The scents packed into this wee beauty of a whisky are deliciously sumptuous, soft, and full – there’s a good old helping of sweet malt, seductively fruity oak with notes of ripe apricots, peaches and vanilla bean paste, all beautifully countered by a pinch of spicy cinnamon and nutty, brandy soaked marzipan. It’s a gorgeously balanced nose that will tickle you in all the right places if you like a sweet and full whisky. Certainly not a source of disappointment, the palate follows a very similar vein, offering up a virtual dessert buffet of flavours; warm buttery apples, sweet rhubarb pie with cinnamon, a good helping of vanilla custard, and a dollop of floral honey. If that doesn’t sound like heaven, you may want to go have your noggin checked!

Do yourself a favour and make sure to get a bottle or two of this before they run out – you won’t regret it. With that said, I’d prefer if you waited for a couple of hours before placing your order, please, so they still have some in stock when I get back home! Don’t you just hate how some banks insisting on making you use a silly “pin sentry” for online purchases nowadays, by the way? Learning my Visa number off by heart seems such a wasted effort now…

Colour: White wine.

Scent: Full, soft, sweet malt, peaches, apricots, vanilla bean paste, pinch of cinnamon and brandy soaked marzipan.

Palate: Warming, round, buttery apples, sweet rhubarb pie with cinnamon, vanilla custard, floral honey.

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There is no age statement on my bottle; the liquor inside is a deep orange amber.  The bottle itself is quite nice to look at, featuring a scene with a horse.  Swirling the bottle a bit, I can tell that there is a nice body and consistency to this bourbon.  The aroma is mostly corn and rye, but with traces of mint, vanilla and oak.  There is also just a hint of pepper.

The consistency of the Rock Hill Farms Single Barrel bourbon is viscous and warm, with just enough burn but not too much; the flavors are smooth and sweet, honey, vanilla, fruit and oak, with a bit of pepper to spice it up and some mint to cool it down.  The interplay between the mint and the burn is very interesting to say the least.

I’m amazed at the quality I got for a $38.00 purchase; and this bourbon easily holds its own among bourbons I’ve purchased for $60.00.  It is flavorful and smooth, well balanced, and works well by itself or mixed with other drinks.  It has just enough flavor to contribute to a mixed drink without overwhelming it.  An excellent value which I would recommend to anyone who enjoys subtlety and complexity in a bourbon.  Even though there is no age statement, I’m guessing this has a few years on it!

Color:  Orange amber.

Nose: Corn, rye, mint, vanilla, oak, pepper.

Taste:  Honey, vanilla, fruit, oak, mint, pepper.

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The good folk at Glayva were kind enough to send me a sample to review for you guys, so in order to ensure that I did it justice I decided to try it neat, as well as according to the 4 mixer suggestions on their website. The nose, when neat, offers up a warming concoction of zesty citrus – come to think of it, it’s quite similar to how your fingers smell after you’ve peeled a clementine (I know there’s tangerine in it, but it smells more like clementine to me) – along with cloves, herbs and honey. So far, so good! On the palate it is lusciously thick and creamy and the honey, herb and citrus notes are still very much present and dominant, along with a bit of aniseed and… something slightly tangy that I can’t quite put my finger on. A word of warning: it’s very moreish! I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s too sweet – but so far as I’m concerned, that’s the nature of a liqueur.

As for the mixer suggestions, I would rank them as follows:

1. Apple – BUT! – and this is important – don’t drink it cold! On their website, Glayva suggest 1 part liqueur to 3 parts apple juice and serve with ice, but I disagree. I used similar proportions, but rather than serve it ice cold I actually heated the apple juice up on the hob before pouring it into a cup and stirring in the Glayva, which made for a lovely drink which would be ideal on a cold winter day. I reckon shoving a cinnamon stick in with the juice would make it even better, but am yet to try.

2. Ginger ale – the fiery ginger offers a very nice bit of balance to the sweet citrus notes in the Glayva. In the summer this would be my top choice.

