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I'm a Scotch/whisky nerd going on 10 years now. Particularly obsessed with anything from Islay. 50+ bottle collection, mostly easy-to-find stuff but there are
by crikli 8y ago
I'm a Scotch/whisky nerd going on 10 years now. Particularly obsessed with anything from Islay. 50+ bottle collection, mostly easy-to-find stuff but there are a few rare expressions in there (Ardbeg 2009 Committee Release Supernova is probably the most unobtainable). I'm a drinker, not a collector, everything has been opened and consumed at least partially.
With that out there, I don't get the buzz over Japanese whisky. I've got several solid, highly reviewed expressions, including the 2013 sherried Yamazaki that Jim Murray put on the map. I've done several blind tasting with friends, some of whom are afficionados and some of whom are not, and that Yamazaki never comes out on top. If I do a sherry-finished flight more often than not the sherried Kilchoman finishes first or second, with the Yamazki usually beating the Glenmorangie Lasanta and not much else. Laphroaig PX either wins or comes second to the Kilchoman.
Japanese whisky is good and they're consistently making the best whisky that's not coming from the island. But (IMO, of course, this is completely non-objective) the best expressions are still coming from Scotland.
- Lordarminius 8y agoI feel like I just read 'A Quality Introduction To Fine Whiskey In One Minute'.
- briandear 8y agoThis right here is exactly why I love HN. Getting past the political debates, there are some real gems of awesome on these pages. Thanks HN people!
- reaperducer 8y ago'A Quality Introduction To Fine Expressions In One Minute' FTFY.
- halbritt 8y agoI tend to agree. When Yamazaki 12 was around $50, I'd go in for a bottle every now and then. At twice the price now, it's just overpriced relative to comparable Whisky from Scotland. I'd rather have a bottle of Springbank. Speaking of world whisky, if you can find it, try Kavalan Solist Vinho Barrique. It's one of my favorite single malts in the past couple years.
- tptacek 8y agoMy whiskey guy tried to sell me on a pricey Kavalan (he had a whole collection of them) and I ended up getting a Compass Box instead. But I'm going on vacation next week and buying a whole bunch of bottles to take with. Do me a favor and sell me on the Kavalan? I'm maybe a little skeptical of Taiwanese whiskey.
- Terribledactyl 8y agoI've had two kavalans while traveling in china recently, both were forgettable. Decent enough but very expensive for what they were. Both were bourbon cask so maybe another expression would be better. Compass Box has never let me down, though this is not a luxury whiskey is the only super high end one I've ventured into.
- stock_toaster 8y agoMaybe look for McCarthy's (Oregon single malt in the "light" islay style), if you are looking for another interesting single malt made outside of scotland.
- kasey_junk 8y agoThey flooded the local (Chicago) distributors recently. That stuff has shown up all over the place. If someone can sell you on it, let me know cause I couldn't get into it either.
- tptacek 8y agoThat is good to know. Thanks!
- halbritt 8y agoI don't recall all the ones I've tried. They remind me of a nice Speyside. At least the sherry cask ones, do. The Solist Vinho Barrique is in toasted ex-wine casks and has a complexity that I would compare to Glendronach 15 or Glenfarclas 105. I liked it that much. I've tried a couple others. The sherry cask one I liked, and the others, not so much. I think they're just young, still. If you're in or around Taiwan, I think you can get the Solist Vinho Barrique for under $100 US, which is a hell of a deal. In the US, who knows. Definitely taste it first before you go all in on a bottle.
- tptacek 8y agoI really don't like Islays (the swamp muck flavor really doesn't do anything for me; my wife loves it though), but the wine-finished Kilchomans are all pretty special. Kilchoman port cask is the one Islay I almost always have on hand.
- matwood 8y agoMany (most?) people do not like the Islays/peaty/smokey whiskeys. I love them though, and find the milder whiskeys hard to drink because all I taste is alcohol. For me, drinking a really smokey whiskey is like sitting next to a camp fire on a cold night. That feeling is probably why I enjoy them.
- tptacek 8y agoThat's understandable, but it's complicated, right? I can deal with a certain level of phenolic, but I really dislike iodiney seaweedy flavors. But there are other wood flavors that I really like and that might read as "campfirey"; I love resiney and vanilla-ey flavors. My point is: sure, if you don't like pungent alcohol flavor (another suggestion: dilute with water!). But there are other flavors you can get in your whiskey besides swamp muck. :)
- taternuts 8y agoWhat's your daily driver/cheaper bottle of choice? You seem to have similar tastes to mine, personally I love Eagle Rare for the price point but would like to find some other good ones.
