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Singapore1128 Posts
On May 23 2015 03:32 Artisreal wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2015 02:49 bluegarfield wrote:
Hi,
Newbie here need some advice. I will be travelling to Singapore soon and thinking about buying 1-2 bottles of single malt whiskey at duty free shop. Some background info: I am just an casual occasional drinker, the type that take a small sip every other days, mostly Jim Beam black label, honey and Chivas Brothers' Blend. I kinda dont like (not hate, just dont like) normal Chivas and Jack Daniel No.7. yeah so that's about it. very new to this whole whiskey game.
Anyway, I have looked around and also the shop list, and have considered a few following bottles: Caol Ila 12y/o, Glenmorangie (Original/Lasanta/Quinta Ruban), Ardbeg 10y/o, Laphroaig Quarter Cask, Glenlivet 12/15, may be Glenfiddich Reserve Cask. I heard the shop occasionally has some Suntory whisky as well.
Of course each person has their own preferred taste, but say which 2 are the most welcome and smoothest for beginner? I sorta understand that Ardbeg has pretty strong taste for beginner and may be too hard to tolerate, other than that not very sure. Any recommendation is appreciated From those you mentioned, I, personally, would rate the Glenlivet 12/15 and the Glenmorangie the most tastebud-friendly as they, in contrast to Ardbeg and Laphroaig, are not peated. And peat is not for everyone  The Caol Ila I've never heard of but from what I just read about him, he's heavily peated. If you dont have any experience with peat or have a thing for medicine-like taste, go for the Glenlivet and Glenmorangie. They are pretty popular for a reason  e: spelling >_<
Thanks a lot. Medicine-like taste sound kinda awful haha, although in term of whisky it may be good XD I will look at those 2 and see if I can get them when I am there
On May 23 2015 08:05 Djzapz wrote:
Ardbeg and Laphroaig are quite harsh for beginners, and I wouldn't really recommend buying a full bottle unless you've tried a peated scotch first. Some of them can be quite unpleasant if you're not used to it. I imagine Caol Ila would be similar in nature.
Still around here if I had a chance to get my hands on a bottle of Caol Ila, I would. Fancy stuff.
Noted on the taste. Sometimes even at duty free shop they do allow tasting for some brands. I will ask if I can try the Ardbeg or Laphroaig.
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Also, doesn't seem they have Macallan there XD
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Just ordered the new Ardbeg Perpetuum. Let's hope it's better than last years release.
Octomore 6.3 was one of the best in the series yet! I Think I prefer 4.2 but it was a close call.
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On June 06 2015 01:02 OminouS wrote:
Just ordered the new Ardbeg Perpetuum. Let's hope it's better than last years release.
Octomore 6.3 was one of the best in the series yet! I Think I prefer 4.2 but it was a close call.
I have no concept of what those peat monsters would taste like. It's like 3x the peat of regular peat monsters. And there's no way for me to try short of buying a bottle, which is a lot of money x_x
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Is there a ranking somewhere of Ardberg whiskys by how peaty they are? So hard to figure out lol.
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Well, they only have a few regular ones:
10yo - Staple
Uigeadail - Slightly sweeter, slightly more sherry than 10yo. Still strong
Corryvreckan - Beast mode. I like this one a lot.
Then, there are all the yearly releases. Personally, I don't really bother. You may dislike it after spending a wad of cash, and if you do really like it you may not find the same bottle for sale again. And they're typically overpriced as well. Hope I got all of them here:
2006 - Rollercoaster
2008 - Blasda
2010 - Supernova
2011 - Alligator
2012 - Gallileo
2013 - Ardbog
2014 - Auriverdes
2015 - Perpetuum
edit: I've seen Provenance, Renaissaince and Kildalton as well. As well as committee bottlings, bottlings by other distillers and such. They've made quite a mess of this.
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Yea I feel you, it's so hard to keep track and figure out what's what with Ardberg these days. I just have a bottle of Corryvreckan sitting around that I drink sometimes, and was curious if that is the peatiest they have to offer. Do you know if any of the yearly releases are particularly strong?
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Just bought a bottle I've never tried before:
Oban Single Malt 14 Year
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I sometimes like to get some inspiration, be it about the next whisky I might not buy because it's too expensive or the vocabulary one might use describing whiskys from this channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnCE0-pPZuit8aud1l9rhkA/videos
Altough I frequent the german one, the single video I saw in english was quite alright.
You can search for a whisky you want to buy to get a subjective optinion.
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Wow, just watched him reviewing a 40 Year Old..
Edit: And now the Black Bowmore 42. This guy gets expensive as fuck whiskeys
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Well, as far as I know he is the husband of the owner of whisky.com, which is an online store for liquor.
And they do those videos for promoting their goods
kinda
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My buddy from Calgary has sent me 2 bottles of Ardbeg in a nondescript box and now I'm worried that the bottles will be jostled around to the point where they might leak or something like that. Recently I had a bottle of porto leak from being stored upside down on this weird rack. Expected delivery is on June 17th so that's quite some time for a shipping company to be abusing a package.
Hopefully the cork holds up.
Edit: And they're fine, as well as 6 days early!
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Might as well bump this, as far as I'm concerned this thread is more enjoyable than any other whisky forum out there. I'm having trouble because I find that there's quite a lot of snobbery in the whisky world, why can't we just enjoy things?