3. Cranberry – the logic here, I can only assume, is similar to that which led them to recommend mixing it with ginger ale. The sharpness of the cranberry juice does counter the sweetness of the liqueur quite well, but it’s not quite to my taste – which may be partly because I’m not a big fan of cranberry juice.

4. Lemonade – probably perfect for 18 year old girls as an alternative to VK, Archers and Smirnoff Ice, but far, far too sweet for my liking.

Priced in the region of £12-17 for a 50cl bottle, this and a couple of bottles of decent apple juice is perfect for cold Scottish winters. A good alternative to the classic highland coffee, which is preferred winter warmer, particularly if it’s late and you want to be able to sleep anytime soon!

Colour: Warm golden honey.

Nose: Citrus zest, cloves, honey, herbs.

Palate: Honey, herbs, citrus, aniseed.

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It’s also a great opportunity to meet and talk to an eclectic mix of people from across the world – with something like a million visitors, and thousands of performers, you can’t help but get a funny old mix –and in my opinion that really adds to the magic of it all. The fact that the whole town is buzzing with just one purpose – going to comedy (largely) shows and having a laugh – everyone is in a similar mindset (except the poor buggers who have to fight the crowds to get to and from work) and happy to chat.

That’s why I ended up talking to a (not so) mildly drunken Spanish fellow in his mid-50s the other day whilst ordering a drink in a city centre watering hole. As I was straining my blurry vision to try to make out the whiskies on offer behind the bar, he came up next to me and said something along the lines of ‘you looking for the whisky?’ to which I replied that yes, I am indeed looking for whisky, and he said ‘get Highland Park 18, is the best’ at which point he proudly produced a dram of the stuff with all the grace of a drunken man; nearly scooping my eye out with the rim. At that point I felt it would be rude not to go along with his suggestion, so I ordered a dram for myself (you don’t want to know what I paid for it, Christ almighty they know how to put prices up during August!) and asked him if he was a big whisky drinker (I figured that if he approaches strangers to make recommendations, he must be) and nearly wet myself when he winked at me and said ‘this,’ (again vigorously thrusting the glass up to my eye) ‘this is my first’. It was his utter confidence in himself, summarised in that cocky little wink, paired with his drunken slur, that made it so darn funny.

That said, he had chosen one heck of a nice whisky to start with; I love Highland Park, and the 18 is sublime! The nose is ever so slightly acidic when you first approach it, but this very quickly fades into a divine sweetness consisting of warm honey (the stuff you get when you buy straight from a keeper, rather than supermarket; the good stuff), sherry (full of sultanas), grapes, juicy red apples, apricot jam on a warm crumpet – and all of these sweet loveliness is balanced to perfection by a sprinkling of freshly ground cinnamon, a wee pinch of salt, and a few turns of the peppermill; by Jesus, I’m salivating to the point of drooling just at the thought of it. Oh! And I nearly forgot, there’s just a whisper of peat in there as well.

Then there’s the palate, the creamy, smooth, loving, lovely, loved, luscious palate! Again it starts out sweet with a good old helping of fruit and sherry, the peat is there too though still very subdued (it merely caresses your senses, which is exactly what you want it to in this whisky), and there’s still just a touch of salt and a few cracked peppercorns; then there’s homemade orange chocolate – imagine melting dark chocolate and adding to it fresh orange zest and letting it set, that’s what’s in here. This is a true masterpiece, if you ask me, and a must for anyone who appreciates a good whisky. The best thing is, you can pick a bottle up for under £60! Now there’s bang for your buck, right there.

Colour: Light-golden caramel.

Nose: Warm honey, sherry, grapes, red apples, apricot jam, cinnamon, salt, pepper, whisper of peat.

Taste: Creamy, smooth, sherry, fruit, whisper of peat,  salt, pepper, good quality orange chocolate.

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Heaven Hill Old Style Bourbon is a pale golden color, aged four years.  When you open this bourbon you’ll be greeted with a bold combination of scents including nutmeg and other spices and a distinctive fruity banana smell.  The taste mirrors the smell—banana accompanied by nutmeg and cinnamon.  The finish is also banana.  Is it the world’s most exciting bourbon?  Not really—but it’s a pretty good one for the low price, considering it’s nice and smooth and has a balanced richness to it.  In other words, it’ll do the trick.

