Queens Birthday

Queens birthday weekend, especially Saturday was very busy.  It was Ardbeg day, and I had to get to Sam Sneads House of Whisky to get the latest Ardbeg day release.

The release is called Grooves, due to the grooves made in the sides of the barrels to get more surface area contact with the spirit.  Although the whisky has a dark colour, it is actually quite light, enough so that my mother enjoyed it.  I will review this in another blog post.

After that it was down to the cloud for a play out with City of Auckland Pipeband at the Cloud between 12pm and 1pm.  The weather held off and we were able to play outside.

We were then able to make it back to Sam Sneads House of Whisky to get some lunch (Haggis), were I was requested to play some tunes.  Having recently tuned pipes I went through a couple of sets, which went down quite well with the other shoppers in the store.  Sam put up a video on his facebook page which seems to have had quite a lot of people view it.

Day off Sunday, but it was back down to the cloud for another performance,  this was inside due to the bad weather, which did not seem to improve until the next day.

Clan Celtica also played after the band, where I was introduced to the band as the possible new piper.  This went down pretty well, I have until September to get ready for.  This is when Michel returns from his 2 month holiday, hopefully with some harmonies.

Whisky Purchases 24/10/2017

Two Whisky Purchases both from Bruichladdich, a nice peated Port Charlotte, and an in your face over the top peat monster Octomore 07.1

 

I'll start with the Port Charlotte, Heavily Peated, as I have had this before. This is a nice whiskey, especially for the price.  It has a unique flavour that makes it stand out as different to the other Islay whiskys.

Bruichladdich has 3 distilleries and although they are all on Islay, the main distillery does not peat its whisky.  The other two distilleries, Port Charlotte and Octomore, do peat their whiskeys.  Port Charlotte does not peat whisky very high, so this label of "Heavily Peated" indicates that it is peated more than the other whiskey that come from this distillery. 

There is number on the bottom of this bottle that you can enter on the Bruichladdich website and it will tell you the recipe including how many casks of a particular were added to the batch, where the barley came from, and the source of the casks used. The number on the bottom of this bottle is 16/097 and indicates a total of 63 casks, aged between 2006 to 2009 (looks like bottling was done March 2016),  barley is all sourced from the mainland, with a mainly (48) Bourbon barrel first fill casks with the others a mixture of red and white wine Hogshead casks.  I don't get this option for the Octomore.

This whiskey is bottled at 50% APV and has a peat rating of 40 PPM (parts per million). Purchased for $99 on special from $140, not a bad purchase.

The Octomore is possibly the most peated whisky on the planet.  This version, Edition: 07.1, comes in at 208 PPM and is bottled at 59.5% APV.  This bottle was purchased on sale for $199 usually $210 from this outlet.

Taste Notes:

Wow this is a slap in the face really, I would suggest not starting on this as it will likely kill all chances of tasting any other whisky after this one.

The nose has a strong mustiness to it with notes of brine, salted meats, and sea spray.  Also a sweetness, maybe caramel, toffee, vanilla, and mint. 

It is very salty on the pallet, and you have to be quick to define any other flavours as the finish kicks in quickly and over powers into a lasting saltiness. Notes of vanilla and toffee appear before the peat kicks in.

Carving update Taiaha - 24/10/2017

Tonight was my birthday so I brought in some Scottish Birthday Cake (the Octomore), and played some tunes for the other carvers.  Definately after the carving was finished.

This photo you can see a crack in the tongue. Not quite sure what to do with this just yet, I will continue to carve this, I have a spare piece of wood that I can change to if needed.