- tptacek 8y agoMy daily is Very Old Barton (so: much cheaper). My basic rule is that you can't go wrong with anything that is also sold in a bonded expression (and you can't go wrong with the bonded expressions themselves), and that it comes down to whether you like rye-spice-dry (Four Roses, Old-Granddad, VOB) or wheat-sweet-mellow (Weller, Makers, Fitzgerald).
- marcandre 8y agoFor me blind tasting is key. The vast majority of things aren't appreciated in a blind test setting (even professional wine critics don't!), so extremely subject to other notions in particular fame and price. With a group of friends, we sample 2 or 3 wines at the same time, blind. It's very humbling. I highly recommend it for a more accurate evaluation...
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoI saw a funny article awhile back that did literal blind tasting, and when told they would be tasting red wines, none of the critics and "experts" detected they had also sampled white wines. edit: I see it's mentioned in other comments here
- Godel_unicode 8y agoThat test is pretty misleading, it's similar to the famous French study which used white wine dyed red and counted whether people used "red" words or "white" words. One obvious conclusion consistent with other studies is that people believe what they're told. I hesitate to call this type of uncontrolled testing junk science, but it definitely doesn't demonstrate what it claims to, imho. Super popular with the "well actually" crowd, however. Addendum: I have personally, on several occasions, failed to replicate this result in a study where the subjects are not tainted with false knowledge. Blindfolded drinkers who are given a glass of red and told nothing about it usually know it's red.
- petejodo 8y agoIf you don't mind me asking, how do you do blind tastings? Doesn't someone have to pour the glasses and therefore knows which is which? Also how do you figure out at the end, which was which? I imagine, one person pours, another rearranges, and then the glasses have a labeled underneath
- alexm920 8y agoYou pretty much nailed it. It is easier if you have an impartial helper though; a professor I knew back in school would, after finals, invite his students to a wine tasting at this house. His wife would pour and label the glasses, but never took part, removing the chance for subtle cues at the tastings occurred. After we'd all tasted and jotted down our notes, and shared our thoughts, they'd be revealed. He (the prof) always took joy in how much variation there was in the wines students deemed "best", given our relatively inexperienced pallets. One's favorite was as likely to be pulled from a $150 bottle as an $8 box.
- solotronics 8y agohey! I have some scotch questions if you don't mind. I really love Lagavulin 8 + 16, Bunnahabhain 12, and Talisker 10. Less relevant I think McAllan 18 is good and Balvenie 21 as well. What should I try that is similar to these? Every scotch I tried that is less than about ~45-50 USD I really hated, is there anything good that is cheap?
- mattlong 8y agoI'm not crikli, but we have similar tastes! Talisker is my go to dram. Try Bruichladdich Islay Barley. It's heavy on the saltwater characteristic that Talisker and other Islays have but is overall a bit lighter in both color and taste. I don't recall which vintage I had, which supposedly makes a notable difference for this whisky. Kilchoman is another Islay that I enjoy a lot. If you want to delve further into the world of peat, checkout Ardbeg and Laphroaig 10. Laphroaig has other nice varieties like Quartercask and PX that aren't as peat-centric. Ardbeg also has a wide variety of offerings to explore. Of course I would recommend trying before going in for a bottle on all of these since everyone has their own tastes!
- tptacek 8y agoThe three scotches you like are peaty; 2 are Islays and one (the Talisker) is an Island, which is like a toned-down Islay. You like smoke, phenols, and brine. If you want something sort of "in between" the Lagavulin (almost one-note phenolic) and the Macallan (caramel and wine, little wood, no smoke), try a BenRomach, which is a briney and not smokey and right in your price point. The other Islays you haven't tried include: * Laphroig, which adds a huge medicinal flavor to the wood and smoke in Lagavulin. * Bowmore, which tends towards leather and fruit flavors (they do some interesting wine cask expressions). Kilchoman is similar, pricier, but with even better casks. * Ardbeg, which tends peatier/smokier than Lagavulin but not as iodiney and briney as Laphroaig. The other two you like, the Macallan and the Balvenie, are very mainstream Speysides. No peat, lots of wine flavor. It's easy to find a lot of whiskeys in the same region and all will be better values than the Macallan (which is one of the world's most popular single malts and priced accordingly) and the Balvenie, which is solid but also grocery store scotch. I recommend GlenDronach 12 or 15 if you want to explore the sherry-bomb character of the Macallan 18 (GlenDronach is probably the scotch most like Macallan that isn't called Macallan), and Glenrothes if you just want to explore the cereal/vanilla/caramel malt characteristics of Speysides. Both are ~$50-$60 priced well.
