Whisky Ramblings on YouTube

Excellent whisky reviews, keep up the great work @markjedi1

@maltmileage Thanks for the kind words. The last video in this little series of 5 will be posted tonight. The next one will then be up for St Patrikcs Day.

In the fifth and final video in which I explore independent bottlings of Auchentoshan, I try the Auchentoshan that has been rumoured to be one of the best ever bottled. It is the infamous Auchentoshan 33 Year Old 1967 from Douglas Laing in their Old Malt Cask Series. I have saved the best for last. The video can be found here: youtu.be/C2QN4n6HB3Y.

This rambling of the 33yo Toshan is amazing! Hope you find some bottles for a reasonable price.

While watching I really could imagine how you and your wife wanna go to the dinner and you say "hey just a couple minutes, I need to taste a dram first" :D

@Wills Well, it was something like that. I taped the video while the wife was in the shower. By the time she came back downstairs, I was done. She asked me if something had happened in the meantime. 'Why?', I say. 'You have a big smile on your face and a mischievous glint in your eyes. What did you do?', she asks. 'Ah, I just had the best Auchentoshan I have tasted in a very long time!'

Saint Patrick’s Day is upon us, so our next video features an Irish whiskey, Tullamore Dew. Shot in Austria among the beautiful mountains during a ski-holiday, we try this ultra smooth and easy drinking blend, so enjoy the view as well as the tipple. Check it out! The video can be found here: youtu.be/hauuPXsxnhM.

What better to sip than an Irish whiskey on Saint Patrick’s Day? In this 40th Whisky Rambling, I try the popular and rather outstanding blended Bushmills Black Bush. Enjoy! The video can be found here: youtu.be/p3VDH9kAKKo. Enjoy!

The Pittyviach distillery opened in 1975 and closed already in 1993. So there is not a lot of single malt to be had. I tried the Pittyvaich 12 Year Old from the Fauna & Flora series in this video. Enjoy! The video can be found here: youtu.be/OkZOHkWmUx0.

That Boutique-y Whisky Company releases NAS-bottlings that focus on the distillery character. They have almost 30 expressions at this time, all of them labelled with in comic-book style. In my 42nd video, I try the Auchentoshan Batch 2, of which I was able to secure bottle number 1/295. Enjoy! The video can be found here: youtu.be/ctFxaeray14.

@markjedi1 - I really enjoyed your latest. I still can't justify the cost of importing one of the Boutique-y expressions, but you make it very tempting. If they came in larger bottles for the same price, it'd be even more tempting!

One of the more deplored lost distilleries is undoubtedly Rosebank. This distillery in Falkirk, which closed in 1993, is often referred to as the Queen of the Lowlands. And with good reason. Their triple distilled malt is loved by many, although there are only a few official releases. We are trying one of those, the still easily obtainable Rosebank 12 Year Old in the so-called Flora & Fauna series. The video can be found here: youtu.be/XhYOZLAg_lw.

Auchentoshan has bottled quite a few single casks back in the day, including two casks numbered #803. Both matured for 31 long years. One is a 1966 bourbon hogshead, the other a 1973 Sherry Butt. Let me put those head-to-head for you. Enjoy! The video can be found here: youtu.be/p-6XGDXn034.

The newest single cask from Auchentoshan is bourbon barrel #5613, distilled in 1974 and bottled after 37 years. Only 110 bottles are available. Expensive, yes, but what a Toshan indeed! The video can be found here: youtu.be/MqwPutn0HXA. It is my 100th Auchentoshan tasted, by the way!

Dalmore is a big name in whisky. But they also get some flak for their – often perceived as unreasonable – premiumisation of the brand. Maybe that criticism is not completely unwarranted. But that says little about the quality of their whisky, which is good. Nevertheless, I decided to try a 21 Year Old independent bottling by The Ultimate. The video can be found here: youtu.be/jgC1LZirbhI.

Malts of Scotland is a renowned German bottler, who won some prestigious prizes in the past. So imagine how happy I was when they released to well-aged single casks from my favourite distillery. I immediately put them head-to-head: the Auchentoshan 21 Year Old 1991 versus the Auchentoshan 28 Year Old 1984. Get ready for a treat! The video can be found here: youtu.be/iaVyluRGQ2k.

I visited the Belgian Whisky Festival for Independent Bottlers, which offers hundreds of bottles only from, err... independent bottlers. Quite an experience, for the Indies do try to get their hands on magnificent casks that might otherwise never get bottled in their own right. The video can be found here: youtu.be/n4HawDDwp6U.

