bought the Four Roses because I really liked the small batch, and at $45 the single barrel was well priced.

@paddockjudge

It says batch no. 177 on the small label at the neck for both bottles with 2400 bottles in total for this batch.

More duty free stuff, some are duty free exclusives, courtesy of mates travelling overseas: a couple of bottles of the Glenmorangie Dornoch, Mortlach Special Strength and Booker's Single Barrel Bourbon.

These are yet to be collected.

Currently trying to work a lead for some Ardbeg Supernova 2014's.

@sengjc , I have emptied two bottles from Batch 199 (90.2 pf), also 2400 bottles in this release. They were clones. Rich with intense flavours of vanilla, toffee, caramel, and whisps of buttery goodness. Very nice for a very old and very small batch straight bourbon. I would be remiss if I didn't thank @Nozinan for hunting down two bottles for me. They are both tucked away until another batch comes this way; then a comparison will definitely be in order.

I hope your Batch 177 Jefferson's Reserve Very Old Straight Whiskey Very Small Batch brings you as much enjoyment as has my batch 199 has brought to me.

So I did indeed order the stuff I mentioned earlier in this thread. Now I'll do a proper "which bottle did I just buy and why"? roundup.

Caol Ila 5 YO CS IB "Hepburn's Choice"

I bought this because it should be good value at $50 for peaty CS Islay goodness. I've had young CS IB Caol Ila before with good results, so I'm not worried about its youth—plus, reviewers linked above are vouching for it. Caol Ila is the one distillery for which I look almost exclusively for IBs due to the meekness of the standard 12 and the cost of more expensive OBs. (If I drank Mortlach, it would also be in this category, for different reasons.) Finally, despite my tastes revolving around Islay (and Campbeltown), I haven't had a Caol Ila in the house for about a year. I'm about to combine some other Islay heels to start my all-Islay solera bottle and I don't want Caol Ila left out!

Faultline Blended Scotch NAS 50% ABV

This just looks like great value. I haven't had a blended scotch for many moons—the last, I think, was a flask-sized JW Black picked up while traveling in 2012—so it's about time. I need something like this to dump into a home blend that I hope will offset the Leviathan III that I've slagged on the last few pages of this discussion. Finally, I'll state the obvious: The 50% ABV is the deal-maker. I'd not have considered this at 40% or 43%. (I really think non-CS whisky should be labeled "water added," like cheap deli ham!)

Longrow "Peated"

I bought this because the reviews are good, because some of the reviews liken it to a smoky rainy day which sounds awesome, because it's not on my local shelves anymore, because I love Springbank, and because I love peat. But the main reason I bought this—or, the main reason I chose this bottle over others on my list—is that I have an unopened Longrow CV in my stash that I'll probably open next fall, and when I do I want its replacement open side-by-side so I can compare them and measure my mourning for the passing of the CV.

I hope I'm not the only one who finds it interested to hear what people DIDN'T buy. Here's what I forewent to choose the three bottles described above:

•Glendronach 15 Revival. This was a cost decision. Including this would have bumped TWO bottles from my order. It sounds awesome, though.

•Springbank 10. I can get this locally for not much more than the K&L price.

•Gerston "Lost Distilleries" NAS. Sounds pretty good but it's more expensive than non-gimmick bottles that are surely as good and probably better.

•Ardbeg Corryvrackan. I've had one bottle of this before and it's awesome—and K&L's price is good—but I still have a huge sample bottle saved off. A day will come when I will rebuy Corry, but it is not this day.

•Kilkerran WIP 6 bourbon barrel. I'm a fan of Kilkerran but at this point I think I'll just wait for the debut of the standard 12 YO that will presumably come out next year. As I mentioned with the Longrows, I really like to get my hands on a couple similar bottles to see how they compare, and I think the eventual 12 YO will be the one most worthy of comparison with the WIP #1 that I already have in my stash. (Plus, $65?! That is reasonable for what you get, but it chafes after paying much less for for the #1 a few weeks ago and knowing where the #2 is available for just $40, if only I could get to the store.)

•Bunnahabhain 1997 16 YO CS peated IB. Cost again. I'm kinda sad about passing this one up because now that we're more than 15 years past the 1900s, vintage-labeled bottles that feature a 19 instead of a 20 will probably start sliding into more expensive, higher-end territory. I have two such bottles in the stash (a peated Benriach and a Glen Scotia), at least one of which I intend to save until my kids (currently 4 and 1) are old enough to share them with me. I can only imagine that in, say, the year 2035 a bottle from the 1900s will seem old as hell and pretty cool. I mean to set aside a few more for that reason, but the Bunnahabhain just didn't fit into my plans today. I wish it had been a dusty ~10YO and cheaper.

On that last point, I think I just realized what I'm going to start hinting at for Father's Day: 1900s whisky! That's part of what I like about chatting about whisky online: it just gets the ideas flowing.

Bought a bottle of Old Pultney 12 in Sweden last weekend. It was £19 cheaper than in Norway, so a no-brainer for me. £28 is a lot better than £47.

Today I walked into a random liquor store nearby and came across a couple bottles of Longrow CV. I wasn't intending on buying anything but I just HAD to buy one of them. If I highly enjoy it, I'll be back to grab the other.

Picked up another Aberlour A'bunadh #49...My mother introduced me to single malt scotch years ago so I felt a nice sherry-rich dram would make a nice gift for her B-Day.

@KRB80 my experience with Longrow CV is that when you first open it it can be quite offensive (burning tires, and mildew funk). After a few months of air it becomes a really (to me) enjoyable funky peat monster. It is a bottle that takes air very well. I would personally buy all that they had. But that is my taste and I like my whisky on the young and offensive side.

That said, I just picked up another bottle of Ardbeg 10yo. It is my second batch from 2014 and I hope it is better then the last.

Thanks Nock.

I'll probably pick up the other one blindly within the next few weeks. It has stayed there this long so I can;t see it moving within that time frame. Anyhow, they also had a few bottles of Bruichladdich Infinity 3.1 for $60 which has also been discontinued for some time now. Is it worth it to pick up a bottle?