carissahickling

[carissahickling]

American Minis - Whistle Pig Rye 50%

American Minis - Whistle Pig Rye 50% @WhistlePigRye

From New York to Texas, we found ourselves closing our American minis evening back on the East coast in Vermont.

WhistlePig Rye is a proud of its pig! Who is joined by a trio made up of two chemical engineers – Emily Harrison (lead distiller) and Meghan Ireland (maturation chemist) –  with Peter Lynch (master blender). Their focus is purely on rye – in various permutations and experimentations.

S…

[carissahickling]

American Minis - Balcones Single Malt 53%

American Minis - Balcones Single Malt 53% @BalconesWhisky

From Waco Texas, Balcones was ‘birthed’ as an idea in 2008 and started distilling a year later. They combine blue corn from New Mexico with Texas grown barley and have been putting out a range of whisky expressions from malts to bourbon to rye, with rum thrown into the mix as well.

https://balconesdistilling.com/

Balcones Single Malt 53%

Nose– Rather than a clear bourbon stamp we sensed something…

[carissahickling]

American Minis - TBWC 24 year Bourbon No 1 48%

American Minis - TBWC 24 year Bourbon No 1 48% @BoutiqueyWhisky

Clearly That Boutique-y Whisky Company has featured prominently in our miniature explorations! However this was our first bourbon bottled by them… and a 24 year old one, no less? We were intrigued…

TBWC 24 year Bourbon No 1 48%

Nose– Mmmm coconut, lemon, toffee, apples, lots of over ripe fruit, then floral, shifting to sweet grass, then black vanilla being scraped from the pod, sweet leather,…

[carissahickling]

American Minis - Hudson Baby Bourbon 46%

American Minis - Hudson Baby Bourbon 46% @HudsonWhiskey

I must admit up front that while I’d heard great things about Hudson’s Baby Bourbon, my one and only previous Hudson experience with their single malt years ago was… not great. In truth, it was a clear deterrent to prioritizing further explorations. For years I would see their squat half bottles in various airports and think… should I? And never did.

However when a dram lands in your lap, one…

[carissahickling]

American Minis - Hudson, TBWC Bourbon, Balcones, Whistle Rye

As the months of the pandemic stretch on… our whisky tasting groups have clearly not been meeting in person. For the Bombay Malt & Cigar gents and I, we’d done a couple virtual evenings together – each nipping into what was on hand from our various locales around the globe.

With my UK trip, my host and fellow drammer and I could join together in London while the others tuned in from Belgium and…

[carissahickling]

Nurnberg "The Village" Fest Trio - Bruichladdich, Glencadam, St Kilian

It now seems so surreal… end of February large events were still happening in Germany – including The Village whisky festival here in Nurnberg.

I was quite conservative in my acquisitions assuming this was the start of a whisky festival season with plenty of upcoming opportunities. I also assumed could easily go to a specialty whisky store and gradually start collecting…

And our world changed.

As…

[carissahickling]

Glengoyne 16 year Malt Master "Carissa" Original Cask Strength

Glengoyne 16 year Malt Master "Carissa" Original Cask Strength @Glengoyne

One highlight from our Scotland trip was having a go at crafting my own dram! Spoiler alert – what I’m about to describe can’t be replicated however I would COMPLETELY recommend the “Malt Master” experience at Glengoyne distillery and see what you come up with!

So how did we go about it? I sat in a lovely room filed with a wall of cask samples… in front of me were 5 different casks. Each was…

[carissahickling]

Whisky Lady - September + October 2020

Suddenly everything changed! From a whisky famine to a feast. From being in the same place morning, noon and night to traipsing from one country to another, different homes, even a couple of Scottish distilleries, an exceptional evening with The Whisky Exchange’s Sukhinder Singh, four different evenings of minis…. wow!

