Scotch Tasting (February 16th, 2023)
This is our 1st Scotch Tasting. I thought I’d never do a Scotch Tasting. The bottles in question were;
| TT Label | Description | Proof | Region | Rating | Price (CAD$) |
| D | Aberlour, 12 yr | 80 | Speyside | 7.7 | $73/$63 USD |
| F | AnCnoc, 12 yr | 80 | Highlands | 7.2 | $83/$55 USD |
| B | Jura, 12 yr | 80 | Island/Islay | 7.1 | $76/$51 USD |
| A | Highland Park, 12 yr | 86 | Highlands | 6.9 | $85/$60 USD |
| E | Laphroaig, 10 yr | 86 | Islay | 3.8 | $88/$64 USD |
| C | Singleton, Dufftown, 12 yr | 80 | Speyside | 7.9 | $57/$40 USD |
| G | Talisker, 10 yr | 92 | Island/Islay | – est 5 | $98/$64 USD |
| H | Magnum (Highland Cream) | 34 | 8.5 | $38/?? USD |
We had 18 people on the Zoom. We were pretty quick to start too, like 6:15, I believe that’s a record. This was our 1st Scotch tasting. I thought I’d never do Scotch, just because there are sooooo many Scotch tastings out there, why do I need to do one, well it seems I need to do one. My tasting group wanted one, so I delivered.
I must say, when I do this with other spirits, finding research and documentation can be a chore. With Scotch this was not an issue, there is plenty of documentation, and analysis. I came across a very cool tasting ‘map’ you could call it. Based on this map and a few earlier versions, I tried to get 2 in each quadrant, for the tasting.
What I didn’t realize was Jura 10 vs Jura 12, were in different quadrants, yet only $10 difference, so we ended up with 3 in the top left quadrant, and only 1 in the bottom left quadrant. I also only have 1 in the bottom right quadrant, but that was by design, since our tasting only includes 7 different samples, and a cream, sadly, 7 doesn’t divide evenly into 4. I also stayed away from all the “Glen”s on purpose, I figure they should be done as a group, also most have tried at least one or as many as five of the different “Glen”s. Most “Glen”s seem to be in the bottom right quadrant, another reason for me not to pick too many in that quadrant. I might put more “Glen”s in my 2nd Scotch tasting..no promises though.
I included some personal tasting notes in this tasting. These were done when setting the bottle order, they were done with my friend Danny, who has more experience drinking Scotch than I do (which isn’t hard, I’ve stayed away from Scotch, for the most part). I thought the personal tasting notes might help. I added our tasting notes to the Distiller.com tasting notes, at the bottom of the page. I was impressed Allison, my cousin, got 5/7 correct in the blind tasting, only “A” – Highland Park 12, and “D” – Aberlour 12, were reversed, very impressive! I’m assuming Randy, her husband, and a Scotch drinker, might have helped, still very cool. The best record before that was 4/6 by Tristan for Bourbon, and 4/6 by Stephanie for Gin.
We used electronic voting for the samples, within Zoom, and I finally have all the kinks worked out, although when figuring it out I spoiled the votes for “G”, Talisker. I’m sure Talisker was only a bit higher than Laphroaig, probably a 5 or 6 average, but unfortunately we will never know now.
Marcia was there to time us, so that worked out well. I did find out through a quiz/poll that only about 1/3 of the people actually listen to my intro about the bottles and what we will be tasting etc. My ego is not crushed, I will survive, but I’ll have to figure out how I can improve on that.
We didn’t have enough liquor left in the bottles to draw for bottles at the end, so instead I did 2 drawings for a free tasting. The winners for the free tastings were Dave M and Brandon. Congrats guys!
The Winners!
The winner was “C”, Singleton 12 yr (Dufftown), with 118/150, or 7.9/10. Singleton is interesting, it seems in Canada it’s the Dufftown distillery, but in the US, the Singleton line seems to supply them the Glendullen distillery, the bottles look almost identical. I’m not sure how different they taste..we might have to see! In close 2nd, at 7.7/10, or 108/140 was “D”, Aberlour 12 yr. Third to me is a bit of a crap shoot, since we have one at 7.2 (AnCnoc), another at 7.1 (Jura), and a 3rd at 6.9 (Highland Park), I’m not sure we can say these are statistically significant differences..
I thought Aberlour was going to win, Singleton truly took me by surprise to win.
1st Place (7.9) $57/$40
2nd Place (7.7) $73/$63
3rd Place (7.2) $83/$55
The next Tasting is March 16th, 2023, it will be Irish Whiskey..in honour of St. Patrick’s Day, our 2nd Irish Whiskey tasting, both were in honour of St. Patrick’s Day. We have some pretty nice bottles in this one!!
The Survey Results
| A-Highland | B-Jura | C-Singleton | D-Aberlour | E-Laphroaig | F-AnCnoc | G-Talisker* | H-Cream | |
| Adam L | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 2 | 7 | – | 9 |
| Brad P | 7 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 2 | 9 | – | – |
| Dane | 7 | 8 | 9 | – | 6 | 7 | – | 10 |
| Martin | 7 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 8 | – | 8 |
| Karen | 5 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 7 | – | 9 |
| Priya | 7 | 4 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 8 | – | 9 |
| Allison | 6 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 6 | – | 9 |
| Ron K | 9 | 8 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 6 | – | 9 |
| Marcia | 7 | 8 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 5 | – | 8 |
| Alex | 6 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 9 | – | 10 |
| Dave M | 8 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 2 | 6 | – | 8 |
| Collin A | 8 | 7 | 9 | 10 | 4 | 5 | – | 8 |
| Clay | – | 5 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 9 | – | 9 |
| Jerry Z | 7 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 9 | – | 5 |
| Tim | – | – | 8 | 8 | 7 | – | – | – |
| Total | 90 | 99 | 118 | 108 | 57 | 101 | 111 | |
| Average | 6.9 | 7.1 | 7.9 | 7.7 | 3.8 | 7.2 | NA | 8.5 |
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