Відео

Thanks for another excellent review Shane Slàinte mhath

I know this expression is dear to you, but in the spirit of giving during this holiday season, don't you feel a pressing need to send some of this precious stuff to a big fan of yours...namely me? Kidding aside, thanks kindly for your insights, informative content, and humor. About the artificial coloring in Laphroaig...so disappointing! I have an IB single cask 10yo Laphroaig bottled at 53.4% that's pale straw...what a looker! Adding that fake coloring is like hiring a group of vandals to tag a Ferrari just as it's rolling off the production line.

I remember when John Campbell was a guest on the vPub he mentioned something about the peat in Laphroaig being most intense between about 6-12 years old. Thanks for all the videos. Have a Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2025! Cheers! 🥃

Is ur old laphroaig before or after the green tube? How do they compare?

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Merry Christmas Shane

Thanks for a wonderful 2024. Best wishes in 2025. I can still buy the old 18 yr old Laphroaig in my local liquor shop for $500 pre tax. Not sure its worth it. 😂

Thanks

Thanks

Nothing better than finishing year in style, Old Style...whisky. Never tried so nostalgia isnt my prime feeling. Just enjoying my 16yo and im 100% happy. Not going to spend these crazy money for shareholders of these greedy corporations. Waitng for Whisky Loch next year and we all can buy this stuff at real value/half price 🫰😁. Hope dies last so... 🤷‍♂️ 🥂🥂🥂🙋‍♂️

This must have actually been a bit emotional. The fondness you have for the distillery & the older bottles specifically. Still I enjoy your philosophy that whisky is meant to be drank. Last of the Glenmo 10 is on offer around me for 30 USD so I snagged a couple for the closet. Let’s see if I can wait ten years like you. Agreed that the new 12 feels different like possibly some re-working of the casks. Merry Xmas Shane & god bless🙏😌

Thank goodness that I still have 7 bottles of the old 18. The one release that gave me similar vibes to the old 18 was the An Cuan Mor. There were rumours that they used the remaining 18 or casks of the 18 and stored them in warehouse 1. I recently tried Lore and was a bit disappointed.

Greetings Shane! Fantastic review…. Your assessment of the old 18 parallels my recent experience with the 2017 L 25…a dram to relax and ponder with…. As far as price shock for me was the rebranding of Old Pulteney 15 & 18 back in 2018… at that time the 15 was $85 and the 18 @ $115 which created an uproar at that time with the OP 17 being discontinued. I bought those rebrands in 2018 and glad I did because that 18 is my WOTY and each year appears to be batch variant because the colors are different. Now the price for the OP 18 hovers @ $160 which falls more in line with the competition and imo offers better quality and value than its peers but still a hefty price compared to the ole days. Today’s pricing on older aged stock seems to be targeted to the top 20% wage earners but that trajectory is not sustainable for us common folk. The retail glass shrines seem fuller than ever of overpriced “premium “offerings that WERE the latest and greatest In recent years growing whiskers. Cheers 🥃

Merry Christmas

I last saw Laphroaig 18 here in Israel back in 2014. They were 1,000 shekels a bottle (about £220). I used to buy a bottle every other year in the early 2000s. I got my last two bottles in payment for doing a whisky tasting evening in a shop. They were in a dark grey tube from their special release 2012 Diamond Jubilee Edition. I still have one bottle left. Your tasting notes are bang on.

Thanks for all the brill insights over 2024. Wishing you and your family a wonderful Xmas holiday and a healthy 2025

I ALWAYS blame Diageo, and never buy their products. Merry X-Mas!

Merry Christmas thank you for all your videos this year

great review, I enjoy this one as well and agree with the comparison to quarter cask.

I want to be honest, i'm no professional whiskey flavour test, but from 3 flavour profile like vanilla, honey and oak wood, i will say the honey sweetness is what i get the flavour most. I DO enjoy it a lot. 😋👌👍👍

Worked very well. Thanks!

It did say, “naturally presented” on mine

That comment on the wine cask expanded my senses.... This create IMHO a bit of an unpredictable taste profile. I thought of bacon and ham in the nose and in the palate I couldn't get a citrus profile, more honey, earthy and spices.... the finish was more like a smoke explosion, dry, and the sweetness was fading, leaving only smoke and a little bit salty... I do agree on wine tho... it's a whisky that could be different from batch to batch.

The Best ❤❤❤

I really like this whisky, but am quite new to the world of whisky so it was good to hear some of the negative aspects as it's things to look out for next time. Cheers 🥃

As a South African, this is my favourite whisky.

I passed on this one because its a Jura. I understand the flip of that (buy it because it will be an example of what could come from Jura), but I've found this is not a distillery I get along with. Similar to last years Auchentoshan, ill be happy when they move onto another distillery. Given the bottler, I'd guess non-chill, natural color, but an intentionally misleading abv (not cask stregnth), but of course we likely will never know. Good review, thank you!

Mr Lock, I've just replicated your comparison of ‘Island Smoke’ and ‘Smoke & Dagger’. And I reach the same conclusions, preferring the former. Peated Bunna sure is industrial: “slightly burnt vanilla ice-cream plastic container” is one of my tasting notes.

Good man, I wish to savour my bottle of CS batch 15. How empty can it be and how long can I keep it for longest life of the bottle?

