Secret Spirits Advent Calendar - 5th Edition - The First Seven Days
/Secret Spirits asked me if I’d like to participate with their advent calendar this year. I don’t know why, but previous years I haven’t even shown an interest in advent whisky calendars, and this year I’m all about them.
With many whisky advent calendars, you’re not going to be drinking the distillery exclusive Ledaig or an Alberta Distillers Cask Strength. But you will be drinking a lot of cask strength whiskies. Many of them single barrels. Some of them, terrific for their flaws. Others terrific because they’re great barrels. And others yet, just a bit flawed. Barrels are like people. They come with a great variety. Blending barrels together (it happens with most single malt scotches), rounds out the edges and makes them a little less fun to drink (sometimes).
So anyway, the Secret Spirits Advent Calendar! I have a fifth edition. It’s been a terrific experience. If you have the opportunity, grab the latest advent calendar and follow along with a great many other whisky critics as we take these for a sip.
My first seven, plus notes from Jonathan that has the history for each of these whiskies plus some great tasting notes.
Day 1: MacDuff Aged 14 Years Distilled 2003 57% ABV
Single Cask Nation kicks off the advent calendar. In Jonathan’s words:
Single Cask Nation is a small independent bottler based in the US. Joshua Hatton and Jason Johnstone-Yellin have made it their ongoing passion to select extremely good casks of whisky from all over the world. They always bottle at cask strength with no caramel coloring added or chill filtration. This is their first time in the covetted day 1 slot. We always like to start the adventure with something especially delicious and a touch unusual.
My notes:
Nose: Honey honey honey, and more lemon honey on the nose. But mostly honey. Pineapple comes through with a little time in the glass. It’s pineapple that’s been lightly charred on the BBQ. That’s a great kind of pineapple note on a single malt scotch.
Palate: Predictably sharp lemon and honey notes, and a ton of oaky spice, with a nice bright fruitiness coming in behind all that intensity. It's incredibly buttery (pastry buttery), lemon zesty, and dry toward the finish.
Conclusion: A zinger that starts the calendar. It’s hot and fast and sweet.
Score: 82
Day 2: Wemyss Malts Wooden Chest Blonded Malt Scotch Whisky
A blend, and as Jonathan says, that shouldn’t scare you away:
Blended Malts are a difficult category because most of us when reading a whisky label see the word “blend” and stop reading right there. The category used to be Vatted Malt but the Scotch Whisky Association thought that it was to confusing so decided to have two categories starting with the word blend instead because that wouldnt be confusing at all…right?
My notes:
Nose: Sticky toffee sweetness, notes of vinegar, plenty of sugar, and some sort of cooked down fruit (cherries?).
Palate: Despite the sweet nose, this one is really oaky on the palate. It’s got plenty of oak spice, dried fruits, dusty barnyard type notes, and a long buttery finish. That toffee sweetness on the nose is real gentle, and more obvious toward the finish. It turns toward a nice spoiling fruit sort of note.
Conclusion: The nose and palate or at odds, but when you taste and breathe in the whisky it does all make sense. It’s dry oaky spice, with the interesting sweet notes on the nose. I like it. It’s not perfectly balanced, but it is perfectly intense!
Score: 85
Day 3: Auchnagie Classic Lost Distillery Blonded Malt Scotch Whisky
Don’t worry, I haven’t heard of Auchnagie Distillery either. Their website is coming soon, so it won’t be of much help either. This is a recreation of the whisky, based on blends of 100% malted barley.
The amount of research and detail that goes into each and every “recreation” is astounding. Spending even one evening with owners Brian and Scott and delving into their passion for Scotch Whisky history (not to mention an abundance of delicious drams) and you are hooked. The number of casks of Single Malt that are vatted together to recreate the styles of these long lost distilleries is very small and so the attention to detail is extremely high.
Without knowing anything about the distillery, I can’t say much about the Lost Distillery Company’s recreation of it. However, I can say that I enjoyed this sampling from the company. It struck me as being made of easily available casks, but they did a great job of putting it together.
Nose: Pear, candied banana chips, and lemon citrus. A somewhat simple nose!
Palate: This has a light gentle smoke I didn’t quite detect on the nose (I’m bad at getting smoky notes). It’s refreshingly gentle. It’s buttery, and reminds me of the innards of a croissant (no crusty exterior, just the soft inside). I do think there’s a medicinal aspect to this whisky, but for me it’s more about a dried fruit sweetness that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s really gentle.
Conclusion: It’s a very gentle fun pour that is keeping me interested. I spent some time with this pour. I enjoyed it. I can’t even tell you what makes it special, other than it is a special pour of scotch.
Score: 87
Day 4: Glen Moray Aged 9 Years Distilled 2008
Always fun when I get these creamy older whisky notes on something this young. By no coincidence, I scored it similar to the previous day. They were different whiskies, and yet, both had a lot of terrific elements. My notes:
Nose: A sharp ginger and lemon citrus that I like. It’s more like citrus peel, just-twisted. Intense. I like it. Added to that is an intense creaminess. It’s like 35% cream, but it’s not the milkiness, more-so the weight of it.