This Glenglassaugh Evolution is the follow up release after the Revival, but also the last release under the stewardship of the Scaent Group. After all, Billy Walker and his team – who already own BenRiach and GlenDronach – recently acquired the distillery. The Evolution is a young beast, but what a lovely whisky indeed! The video can be found here: youtu.be/qBTf6Fb5JVQ.

Great stuff! Had something to fetch after, but hey, this paid off once again. Always something to learn in your videos, like That Boutique-y, MoS, the Belgian events (wow your small country seem to have really lots of whisky friends, see all the independent bottlers for example...) and not to forget Glenglassaugh. Had no idea of this distillery and wow they just reopened 2008... next distillery in my visor, hope to hear from them soon.

Keep it up Mark :)

Here is Rambling 50 already! I joined twenty other whisky aficionados to select a cask to be bottled for local retailer The Bonding Dram’s 6th Anniversary. We selected it blind and it turned out to be a single cask of Dalmore. What an amazing and fulfilling dram it turned out to be! You can find the video here: youtu.be/S20KonDd-qk.

A bit off topic: Is it just me, or are these "Bottled for shop ..." getting more common? And what's the intention behind this?

So you made a blind tasting, the IB Asta Morris wins with a cask from Dalmore and The Bonding Dram created the bottle design and is exclusively selling it?

Btw. Whiskysamples.eu sells the sample for 1 euro :D Just discovered those 2 shops (or is it one shop with 2 internet presences?) these days. They offer lots of IB, very interesting stuff.

During the recent Ardbeg Day,the newest offering from the Islay distillery was released: Ardbog! This is a peaty Ileach that matured for 10 years in American White Oak and Manzanilla sherry casks. And to be honest... I loved it! Check out the video here: youtu.be/6ON0jysIoRc.

@Wills Your assessement sums it up perfectly.

Gold Cock? What’s in a name, eh? Allow me to put two expressions of this Czech whisky head to head: the Red Feathers 3 Year Old blended and the Green Feathers 12 Year Old Single Malt. The video can be found here: youtu.be/y3luqcoxhcY.

The 1792 Ridgemont Reserve is the official toasting bourbon at the yearly Kentucky Bourbon Festival. While I cannot make it to the US, I nevertheless gladly raise this glass of Kentucky Straight Bourbon from the Sazerac group on this festive day: 4th of July. Happy Independence Day, my American friends! The video can be found here: youtu.be/K4s0PzqaqwU.

If the Angel’s Share is what is lost to evaporation during maturation, what remains in the cask must be the Devil’s Cut, according to Jim Beam. Let us see if this bourbon is worth your while, eh? The video can be found here: youtu.be/eyQrJCNpTsQ.

There are already quite a few batches of this magnificent Aberlour a’bunadh (which means ‘from the source’). My favourite batch is number 24, which was released in 2008. The video can be found here: youtu.be/NtFQLRWQiDM.

Glad you were able to fix the sound, a complete video without fitting sound wouldn't be so easy to enjoy. A'bunadh is matured completely in first fill sherry casks? And sherry casks solely?

Btw. the french are really crazy whith their whisky consumption, they even drink more in absolute amount than the populations from USA and Indea put together (third of all pple on the planet). And they only have a population of 65 millions. economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/…

Aberlour matured spirit for 16 years on bourbon casks on the one hand and 16 years on sherry casks on the other, before putting them together in a marrying tun for a couple of months to create this 16 Year Old Double Cask Matured. As it turns out, it is a lovely Speyside dram. The video can be found here: youtu.be/Pcjr2YD3uO8.

After restoring the Lars Homestead from Star Wars in Tunisia, we were invited to tell the fans all about it during a panel at the Star Wars Celebration, the biggest convention of is kind for fans of that galaxy far, far away. Little did my colleagues know that I would afterwards present them with a private bottling of Save Lars Whisky, a Bruichladdich 20 Year Old 1992, only 6 bottles strong (one for each crewmember). The Force is strong with this Laddie! The video can be found here: youtu.be/erGfbLrjbHE.

The Auchentoshan Silveroak is one the Lowland distillery’s duty free expressions. Bottled at a cask strength of 51,5% ABV, it is a 21 year old from 1990. I enjoy it at the poolside of my holiday home in France. The video can be found here: youtu.be/USZ5FYQahiA.