Yeah it was hard to watch some of them getting wasted like that. It is one thing to put 10ml towards an infinity bottle but 500ml of a Single Cask GlenDronach was just wasteful. That said, I will be interested to see what this turns out like; I prophesize some regret
Thanks for the kind words about Al. A genuine character. As a lung doctor, I had chatted with him about his underlying illness over the years (as well as whisk(e)y. Incredibly sad when it finally caught him.
I am sad that Big Al is no longer with us. Thanks for the toast to his memory as well as the shoutout to one of his favorite whiskeys, which also happens to be my favorite bourbon.
Hmm. So Roy is dumping well-aged bottles of cask strength Arran into his crusty old infinity cask. At this point, I'm not sure if you're a misunderstood genius or a raving lunatic, but it will be interesting to learn the answer. 😅
My neighbours watch me tossing bottles in my driveway and talking to a camera while doing so. Raving lunatic is implicit in this entire concept. Attempting to lift an entire cask of whisky by adding good - or interesting - or flavourful - other whiskies may just be genius. But I'll need to add a lotta luck for sure. Watch this space.
Found a lonely dusty bottle of Aultmore 12 Foggy Moss at my local supermarket a couple of months ago. They had it marked down to $38 usd. I had no idea how good it would be at the time. Best budget buy ever!
No doubt. Now, consider that it might make a pretty lovely thing, and if it does, how many more people will get to share in it. Send up a wee prayer to the whisky gods that it works out.
Awesome stuff as always. Thank you for your work, Roy. But while watching the GlenDronach Single Cask going into that barrel, I had to cry a bit tbh. 😅 Have a nice weekend.
Great review as always Roy. Agree with all you say about Buichladdich but those prices are creeping up. Also, completely agree about Benromach and I've been a big fan for years. I recently got sent the standard Peat Smoke and I swear it has to be one of the most underrated bottles of whisky out there. Thanks for the 101 tribute to Al.
Great Recycled Review Roy some great bottlings and quite a few I’ve yet to try! Looking forward to hearing how the barrel progresses. Cheers to you and cheers to Big Al 🥃
Love these reviews Roy, what a great idea. Fair play to your friend for providing the barrel and some great bottles to get things going. That's what friends are for. I'm sure you have also done him many a good turn. Enjoy the festival, I'm not one bit jealous! 😂
I read some of the more recent bottles might not be as good - but I'm always a sucker for ex-bourbon, subtle and quiet, this one also benefits from a little extra ABV oomph. rebmordechaireviews.blogspot.com/2023/08/yerushalmi-burnt-offering-batch-1-review.html
you my good sir have made it happen another amazing whisky recycling review . and a good way to save proper little drams that are long forgotten . i will be going to ikea today to try out this idea myself. keep up the good content greetings a dutch fan
Another great recycling review! Hope your time at the festival was awesome. Love the new experiment, even with the 90s GlenDronach. I think I’m still in shock at how good the Macleans Nose is. Definitely a perma-shelf bottle. Thanks buddy!
There isn't a more iconic song in the whisky community right now then your Recycled Review theme song Roy. Absolutely love it and it always puts me in a very happy mood no matter what. I really enjoyed this episode! Thank you and slainte 🥃🙏
Thanks for the kind words - some people think the reason they are so few and far between is that I'm trying not to kill 'em with that soundtrack. (I tried a video once without it, wasn't the same!)
I live my whisky life on a slightly smaller scale but I love that you can put that volume of amazing whisky in your cask. My infinity bottle has been an amazing joy to build, age, and consume.
I was in Edinburgh at the end of April and the Whisky Shop had bottles of Laphroiag 16 on the shelf. I immediately became overcome with joy, it was my absolute favorite whisky in 2021 when they were available here in the US!! What a whisky!
OMG! LOL. That is some witch burning scotch heresy there! Cannot wait to hear how this goes! (Betting not well for taste but good fun. Plus bonus points for any video that references a bung hole).
