hello my multi majestic mummified mammoths someone mentioned malt mates so make yourself comfortable
pour yourself a dram and get ready to go on a little single malt journey with me in
ralphie review 919 i am reviewing a scotch single malt whiskey no surprise there but
before we go any further a big thank you to pavel kalinowski for that mention thank you pavel right
scotch single mall whiskey i'm doing a series at the moment
on official bottlings that are out there readily available easy to find
perhaps less well-known so not necessarily a big mainstream brand and i'm balancing off my reviews
just a little bit with this one because some of you have commented and i have certainly noticed
that um some of my reviews have been getting a bit more negative about what i'm reviewing these days
and there's a very simple reason for that malt mates and it's because some whiskeys in my opinion
are deteriorating in quality and i am not the person to be sitting here like a nodding dog
telling you how wonderful and fabulous everything is when it just isn't what you've got to watch is
that you don't fall into the trap of blind sentimentality just accepting everything and
anything from the whiskey industry as being fabulous brilliant exceptional and premium
it can be and many brands are but not all and this increasingly a significant issue
that we that we need to address and that is the problem we're facing with batch variations
i have to say that it's not a problem i have with this particular brand of single malt and
i'm going to give you an important reason why shortly but when we go into ralphie review 919
extras i'm really going to examine i'm going to take a bit of a dive into the reasons
for batch inconsistency in single malt whiskies and how we should respond to it
in the meantime i shall show this bottle i've reviewed it once before
craig ellicky 17 years old bottled at 46 and in the back of the label it says it's
unchilled filtered and in the front of the label it's got a nice little
batch code the batch for your information is 0 4 6 1 8 excuse me
that's an either an eight or a three i want to get this right
number zero four dash six one three seven i have already poured the glass because as you know it's
a minute in the glass for each year in the cask and as such i like to let these older whiskeys
breathe a little bit you'll find this along with a stablemate the 13 year old on shelves in shops
and i can tell you right now is consistently good single malt i'm glad i bought this bottle
i'm very happily and surprised in fact i am tempted now to buy a few more cregalities
it's one of these distillery names where you used to see it pop up in the likes of caden heads and
other independent bottles but mainly caden heads and you'd ignore it because it was one of these
obscure distilleries that was completely off your radar a little bit like glen talkers's
and yet still damn good solid signature single malt whiskey it really is
and my last review of the nine 17 year old was raphael 650 back in 2017 so about five years ago
and has it changed much no it hasn't in fact it slightly improved
if there's any changes at all slight changes for the better possibly two reasons for that because
it genuinely is better cast better maturation better result from manufacture but also because
i'm coming back to the second time round third time round having tasted before so my memory
banks my long term taste and smell memory but particular taste memory is strong with cregality
and we should never never question our own instincts when we're tasting something
particularly when we've paid for the bottle we should trust ourselves even if you regard
yourselves as relatively inexperienced don't worry about it if you're unsure get a second opinion
from someone who is experienced right how about this single malt on the nose nate
malty cereal and biscuity what getting the biscuits
these kind of biscuits you'll find them in the uk they're called digestive biscuits there's quite a
number of whiskeys taste slightly of digestive biscuits now and again this is basically a
wheat biscuit um slightly granular slightly gritty with a little bit of fine husk in it
um which gives it a certain texture and um the british of course are very fond of the biscuits
there's two biscuits that you really need to taste if you're in the uk or live in the uk for
whiskey references one is the digestive biscuit as illustrated here and the second is the rich
tea biscuit which is lighter uh wonderful texture wonderful crumbliness but it's a lighter biscuit
it it is initially it comes across as quite plain but it's got that toasted cereal note which you
will find in some single malt whiskies you're certainly getting that digestive biscuit note
um in in this cregality and it's quite rich and it's really comes across as a well-made whiskey
a very well-made whiskey presented chill filtered slightly hazy in the bottle
there's no mention about natural color but when you hold it up
just have a look at the i'm having a look at it if there's any color in there it's very very little
and although i'd rather have no caramel at all i do acknowledge and i do appreciate that a
tiny little bit of caramel won't affect a single malt that much although you're better without it
but it's when you absolutely load up a bottle with the equivalent of a teaspoon's worth
of e150 caramel colorant i'm not seriously to to get a really dark whiskey from a light whiskey
you've got to use practically a whole teaspoon the amount of water that i add to a glass you'd
have to add that in caramel colorant to them to one single bottle to get that color variation
and it's simply to misdirect and mislead but there's nothing misleading about the prices we've
got to be mindful prices are going up right across the board we're looking for
