hello malty mini the moochers and thank you to call of the wild man for that mention uh launching
yes launching um ralphie reviews in the year 2022 here from the bothy all tidied up
rearranged sorted out in fact i forgot to light my little candle i'll do that right now bear with me
oops
there we go i just met
melt the base of the candle so it sits in
and uh we're not off to a very organized start as you can see but we're gonna get there
it's a little bit ad hoc but you know what to expect so here in the barthe i've kind
of tidied the place up and rearranged it slightly and of course a brand new jacket oh
new year new jacket i hope you like the color
it's a sort of grayish blue basically it's based in scottish clouds and what scottish
clouds look like in january now i've got another little candle here because
i'm just kind of cheering the place up slightly there we go
ah lovely
perfect we're ready to go so ralphie review 909 in which i am reviewing
my whiskey of the year for 2022 which is le chick 10 year old painted single malt from
tobermory distillery on the isle of mull the isle of mull is north of isla and south of sky
um unusually for a ralphie review it's not that long ago
since i reviewed this in ralphie review let me see i've written it down so i wouldn't forget it
890 which i recorded in september last year 2000 it's not like september 2020
um and i gave it a good 90 out of a hundred um i was very pleasantly surprised and
the reason for that is that i remember the old days where le cheeks were few and far between
and generally discounted you had the green label version you had the red label version
i believe occasionally it was a blue label version so you had an eight-year-old 10 year old 15 year
old version and nobody really wanted it because it was not very nice however it just goes to
show you how much the malt landscape changes in such a short space of time that now leche is much
more well recognized and it's all credit to the fact that the owners who own the distillery have
invested in their brand and had faith that it could achieve recognition and desirability well
job done and it just goes to show you that you can take an unpromising brand and you can turn
things around completely in terms of desirability if you invest in the quality of production
the quality of maturation and have some decent presentation it's really not rocket science and
when i say decent presentation what i'm referring to is of course as you know unchill filter um 46
believe this is slightly higher 46.3 percent and it does say unchill filtered on it and essentially
although it doesn't mention it it's kind of basically natural color or as near as dammit
you will find with experience that you notice when e150 starts to damage and impact
on a whiskey sometimes you can have e150 added in a small quantity and it doesn't really overly
influence the result at other times it most definitely does i'm going to tell you and this is
you know serious stuff here because we're kicking off the new year with
with some proper information uh because one reason the a150a is used caramel colorant is used
it's because a whiskey after maturation is relatively light in color for a simple reason
it hasn't been in particularly active casks now just to be clear just to be sure you do
get light-colored whiskies like glenfiddich which have been in active casks and therefore
you cannot go as cut on colour as a guide as to the quality of whiskey except when e150 a is added
and they've got ask yourself why and the reason is because darker colors sell better they look more
appetizing they look more appealing and it covers over the fact that there's been a lack of color
coming from the casks because the casks have been less active and if they're less active
there's less maturation and less flavor added as part of that maturation
so this is the bottle that i last reviewed as you can see i've not finished it yet
which is a common situation in the body i will open bottles and i can
keep them for absolute years if not decades before i finally finish them
if at all but in this instance we have the benefit of having a a previous version
of le check 10 year old which i can compare to the bottle that i have bought since then
as my whiskey of the year for 2022. so in fact what i'm going to do in my extras is i'm going
to actually compare them flavor wise side by side and talk about batch differences so let's start
off i'll remove this bottle for the moment because i do the last thing i want to do is confuse them
although i can tell the difference between them
right just a little drop i don't need much for review um
before i go any further just while it's settling i have
made a mission statement this year it's the first time i've done it and i've put it on my patreon
channel called ralphie at patreon.com and the reason for the mission statement is just to make
it absolutely clear and save on any ambiguity as to where i'm coming from with my reviews
i am an independent reviewer by providing a mission statement which is in the written form
rather than a video um i'm making it quite clear exactly where i'm coming from that i'm not an
expert i'm really just an experienced old molster hack sharing the journey so as the you yourselves
when you're watching the videos know that the whole purpose of this is simply to give you
guidance as to what you want to buy so that when you're spending your money that you've
spent all that time earning and it's precious particularly with the price of whiskey going up
as it is uh hopefully not too much but i think with inflation at the moment the distilleries
are seeing the opportunity for a price hike and if they don't some distilled distributors
and retailers are certainly doing that but more about that later i'll come back to that
so in a fairly short space of time i'm coming back to a whiskey which i previously marked as 90 out
of a hundred and i'm going to basically tell you exactly why this is my whiskey of the year
the nose is immediate full rounded slightly sweet get a little bit of crispy peatiness in there
