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Four Yoichi: Single Malt, Grande, 12-year-old Sherry & Sweet and 20-year-old

Yoichi Single Malt / Grande / 12yo Sherry & Sweet / 20yo

6th July 20266th July 2026Coldorak

Yoichi is one of those distilleries we keep coming back to, not out of duty but out of sheer affection. There is something about that coastal peat, the old‑school direct coal firing, and the quietly uncompromising house style that makes even a simple line‑up feel like a mini‑masterclass in what a Japanese single malt can be when it leans into its roots rather than chasing trends. In this session, we are looking at three expressions that map out very different phases of Yoichi’s story: the Yoichi Single Malt, the Grande, the 12‑year‑old Sherry & Sweet, and the venerable 20‑year‑old.

If you have followed our previous Yoichi coverage, you will know we have already spent time with several distillery exclusives and the NAS trio that effectively stepped into the space once occupied by the 12-year-old Sherry & Sweet and its two siblings (the woody and vanillic, and the peaty and salty). This new line‑up lets us reconnect with that lost benchmark, place it alongside a more contemporary ‘Grande’ interpretation, and then look up toward the long‑aged 20-year-old as a sort of North Star for mature Yoichi character. Taken together, these three whiskies should give us a useful snapshot of how the distillery’s profile stretches from youthful, cask‑forward charm to fully developed, time‑polished depth – and why, after all these reviews, Yoichi still feels like a distillery we haven’t finished exploring.

Five Glenrothes (Official / Boutique-y / Cadenhead / Signatory)

3rd July 20263rd July 2026Coldorak

We take a look at five Glenrothes today: two official bottlings and three independent releases from That Boutique-y Whisky Company, Cadenhead and Signatory. Building on last year’s enjoyable duo, I’ve dug out a few samples of older Glenrothes and opened a bottle acquired at auction some time ago. With that lineup ready, let’s get started.

Michel Couvreur Overaged and Blossoming Auld Sherried

Michel Couvreur Overaged & Blossoming Auld Sherried

1st July 20262nd July 2026Coldorak

Two unusual whiskies, one very singular house: this review brings together Michel Couvreur’s Overaged and Blossoming Auld Sherried as an excuse to revisit the work of one of whisky’s most idiosyncratic ‘éleveurs.’ Both bottles are rooted in the same philosophy – that the cask, its history, and the way it is handled in the cellar account for most of a whisky’s character – yet they express that philosophy in contrasting registers: Overaged as a richly old school, multi‑vintage malt, Blossoming Auld Sherried as an almost baroque hymn to first‑fill sherry.

Glenburgie 8yo Gordon & Macphail/30yo Signatory

29th June 202629th June 2026Coldorak

Glenburgie remains one of those Speyside names most whisky drinkers ‘know’ without actually knowing, quietly toiling away as a backbone malt for Ballantine’s rather than as a headline single malt in its own right. Official bottlings are still thin on the ground, so when you want to explore Glenburgie’s character in any depth, you inevitably end up rifling through the shelves of independent bottlers instead.

This line‑up is a neat illustration of that reality: at the younger end, an 8‑year‑old Gordon & MacPhail licence bottling that was about as close to ‘official’ as Glenburgie got for many years, thanks to G&M’s long‑standing agreement to bottle the distillery’s spirit under its own name. Opposite it, two mature Glenburgie 1995s from Signatory Vintage, both 30‑year‑old single casks from that famous mid‑ 90s parcel, promise a far more opulent, sherry‑accented take on the same DNA. Once again, then, we are relying on the independents to sketch out a portrait of a distillery that, despite its importance in blends, still barely speaks for itself on the official shelf.

7 Talisker, With A 1954 As Our 1000th Review!

26th June 202626th June 2026Coldorak

Today’s post is one I never quite expected to write: the 1,000th spirit tasted and reviewed for this blog. What started on August 8, 2019, with a Balblair 1979 has become, over seven years and hundreds of evenings with a glass, a record of the spirits that shaped my palate and the stories behind them. There have been detours into cognac cellars, discoveries on Islay and other famous places, and far more independent bottlings than I could have imagined back then.

Today’s drams are seven Taliskers, all very special bottles. Over the last few years, I’ve found myself wanting to review several spirits in the same blog post so I can have proper comparison points. It also makes rating them easier, because I’m not judging each dram in a vacuum but against a few peers that helps bring out its strengths and weaknesses. That’s really what I wanted for this milestone post: not just a line-up of special bottles, but a set of drams that could speak to one another.

Tasting them side by side gives me context, and context matters when you’re trying to write something fair and honest. It helps me see what a whisky is doing well, where it falls short, and whether it stands out for the right reasons. That approach has become more important to me over the last few years. I don’t just want to taste a spirit once and move on; I want to place it in a small conversation, with a few other bottles around it to sharpen the picture. It makes the notes more useful for me, and I think it makes the article more interesting to read as well.

This article is part tally, part retrospective, and part tasting session — seven drams lined up to mark the moment, with the thousandth dram last.

Rozelieures Rouge Côte / Marsala / Coloma

24th June 202623rd June 2026Coldorak

Before we reach our thousandth spirit reviewed on More Drams this Friday, we make a small detour to France, and more specifically to Lorraine, to explore the Grallet-Dupic distillery. Initially best known for its fruit eaux-de-vie, the house is now primarily associated with its Rozelieures whisky and its farm-to-bottle approach. In this article, we review three of their expressions: the Rozelieures Rouge Côte from the Parcellaire range, along with two single casks, one matured in Marsala and the other in ex-Coloma Colombian rum.

Cardhu 12-Year-Old 1970s vs 2020s

22nd June 202621st June 2026Coldorak

Cardhu is a popular Speyside distillery, best known for its 12-year-old core expression. Since this is our first time covering the distillery, we’ll start with a brief introduction before comparing a Cardhu 12-year-old bottling from the 1970s with one from the 2020s.

Glen Elgin 12yo And Three Indy

19th June 202624th June 2026Coldorak

Glen Elgin is one of Speyside’s quieter distilleries (and another proof is we haven’t reviewed many yet), but it has a style that rewards a closer look. In this article, we’re tasting four Glen Elgin whiskies, three of them independently bottled (by That Boutique-y Whisky Company, Chorlton and Lady of the Glen), and using them as a way into a distillery that deserves more attention than it usually gets.

Go (Five) Hibiki

17th June 202616th June 2026Coldorak

Suntory Hibiki has come to represent the polished, expressive side of Japanese whisky, and this lineup of five bottles shows how Suntory kept the name alive as aged stock became harder to find. With four no-age-statement releases and only one age-stated bottling, the 17-year-old, today’s lineup also reflects the wider pressure the Japanese whisky industry faced in the 2010s as mature distillate was depleted and producers had to rethink what their flagship blends and single malts could be.

Suntory’s answer was to lean into blending skill and house style rather than rely only on age statements, and Hibiki became one of the clearest examples of that shift. This review looks at how those expressions differ, what they reveal about the brand’s approach, and how Hibiki adapted when older stocks were no longer available in the volumes the category had once depended on.

Six Glasgow 1770 Whiskies

15th June 202614th June 2026Coldorak

Glasgow Distillery has become one of the interesting names in Scotch whisky, doing so many things right (nice people, nice whisky, nice prices) and this line-up shows why. From the core range to the small-batch releases, these six whiskies give a good sense of what the distillery does best and how far it is willing to push things.