Coldorak's whisky blog.
Glenmorangie Harrison Ford takes the spotlight after Monday’s Laphroaig 14-Year-Old Willem Dafoe review, as our celebrity-and-whisky week continues with another heavyweight pairing. It makes for a neat contrast with Dafoe’s wonderfully eccentric Islay turn, and it sets the stage for Friday’s final collaboration as the week’s closing act.
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Laphroaig 12-year-old and Laphroaig 14-year-old Willem Dafoe lead today’s review, bringing together two distinctive Islay whiskies and one unmistakable name. Celebrity collaborations in spirits often sit somewhere between genuine passion projects and smart storytelling, and whisky is one of the categories where that relationship feels especially natural. From brand partnerships to special editions created with distilleries, these releases show how a famous name can add another layer of interest to the glass. Here, though, the focus stays where it should be: on the whisky itself, with these two Laphroaig expressions taking centre stage.
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Johnnie Walker Blue Label has a habit of showing up in many forms, from the familiar to the highly collectible, and the four releases we are going to review are among the more intriguing examples. Building on last year’s look at the 18-year-old and two Blue Label editions, I’m now turning to the Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ghost & Rare Port Ellen, Ghost & Rare Glenury Royal, King George V, and The John Walker – three whiskies that each take the Blue Label idea in a slightly different direction, plus The John Walker, in its own even more premium category. They are all very much premium blends, but what makes them worth exploring is the way each one balances rarity, depth, and the distinct house style Johnnie Walker is known for.
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There are so many distilleries now in Scotland that it’s hard sometimes to remember if some of them have been covered at least once on More Drams or not. For instance, I was sure, having tried a few Torabhaig these last couple years, that I had reviewed their inaugural release and a couple of the next expressions they released. And I was wrong. So, let’s at least repair that mistake, by introducing Torabhaig distillery and reviewing their first core range expression, Torabhaig Taigh House Style.
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Pour yourself a dram or a coffee (or whatever you fancy), as today we’re having many whiskies reviewed, with 7 + 1 Springbank Local Barley. We’re tasting all but one of the recent Local Barley expressions released since 2019 (so we’re starting with one bottled in 2018), plus as a bonus, a vatting sample from one of them, tried before its final bottling and release, during my Eat, Sleep, Dram, Repeat tour at Springbank back in July 2023.
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We’re flying at high altitude today with two very high-level secret Speyside whiskies bottled in 2017 by Antique Lions of Spirits (ALOS). Antique Lions of Spirits is an independent bottling collaboration based in Italy, but we’ll learn more about it below. In our glasses today are two very old Speyside single malts, distilled in 1973 and 1975, and both bottled in 2017.
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I hesitated for a moment to call this review “Threeninich”, but, in the end, these three Teaninichs deserved something a little more dignified. This set brings together a Teaninich 10-year-old Flora & Fauna, an 11-year-old bottled by Chorlton, and a 1983 Signatory Vintage bottling from 2011, three very different snapshots of a distillery that has spent most of its life working quietly in the background.
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Today’s post features just one cognac, but it’s an especially old one: a Clos de la Groie Vieille Réserve Sélection du Papy Franck. A mouthful of a name, to say the least. Le Clos de la Groie is the commercial label of the Denechere family estate in Brie-sous-Matha, in the Fins Bois cru of Cognac, about 15 km from the town of Cognac. The property has remained in the same family for five generations and covers around 80 hectares of vines, growing ugni blanc for Cognac as well as wine grapes used for Pineau, liqueurs, and other products.
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Chain Pier and Bonnington are two names linked by Edinburgh whisky history, with the former acting as the short-lived precursor to the latter. In this review, we’re looking at a Chain Pier 2019 bottled by Hogshead Import and a Bonnington 2021 bottled by The Caskhound, two releases that help trace that transition from experimental beginnings to full-scale production.
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