March 2023 Digest
Welcome to a brief wrap-up of reviews from March 2023!
During March, the year finally felt like it slowed down a little bit. I kept looking at the calendar, expecting it to be April already, but March just kept trudging along, and I appreciated the time to catch my breath and the excuse to pour some lovely drams.
For another month, I managed to stick to the idea of pouring and tasting whiskies with a common theme, though it has become a bit more of a challenge as I am naturally drawn to mix things up whenever I sit down to do a tasting.
The month began in the middle of a miscellaneous week dedicated to a few bold sherry drams, including the Macallan Edition No. 2. A dram I initially poured during a holiday advent calendar tasting with friends but never got around to posting. Sherry-driven profiles are not my favorite, so they linger the longest in my drafts folder or sit perched on the shelf, waiting their turn in the glass.
I moved across the Irish Sea in the second week of March with a focus on Irish whiskies. I started the week with a lovely 400th Anniversary Edition Bushmills before tasting my first offerings from Waterford and Dingle, two prominent members of the ongoing Irish whiskey renaissance. However, I spent most of the week with single malts from the Cooley Distillery, whether bottled under another distillery’s label, such as the Glendalough 13 Year, bottled under the Tyrconnell brand, or a special single cask from the earliest modern Cooley distillation by James MacArthur.
Our local whisky club had the good fortune of hosting a tasting in partnership with SMWS, so in the third week of March, I turned to a few of my favorite bottles from that event. It was a bit like visiting a cat cafe and wanting to take home all of the sweet monsters, though I limited myself to picking up a delightfully refreshing young Glenlossie and a more mature Glen Grant. We have not been able to host as many in-person events as we did before the 2020 pandemic, so it was great to finally pull in a nice-sized crowd and share some excellent drams with new friends. I tossed on a few Glenlivet reviews and a vintage Highland Park, as it was also Spring Break.
I spent the final full week of March with a laser-like focus on Bruichladdich’s Port Charlotte label. The label is one of my absolute favorites in the whisky world, and there is no doubt that I grade those whiskies a bit harder than others. My expectations might be through the roof regarding Port Charlotte, but that expectation, or even reputation more broadly, are well earned with high-quality, dependable malts. The stand out from the week was undoubtedly a 20 Year bottled by Dramfool for Fèis Ìle in 2022, which left me wondering what we might expect from Port Charlotte at 25 Years!
The month ended with another batch of miscellaneous reviews to take us into April. April looks to figure weeks dedicated to Glentauchers, Loch Lomond, and then very mature mystery Islay malts (most of which are in fact, Laphroaig)!
It was a busy month, but I still found time to relax with some whisky! Let us begin with a few numbers.
30 reviews
6.03 average score
13.6 Years average age
Here are a few standouts from the pack:
Best of the Month
It was a close class between the Port Charlotte 20 Year from Dramfool and the 14 Year Peated Cooley from James MacArthur, and there was no wrong answer between them. The Cooley even bore some semblance to a Port Charlotte, especially some of its farmy-earthy aspects, as if someone transported a cask of Port Charlotte through time and space. A decade separated the distillation of these two malts, each of which came at the beginning of something new— the rebirth of Cooley in Ireland and the rebirth of Bruichladdich on Islay.
I could not possibly pick between the two, so they are both my bottles of the month!
Surprise of the Month
The biggest surprise this month came at the beginning of my Irish Whisky week. I had low expectations when I poured the Glendalough 13-Year Mizunara Oak, but the mouthfeel and delicious tropical fruits on the profile blew me away. I have tasted a lot of mass-market Irish whisky this year and have not always been very impressed. There have not been a lot of terrible bottles, but there have not been a lot of truly great ones either, especially if one factors in their cost. I expected the Glendalough to be much the same, perhaps even a bit more gimmicky with the finish in a Mizunara Puncheon, but I was wrong. This was a true delight.
A full list of reviews can be found below:
March 2 Mannochmore 12 Year (2008), James Eadie Cask 354555
March 3 Macallan Edition No. 2
March 4 Strathmill 13 Year (2006), Signatory Vintage Cask 2
March 5 Kavalan Solist Port Cask O111118056A
March 6 Bushmills 1608 400th Anniversary Edition
March 7 Waterford Gaia 1.1
March 8 Dingle Single Malt 4th Small Batch Release
March 9 Glendalough 13 Year Mizunara Oak
March 10 Blue Spot 7 Year
March 11 Tyrconnell Tetralogy (NAS, 10 Year, 16 Year, 15 Year Madeira)
March 12 Irish Peated Single Malt 14 Year (1992), James MacArthur's Old Masters
March 13 Loch Lomond Inchmurrin 18 Year (2003), SMWS 112.99 “Feels like a caress”
March 14 Glenlivet 14 Year (2007), WhiskySponge No. 57
March 15 Glenlossie 11 Year (2010), SMWS 46.128 “Lotta good stuff”
March 16 Glenlivet 12 Year “First Fill”
March 17 Glen Grant 17 year (2004), SMWS 9.235 “The proof is in the finish”
March 18 Highland Park 16 Year (2005), SMWS 4.304 “A proper summer dram”
March 19 Highland Park 18 Year (1978), Hart Brothers
March 20 Port Charlotte 13 Year (2009), Dramfool 52nd Release
March 21 Port Charlotte 10 Year (2008), The Cask Whisperer
March 22 Port Charlotte 16 Year (2005), Thompson Brothers
March 23 Port Charlotte 18 Year (2003), WhiskySponge No. 35
March 24 Port Charlotte 17 Year (2002), The Cask Whisperer
March 25 Port Charlotte 20 Year (2002), Dramfool 50th Release Fèis Ìle 2022
March 26 Port Charlotte 17 Year (2001), The Cask Whisperer
March 28 Macduff 7 Year (2012), SMWS 6.39 “A belter of a dram!”