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Third Annual Whisky Hill Dram Jam

Thursday May 2, 2002

This year's WHDJ is promising to be an amazing tasting...  It began on Thursday May 2  with Sir Dave (of the Local Barley) collecting FX at Logan Airport.  I joined these two at Dave's mega-maltorium around 8:30 pm and of course they greeted me with drams at the door - the last drams of a Ardbeg Lord of the Isles.  A wonderfully peaty, medicinal nose with an underlying sweet icing like foundation.  This dram has opened up nicely with time and become more peaty - typical for these old mid-70's Ardbegs.

 We drammed for awhile and then went to Dave's local Chinese restaurant for a late dinner around 10 pm.  We got back to the Mega-maltorium around 11 pm and launched into a sequence of drams, excellent celtic music, and malt fantasizing about the next 48 hours.  Here is the list of drams from WHDJ Day 1.

  1. Lord of the Isles (Ardbeg 25 yo)

    300 mg B-1 / 9:00 pm

  2. Springbank 12 yo Rum Cask, 1989-4/2002, 54.6%
    This is the new distillery release that is reportedly racked first into bourbon casks and then into rum casks for 4-6 years.  This was a little disappointing to me on my first tasting - better than the 10 but still young and a little rough.  Peachy fruit candy nose but too estery on the palate.  I didn't add any water tho and will revisit this dram later again at Tom's and give it a second chance.

  3. Glen Grant 36 yo, 1964-2000, 52.6%, Cadenhead's Millenium Bottling
    Wow, I forgot what an amazing dram this is - heavily sherried cask that has transformed into an almost bitter chocolate palate over the years.  A gem originally FOAFed by Loco on our Scotland 2000 pilgrimage and introduced to PLOWED at Ardbeggeddon 2.   A true classic.

  4. Moidart 30 yo, 46% (Cadenhead's vatting of primarily old Springbank and a touch of old Islay) 
    Another classically tremendous old Springbank.  I need to find one of these for the vaults.

  5. Sir Dave's personal vatted malt (a history of recently opened bottles)
    A tasty interesting dram, well balanced mixture of peat, sherry, fruity essences, with a touch of wood.  Much better than the last time I tasted it - Dave is getting very good at vatting and I propose we need to think about scheduling a vatting tasting for sometime down the road.

  6. Ardbeg 1975 25 yo, 58%, John Milroy
    One of the bottles I FOAFed at The Whisky Exchange after Ulf Buxrud's Macallan Tasting in London on April 20.  As suggested by Sukhinder, I opened this bottle as soon as I got home and it had opened up significantly in just a couple of weeks.  Nose and palate very similar to the Lord of the Isles except not quite as balanced - we tasted this at TWE before we bought it and this bottle had been open for quite a while and was perfect.  I can't wait to taste this again in a month or so.

This brought us up to ~4:30 am so we decided to call it an evening before the sun actually rose.  An excellent way to start WHDJ!

Photos from Day 1
Day 2 - Friday May 3, 2002

NANO's Writeup of this debauch on MaltMadness