- cat199 8y ago> Particularly obsessed with anything from Islay. ... > from the island. Never actually had japanese whiskey, but definitely have had islay and highland varieties of scotch - Wondering if preference bias for islay style is the factor here, where the selling point is not 'subtlety' or 'smoothness'.. much in the same way in the beer world that e.g. the smooth/subtle flavor of english bitters are underappreciated stateside because we are hop-crazy for nuclear IPAs..
- r-s 8y agoJim Murray has always ranked Alberta Premium rye whiskey quite highly. I always found this funny as its one of the cheapest alcohols available in Canada. Mr Lahey of trailer park boys fame even drinks it (although its poorly blurred out). Its often around 50% of the price of something like Jack Daniels here.
- tptacek 8y agoJim Murray aside, as a general rule with a lot of exceptions, when it comes to North American whiskey, the cheap stuff is usually the good stuff. The "premium brands" --- Templeton, WhistlePig, Stranahan's --- tend to be shady (usually: because they've sourced bulk whiskey from MGP and marked it up). Even when they're not shady, a lot of "craft" whiskey in the US is basically charging you for their inefficiency, not for their quality. So for instance while Few Spirits does a solid, authentic rye, it's a long way from the best value in rye whiskey. There is is whole lot of $50-$60 craft bourbon that is outdone by stuff in plastic jugs --- not necessarily because it's bad (though some of it is), but because the plastic jug stuff can be really good. It's basically the opposite of the beer market.
- lytfyre 8y agoNot that it's a consequential distinction for your argument, but for those liking it and wanting a cheaper alternative, WhistlePig's standard 10 year and 15 year straight rye is not MGP, it's Alberta Premium. Their 12 year old "Old World" is MGP. Backing up your argument, Alberta Premium sells in Ontario government stores for 18% of what the Whistlepig goes for - in your choice of glass or plastic bottle.
- abalone 8y agoHakashu would be the one to try if you’re a scotch nerd. That’s a truly distinctive style... I call it “clean peat”.
- molf 8y agoYou really cannot compare a Yamazaki with an Islay whisky. Sherry or otherwise. Preferring Laphroaig PX over a Yamazaki has nothing to do with the quality of either, but with personal preference. You just cannot compare a heavily peaty/smoky whisky with one that is neither.
- hobs 8y agoAgreed, for a light Highland single malt it might be easier to compare to white spirit than to an Islay.
- crikli 8y agoThere is _no_ objective measure of quality when it comes to whisky so all we have to go on is personal preference. When Murray benighted the 2013 Yamazaki, that was _his_ personal preference against _all_ whiskies reviewed, peaty, smokey, or otherwise. And you can _absolutely_ compare a peaty/smokey whisky to one that isn't. Why can't you? Peaty/smokey isn't the sharp divisor of preference that is insinuated in yours and other comments. Peat is delivered in very unique ways across distilleries and in my tastings I often have folks strongly dislike Ardbeg Corryvreckan but adore Lagavulin 16 (as an example).
- jkaptur 8y agoYou CAN compare it to a Coca Cola, but it’s appropriate to point out that they’re very different.
- asfarley 8y agoIn fact, I did comare Yamazaki whisky to Islay whisky using this (http://rsearch.ca/static/compare http://rsearch.ca/static/compare) web interface I made specifically for cases when people claimed that any two things were "not comparable". The results for Yamazaki include: smooth mizunara hakushu hibiki While the results for Islay include: peat smoke barley caol Actually, you seem to have provided a comparison yourself: one is heavily peaky and smoky, and one is not. Seems like a pretty good comparison to me.
- tyler-redclay 8y agoCompletely agree. I love whisky of all kinds. And I was almost as excited to sample some new Japanese whiskies while visiting there as I was to do so in Scotland. But I have yet to taste a Japanese whisky that blows my mind. It's more refined than Irish whisky typically, and can't really compare it fairly to bourbon & rye, apples to oranges, from my view. It's good. But it pales in comparison to the Scottish stuff. Doesn't stop the hype train though. And I get it, it's lesser known, most of the branding is beautiful. Japan has a cache to it and do details right. But in my opinion, it's not exceptional whisky like a nice scotch. Only thing we disagree on is Sherry casked whiskies. I don't like the effect it had on the profiles. I stay away from them.