Whisky Party

In this edition: NYC gets a new whisky tasting aggregator, the Malt Maniac Awards are in, and a big-ass bottle of Ardbeg tours Manhattan.

Tasting Notes From Bloggers We Trust:

• Cask Strength is celebrating his birthday in style.  Check out these tasting notes on a Port Ellen 1979 from Signatory, Port Ellen 3rd Annual Release, and Imperial 1979 from Gordon & MacPhail.  What do they all have in common?  They were distilled the year the blogger was born.
• Dr. Whisky reviews Mackmyra Special 03 – a Swedish single malt.
• Drink Hacker thoroughly enjoyed this 12 year old Black Bull blended whisky from Duncan Taylor.
• Scotch Hobbyist has a fantastic post (as always) comparing Talisker 18 to the new Diageo 2009 Special Release Talisker 25 and 30 year olds.  Sorry to say though he doesn’t have any of those great charts he usually whips up.
• John Hansell reviews the Highland Park 1964 and 1968 vintage releases.  He likes them both, but hints that you’d do just as well (and save a few thousand bucks) if you bought a Highland Park 18. He also hints at an upcoming Highland Park 50 (sigh, another distillery hops on the uber-premium bandwagon).
• Whisky for Everyone tries the new Spice Tree from Compass Box.
• Ruben at Whisky Notes reviews the Macallan 30 year Fine Oak, calling it “elegant, but lacking punch.”
• Whisky Fun tastes three 18 year old Mortlachs.  I drank the last dram of my own Mortlach 17 over the Thanksgiving holiday.  It was a sad day to see it go, especially as it was a gift from my bachelor party.
• Edinburgh Whisky tried Jura Prophecy, and declares it the best bottle in the Jura range.

Whisk(e)y News on the Web:

• Apparently there is a GINORMOUS bottle of Ardbeg moving around Manhattan.  How have I missed this?
• To my fellow New Yorkers, here is a great new website that is tracking local whisky tastings: NYC Whisky.  It’s user-generated, and anyone can add in a new tasting.  Pretty cool.
• The Malt Maniacs 2009 Awards are in.  Get the full list of winners here.
• Are young whiskies the future of the scotch industry? Whisky Intelligence republishes a prescient newsletter from 2 and a half years ago.
• Glenfiddich is auctioning off a bottle of its 50 year old.  Edinburgh whisky has some comments, as do John Hansell and Whisky Intelligence.
• The new scotch whisky regs are in – read them all here, check out John Hansell’s summary, or just listen to this week’s edition of Whisky Cast.
• John Hansell has some Irish Whisky news.
• Last but not least, Malt Advocate is offering quite a deal on their subscription rates.