hello you multi-munching makers and thank you to daniel for that mo mention i'm ralphie in the
bathy somewhere in the irish sea and just getting ready to share a moment with you here in ralphie
review 930 so pull up a chair mop mates pour yourselves a drum make yourselves comfortable and
i shall begin a short series now
so this will be 930 931 932 and 933 i shall be reviewing 18 year old whiskies
the reason simple uh prices are going up partly due to serious inflation and energy costs
partly due to increased global demand and partly due to the fact that experienced malt mates like
ourselves are actually prepared to pay more to sustain our little quality moment habits
ultimately it's our own choice whether we buy a bottle or not now as you may well be aware of
your regular ralphie viewers i did a series of official bottling reviews where i just
picked across the range a general availability of single malts and i had pretty mixed results
and this will explain by the way to you why i review so many independent bottlings and age
statement whiskies higher strength whiskeys more naturally presented whiskeys because the fact is
the more experience we all get the more fussy we become the more discerning we need to be
in order not to sicken ourselves of paying good money for whiskies which are clearly an inferior
experience in terms of expectations it happens in my opinion it's happening more
but importantly this channel ralphie.com is although i can be negative at times and
i need to be malt mates because i don't get given this stuff by the industry
to review and say nice things about i'm buying this with my money the money i get
from the advertising the google adsense and from my patreon supporters my patreon channel ralphie
where you get extra extras but um i feel i felt the need after having a run of some
seriously disappointing whiskies whether it was badly made badly matured or badly presented
they all featured and so i'm kind of focusing on whiskies that i know to be good and just sharing
them up moment with you so hopefully you'll get in there quick before the prices go up too
fast my particular whiskey today is altmore altmore 18 year old bottled at 46 and it says
in the back of the label because the bottle is where the information really really matters
it says natural color and non-chill filtered
i've already poured a glass about an hour ago and added a drop of water
and i'll be adding some more water soon so i'm going to pour a fresh glass
so as you can see the glass nearest to me has just been poured and the glass nearest the bottle is
the one that i poured about an hour ago added a drop of water to it and then just walked away
and left it and this is what i recommend you do with older whiskies um we're talking 18 years old
if you're highly unlikely to see any older whiskey's getting reviewed on my channel
anymore because frankly in my opinion for what they actually are they're simply too expensive
the price you're paying does not justify the quality of what you're getting
it is the case i mean i'm a champion of age statements but there comes a point
when you're seeing 21 year old whiskey selling for 500 pounds and they're chill filtered and
they've get caramel added i'm going to ask you a question are they even being serious
are they trying to are they having a laugh
it's absurd and people are paying these prices well they're welcome to carry on with it
but it wouldn't be me so art more um an integrity age stated less well-known whiskey a bit off the
radar i would put put it in the same um stable as its kind of bedfellow craigalichi which has had
a particularly good 13 year old and 17 year old version which are well worth looking out for and
here's the op more you get the 12 year old version and the 18 year old version sure you get the older
versions but we're not going to bother about them and in my opinion they're very good and i'll tell
you why because the distilleries actually have the stock that they can bottle very good whiskey
and this is partly due to less demand for the whiskies and this is partly due to in fact it's
more or less due to the fact that craig ellicott and altmore really have been off the radar for
single mall whiskey drinkers for quite a long time they are being rediscovered represented reinvented
as a as a an official bottling and i have to say they're being done very successfully it'll
be interesting to see how long they can sustain this quality so when you pour a glass smell it
rich butterscotch it's unpainted it's a what you call a light space side
that's the style of whiskey it is and um it's fresh and fruity
and a little bit vanilla and sherbety and when you taste it
oh boom
packed full of flavor it's got that concentrated note to it that you just know that it's not going
to just be taking a wee drop of water you can be fairly generous with the water but careful malt
mates because it is 18 years old and the older a whiskey gets no matter what the strength it
could be 41 it could be 51 could be higher but with older whiskeys add less water and add your
water incrementally in little bits a time over a period of time so is that you gradually reach that
bliss point of the right proportion of water that suits your own palate so i'm going to kind of add
a drop of water to this um i'm gonna add about three milliliters so two thirds of a teaspoon
and just give a little just it's just a what's called a gentle a rolly that's all it needs
no shaky shakies and then i'm going to come to this um
whiskey that's had a full teaspoon full of water in it and i'm going to bring it forward so as you
can see a certain amount a small amount actually of scotch mist appearing in the glass if it was
february instead of june because i'm recording this in the month of june and the ambry ambient
temperature is higher so there's a little bit less mist to see but when it's cooler when the ambient
temperature is lower that's when the mist starts to appear and if you're in doubt just stick your
glass in the fridge wherever you are for about an hour or so and if your whiskey's been unchilled
filtered a mist will appear it is the only dependable sign that we have and it applies for
double distilled whiskies not treble distilled because they're more refined