I’ve tried Heaven Hill mixed in with a number of beverages and was pretty pleased with the results.  Again, this isn’t a top-shelf drink, but at $9.00 a bottle you shouldn’t expect one.  It does add a little extra flair at a low price though, and is great when I want to enhance another drink without breaking the bank to do it.  I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Heaven Hill as an introductory bourbon or for any really special occasions where you want something elaborate or unique, but it’s a good day-to-day bourbon for when you need it.

Color: Pale gold.

Nose: Banana, nutmeg, other spices.

Taste: Banana, cinnamon, nutmeg.  Well balanced.

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There is, to my knowledge, only one Danish distillery, and unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to visit it nor try their produce while I was there. My hosts are not the biggest of whisky drinkers – I don’t hold this against them, though, as they make up for it with a passion for beer. I’ve always been under the impression that not too many breweries existed in Scandinavia, and that the ones they do have largely produce standard lager (bleh!). Obviously there are some well known and noteworthy exceptions to this rule such as Nils Oscar, Mikkeller and Haandbryggeriet, to name one from each country, but on large… Well, I didn’t think they had much to offer.

As it turns out, though, I was wrong. Beer is apparently a growing trend in Scandinavia, and microbreweries are – or so I’ve been told – thriving. During my visit I had the opportunity to try several Danish beers, and I may come to write reviews of them all, but the most noteworthy experience was our visit to Sct. Clemens brewery. Sct. Clemens in situated right in the middle of Aarhus and offers a selection of 4 beers at any given time, all of which are brewed in the very room you drink them in. Seeing the massive mash tuns, coppers, and fermenters that your beer has been brewed in as you drink it adds a fantastic atmospheric quality to the experience, I loved it.

Atmosphere aside, a pub is only as good as the beer it serves – so do Sct. Clemens deliver the goods, I hear you ask? The short answer is: Yes. Oh god, yes. Though the prices were very steep from a British perspective (500ml, which is just short of a pint, came in at 66DKK/£7.3/$11.4USD), the quality of their brew was outstanding. Quite often there is a trade-off between atmosphere and quality, if you go for an atmospheric pub that brews its own ale, I’ve come to expect the quality to be, on whole, lower- but such was not the case here.

Price aside, I tried all four brews on offer at my time of visit. I scribbled down some quick taste notes as I went along, but as it was a social occasion I didn’t want to spend too much time doing it, so you will have to excuse if they are somewhat lacking.

Sct. Clemens Tommy’s Stout – Slightly too bubbly for my liking, though the bubbles were nice and small; leaving it for 10 minutes made it much more drinkable. The nose was full of roasted malts and freshly ground coffee beans. The palate presented the same lovely roasted malts and touch of coffee along with some acidity which I hadn’t quite expected, but quite enjoyed. The aftertaste brought with it a lovely, faint, whiff of smoke.

My final score (all scores are out of 10) for this ale was 5.5 as served, 6.5 once the bubbles had been given a chance to settle down.

Sct. Clemens Julebryg – Oh deary me, the Julebryg.. I wish I had one here and now. This was, by quite some distance, my favourite Sct. Clemens expression. The name means Christmas Brew, and it delivered exactly what you’d want from a Christmas Ale, in fact, it was the best Christmas Ale I had this year.

The nose was absolutely packed with roasted and caramelized almonds, with a slightly weaker but still very much present tone of sweet citrus peel. The palate continued in the same vein; first there was sweet citrus, then a lovely marzipan flavour that I truly hope to find in a beer more readily accessible in Britain. The feel of the beer was nice and soft, and quite thick. Absolutely outstanding, and dangerously drinkable.

My final score for Julebryg was 8. Now, this may not sound outstanding, but it’s one of the highest scores I’ve ever given – the highest for a seasonal beer.

