Best in Blog #38: Are You Sirius? (Jim Murray Edition)
Let me be clear upfront – the featured whisky in today’s Best in Blog – Sirius from Dalmore – isn’t in your price range. At £10,000 a bottle, it’s not in the price range of 99% of scotch drinkers. Seems like that’s something of a trend lately, and it kind of pisses me off – especially in today’s economy.
Just once, I’d love to see a really great new bottle for under $100, that is guaranteed to sell here in the states. To be perfectly honest, I’m beginning to wonder why so many whisky blogs even cover this kind of thing, but hey, here I am covering it too (well, covering the coverage).
Anyway, you can read all the uber-expensive details at Whisky for Everyone, What Does John Know, Edinburgh Whisky, and of course Richard Paterson has some thoughts.
As outrageous as that is, it’s not provoking nearly as critical a reaction as the release of Jim Murray’s 2010 edition of the Whisky Bible. Once again, Jim Murray has chosen an Ardbeg (Supernova this time) as the Whisky of the Year. This is the third year in a row that Ardbeg has taken home the best whisky award, and that has a lot of whisky bloggers questioning Murray’s objectivity.
For more, check out What Does John Know (and his follow up post), and Whisky Intelligence. Meanwhile, Edinburgh Whisky uses the Murray affair to cast doubt on the entire business of whisky rating.
Tasting Notes From Bloggers We Trust
- Moving down the outrage scale, reviews of Diageo’s Managers Choice bottles keep rolling in. John Hansell gives most of them some rather mediocre reviews. Cask Strength finished up their review of this first release, and came to only slightly better conclusions.
- Whisky for Everyone tries some Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve, Bushmill’s 10, and a Taiwanese single malt.
- Whisky Notes reviews Speyside 15 (Malts of Scotland), a 43 year old Tomatin ( Whisky-Doris), and the Glenmorangie Sonnalta PX.
- Whisky Intelligence has notes on an 8 year old Macallan from Douglas Laing’s Provenance.
- Whisky Fun loves three new, independent bottlings of Port Ellen.
- Under threat of bodily harm, Edinburgh Whisky reviews the Arran Peacock.
- Whisk(e)y Apostle reviews three canadian whiskies.
- Malt Imposters send the Speyside 10 home crying.
Whisk(e)y News on the Web:
- John Hansell notes the release of a new whisky book.
- Edinburgh Whisky had some good things to say about Whisky Picnic.
- The Dalmore is launching its first ever 18 year old.
- More info on Whisky Fest San Francisco – here’s a list of whisky experts who will attend.
- Meet the latest edition from Jura – Jura Prophecy.
Related posts:
this is exactly the problem. I went to the Dalmore tasting last night and tried a good portion of their new range under the guidance of Willie Tait, master distiller. It was pretty great: had the 12, 15 (one of my favorites of the night), Gran Reserva (replaced the old Cigar Malt), King Alexander III (a vatting of all kinds of crazy stuff– port-aged, cab sauv-aged, etc.), and even a 1980 straight from the cask (thus, almost 30 yo), which was amazing– like a pine forest with all kinds of dark berries.
Two problems: first, their entire range is bottled at 40%. Its pretty muscular whisky, and all sherried a good deal (but balanced), so it feels big anyway, but still. They just recently dropped the abv, perhaps in recognition of the economic times, but are still selling $3000 bottles (their 1974, 40 yo, and 50 yo are all in the several-thousand dollar range). In fact, the 50 yo only comes in a 100 ml bottle. So they are penny-pinching but at the same time expecting consumers to spend enourmous amounts. While the 12 and 15 year are affordable, if not cheap, at $50 and $75 respectively, the King Alexander is over $200– very good, but not nearly worth it, and still at 40%.