Musings

SnapShot: The Bold and the Blended (Compass Box)

SnapShot: The Bold and the Blended (Compass Box)

Our SnapShot series continues with an exploration of a company we’ve long been curious about: Compass Box Whisky. They have been on our proverbial radar for years but we only recently dipped our toes in with bottles of the Great King Street “Glasgow” and The Peat Monster. One reason is not wanting to plunk down the price of a bottle without trying any first, and none of the bars we normally frequent in the metro carry blends. Hey, don’t blame us for having standards. The set featured here is an elegantly put together kit, with the 50ml vials feeling especially generous. There was also a snappy foldout filled with info-graphics attempting to distill the tastes and sources of each whisky into something digestible, walking the edge between too much for beginners and not enough for the more curious. We tasted the entire set in the space of about one hour in the order of the following.

Pour Judgement: Reviews & Ranking

Pour Judgement: Reviews & Ranking

There have been a few articles over the past several months by whisky bloggers and writers that deal with the subject of whisky evaluation (really, great stuff). Generally, they comment on the state of the review industry – both professional and amateur, however you want to define those terms – and an examination of what they do, usually spurred by a change they are themselves making. Draw your own conclusions about whisky bloggers in general and the choices they make in particular, but it drove home the point that there isn’t necessarily a detailed, transparent place where the aims of Scotchology have been listed out.

Why would you drink fire?

Why would you drink fire?

Musings are going to be a new thing here at Scotchology. Sometimes we’ll have thoughts and experiences we’ll want to share that can’t easily be encapsulated into a whisky review. Such posts will give us space to explore in greater depth, even if they appear only a few times a year. The website will still focus primarily on our alcohol assessments, but we’ll also share some morsels like this where we step back and look at the forest for a moment instead of the trees. This initial Musing will address the important question of, well, how do you approach Scotch if you’re completely inexperienced?