Sct. Clemens Ale – Their standard British-style ale, so the menu told me. Once again I was surprised by the quality and sophistication of the brew. When first I put the glass to my nose I immediately exclaimed (slightly drunkenly, at this point) “Hah! Pineapple! Lots of it! Lovely.”  – needless to say, my drinking companions shot me a funny look. Once they’d had a whiff, though, they all agreed, which is a first. The palate carried some of the pineapple from the nose along with a more general sense of fruity sweetness, and a slight bitterness which balanced the sweetness nicely.

Final score: a healthy 6.

Sct. Clemens Pilsner – Ah, the one disappointment of the evening. It may be in part because I had this last, and it’s difficult for a pilsner to follow three lovely ales, but I really didn’t find much of interest in this. My notes are short and (not so) sweet: “like standard lager but slightly tastier. Nothing special. 3.5.”

Now, I would have to admit that I’d had more than three pints at that point (and the previous ales were, if memory serves, quite alcoholic – around 6-7%), so it may well be the Pilsner deserves a higher score than I have given it here.

To summarise, the Sct. Clemens brewery is very well worth a visit if you get the opportunity, even though the prices are a bit steep. My one complaint is that they serve the ales too cold, but that’s a matter of taste and easy enough to work around.

How did my investment pay off?  The Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel was a lovely deep reddish amber color in the bottle, consistent with 14 years of aging.  It was immediately clear to me when I picked up the bottle that the consistency was smooth and thick.

Opening the bottle and taking a breath, I smelled a delicious mix of spicy, buttery toffee and nutty oak.  I took a moment to savor this smell before I poured my drink.  I knew from the first whiff that the Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel was going to be something special, and probably pretty addicting.  Taste is exactly what you’d expect from this introduction—a backdrop of toffee with hints of apricot and citrus.  Despite the high alcohol content, this bourbon goes down very smooth and warm—somewhat deceptively.  It’s very easy to want to overindulge in this stuff!  I’ve tried it with a number of different drinks and it mixes well with pretty much anything.  It has just enough presence to enhance the flavor and body of another beverage without overwhelming the individual character of the drink you’re mixing it into.  The result is a unique and enjoyable experience every time.

In conclusion?  I’ve bought a lot of cheaper bourbons, but you do get what you pay for.  This one isn’t cheap, but it’s also not overwhelmingly expensive.  The Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel provides an excellent drinking experience, and therefore it’s a great value for your dollar.  I’m trying not to rush through this first bottle, but I’m also already saving up for another.  The praise this bourbon has been getting is well deserved; the Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel will please veteran bourbon drinkers but it could also serve as an accessible and delectable introduction for a beginner.

Color: Deep reddish amber.

Nose: Buttery toffee, spices, nuts, oak, sweet but not cloying.

Taste: Toffee, apricot, citrus, oak, spices, sweet and light.

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Imagine you’ve just stuffed your face full of Christmas delicacies, once again failing to remember how last year you said you would never eat that much again, and find yourself slouched in the sofa bemoaning the limited capacity of your belly. We all know there are only two cures for this predicament: ice cream, and whisky. Dailuaine 27 combines the two, which is why I have nominated it for– scratch that: awarded it – the honourable title of Christmas Whisky of the Year 2011. As you muster up the effort to bring the glass to your nose you’re hit by a refreshing gingery note – which is good for your digestion, by the way – followed by buttery toast, sweet pipe tobacco and just a hint of liquorice. As you let nature take its course and allow your hand to greedily pour a few drops onto your palate your tongue is instantly covered by its oily texture, and a veil of sweetness – soft gingerbread, warm honeycomb, vanilla, rum soaked raisins, cinnamon! With the drops making their way towards the back of your throat, they leave behind them a medium-long finish which, to my mind, is quite similar to Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream, but with an added twist of ginger.

Savour a dram or two of that over half an hour, perhaps forty-five minutes, and you’ll be ready for Christmas pudding.

Colour: Warm, light, toffee.

Nose: Ginger, buttery toast, sweet tobacco, hint of liquorice.

