Year: 2020

Lakes Distillery Whiskymaker’s Editions: Colheita

Sean Handley English Whisky

Distillery: Lakes Distillery
Bottled: 2020
Age: NAS
ABV: 52%
Bottles: 5400
Cask: Ex-bourbon & Colheita Port Casks
More Info: WhiskyBase

Ooh hello, a new release from our friends at Bassenthwaite – it’s a port cask matured whisky from the Lakes Distillery.

Notes from the distillery team:

A diversion from their sherry-led house style, The Whiskymaker’s Editions Colheita is the first in a series of special-edition single malt whiskies from The Lakes Distillery which showcase whiskymaker Dhavall Gandhi’s sense of adventure in maturation and blending.

In Portuguese, Colheita means “harvest” and in this case, is a supreme and exceptionally rare expression of aged Tawny Port made exclusively of grapes from a single vintage.

I do enjoy a good port cask finish! You tend to get a lovely range of tasty red fruit flavours. The balance can be a little tricky to get right as port pipes can impart a very spicy character to a whisky.

Let’s see how it goes down!

Nose: Foam strawberries, marshmallows, clean laundry, pickles, and cracked black pepper.

Palate: Kirsch, summer fruits & cream, baking spices, and cinnamon. Quite robust!

Finish: Peppery and long with creamy oak and a touch of red fruit.

Oof! Spicy!

As I feared, the port cask dominates the palate and the tannins from the wood rather obscure the underlying character of the spirit. The result, in my opinion, is a whisky that’s a little too bitter and lacking in dimension.

Port cask finishes need a robust spirit to stand up to them, and I reckon the Lakes Distillery distillate is a little too gentle to have a fighting chance. Perhaps a second fill cask or shorter finishing period next time?

Overall, I’d rate this a 6/10.

I have to say though, I really love the nose on this with those sweet-shop aromas of foamy sweets and fair play to Dhavall for experimenting with the spirit and seeing what it can do in interesting casks.

I’m very keen to see what’s next in this series of Whiskymaker’s Editions. Maybe a Madeira finish? Or a Sauternes?? 😁🙏

You can pick up a bottle of this from today for £65 directly from lakesdistillery.com

Ardbeg Day 2013 “Ardbog”

Sean Handley Islay ,

Distillery: Ardbeg
Bottled: 2013
Age: NAS
ABV: 52.1%
Cask: Ex-bourbon & Manzanilla sherry
More Info: WhiskyBase

Another year, another Ardbeg Day release!

This is an older example from back in 2013 and is a salute to the peaty marshlands on Islay. The thing about this bottling that piques my interest is the Manzanilla cask finish. Ardbeg whisky is no stranger to a sherry cask, but almost always of the PX/Oloroso end of the spectrum.

Manzanilla is a much lighter style of sherry, more savoury and even (I think) a little bit salty. Consumed cold, it’s a thirst quencher on a hot day in the same way a cold pint is.

So how will a coastal pale sherry marry with a coastal peated whisky? Let’s find out.

Nose: Sweet blackberries, coal dust, leather and dry leaves. A coastal breeze with a touch of bread dough and marzipan.

Palate: Red fruits: cranberries, redcurrants, raspberries; giving way to a whoosh of coal dust and wood smoke, then followed by salty caramel and peppery oak.

Finish: Quite dry and ashy with dark chocolate and vanilla oak.

I’ve been a fan of this ever since I first tried it. Oddly, in the smoking lounge at the Four Seasons in Hamburg over a cigar (as you do, like).

It has a lot of the hallmarks of Uigeadail but the fruitiness of the sherry is balanced out with a good spectrum of savoury flavours, becoming dry and lip-smacking on the finish. There’s even a touch of yeastiness, which I’d associate with a pale sherry, so that tallies with the cask choice.

Overall, this is bloody lovely. A less sweet Uigeadail with tons of depth and a lovely dry finish. Delicioso!

You can still pick this up on the secondary market for about £140+

Ardbeg Supernova 2019 Committee Release

Sean Handley Islay ,

Distillery: Ardbeg
Bottled: 2019
Age: NAS
ABV: 53.8%
Cask: Ex-bourbon
More Info: WhiskyBase

Another space whisky has landed! Ardbeg’s 5th edition of Supernova promises to be “an abduction of the senses”. Where are Mulder and Scully when you need them?

I’m generally a big Ardbeg fan. Their whiskies have this great oily quality to them – sometimes mechanical, sometimes more like chocolate syrup or thick black coffee. There’s smoke too, granted, but it’s not the peat-smoke that conjures up muddy bogs or TCP – it’s more a faint backdrop of smoky logs on which other flavours can build.

Let’s put it in the glass!

Nose: Very coastal and briny with dark bonfire toffee, coal dust, fresh mineral oil. A touch of cocoa powder and acrylic paint.

Palate: Seriously thick and oily. Smoked caramel with cardamom pods and seaweed, becoming ashy and peppery.

Finish: Lip-smacking and long. That coastal oiliness just keeps going.

This is the best Ardbeg I’ve had in years! It’s intensely coastal but also well-balanced with sweet, briny, smoky flavours working in harmony.

Arbdeg’s NAS releases can divide opinion, particularly with odd cask choices and bordering-on-ridiculous marketing. This release is a showcase of what the distillery can do so well: a powerful mix of coastal notes and peat but with a great depth and complexity that draws you in and effortlessly puts a smile on your face.

My bottle is disappearing fast and I shall be very sad to see it go.

This went on sale on the Ardbeg site at £140 and is available on other online shops for £200+.