Which bottle did you just buy and why?

@bwmccoy thanks, good to know you rate it. Will crack it soon I think. Cheers.

@TracerBullet nice one. What persuaded you to get this one?

@Timp mainly because it was Bowmore and as most SMWS bottles are straight from a single cask, I figured this would be great for the group I mentioned in my last post. During our tour at Bowmore, we opened and sampled at least 8 casks in the No. 1 Vaults.

@Timp PC7 ! That's one I wish that I owned.

@Victor nice to hear you rate it. Cheers.

Just happened to be purusing and came across a blended malt by Whisky Sponge, aka Decadent Drinks.

17 years old and a mix of 2001 Edrington blend (with Macallan and Highland Park, supposedly, and some of it rumoured to be 70's stock) and a fresh sherry butt of 2006 Aultmore. All sourced from Signatory. £95, so not cheap, but made to taste like the old style, meaty sherry drams of yesteryear. Reviews were good so why not?

Looking forward to this one.

2 (fairly) pricey new additions.

A 2022 Bunnahabhain 12yo cask strength. I had a sample of this kindly supplied by @Timp which I really enjoyed so it's been on my wishlist to snaffle a bottle for a while.

The other bottle is from a new distillery 'Lagg'. Lagg has the same owners as Lochranza (Isle of Arran) distillery, in a similar situation to Springbank also owning Glengyle (Kilkerran). Lagg is on Arran and differs from Lochranza distillery in that it exclusively produces heavily peated whisky.

The whisky itself is 3 years old and quite pricey for what it is as it cost me the same as the Bunna 12 CS (£75). I did hesitate before pulling the trigger because of the price but in the end my eagerness to try whisky from a new distillery and the good things I'd heard about it persuaded me to grab the last bottle in the shop. It is #2 of 3 inaugural releases they brought out last year. #1 being 100% bourbon cask matured. #3 spending time in a wine cask and the this bottle #2 which spent 6 months in small Sherry casks. By all accounts #2 is the best of the inaugural releases.

The second photo is the back of the box and you can see all the information you get on the whisky. This is something that a lot of the newer distilleries like Ardnamurchan and Isle of Raasay do. They give you lots of information on the whisky. Often they have a QR code you can scan for more information. I have to say I like it. I think more distilleries should do it.

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I bought a bottle of Corsair Dark Rye at the Nashville airport. The overall selection wasn’t great, nor were the prices but Nashville had a few bumps in the road and our trip didn’t go exactly as planned. Still, it was fun. I had to choose between visiting a distillery or visiting the Gibson garage. I don’t regret my choice. I bought the Corsair on @Victor ’s enthusiastic recommendation of the distillery.

@OdysseusUnbound Life is about more than whisky...

I hope that the Corsair Dark Rye is not the same as the old Alberta Premium "Dark Horse" rye...

I look forward to your impressions of it.

@Nozinan ADL’s Dark Horse was one of the wildest “WTF” batch variations I’ve ever experienced. My first bottle was pretty good. I think I rated it around 83 or 84 on this site. The subsequent bottles I tasted from or owned were much much much worse.

@OdysseusUnbound, a focused retro peek at Corsair's product development history shows them to be in their own league with respect to whiski innovation: Buckwheat Whiskey, Quinoa Whiskey Russian Imperial Stout Whiskey, 12 grain bourbon, 9 grain bourbon, etc. etc. etc. I am very curious what is available to purchase at their Nashville distillery these days. Insane in the Grain 12 grain bourbon and Grainiac 9 grain bourbon were never generally available, even in the USA. I was very blessed to get to taste from about 6 of Corsair's original creations due to the great generosity of my whiski-buddy sister. Buck Yeah!, Quinoa Whiskey (I reviewed it), Rasputin, and some less exotic titles were all sampled repeatedly by me courtesy of my big sis. Am I a fan of Corsair's creativity in general? About like you are a fan of Wild Turkey.

To be sure, these fascinating Corsair products all have individual evolutionary lifespans of their own the dimensions and intricacies of which one learns with time and repeated experience. Buck Yeah! for example didn't impress me much until it took a good bit of air, ...but then!!!!!

