Welcome to the July 2024 Month in Review!  It’s been a few months since I posted one of these, and I debated forgoing them in the future or switching to a quarterly overview instead.

The end of April proved busier than any previous semester, and I never got around to writing a digest for that month.  Well, May was no more manageable as the semester wrapped, but I had to quickly pivot to finish a research article, which was far more involved than I had anticipated. Usually, if you’ve researched and written on a topic before, it is easy to dive back in. Yet, as I reviewed my materials, I found myself going in a different direction and doing additional research, which devoured my time.  June passed in a blur as I finished that project and moved to the next. Suddenly, July was almost over.

So here we are; I will get back to writing the monthly digests, though I may change my approach as I go. I always keep in mind that I am writing these, or reviews in general, for myself, and if you find them interesting or occasionally helpful, that’s a beautiful bonus, and I am glad you are here.

I may have slacked on writing monthly digests but did not slow down on reviewing whiskies.

The little ritual of selecting a bottle or sample or two to pour is an important transition moment in my day. It is when I shut off work and shift my attention away from the pressing needs of students, research, writing, or email.  The action of selecting something, pouring it, letting it rest a little bit— there are all moments to unwind a little bit further and actively let go of everything else.

I value that period of transition in the day: work stops, whisky begins, and from there, I can freely move to cooking dinner and going for an evening run or walk.

Academics are not the only people prone to overwork or constantly feeling as though they should be working—academic guilt, as it's sometimes called—but academia attracts a greater portion of neurotic people who continually need to be busy. The ritual of picking out a whisky, pouring it, resting it, and tasting it helps remind me to stop. Without it, or something similar, it is very easy for me to keep working and shut out the world. As a graduate student, I was terrible at doing just that.

On the whisky front, this month, I continued an exploration of island distilleries that I began back in June with Highland Park and Talisker.

July began with a week of looking at Island Distilleries in the New Wave: Isle of Harris, Raasay, and Torabhaig.  Harris was the first to open, slightly less than a decade ago in 2015, with Raasay following in 2016 and Torabhaig joining Talisker on Skye in 2017. They each followed a somewhat different path: Harris only released its first whisky last year, focusing more on gin products until they felt their whisky was ready.  Raasay released several preview bottles using single malts sourced from other distilleries to showcase the style they hoped to achieve (they also made some great gin). Torabhaig released its inaugural Legacy Series after three years in operation when the whisky could finally be called Scotch.  The three of them are some of the most promising distilleries in the New Wave, and I cannot wait to see where they go.

From the scattered island, I turned to Ledaig for the second week this year (and I am almost sure there will be a third, considering my love for the whisky).  Whiskies that week ran the gamut from recently distilled to the heavily peated malt of the late nineties to an unpeated cask from 1995— fermented and distilled as if it were Ledaig but using unpeated malt as if it were Tobermory. The missing link between the 1995 unpeated and the 1997 heavily peated is the decision made in 1996 to split the production regimes for Ledaig and Tobermory, to quit just switching the distillery over from one to the other and establish separate lines and tanks so that these odd unpeated runs were no longer necessary to clear the equipment during a switch over.  The heavily peated product reflected the decision to make the Ledaig and Tobermory product lines more distinct, and in the first couple of years, they amped that aspect up.

From the islands to the coast, I moved on to a week, or slightly more, dedicated to Kilkerran— both the heavily peated and standard product.  The Mitchells of Springbank and Cadenhead’s reopened Glengyle Distillery in 2004, putting it on the crest of distilleries that came in before the big swell of the New Wave. The whisky bears a passing semblance to Springbank, where most of the barley for its production is malted, so it is not surprising that it has attracted a certain dedicated fandom over the last decade. I am particularly fond of the heavily peated whiskies, which were an absolute bargain for several years, and I cannot wait to see how that whisky continues to evolve.

I closed the month with a week dedicated to the Penderyn Distillery in Wales. I have had some marvelous products from the distillery, where the use of a Faraday still produces some outrageously fruity malt— good old-fashioned ambrosia and fruit salad. I find the Welsh heat, such that it is, drives woodier flavors into the whisky, so I was surprised to see a well-balanced and stunning 19-year-old from LMDW and their American joint venture LM&V. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come!

Onward to August!  I plan to use the tag feature more judiciously in the future, as I did here, so that I can link to a page with all of the whiskies from a particular week.  August will feature some work travel to Singapore with some time set aside for fun, food, and drinks— so expect more bar-based reviews in the next month.

Cheers.