These are always fun to watch Roy I have two different infinity bottles, one peated and American and one just unpeated Scotch. I used to mix them all together but I quickly found that the peat overtakes all the flavours so I was surprised to see your pour a lot of peated stuff in with the unpeated. Well either way this could be a fun Aqvavitae bottling when the time comes, cheers
When making blends i’ve found a small amount of unpeated goes a long way. For example recently made a blend was roughly 8:1 parts Deanston Virgin Oak to Ledaig Rioja Sinclair and it was delicious
Indeed - any infinity bottle should be made with judicious use o fpeat - unless a big smoky outdoors hting is what you;re going for - which I am. Let's see how I do Sertug! See you Tuesday.
I wholeheartedly approve of the infinity cask. I would love to have a cask I could age something in for years, maybe something like an A’bunadh. I would happily wait 10 years on a gently aging cask of A’bunadh. Now, I just need to win the lottery…
My heart is bleeding about the contents of that cask, truly. But you are right about the infinity bottles. No one will ever drink those, though I like the experimental character about it.
Hello Roy, Another nice day in Glasgow it looks like. Two weeks ago we have had a lovely holiday in your country. A couple of days we did stay in a nice hotel at Queens Park Drive. We did visit Oban, a very nice town , the next we drove to Campbeltown, a fantastic drive in an ever changing scenery. We did visit the distilleries and sat down at the washback bar and at Glen Scotia to taste some 🥃. It was a very good day.. . Next day onwards to Inverness, Aviemore and the last two days we did visit also very beautiful Edinburgh. We did have a bit of luck with the weather that week. With nice weather your country is one of the most beautiful places I have seen! I hope you will have a nice time at the festival and thanks for a nice twist of the recycled review. Greetings, Marcel
I love the infinity cask and the shop of you smiling into the camera while draining a bottle is priceless. There are always fun and informative, but for the first time this felt like I was watching you review a number of my old friends. The PC10, the AnCnoc 24, and the Arran 18 are absolute treasures. I appreciate your exceptional productions, Roy.
I’m not going to lie… seeing so many incredible bottles getting dumped into that cask did hurt a little 😂 that glentauchers was something special… hopefully it does some magic to that mix. Always love a recycled review Roy. Hope you enjoyed the malts fest.
Another Must Watch edition of Recycled Reviews where I long for the variety and pricing of those bottles! I'm pretty sure you shared some of that Maclean's Nose with me this time last year. Where has the time gone? Thanks for all you do for our community, Roy. Slainte Y'all!
Roy, it is a "sobering" moment when you realize you have acquired more whisky than you could ever consume in a lifetime, but seems you have figured out a solution (albeit a "mad-scientist" solution, it would seem-😂. I would absolutely LOVE to be around when you get to tap into that barrel, but seeing as that would be pretty-much impossible, I guess I'm gonna have to go hunt for a slightly-used barrel and try this for myself. Being in the Southern part of the U.S., I imagine my barrel would concentrate flavors much faster, and the angels would be stopping-by more often for a pick-me-up! The only problem is that I might have a hard time finding a barrel in as good of shape as yours, but it at least seems worth the hunt! Now, you only have to ask yourself what you are going to do when that barrel is full😳😏. I am so glad to see you back out in the driveway!! Keep those reviews coming, whenever you get the chance. Thanks for your passion.
Good luck on sourcing the barrel - and sufficient whisky to do a decent job of it. If the recycled whisky turns out to be good - I think there will be plenty of people to share it with and plenty ways to share it!
Loved this RR . I forgot how good that background music hits! I'm on the last third of my Foggy Moss, and I'm keen to find a replacement for it. Hope that cask works out! Not gonna lie, it was a little bit painful to see most of that Glendronach drain away before my eyes. Ah well, here's to another journey!
The Tomintoul 14 used to be Non-Chill Filtered, Natural Colour and bottled at 46% abv, just like most of its sister distillery bottlings at Glencadam. We still have some of those old bottles on the shelves here in Israel. Indeed, the colour was a pale greenish yellow. Incidently, this expression won the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest bottle of Single Malt whisky, produced in cooperation with The Whisky Castle whisky shop. I was honoured to receive a bottle (regular size), of the 14, which commemorated this achievement. However, I noticed that subsequent batches were getting paler and paler, until around 2018, I saw a bottle which was almost around translucent with a slight hint of green. Around 2020, they decided, for reasons I completely disagree with, to start adding olour. So they removed the Natural Colour from the right-hand side of the label and replaced it with "High Strength".