Palate: Oily, soft gingerbread, warm honeycomb, vanilla, rum soaked raisins, cinnamon.

Finish: Cookie dough ice cream with ginger.

Now, the black label is one of the cheapest Johnnie Walkers and as such it also serves, along with the red label, as their standard expression – the one most people would go for if faced with a shelf of JW’s and not quite knowing what they’re after – and they won’t be disappointed. There is, however, a general consensus amongst whisky lovers that spending an extra £8-10 and upgrading to the Green Label is highly worthwhile doing, and I would most certainly agree. Indeed, my hopes were high when I finally got around to tasting the Green Label: with so many positive reviews floating around the internet already, and having achieved an outstanding 95-point score in Jim Murray’s 2010 Whisky Bible, how could they not be?

The nose is an instant classic; it seems almost a stereotype, hitting nearly all of the notes that a well-balanced whisky should hit, with there being pepper, a certain saltiness, fruits (both ripe, sweet citrus flesh and apples), some caramel sweetness, and just a touch of earthiness – all combined into a full, thick aroma. For a blended whisky costing under £30, this is a superb nose. The palate does not fail to live up to expectations either, and packs a healthy bit of spice along with a touch of smoke, and the citrus fruits are still very much present – though the apple has been replaced by a mixed bag of dried fruits. Add to that a spoonful of heather honey, some toffee and a couple of nuts and you’re home.

In short, then, the Johnnie Walker Green Label is a fantastically well-balanced blend and presents a wide range of both smells and flavours that both experienced whisky fanatics and those who have recently lost their whisky virginity are sure to enjoy.

Colour: White wine.

Nose: Peppery, slightly salty, ripe citrus flesh, apple, caramel, slightly earthy.

Palate: Spice, some smoke, citrus, dried fruits, heather honey, toffee, nuts.

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When poet legend Robert Frost wrote, “Nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold…” , he wasn’t only talking about nature. I have the sneaking suspicion he might have had a bourbon in his hand at the time.

Now the holiday season has fallen upon us with a nip in the air and a nip on the lips. What better way to greet your in-laws than after having a Jim Beam Black. Not only will you feel more relaxed, but you can ignore the high volume at which your mother-in-law is speaking. Why not have another of that 8 year old bourbon? After all you deserve it. You have worked hard to put a roof over your family’s head and food on the table. In fact this year you are putting food on the table for all 15 plus extended family members. Have another drink with warm apple cider; Jim Beam Black, some cloves and cinnamon. What better way is there to relax and enjoy the family?

Once the football game begins you hand out beer to all that have gathered in front of your large screen TV, but you pour yourself a Jim Beam Black and cola. Why share the wealth with your brother-in-law whom you dearly despise? That’s right; give him the old standard brew. We know he would never be able to appreciate the delicate sweet notes of cola bouncing off the caramel and warm oak that is trailing down your throat. Sit back and smile at the commoners and enjoy your adult beverage.

After everyone has finally packed up their belongings and leftovers, it is time to have a night cap. Jim Beam Black, straight. This is not a drink to gulp down, especially at 86 proof. No, this is your time to sit back, put your feet by the fire and sip your beverage like a real man. You inhale the scent of relaxation as you read your favourite Dostoevsky novel and wonder what you did right in life to have deserved this? Well alright maybe Dostoyevsky is a bit much, so enjoy your Sudoku or latest Nick Hornby book. Either way, just take in the moment. For now the Thanksgiving feast has a new tradition, not only are you the patriarch of the family where everyone gathers, but JBB is the newest addition to your holiday tradition.

Who knows what will happen with Christmas, just be prepared and have lots of Jim Beam Black on hand. After all your new friend got you through Thanksgiving, it can probably get you through Christmases, too. Robert frost was right, “…so dawn goes down today, nothing gold can stay.” Frost just forgot to add, “in your glass filled with bourbon”.

Colour: Like golden streams from a dream.

Nose: A sharp smell of oak. Very relaxing.

Taste: Warm oak with a hint of caramel.

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