I like to watch the videos of this guy on youtube, Rafly, I'm sure many of you know him. Many disagree, others agree with what he says and I don't care about that, it's all subjective and sometimes my tasting notes are completely different from his, other times they're spot on (especially for the lighter stuff). My palate isn't as refined as others and I don't care, we all have to start somewhere.
But I watch other youtubers, I've had "tastings" with a few friends before and everyone has different little quirks. Some like to shake the glass to get the whisky to "breathe", others like to move the glass around lightly, others don't mess with it at all. Some people add a lot of water, others add a little, and some just leave it the fuck alone. It annoys me that in one of the videos he says you essentially look like an idiot if you shake your whisky vigorously in the glass. Shouldn't you just get to do whatever the hell you want  . It's part of the fun isn't it, seeing how the whisky changes depending on what you do with it. Is it really worse if you shake it, or is it just different?
I can perhaps understand if you buy this rare bottle of whisky and you're only interested in tasting what it is right now, but that's not what most people are doing.
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I think you should do whatever you want. I move the glass around (more surface area), and I generally don't add water unless it's really to dilute the whisky (imho the whole 'opening up of the flavour' is overrated).
I used to watch Ralfy sometimes, and Whisky.com, but now I just don't bother. His reviews take about half an hour and when he goes on about peppermint and spearmint and dried dune grass, spring coriander and heather honey, I can't help but think he's inventing notes here. Not to say he's necessarily wrong, he has a good overview on what's out there, but I'd just prefer a 10-line review and some kind of map to this kind of rant.
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I find it hard to take some of Ralfy's tasting notes seriously at times but once in a while you can kind of see where he's coming from... the oddly specific terms come off as snobbish and I hate that but at the same time there's this culture of trying to find these, as if to brag about one's more refined palate. Makes you wonder who's just making shit up...
That being said, that map places the Bunnahabhain 12 yr old in the bottom right quadrant toward rich and delicate, close to the Glenlivet 18. Very surprising to see two very different scotches being so close.
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On June 11 2015 10:00 Djzapz wrote:
I find it hard to take some of Ralfy's tasting notes seriously at times but once in a while you can kind of see where he's coming from... the oddly specific terms come off as snobbish and I hate that but at the same time there's this culture of trying to find these, as if to brag about one's more refined palate. Makes you wonder who's just making shit up...
That being said, that map places the Bunnahabhain 12 yr old in the bottom right quadrant toward rich and delicate, close to the Glenlivet 18. Very surprising to see two very different scotches being so close.
Yeah, those 2 whiskies are indeed miles apart. But it's still a good effort to at least try to make a model. The map is only 2-dimensional, so it only really tests 2 properties, smokiness and richness. Tbh I just picked a random one off the internet, there's loads of these similar to this one. I wonder how helpful it would be to add a number of dimensions (viscosity, saltiness, tannin, etc) and see how far you can get.
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On June 11 2015 18:11 aseq wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2015 10:00 Djzapz wrote:
I find it hard to take some of Ralfy's tasting notes seriously at times but once in a while you can kind of see where he's coming from... the oddly specific terms come off as snobbish and I hate that but at the same time there's this culture of trying to find these, as if to brag about one's more refined palate. Makes you wonder who's just making shit up...
That being said, that map places the Bunnahabhain 12 yr old in the bottom right quadrant toward rich and delicate, close to the Glenlivet 18. Very surprising to see two very different scotches being so close. Yeah, those 2 whiskies are indeed miles apart. But it's still a good effort to at least try to make a model. The map is only 2-dimensional, so it only really tests 2 properties, smokiness and richness. Tbh I just picked a random one off the internet, there's loads of these similar to this one. I wonder how helpful it would be to add a number of dimensions (viscosity, saltiness, tannin, etc) and see how far you can get.
Might be useful for those who care to take a serious look but after 2 dimensions it becomes hard to understand what you're looking at for most people, and you have to move the cube around to see where some of the entries are. Nonetheless, it would be a pretty cool thing to have.
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Tomorrow I'm going to pick up a bottle or two and I'm hesitating between Talisker 10 and Macallan Gold. I'm thinking Talisker is higher quality, but my "collection" is starting to be pretty rich in peated stuff and I don't have too many of the fruity lighter whiskies. Another one I'm intrigued by is the Nikka Taketsuru 12 years, also a lighter whisky, but it's bottled at 43% which makes it looks better than the Macallan. All three are priced around $75-85.
Any opinions?
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Did that bottle of yours make it to your place safe and sound?
While I did enjoy the Tallisker Storm a couple of times during vacation last year, I don't remember ever trying the 10y. The former I'd recommend immediately, though peated, it wasn't dominant at all. Tasted of caramel and vanilla, if I remember correctly. ~ After quickly checking some ratings at thewhiskystore, I'm not that convinced my memory isn't betraying me, the Storm is supposed to be pretty peaty. Well, I remember him being tasty, though I've got my problems with fruity stuff figuring out the fruit underneath the alcohol
I Can't tell you anything about Macallan or the Nikka.
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Yeah both the Ardbeg bottles made it unharmed, almost one week before the ETA so it didn't get abused by Canada Post too much .
As for Talisker Storm, unfortunately it's not available locally. Maybe one day though, I really like peated whisky when the peat leaves place for other notes that aren't overshadowed by the excess of peat like I got in one of those cheap McClellands.
Forgive picture quality! My collection. (Opened bottles not pictured)
+ Show Spoiler +
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Out of curiosity, how long does it take you to go through a bottle? -- For the sake of the question you drink one bottle at a time.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Qqq2ZJS.jpg)
