The Malt Desk

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The Malt Desk

This blog will feature tastingnotes/reviews, distillery visits and wh**ky news with focus mainly on Scottish single malts

This blog will feature tasting notes, reviews, distillery visits and wh**ky news with focus mainly on Scottish single malts. This will sometimes be accompanied politically incorrect (wh**ky) opinions. You have now been warned! :-)

The views expressed here are entirely my own, unless otherwise stated.

10/09/2026

Second tasting of the Autumn 2026 season tonight is themed 6x30 /180 years of wh**ky in an evening.

We'll be tasting 5 30yo Speysiders and a coastal 30yo Jura. Add to that an extra, taking the evening to 197 years of wh**ky.

Another evening spoiling the members of the wh**ky club.

22/08/2026

There it is... our benchmark dram! (See previous post)

22/08/2026

Today a small private Macallan/Speyside (M) tasting. Its going to be sherry bombs galore and I wonder about if we can spot the similarities. Another fun test is between the Signatory Exceptional Cask bottles, edition 13 and 15... where one of the 13-ones have been open a while. Oh, and there is a strikning absence of Macallan OBs - I'll leave you to judge why 😉

20/08/2026

Tonight, we start the fall season of 2026.
It's going to be a busy one with tastings every 3 weeks, ending on November 12 with a visit from Adelphi/Ardnamurchan

But tonight, we start off with 7 ex-bourbon cask matured whiskies, as they are summer whiskies, right? 😉

We visit Speyside, Highlands, Campbeltown and Mull for this one.
Brillant stuff, everything aged between 15-35.

**ky **kygram **ky **kylover **kyblog **ky **kyagency **kyjury

07/08/2026

We're in the last summer month of 2026 now, so let's have some more summer wh**ky.

This time, it's a bottle brought home from the first 'Cadenhead in the Courtyard' event in 2019.

It's an 'An Irish' 2006 10yo (13yo), bottled in 2019. The cask was moved to Scotland in 2016, hence the official age statement of 10yo. It was then finished in an ex-Guyana rum cask from April 2018 before being bottled at the Cadenhead event in September 2019.

Just 80 bottles were filled for this event, and it was bottled at 47.1%.

We all know that with Cadenhead, it's free from E150e caramel colouring and is not chill-filtered. Especially this one, as it's straight from the cask!

But let's dive into it – the bottle has been opened, the dram poured, and left to sit for an hour.

Nose:
Smelling it straight from the newly opened bottle, it was very anonymous – but now, after an hour? Wow!

The rum is the first thing that hits your nose, followed by vanilla and a burst of orchard fruits and a grassy note. There's also a little menthol, along with slight coconut and a faint oily/buttery note.

Lots going on here. One minute, one thing is at the forefront – nose it again shortly after, and something completely different takes over.

Palate:
Full-flavoured arrival, but the rum has now moved towards the back.

Instead, you get a full 'Irish' hit of fresh fruit, a burst of oak spice and honey, with the wh**ky becoming very drying towards the finish.

The rum is only showing itself a little on the finish, where it creeps in alongside the oak. The finish is quite long for a wh**ky of this age and certainly an experience.

Great stuff!

31/07/2026

Don't mind if I do.... stunning historical stuff

31/07/2026

A bit of Scotland in Aalborg Kommune tonight with The Paul McKenna Band at the The Tall Ships Races Aalborg

Great performance, gents hope to see you again some other time

17/07/2026

Clynelish 1996/2018 22yo 56%

S Sprits Shop Selection for Taiwan

Nose:

A deep honeyed waxy note, vanillas, hint of dried herbs mediterranian style and oil based paint cans left in your shed for too long followed by a tiny hint of menthol and oak

Palate:

Thick creamy honey, candies pears and peach, cask spices, white pepper and well balanced slightly drying oak turning almost lemony at some point. Lingers for quite a while.

A little stunner, IMO

04/07/2026

A little self-indulgence is called for every now and then, and it's whiskies like this that remind me why this hobby is so rewarding.

This is the 2021 release from my stash. Matured exclusively in bourbon casks (bottle code: 08.09.2021 21/133) and bottled at a healthy 55.9% ABV.

Nose: Classic Springbank. An old workshop, metal shavings, machine oil, damp newspaper and a gentle wisp of peat smoke. Given a little time in the glass, it opens up with olive oil, vanilla, concentrated juice from pressed green grapes and damp oak casks. There's also that unmistakable aroma of almost-empty wh**ky casks with just a small puddle left at the bottom, sitting in a cool, dunnage warehouse.

Palate: Delivers exactly what the nose promises. Soot, ash and a wonderfully oily texture take centre stage before a lovely bourbon-cask sweetness emerges. White pepper adds a gentle spicy lift, while the ashy and oily notes linger beautifully. The oak is perfectly integrated, supporting the spirit without ever dominating it.

This is exactly how a 12-year-old cask-strength Springbank should be. Complex, dirty, oily, yet wonderfully elegant at the same time. On a cool summer evening it's just about impossible to find fault with it.

What's not to like?

04/06/2026

Another newly opened bottle tonight. It's Constitution Day here Friday the 5th, so having the day off seemed like a perfectly good excuse.

The first thing that hits me on the nose is that funky Clynelish 2000 character I've come across in other bottlings from that year. Wet dog, cardboard, and a strange oily note on the nose...

Time — it needs time (hopefully).

One hour later: it's settled down a bit. Some fruit has started to emerge along with what can only be described as the aroma of freshly pressed olive oil, fresh oak, and a sourness that I'm not particularly fond of.

The palate is still quite bitter — mostly wood, and what I imagine wet leaves would taste like. There's some overripe fruit too, and I mean really overripe, not in a good way.

Waaater!

The nose opens up and more fruit starts to appear. The oiliness (cooking oil / olive oil) also becomes more prominent. There's now a little honey showing up as well — the only classic Clynelish note I've found with any certainty.

The palate is now slightly metallic, with more sour wood, some fruit, and what I imagine acid-free workshop oil would taste like. The finish is medium in length, but it's mostly bitter wood.

OK, no more 2000-vintage Clynelish for me without tasting it first. The ones I've tried so far have all been well below par.

I can only guess that quite a few of these 2000 Clynelish bottlings have been sold on the strength of the name alone — because the quality certainly isn't there, in my opinion.

I'll give this bottle some more time and another chance, but right now it's a strong candidate for a swap!

Not all that glitters is gold!

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