Then to top off my travels… arriving back in Germany to literally go straight…

[carissahickling]

Whisky Ladies of Europe - Bienvenue, स्वागत हे, Välkommen, Willkommen

Whisky Ladies of Europe @Chorltonwhisky @Northstarwhisky

Welcome to what will hopefully be a new series within this Whisky Lady blog! A much needed intro to a small Whisky Ladies of Europe group – an offshoot of our beloved and terribly missed Whisky Ladies of Mumbai. Each of us are currently living in parts of Europe, having both a malty and Mumbai connect. And given that we are scattered between Sweden, Germany, and a couple locations in France, the…

[carissahickling]

Dunkerton Drams - Starward Nova 41%

Dunkerton Drams - Starward Nova 41% @StarwardWhisky

Australia deserves its reputation for fabulous wines and – yes – whisky! So why not combine? While Tasmania dominates, Starward prove you can be in Melbourne and deliver something worthy of attention with distinction – by consistently maturing their whisky in wine barrels.

And while we’ve explored their Apera (sherry style) Solera, a spirited experiment under 3 years (New World Project), even…

[carissahickling]

Dunkerton Drams - Lake Distillery Steel Bonnets

Dunkerton Drams - Lake Distillery Steel Bonnets @whiskymaker @LakesDistillery

I was surprised to realize this is the 1st whisky from England that I’ve explored. While I’ve heard about The One series with Sherry, Port and Orange, never had a chance to try. However it turns out this particular expression is a deliberate blend of English and Scottish malt whiskies… so you could call this a transition from Scotland to England.

And what is with Steel Bonnets? These were the…

[carissahickling]

Dunkerton Drams - Fettercairn 12 years 40%

Dunkerton Drams - Fettercairn 12 years 40% @FettercairnWh

These days we don’t often try official bottles. By choice I tend to gravitate towards something just a little more specialized that comes with… say… a single cask from an independent bottlers. However when first learning about a distillery, when there are official bottlings available, such offerings can say a lot about what the distillery is trying to achieve.

Looking back on the Fettercairn’s…

[carissahickling]

Dunkerton Drams - Nikka Days 40%

Dunkerton Drams - Nikka Days 40% @NikkaWhiskyEU

We wanted to mix things up our second evening, so our selection reflected a wee jaunt around the world from Japan to England to Australia to Scotland.

We decided to kick things off in the far east with a dram from Nikka. What do we know about Nikka Days? Just that it is a blend of Miyagikyo and Yoichi with grain… and not much more.

Nikka Days 40%

Nose– Honey, pickled seaweed in a Bento box,…

[carissahickling]

Swaggering in a flouncy dress - Longmorn 10 year 48.3%

Swaggering in a flowery dress - Longmorn 10 year 48.3% @BoutiqueyWhisky

Longmorn is one of those distilleries that sometimes gets missed and often over-shadowed by its more prominent neighbour BenRiach. And yet after a particular birthday in Singapore, Longmorn will always be one of the very few distilleries I’ve sampled from my ‘birth year’ – 1969!

As for this particular dram – it came from That Boutique-y Whisky Company. One of the things I get a kick out of from…

[carissahickling]

An aptly named Mackmyra Äppleblom

An aptly named Mackmyra Äppleblom @mackmyra

I goofed up a bit here… after the delightful Brenne, I intended to continue with the Mackmyra Äppleblom. But mixed up my minis and we cracked open and started tasting the Vintergold instead – oops!

Why I wanted to follow the Cognac finished Brenne with the Calvados finished Äppleblom was an expectation of sweet progression before getting into the curious combination of PX and Swedish Mulled Wine…

[carissahickling]

A Christmas ode with Swedish Mulled Wine - Mackmyra Vinterglöd

A Christmas ode with Swedish Mulled Wine - Mackmyra Vinterglöd @mackmyra

I will admit to having a mixed response to some more experimental wine maturation combinations. Not all are a smashing success, in my humble opinion. However how are unique gems discovered without someone taking a crazy idea or playing around? So I entered into this particular tasting with an open mind. Thinking of how much I enjoy the tart tasty mulled crabapple and red wine of my Canadian youth…

[carissahickling]

A delightful desert whisky - Brenne Cuvée Spéciale 40%

A delightful desert whisky - Brenne Cuvée Spéciale 40% @BrenneWhisky

We wanted to start our Tasting with something lighter, summery, sweetly satisfying…  delightful desert dram influenced by maturation in a Cognac cask.

I shared with my fellow tasting companion Alison Parc‘s story – from ballet to booze, America to Europe (with an ex desi connect too). With her focus on terroir with barley, use of French Limosine Oak and ex Cognac casks, she’s pulled off a…