Oooooh you lucky bastard

Sweet, spicy and very smooth. Cask strength is where it's at.

Aye congrats Grem and good choice Mrs Grem. I hope the ten years have been lighter than the bottle suggests.

davyK wrote:

I like JW Red. It's a good workaday whisky. I would drink it in a pub as paying money for single malt in that situation is a bit daft.

For that situation you can’t beat a Jameson’s it’s just so much smoother and a similar price

Just finished a bottle of Abrachan Peated & Smokey, a new blended malt from Lidl. It's only £16 and is without a doubt the best blended malt I've ever had for that price. It's 41% and is really, really lovely - like a kind of budget Lagavulin. Recommended.

Made a pig of myself with Glenfiddich 16yo and JW Black.....

suffered the next day.

Just took delivery of the Arran Sherry Cask from Loch Fyne.

https://www.lochfynewhiskies.com/catalog/product/view/id/4496/s/arran-sherry-cask-the-bodega/

Decent price but doesn't include delivery unless your order is over £75, so I may have also bought a bottle of Bushmills 16 (which came with a free glass) to bump the price up.

The Daddy wrote:

Just took delivery of the Arran Sherry Cask from Loch Fyne.

https://www.lochfynewhiskies.com/catalog/product/view/id/4496/s/arran-sherry-cask-the-bodega/

Decent price but doesn't include delivery unless your order is over £75, so I may have also bought a bottle of Bushmills 16 (which came with a free glass) to bump the price up.

That's a cracking dram, one of my favourites from their range. Boo for buying it from LFW though, they're a bunch of cunts.

The Whisky Shop bought out LFW in Inverary, moved most of the more unique and interesting bottles (collected over about 40 years by the owner and his right hand man Andy) down to their London shop, sacked all the staff (including Andy) and rehired those who needed a job on lower wages and poorer contacts, then bumped up the prices by at least a tenner a bottle in store.

That is a good price for the Bodega though.

Only thing The Whisky Shop is good for, is taking money out of the wallets of tourists.

Sounds like a nice place. £1k on whisky. Oof.

The Bushmills is a fine drop! Not really dabbled with Irish Whiskeys but this is incredibly drinkable. I’ll need to be careful with it.

Onto the Bodega. Drinkable neat, a splash of water and there’s no edge whatsoever. Lovely stuff!

Bushmills is incredibly smooth. Makes it very drinkable and one to be careful with.

If I'm honest I think I've only ever drank Jamesons when it comes to Irish... no wait I've had The Pogues single malt but that's godawful and I really should show it to the sink. Any recs gratefully received, Davy I'm looking at you.

I was given a Jameson's stout edition for Christmas. I don't usually drink blends but it disappeared quickly and I'd definitely drink it again.

Tullamore Dew is a drop of good stuff. Way above the likes of Teachers and Grouse. An excellent blend.

Standard blended Bush is good, but go that bit extra and go for Black Bush for a blend. It's 80% malt and 20% grain and then aged in sherry barrels. It's magnificent.

Jamesons is a solid choice - both blend and single.  The Stout range are good.

Bushmills single malt - various ages 10 and 16 - and then prices start to climb - but all are excellent. The trademark of Bushmills is smoothness - but not at the cost of flavour. There's some special casks - there's a Steamship Sherry Cask that might still be about.

Redbreast is great shout, as is The Tyrconnell.

Top of the tree and for pushing out the boat is probably Midleton. But there's a pile of small batch stuff now such as Method and Madness but they tend to be limited and timing is everything - it's a great time of growth in Ireland. 

Dunville is a famous old brand that has come back with a range of products and some of those are very good.

Powers blended is traditionally used for a hot one.  Paddy whiskey was rough the last time I tried it - but that was a long old time ago. But I'd approach with caution.

Overall - Irish tends to be smoother with a slight sweetness. It's a link between Scotch and American/Canadian.