like ochentoshen which is chill filtered anyway unfortunately but double distilled whiskies they
they will go slightly hazy in the glass if they have not been chill filtered and if they have
been chill filtered you can add a teaspoon full of water put it in the fridge if it remains clear
well it's been chill filtered that's the most dependable way you can find out for yourself
rather than listening to all the conflicting mixed messages you're going to get from experts
right on the nose ah softer fresh fruit pear peach vanilla apple
grapes white grapes german white grapes riesling
slightly aromatic and floral fragrant
floral is stock scented stock or s or sweet pea slight sweet peanut
when you initially smell it you don't seem to get much
but when you're all factory senses that's your sense of smell once it gets more familiar with
what's in the glass it'll pick up on the detail this is what's called a subtle delivery drum
you cannot rush their small mates you got to take it slow so it's further you go on the taste
delightful clean fresh fruity arrival dressed not infused but dressed with some good quality oak
both american and european you get that slight bitter oak note but if it's pleasant bitter oak
it's probably coming from a european source if it is just
acrid sour bitter note it's probably coming from cheapest of the cheap american ex bourbon cask
wood and there's plenty of that around don't let the experts kenji in that one um
it's really good idea by the way to do what i'm doing take a bottle like this pour your dram add
your water let it sit for an hour and then pour a fresh one and put them side by side because it's
the best way of actually getting a tangible reading of just how much change takes place
when you add a triple little drop of water over time now if it was 40 percent you could say hey
ralphie the water's already been been added so i don't have to add it myself yeah you're right
so how come you go to all this fuss of adding your water and taking your
integrity 46 whiskey down to 40 well i'll tell you why because see once you've
added water to whiskey and cut it down from cask strength to 40 the first thing that happens is the
alcohol reacts to the presence of this suddenly added extra water and releases a whole load of
these beautiful natural sourced chemicals which used to be flavor before it got bottled and this
is why bottling plants are even more fragrant and whiskey like than many warehouses because when the
whiskey's getting bottled that's where you get the most powerful smell people who have worked
are people who are working in in bottling plants they don't even notice it after about a month
they don't realize the the beautiful ambiance of different smells of whiskey that's getting
bottled but the the reduction of casks whiskey takes place rarely at the distillery
unless they've got their own bottling plant like broccoli for example very good example
but if the whiskey's going from the highlands down to central scotland to be bottled in a big big
unit let's see if that's what usually happens then the water that's added will come from the local
civilian water supply it will be additional filter to remove the chlorine but that's it so
don't be under any illusions and distilleries do not cut whiskey from cask strength to 40
before transporting it because it doesn't make economic sense
and it's an awful lot of hassle because you've got to open up every cask
pour whiskey out pour water in they don't do it don't don't kid yourself about that
not all water in the making of whiskey comes from the beautiful little locket and lucky and
little river with cascading streams up behind the distillery it's all part of marketing now you know
it's good that you know by the way because you're going to find out anyway
back to the um i'm glad to actually drop extra water to this
i think even more than i have yeah that's more like it you know i do like to cut my
whiskey significant but i'm not alone malt mates master blenders do this too
the arrival is longer it's more dramatic
fresh fruit sherbet some beautiful sweet and sour oak sweet and sour barley sugar
it lingers in the development becomes a little more rose waterish slight turkish delight note
through the development towards the finish which kind of crisps up with some bright fresh and very
engaging tannins right in the finish typical of an 18 year old it's got that bit more drama going on
between the arrival and into the development and on to the finish it's not so spirit driven with
younger whiskeys the spirits of the actual spirit from the still tends to dominate and is calling
the shots and that's fine as long as you've got proper active casks that can take it on
then that's great for younger whiskies but with older whiskeys you want less active casks
because it's not just adding flavor that's not just the purpose of the casks
to add flavor to whiskey but to actually engage in the oxidization the mellowing the tempering
the rounding and the natural complexity that morphs over time and it needs time to do so
so anybody tells you can just pour your whiskey through some charcoal chips
and sawdust and you'll be ready in six months frankly they're bullshitting you
as long as you understand that's fine it's a style of making whiskey i i i never buy them
now that we sit before them all mark
you're holding your palate
aromatic slightly gingery soft
hinting sweet confectionary notes of old british
sweets called odd fellows you can probably find them in ebay
refreshing complex great summer whiskey and i'm going to conclude now with the fresh pour of the
just poured this 15 minutes ago is it the same
not as complex in the arrival shorter development
quicker in the finish it's not just watermark mates it's time time is so important
and furthermore when you give whiskey time we give ourselves time don't we
marks
this is very good whiskey i'm really pleased to see more finally getting its
day i remember in the old many years ago um in them independent bottles uh in fact
that's going to be my extras my 930 extras i'm going to call it my travels without more
89 out of 100 somewhat mark integrity mark and you malt mates are very welcome see you soon