Vanilla

Torabhaig Allt Gleann

Torabhaig opened in 2017 on the Isle of Skye, perhaps more famous for its first distillery, Talisker. Situated in a farmstead from the 19th century built using stone from a nearby Cnoc Castle, the building has been refurbished with copper stills, washbacks, and all the other needed equipment. Thinking forward, the distillery roof is removable so that when the time comes to upgrade the stills, they can be moved in and out with minimal disturbance of the historical building. The Torabhaig Allt Gleann is the distillery’s inaugural release, so named from the Allt Gleann, one of the burns near the distillery that provides the water along with the Allt Breacach. Made with Concerto malted barley, Pinnacle MG+ yeast, and peated to 16ppm.

By Adam | August 30, 2022 | Island | No Comments |

Branch & Barrel Distilling was founded in 2015 by friends Ryan Morgan, Scott Freund and Tom Sielaff after years of aging new make whiskey with different woods. One of them was wood from a plum tree, and was perhaps the one that finally pushed them into getting the distillery off the ground for real. The base spirit is a bourbon mash with high barley but some of their offerings are not aged in virgin oak barrels and thus do not meet the regulatory requirements to call it bourbon. The Branch & Barrel Plumwood is matured entirely in plum wood barrels and made in very small batches.

By Adam | August 10, 2022 | Foreign | No Comments |

Scotchology, as the name might imply, focuses primarily on scotch with a healthy interest in other world whiskies. One realm we generally stay away from is bourbon. This is not because we think lesser of the quintessentially American spirit, but rather because it is its own realm in many ways, and scotch provides us with plenty of pathways. Sometimes, however, it is nice to take a small deviation. Smoke Wagon is a high rye bourbon from Nevada Distilling, This small batch offering was first released in 2016 and is a mix of younger, more vibrant rye and older, more complex bourbon. The spirits themselves are from spirits producer MGP, as actually distilling in the heat of Nevada can result in high loss due to evaporation.

By Adam | May 30, 2022 | Foreign | No Comments |