The Tomintoul 14yr was the first time I drank something at 46% and learned how anemic and thin in flavor, whisky could be at an enthusiast’s presentation level. I’ve tried 3 other expressions from them and all I can say is, they REALLY live up to their tag line.
There are some decent takes and I'm hopeful for the future with current investment, but I can't really defend them right now when the only bottle on my shelf has landed in the recycling and not replaced.
So glad to discover new layers of collaboration between the two R's! Frankly, bringing the blood tub into play was the icing on the cake. Cracking video, maybe the best so far. Slainte!
Aaaah…. Just lovely…. Although i would have loved some of them bottles which got poured into that barrel 🙈 So jealous of you living close to the source!
6 minutes in and I feel like it was me that you were talking to when you said "some of you won't like this". I don't like it. Then you spill the second bottle all over the top of the cask. I like that even less. Then you give the camera that goofy grin at 6:34 and all is forgiven.
Ooft. A smile can go a long way eh. I'll keep you posted about the cask. Unless it's terrible. Then... silence. We'll never speak of it again and we'll pretend there isn't a video on YT forever more showing everyone what a blunderous thing I did to pretty whiskies in my driveway.
The problem is…. That even that barrel will eventually be full…. It’s like moving the goods to another room because you do not have anymore space… while it’s now occupying a whole room… and in the end you’ll have to build a new house 😉
@@AqvavitaeI know a few more casks here 😉 Have some connections with some wineries…. Some last year doing the university in Tokaji the biggest barrel I have ever seen in a wine cave… Have to check what size that one was… You really could live in that thing 😂 … they called ‘Ászok’ barrels and a few of them can hold 5000+ liters of wine (other fluid) and there’s even a barrel that can hold more then 6000 liters of fluid 🙂 Yes, it’s stored on a cool, dark and dry place…. Will have to get back there to take a picture as last time my old camera failed.
Can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. I remember a v-pub a couple of years ago where the goal was to blend whiskies you didn't care for, to try and bring about something better. I suppose this is an upgraded version.....although, canna help whinncing and only got to 7:25......still whisky is for enjoying, it's not gone, it's just being changed. Cheers Charlie. Would love to see the clip again where you threw the bottle of Jura at the bin.....comedy gold
Lovely content Roy. Perhaps it’s time to consider crafting a purpose built dream-blend (not odds and ends) reflecting the development of your palette and journey in whisky. I know I would buy a bottle 🙋♂️
I keep saying I will do an infinity bottle but I always forget to save the last dram when I kill a bottle, I suppose I should do it at the start of a bottle!
Just my instinct, but, ideally, I would make different infinity bottles/casks by separating out Islay peat, other peat and non-peated. Among the non-peated I might separate out Bourbon and Sherry Cask whiskies. The risk of blended it all together is getting a muddied palate. I look forward to hearing how the infinity cask tastes over time as the flavors meld together.
Just bit of help from an old cooper, try making a bung starter or Google an image. It will save you wrecking the bung buddy. The idea is you hit either side of the bung stave close to the bung several times, this causes vibrations and the bung comes out. Be careful if its a warm day the bung can fly up !! Also look into changing the hessian rag as that one looks tired. The bung could be helped seal with a little vaseline if needed. As always store bung up !
This is great info - I've used the hammer in warehouses to remove the bung in that way - but they were softer hammers than my stell claw hammer. I'll look out for some cloth and a new nung soon. I also need a valinch! Terrific comment to read - loved it thank you!
The cask will likely be a disaster…😮best of luck 🍀 dear Roy. Kind regards, Sandro Ps: I hope I am wrong because you poured some excellent quality whisky in that barrel. 🤞
unplanned blending can work very well - or not. Time will show. The peat could make the more subtle whiskies disappear and reduce them to expensive filling material. Technically I wonder about the role of oxidation in a half-full cask. But great experiment!!
Hey Roy - hope all is well. Lately I can't take the gentleman in the bothy anymore (long time watching but he needs to do something new), but these recycled reviews are awesome!
Great stuff, missed this. BTW, Ralfy must be mental rejecting that Glendronach 1990. Need to keep that cask somewhere really cool. Anyway with HMRC abandoning Wowgr, you can get it into a dunnage warehouse for just the rental now, which is washers usually.