Thank you for your review. Just picked up a Batch 15 for Christmas. I most love the medicinal, band---aid, maritime notes of peated Islay single malts. Looking forward! Merry Christmas! Btw, how would you reccomend drinking the 15? Thank you again

Hi Shane. That was fun. I enjoyed your homage to John from "Just Whiskey". By the way have you ever tried the Jura Prophecy bottled at 46%? They billed it as heavily peated but it was just super well integrated IMO. The rumor mill believes the average age in that 2013 bottling was over 20 years. I'm doing a Jura tasting ATM with that Prophecy, and the modern 12 and 10. I'm also in the camp of believing Jura has crazy potential when they do it right.

Haven't tried anything from Jura yet, even though their OB whisky is constantly on special here. The poor specs put me off. If I do get around to trying it, it will probably be from an independent bottler. Cheers!

What a shame. Will we ever seen a Jura that really shines like the old bottlings once did. 🙁

I still wonder if they run, or once used to run, several different peated distilling regimes at Jura. The variance in the independent bottlings is so crazy that it even makes me question whether they use different kinds of peat from year to year, let alone the PPM and what they're doing with the stills on each batch. Might as well be a different distillery, it's that extreme.

Thanks again for another excellent review... ...of a bottle of which it is highly unlikely it will ever appear on my shelves. Slàinte mhath

Watery I think this is not, unless you drink too much whisky (been there once), then things tend to get watery, but then you should just drink less😂

After a number of years of staying away from Jura, I recently decided to grab the old Particular 12 year old Jura. Yet to open so time will tell how if that decision pays off or not. Great review and a pivoting to smokey cokey was totally unexpected. Cheers to you and the wise man @Just Whiskey! Happy Holiday season to you Shane!

TWE’s “Black Friday” 2021 (22yo) “Speyside Edition” was an absolute cracker. I haven’t tasted any of their other releases but I’ve heard very mixed things from most of the others. I think these “Black Friday” offerings are down to pure fluke on the quality of the casks involved

Interesting you mention the gunpowder note. I love gunpowder tea, just different and interesting altogether. So I would most probably love TB-BSW.

Love a good cocktail & this sounds fun. Maybe 2 oz coke to 1 oz Scotch?

Very good bourbon. My only complaint is that which is more directed at the bourbon industry writ-large, and that is there needs to be more pot-still bourbons. There are a few for sure (Balcones, Woodinville, local bourbon where I live called Old Hillside) and I’ve made it a mission to pursue pot-stilled bourbons. The American whiskey industry has its issue no doubt, but I have to applaud my country’s straight whiskey laws, as it mandates a minimum age duration but, just as importantly, prohibits artificial additives of all kinds. WT101 is a great bourbon despite that it’s column-stilled like the vast supermajority of bourbons. And at the current price, it’s a can’t-miss. WT101 is a high-rye mash bill, which lends itself to the fuller flavor. If there’s a high-wheat counterpart to it, it’s Maker’s Mark and is a very good bourbon as well. Softer bourbon for sure because of the wheat but definitely a highly drinkable dram, priced pretty close to WT, I keep a bottle of one sort or another in my cabinet. And unlike WT, MM is non-chill filtered. But I don’t know about its availability in Scotland.

When it comes to special releases, I normally avoid them because the distiller is the one crowning these bottlings as “special”, not the customers. But too many times, customers buy into this and purchase them anyway despite, as you just said, many of these are highly opaque on info and stats on the bottle and therefore not well presented. To me, “special bottles” are just marketing ploys by distillers. For something to be truly special, that comes only from customers. On Jura, I don’t have the 16 but rather the 10. I get it’s not the best out of Scotland (nowhere close) but to me it’s a very easy, very drinkable dram while watching a movie, sports, whatever. Probably a good SMSW to give to someone who’s just starting out in Scotch and who is open to trying peat smoke. But Ralfy is correct, it could be much better if the distillery ownership cared. I have a feeling it could be a truly “special” bottle if care was put into it, and the brand could be resurrected ala Arran. I used to make lots of cocktails but I’m not into that anymore. Last cocktail I made was experimental, as it was mezcal, hibiscus tea, agave nectar & lime juice. Not bad actually.

I just bought old ballantruan 10, hope it’s good.

53.8% abv trumps all other considerations over Jura 16 . . . Jura at 46+ % abv is so rare (in the past), and high abv allows so much for blending and allows my Dalmore-esque Jura 12 to be near 46-47% abv ( and even the mundane Whyte & Mackay ! ) .... Cheers ! and Happy Holidays Mr. Lock !

Thanks for reviewing this one and I am glad that I passed on it. I was worried when I read about the use of American oak oloroso hogsheads for maturation and your notes confirm the sherry influence is the main note, which for me is an easy pass. I have had some fantastic independent Jura, but all of them have been bourbon cask matured. Cheers 🥃

Glad I've got some energy left at the end of the year to watch my favourite whisky tuber! Firstly cheers for the review and hope you're well. These TWE Black Friday bottlings were all much more bang for your buck at least in terms of specs for price pre-covid. Now it's not too uncommon to get what they're offering with these specwise elsewhere. I've tried their TWE Black Friday Glenburgie 21 yo (2019) and Ardmore 22 (2020). The Glenburgie I had a dram of from a bar, bottle had been open some time, was great, defo felt I'd missed out by not having a bottle. The Ardmore I did buy a bottle of on release, insanely complex and delicious neckpour, rest of the bottle was still good but never matched the initial pour. I won't be interested buying anymore TWE BF bottlings unless their prices drop. I did pickup this years MoM Black Friday. Good price for the specs, not far into the bottle but it seems "alright". Tastes a bit like a timid Edradour....

I see what you did there 👑 Cheers 🥃

An absolutely topper of a strong blended whisky! I always have a bottle of this on the shelf.

I went for the MoM black Friday bottle. It was about half the price though. 🥃

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