Latest tasting from WSMS.

WSMS was gathered again after the summer. 6 single malts was up for tasting, one Glengoyne, tree Glenfiddich and two Ardbeg.
This was a special evening for us, because the Ardbeg Kildalton become our number 100 to be tasted, hard to find any better whisky for the task.

It become a hard race between the tree Glenfiddich but the cask strength finally was emerged victorious from the battle. The Glengonye squeezed it self in between the Glenfiddich's. Amongst the two Ardbeg's the Kildalton had to se it self beaten by the younger brother, very young.
All together the Ardbeg very young scored 90 points and was number one for the evening.

The scores was also judged individual and you can see them below:

	Jörgen	Mattias L	Niklas	WSMS
Glengoyne 17	83	83	81	82
Glenfiddich 15	80	78	81	79
Glenfiddich 18	83	82	82	82
Glenfiddich 15 cask	83	81	84	83
Ardbeg Kildalton	87	88	88	88
Ardbeg Very Young	89	91	90	90

Look here for the tasting notes.

Better late than never.

Henrik Aflodal held one part of his whisky tasting in Varberg 14/4. The goal for Henrik is to crown a winner amongst 100 whiskies. 5 whiskies was up for judgment this time and 2 of them was chosen for next round.

The whiskies was: 10 years old Bruichladdich, 12 years old Bowmore, 15 years old Glen Garioch, 10 years old Longrow and a Yamazaki (Japan).
We was aware of the whiskies but we did't know the order when we tasted them. Our tasting notes can be find here.

The scores was also judged individual and you can see them below:

	Jörgen	Mattias L	Mattias S	Niklas	Tony	WSMS
Bowmore	80	80	75	80	85	80
Bruichladdich	83	72	73	84	83	79
Glen Garioch	75	76	74	80	76	76
Longrow	82	85	83	81	79	82
Yamazaki	78	73	83	82	82	80

The two whiskies that was chosen by the participations was Bruichladdich on second place and Yamazaki that took the first place. As you can see, WSMS didn't quit agree with that order.

Robin Shields leaves Laphroaig.

Apparently by mutual consent, Ian Henderson's successor at Laphroaig Distillery, Robin Shields has parted company with the distillery as manager. This leaves them currently leaderless with the 2005 Islay Festival of Malt and Music arriving at the end of May.
However, since the managerial staff at the distillery have been in place for some considerable time, visitors should still receive the customary warm welcome at Laphroaig Distillery.
www.laphroaig.com

(Source: http://www.isle-of-islay.com/distillerywatch/ )

Some of the members did take part of an "Online Tasting"

25/2 three of WSMS members did take part of an "online tasting" held on the internet.

We where some expectant people in the front of ours computers waiting for the moment to start tasting the whisky. For the evening we had six known whiskies but we didn't know the order. It was fun to read the reaction from the other at the same time as we tasted the different whisky.

The whisky for the evening was:
Caperdonich 34y, Ardmore 1977, Glen Garioch 15y, Glenglassaugh 1976, Isle of Jura 5y and Pittyvaich 26y.

To see the results, take a look here.

There will soon be another online tasting and of coarse WSMS will be there.....

New releases from Springbank this year.

Frank McHardy from Springbank distillery unveils the new releases for 2005.
Springbank will have their first official release of Hazelburn. Hazelburn is a tripled distilled whisky made in the traditional Scottish Lowland style using unpeated malt.
There will also be an release of Longrow from 1995 matured in Tokaji casks. But this is not all, Springbank planning also to give us a young Longrow, 5 to 6 years old, but this will only be sold to Springbank Society members (maybe time to become a member ?).

And at last, Springbank will release a limited edition of the notorious 21 years old Springbank. This whisky will be in the same bottle and with the same label as the old one, but with the difference that the new one will have the bottle year 2004 printed on the label.
The release is limited to 2400 bottles and the price is expected to be "high".

A Happy New Year and WSMS held as usually a tasting event.

A new year and a new tasting event. 6 / 1 WSMS tasted five new bottles, but first a summing up from 2004. WSMS tasted 27 new single malts during the year and we also got a one new member.

Now to the tasting, the five single malts for the evening was:

Bladnoch 15 year, Bruichladdich Flirtation, Springbank Bourbon wood, Brora 30 year and Talisker 25 year. As you can imagine it was a nice tasting with many high scores, the winner for the evening was Brora 30 years old with earned 94 points

 To see the other results, take a look here.