value for money is this good value for money in my opinion yes it is
also gives you some useful information in the back of the label
our own malt our malt is not supplied to any other distillery it has a uniquely heavy character which
we preserve by grinding it finer than anyone else does okay right two i'll go along with that
using a very efficient stein knicker mash tun um it is shallower and drains better
uh than the deeper tons the and so the basically the highlighting a production technique
in the style of mash tun they're using so that they can process a finer ma milled grain and which
they're claiming they're getting a richer result um i'm not sure i would totally go along with that
it really depends on the quality of the grain used in the first place for the quality of the results
but certainly it is a tangible point of uniqueness they mention it on the label and fair play to them
nose it's biscuity malty slightly vanilla a little touch of
fresh fruit citrus and a little green fruit green note like green apple
slight aromatic once it sort of warms up slightly in the glass and starts to um open up a little bit
a little bit of vegetal note as well floral vegetal slight winter green note
very very distant green mint it's like spearmint
and some dried fruit um decent substantial characterful and engaging taste
good rich slightly gingery slightly syrupy cereal rich arrival
very nice falls away in the development cereal dried fruit a digestive biscuit note
tint of mint in the background and the finish is relatively light for a 17 year old
but then we add some water how much less than you might think two milliliters
at this point you're going to give a few minutes for the reason being that you will be richly
rewarded with an amplified taste experience from adding that little drop of water
it just transforms this whiskey into something genuinely exciting and substantial
it's get 17 years old on the label and when you knows it and taste it you're seeing
because of the disclosure practical disclosure you can then use that as a point of reference
as to what you're getting coming from the glass it takes the age statement explains
the glass of whiskey in front of you this is why statements are so important to me
it's simply down to disclosure
the nose fruitier a little bit softer slightly more serial buttery note
barley sugar most definitely
a little bit of toffee creeping in there the toffee's slightly floral slightly herbaceous
a complex nose
slower arrival excuse me
a slower arrival that steadily opens up into the development the development
is a busy space with toffee barley sugars and a lovely toasted cereal note
this bottle boasts that they they make their malts multi and it's a justified boast it's it's as good
as i remember it last time in fact if anything it's slightly better and the reason for this
is that krigelki is not a mainstream high branded single malt
it's not bulmore it's not ochentoshen it's not talisker it's not like a villain it's not
glenmorangie it's not glenn livered it's not highland park it's not laphroaig it's one of these
quieter malts which the unadventurous customer tends to bypass because they're looking for a name
they recognize and yet it's in the names that you recognize due to the high volume of sales that
it makes it more difficult for the distilleries to retain consistency
and therefore when you go for the mainstream brands the chances are you could be disappointed
meanwhile you're bypassing quieter brands that are simply less well known and this is one of
the purposes of me being here in the botty in the middle of the irish sea is to introduce
these quieter whiskeys like craigalichi like glen talkers for example you really find them
amongst the independent bottlers that's where they tend to shine these obscure names of distilleries
that i mean there's distilleries that used to be obscured like deanston tober mori look at them now
they they're being applauded because they're just finally getting the space that they can
be recognized in and they've been around dingston has been around for a long time i
says tobermory but they've been invisible they've been relegated down the division and i think that
the way things are going if we're looking for quality in our whiskey we want to examine these
so-called lower divisions of whiskies that are less talked about unless applauded uh because
this is where this is where the the treasure hunt these are the this is where you find the treasure
another test before the malt mark
even richer now
beautiful cereal sweet and sour toffee develops gingery and a little bit minty now there's a more
of a finish going on it's a gentle finish but it's more of a prolonged finish because of adding the
water just stretches the arrival development and finish the whole event it stretches the timeline
by about four or five seconds and then the finish you're getting a little bit of green tea
a little bit of jasmine toffee
and um cereal notes that continuity and a nice clean finish which shows that which tells me
that there's very little if if there is any caramel i didn't to be honest i doubt it um
it's not having any impact any negative impact whatsoever mock mark i'm delighted
to say that this is one of the malt marks that is actually improving so the idea that all whiskies
are getting worse it's it's not actually true here's an example of a whiskey widely available
official bottling and it's actually like the 13 year old is getting better and better well done
craig ellicky i tell you what it's good to put you a wee bit further up on the radar so people
can appreciate what a damn good single malt whiskey you are some old mark mo mates 89 out
of 100 hope you've enjoyed this pop back again for rafi review 919 extras in which i will be talking
about batch inconsistency and the reasons for it so see you then bye