quite twiggy bonfire so you get a slight kalinas although just for the record leche has its own
distinctive peat signature the fact that it's unchilled filtered certainly helps particularly
with the mouth feel so that the quality of the whiskey because of the presentation being
basically integrity is being delivered to a higher standard to the palette but we start with the nose
raisiny slightly tannic roasted peat toasted peak bonfire peat slightly toffee-ish a little
bit of figs in the background as well and some array of spices also in the background
and a touch just a slight touch of iodine well it's actually quite distinctive but it's
restrained because of the fullness of the other flavors compiling this single malt first taste
big bite arrival tannic aggressive but rounded so you've got a great concentrated
sweet and sour thing going on in which the peatiness is immediately apparent
and continues to grow into the development right through to that delicious tannic
raisin rich painted finish gonna add a drop of water now
i'm finding from experience despite the fact that it's so full flavored
i'm adding less water so rather than a full teaspoonful which i would normally add to a
higher strength whiskey i'm adding no more than about two milliliters so a third of a teaspoon
a little rolly rolly no shaky shakies just got to say that keep reminding you reinforce the message
the nose immediately becomes a little more fruitful the fruit being a little bit of apple
slight touch of pineapple and the raisins are getting more enhanced
there's a little bit of vanilla in there as well on the fro on the taste
the arrival is just more it's more amplified it's slightly sweeter
as well so there's more of a fullness of flavor on first contact with your tongue subsequently
the development is slightly more restrained in their peatiness compared to when it's concentrated
but it has that slight pineapple almost roasted pineapple note a touch of agave in there it has
distinctive raisin note slightly shared yeah and um bit of vanilla mild toffee bit of brown sugar
soft brown sugar and of course a distinctive peat that runs from the very arrival
through to the very finish and that finish being extended a little bit longer so adding water will
push the form a little bit more so you have more time in your palate to pick out that
conserve pineapple raisin development intertwined with that distinctive
twiggy peatiness when i say twiggy what i mean is it's not just peat smoke itself but peach smoke
combined with a little bit of tiny touch of wood smoke or unrot undecomposed peach so surface paint
the certain peak when you're cutting into the peat board bog it's a lighter color and it's got more
roots and twigs in it that's sort of peak side peak you get with highland park and the finish
i was going to say soft but it's not exactly soft it's distinctive
peaty tannic slight dry powdered gingeriness and the reason that reason not carrying right through
delicious stuff now previously in the last batch in the last bottling i gave it 90 out of a hundred
this time and this might surprise you i'm going to give it 89 out of 100. and he's going to say
hey ralphie you know this is your whiskey of the year you you've bought a new bottle and yet
it's one mark down in the old bottle why is that well i'll tell you exactly why in my next review
ralphie review 909 extras when i compare the two bottles side by side but let's bear in mind
89 is a pretty high mark for a single malt it's a relatively young well-matured whiskey
at an accessible price but look out for the free loaders and the price pumpers
particularly in the retail shops who decide because ralphie's recommended it
it's time to put the price up 10 15 20 pounds euros or dollars if you're finding that's the case
ask them did you put the price up just because ralphie gave it a good review and made its whiskey
of the year is that the reason and see what the reaction is see what they have to say for
themselves but retailers should be cautious they shouldn't be too greedy about this and i'll tell
you why because word gets back to the distillers and one gets back to the distributors as well and
you may find that these retailers who are just being a bit too greedy find that the
next time they put an order in for the specific product which has made them those extra monies
that they might be supplied with less because the distillers are pissed off that they are making
less profit while the retailers take advantage of a situation to make more profit and therefore
potentially impact negatively the reputation for the whiskey that the distillers and the
distributors are trying to develop there we go um i've only reviewed four le chicks in 12 years
it's very significant that when you look at some other whiskies or if you like glen
farkles there's plenty of reviews of them because they've always been on my radar but with le chick
it's only in the last couple of years that i've really sat up and noticed it simply because
the producers have really stepped up their game in improving the quality of their investment to get
the quality of results within their product and i commend um the owners distill um for
their policy which of course they got from their experienced managers in scotland
and there you have it ralphie's whiskey of the year for 2022. you can't go wrong if
you're particularly if you're a painted whiskey fan you're going to really enjoy this and um
there you have it i'm rafi thank you for watching please take the opportunity to subscribe to this
channel so that for the rest of 2022 you can be regularly updated on the different
single malts and other quality spirits which you might consider buying with your hard earned
cash because after all none of us want to buy duffers none of us want to buy whiskeys we're
not going to enjoy and feel there's been bad value for money and a waste of cash
and that is one of my primary purposes is simply to share my journey with the whiskey that i've
bought with my cash because it's the best way of keeping you the more makes right okay okay