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Whisky Advent Calendar 2015

Whisky Advent Calendar

On 1 December, at 7.30am, I decided to write 24 blog posts, one a day for 24 days, as a sort-of whisky advent calendar. Yesterday was the final post. It was much harder work than I thought…

Here’s what I wrote about:

Anyway, Happy Christmas, and all that kind of thing. As this goes live, I am almost certainly sat on the floor of my flat, drinking sherry and building a Star Wars Lego Imperial Shuttle. I hope you are having as productive a day as me.

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Lagavulin 16 Year Old – Whisky Advent Calendar Day #24

Lagavulin

It’s the last day of my advent calendar series. 24 posts in 24 days has more than doubled the number that have appeared on this blog in 2016, so expect radio silence for a little while – my liver needs time to regenerate.

For this last day, I thought I’d return to the beginning – the whisky that started me on the road to where I am now. Lagavulin 16 Year Old.

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Black & White by appointment to HM The King – Whisky Advent Calendar Day #23

Despite working in the whisky world, I don’t have that many impressive bottles in my collection. I don’t normally buy for investment, even if some bottles I have are now worth a bit of money, and apart from a handful of fortuitously purchased Karuizawas and  enough 1978 vintage bottlings to fuel a good 40th birthday party in two years and 73.5 days, there’s not much to turn heads.

However, I have one bottle that I am impressed by – the oldest whisky I own. Not old as in ‘was in a cask for ages’ but instead ‘probably bottled back when we had a king’ old. So, for my penultimate advent calendar post, I present Black & White, by Appointment to HM The King.

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Glen Ord 1973 Rare Malts – Whisky Advent Calendar Day #22

Glen Ord 1973

Today’s post is a bit of a cheat, as unfortunately I have a night where I can’t drink. Due to an incident involving a microwave and an ill-advised Ginster’s steak slice, I’ve burnt the roof of my mouth and am in quite a lot of pain. However, I am an obsessive tasting note writer, so it’s time to dig into my notebook and pull out something tasty from the past.

So, dram #22 is one I got to taste back in October, during a trip to Scotland and a visit to the distillery – Glen Ord 1973 Rare Malts.

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Port Askaig 100 Proof – Whisky Advent Calendar Day #20

Port Askaig

This 24 days/24 posts thing has turned into a bit of a boozy diary, and this entry isn’t going to change that – I don’t normally write about things that are that related to work on here, but this was too good an opportunity to miss. Today I popped in to town to see how a friend of mine was doing – he was running a barrel top tasting at Selfridges.

The whisky he was pouring is the latest release from a range of whiskies that I’ve helped with in the past. A whisky that is the beginning of a new era – Port Askaig 100 Proof.

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SMWS Cognac: C1 Nectar Céleste – Whisky Advent Calendar #19

SMWS C1

It’s Saturday again, so I’m in the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, and have been for a while. So, a shorter post, as I’m taking time off from drinking to write this.

I’m yet again breaking my ’24 whiskies’ rule, to drop in something a little bit different. My 19th advent calendar dram is SMWS C1 Nectar Céleste – an XO Cognac…

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Sassenachs Dram Craigellachie 7yo – Whisky Advent Calender Day #18

Whisky Squad

Last night was the last Whisky Squad session of the year. It was the sixth time we gathered the Squad together for a festive tasting, and the schtick was the same as normal – everyone throws in a fiver to go to charity (Shelter this year) and brings along a bottle. We then do a blind tasting.

With 18 drams on the mat, even with small measures it’s a bit of a mammoth tasting, but the drams were good, the company better and we were done before closing time. Which counts as a success.

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