Attended a Compass Box tasting this past Wednesday with my wife and friend. Technically I didn’t buy anything, my wife did. The Peat Monster is cask strength coming in at 56.7%.

@TracerBullet - I don’t think your wife will be disappointed with the cask strength Peat Monster. I was able to try it at an event a couple of months ago. I’ve never been a fan of the standard release peat monster, but I really liked the cask strength version!

@bwmccoy Absolutely agree on The Peat Monster. During the tasting we tried the standard and then the cask strength. I think all in attendance picked the cask strength over the standard. Not overly peaty IMO but a nice amount of smoke.

@OdysseusUnbound - Gibsons and rye ... Nice!

Picked up a Talisker 10 earlier as I 'happened to be passing' a Waitrose. £32! Ney bad! Not a fan of the new packaging though.

I also picked up a random IB Mortlach 9 from Simply Whisky. A small set up but, if you ever buy (or can!), go direct to their website. Saved about £15! 9 yrs in a refill sherry butt. Sounds perfect and with lots of meaty notes, apparently and bottled at a healthy 48.8%. Mmmm ...

@OdysseusUnbound Hard to beat playing a Les Paul in Nashville.

@RianC I used to like the Talisker 18 before they massively increased the price. The 10 has been a bit hit and miss for me. But at that price I think I'll pick up a bottle before the offer runs out.

I just bought this bottle of Berry Bros. & Rudd “Williamson” (aka Laphroaig) Single Cask 9 or 10 year old Cask Strength from the Oban Whisky & Fine Wine Shop. It ticked a bunch of boxes for me.

• Independent Bottling: check
• Laphroaig: check
• Cask Strength: check (I mean, it doesn’t actually say cask strength but at over 57% abv I’m not complaining)
• Not too expensive: well, three out of four ain’t bad.

The fellow at the shop let me sample it and my wife knew I was sold right away. The marriage of Laphroaig and a first fill Oloroso Sherry butt is perfect.

@OdysseusUnbound Sounds like your marriage is perfect, too. I hope Mrs. OdysseusUnbound is getting something nice for herself over there.

@BlueNote She gets to spend time with me. What else could a woman want?

We flew back home today and I couldn’t resist visiting the travel retail shop in the Glasgow airport. I was surprised by the very respectable selection and decent prices. My wife has been very understanding throughout this whole trip so when she asked that I limit myself to just one bottle from duty free, I couldn’t really argue. I picked up a 1L bottle of Laphroaig PX Cask. I realize that this is not the most popular Laphroaig out there but for just over $100 CAD, a Litre of Laphroaig bottled at 48% seems like a no brainer, though Ardbeg Corryvreckan for around $90 CAD was also quite tempting. So were some exclusive Kilchomans…and, and, and

@OdysseusUnbound To quote my wife in the Gatwick duty free last year: "lines have to be drawn."

@OdysseusUnbound I think I would have gone for Corry at such a relatively low price. But I think you will be happiest with the Laphy.

I too recently flew home (from Athens) and there were some interesting NAS Taliskers on offer but I satisfied myself with a few miniatures of Metaxa 12 star after tasting it.

It brought my Italy/Greece haul to 750 cc. We were not checking luggage at all so there were no possibilities to by large bottles during the trip.

I ended up with:

• 100 cc of limoncello from Sorrento (where it apparently originated)
• 100 cc each of melloncello and limoncello cream liqueur
• 3 x 100 cc of Kytron (apparently from the oldest distillery on Naxos), green, orange and clear.
• 3 x 50 cc of Metaxa

@Nozinan I considered both Ardbegs but I have one or two unopened bottles of each and given my weakness for Laphroaig, the choice was obvious.

You were allowed to bring alcohol with you in a carry on? I thought only duty-free purchases were permitted in carry on luggage, but I’m no expert.

@OdysseusUnbound You can bring any liquid (less than 70% ABV) as long as each individual container is 100 cc or smaller. But you are not permitted to DRINK any of it on the flight.

I should have bought more DF stuff. Our customs agent waved us through even though my sister in law declared a $4200 purse she bought in Athens... (And she got the VAT refunded too!)

@Nozinan - I hope a purse that costs $4200 is full of Brora, Port Ellen and Rosebank.

@bwmccoy I wish...

@Nozinan Making my own limoncello...