A superb limited edition Laphroaig. Aged in ex-bourbon barrels which have given accents of pineapple, mango, coconut and vanilla to prop up the hefty smokiness...
Partly aged in small 'quarter casks' which had added extra oakiness, vanilla and pepper notes to the smoke, caramel and cigar box flavours of the spirit...
Littlemill sadly closed in 1996 and has since been demolished. It is thought that this was the oldest distillery in Scotland. Old examples like this are a lot better than younger bottlings. Fruity, spicy and oily with a lovely smoothness...
One of the very best examples from this long gone distillery. Lochside sadly closed for good in 1992. This is a bit of a 'Sherry Bomb'. Lots of dried fruits, spice and praline flavours. ..
It is said that when John Wayne and John Ford were filming The Quiet Man in Ireland back in 1951, Locke's was their whiskey of choice when winding down between, and maybe even during, filming. Back then it was made at the Kilbeggan/Brusna Distilllery in Co Westmeath, but this version is a lovely soft single malt distilled at Cooley. It's a vatting of 90% unpeated malt and 10% peated...
A lovely single-cask Locke's from the Cooley Distillery. It was bottled for the Irish Whiskey Society back in 2009 in conjunction with a number of Irish Waterways charities to mark the closure of the Grand Canal to commercial traffic in 1959, which was one of the channels the old Kilbeggan Distillery used to get casks of whiskey to eager Dubliners. It was one of two casks bottled at the time. They were shipped by barge to Dublin to great fanfare - with the help of a horse and cart...
Locke's gets its name from John Locke, who took over the old Brusna Distillery in Co. Westmeath back in 1843 and started producing a whiskey of that name. The brand, and the old distillery, was bought by John Teeling around 150 years later. It's now produced in Co Louth but matured at an old bonded warehouse in Kilbeggan that was modeled on a building in the ancient city of Ure in Iraq... The original would have contained pot still whiskey, but this one is a slightly peated malt/grain blend...
A wonderful mix of pungent peat smoke, deliciously fresh fruit, vanilla and dried fruit flavours. This really has a bit of everything, a complex and multifacted dram...
The real deal Macallan in the classic sherried style. If only all of them were this good! Lots of body, with rich, dried fruits, malt and delicate spices. ..