Palate: Splash of flavour right in your face. I get all 58% ABV on this. It’s got a lot of lemon citrus, paprika spice, black tea, anise, and elements of something that’s almost caramel. It’s really thick and delicious; creamy, zesty, buttery. That buttery note sits on your lips and tongue. Quite intense. It settles with a little bit of water, but happy to drink this at cask strength.
Conclusion: From a scoring perspective, this is an interesting one. It’s so damn intense, forward, and in-your-face that it demands attention. It lacks just a little bit of finesse that I’d love to see even at this proof. However, I’d happily drink this daily.
Score: 87
Day 5: Craigellachie Aged 12 Year Old Distilled 2006
Jonathan and I had far different notes on this one. However, while we didn’t seem to agree on the tasting profile, you can’t best his notes on the finish:
The lingering pear note is crazy on this. This may just be the most Pear influenced Single Malt that I have had in a very long time. When I close my eyes I can picture myself sitting on a bench at recess with my wee teaspoon gulping down those tiny pear chunks and then draining the syrup. Anything over 60% normally gets a mandatory drop of water and I found that the agressive pear note diminished a touch. Actually liked this more while it was spanking me. Kind of like lying under a pear tree at the end of the season and having them rain down on you, ripe soft juicy but just a touch painful every time one hits you. Love it.
My tasting notes:
Nose: Candied lemon, oak spice, anise, and perfume-y.
Palate: Really terrific lemon candy melting in your mouth sort of sweetness, with a punch of oak boozy flavour. It has that pineapple sharpness, cherry sweetness (though it drowns in booziness), and some banana candy brittle sweetness.
Conclusion: The spice will rosy your cheeks, and the booze will wake your spirit up. It’s a fun pour of a high-proof cask strength monster. The cask influences are light. It’s a hogshead, so it must have been quite saturated, but don’t let that count against this pour. It makes up for the lack of finesse with a ton of intensity.
Score: 82
Day 6: Exclusive Malts Regional Series Islay – Refill Sherry Cask – 50% Alcohol – Laphroaig Distillery
Laphroaig is the only distillery I know that brags about taking the broadest cuts. Most distilleries, if they say anything at all, talk about how ‘thin’ the cuts are from distillation. Laphroaig wants you to know that they keep as much of the tails in distillation as possible. It shows threw when tasting a Laphroaig. I didn’t know what this was until after writing these tasting notes (Laphroaig isn’t mentioned on the bottle), but I still know. My notes:
Nose: Smoky caramel camp fire medicinal stuff! Welcome to Islay, welcome to Laphroaig. It has that shrimp chips sort of note to it, with some vinegar based BBQ, and a nice hefty meatiness. It’s got all the good stuff on the nose!
Palate: Meaty, oily, medicinal, with some rough oaky spicy edge to it. All the elements on the nose are here on the palate. It’s a heavy scotch on the palate, and it’ll just sit there, getting paprika spicy and oily and fatty like any good chorizo. The finish shares some of those vinegar notes on the palate. It’s almost too animal-fat and turning toward decomposing animal notes. But not in a bad way. It’s pretty grand.
Conclusion: A fascinating sherry cask that’s been through some things. I’d almost suggested it’s been through too much, but it still has so much to give. There’s a raw character to it that matches the raw medicinal Laphroaig spirit wonderfully. It’s definitely a slow sipper.
Score: 88
Day 7: Adelphi Breath of Speyside “Blended” (teaspooned) Malt Scotch Whisky 11 Year Old – Aged in a 1st fill Sherry Butt – 57.8% alcohol
I didn’t know much about Adelphi, but Jonathan has the scoop:
Adelphi is an independent bottler that also boasts distillery ownership. The Ardnamurchan distillery opened in 2014 and it is anyones guess when we will see the first whisky release. My meeting with Alex earlier this year did unlock the fact that it should be just around the corner. So even though this is presented as a blended malt I do have it on good authority that it is a teaspooned Sherry Butt of Glenfarclas. Teaspooning is as way for distilleries to sell casks to independents that cannot then be botted as a single malt or showing the distillery name. All they have to do is pour a teaspoon of another malt into the cask and boom blended malt. For all intents and purposes however one teaspoon makes no difference at all so the character of the cask remains untouched.
This is a whisky that had flaws, but the flaws end up being wonderful. It’s my favourite kind of whisky in this category:
Nose: Over-ripen fruit boiling in a boozy sherry reduction. It’s syrupy, but you still get the heft of the 57.8% ABV. The fruit does almost nose spoiled, and that’s not a bad thing for a whisky, just a fascinating element to nose.
Palate: Syrupy sweet that’s heavy on cinnamon spice, but all that hits you slowly because of how heavy and slow moving this scotch is across the palate. Lots of oak spice elements keep the flavour going, and that spoiled fruit note is present throughout. There’s some chocolate and spices other than cinnamon (touches on through the heavier spicy notes like curry), and it’s so dry. Incredibly dry. Not the driest scotch I’ve ever had, but it’s pretty damn close.
Conclusion: This is another whisky that’s so damn full that holding a 50ml bottle seems nearly greedy. I could sip on this one pour all day. I probably should. Is it put-together and complete and special? Naw. It’s a bruiser. But it’s a terrific palate bruiser.
Score: 88
That’s it for now! More, later. Consider subscribing to the newsletter or checking out the podcast.
