Hakushu Single Malt Whisky 10 y.O.

Nectar from heaven, I bought this right after Oslo Whisky festival, but saved it for good day.
Well I have just watched The pacific, so a series about a war againt japan and japanese whisky seemed like a good excuse(ok bad excuse but couldn't wait any longer)

At first I thouht I smelled red apples, and a wrote that in the blog when I tasted it at Oslo whisky festival, but it's actualy more acidic like green apples, infact the nose is very fresh acidic.
There is a faint hint of peat, but realy the fresh apple nose really knocks that peat out.

In the taste that apples are still there, but they have almost been exchanged for green grapes, and by grapes I don't mean brandy or wine, but the fruit, this is really fresh stuff, now the Bladnoch is frensh but it's still very typical spirit, the bladnoch taste like brandy, which is grape based spirits,( or apple ect.) but it dosn't taste like grape or apples, this one actualy taste like the spesific fruits, when you drink it, you want to go out and by green apples and green grapes.
There is also a stronger peat in the taste then in the nose.

There is very little peat in finish, infact it's very hard to find much taste in the finish, the alcohol kinda takes over and you just get this strong alcohol taste not pure alcohol but undiffined spirit taste, if there is any taste it has to be called floral, not much of it, but a small hint of it.

This is quickly getting to be my favorite, I'll drink more of it come weekend, and see if the love at first sight lasts.

A light beer with a light whisky.

By light I don’t mean low alcohol volume, but the body and type of beverage.

In my continuing attempt to mix beer and whisky I’ve tested Nøgne Ø Wit and bladnoch whisky.

I was quite happy when I learned I liked dark beer, and was quite satifised by that, by I had to try the Nøgne Ø wit, it is made in the Belgian style wit beer, made from wheat as well as other grains. It is very light and cloudy, it very frothing and refreshing, really something that fit into the summer and barbeque, so why I’m I drinking it with Christmas on the door step, well it’s a very good beer, and since I can’t afford to buy a whisky every month to post it on the blog I have to find other things to talk about, and it’s easier to talk about beer/whisky mix then finding something ells to talk about.

So I took out my bladnoch it’s a very delicate fine light whisky, I’ve talked about it before. I kinda hate to take it out because it’s less than a 5th left in the bottle, and I don’t have access to more bladnoch, as you might know, it only makes about 100 000 liters a year, and that’s next to nothing compared to the big distilleries, the bottles are expensive and you have to snipe them when you got the option. I got this 16 year old in spring and it was the last of two bottles left in all of the Oslo area, and right now there is no bladnoch available in Norway. But I thought hey I got this very light refreshing beer and this very light and delicate whisky they might go together.
And they do, the bladnoch is as close to refreshing a whisky can get, it is sweet and light and the wit IS refreshing. Very good, not the seasons, both the beer and whisky really should be enjoyed in the spring or summer I also think this would be quite good with a refreshing apple on the porch during the first hot spring day.

Favorites from Oslo Whisky Festival

In a whisky festival with mostly Scottish whisky I’m gonna go out on a limb and say my two favorites are not Scotch, why because these to stood out the most, when you drink 8-12 glasses in a few hours even with geniures water in between each glass, they have a tendency to melt together.

These two were very good and very different from the others.


First up Bushmills 16, I love the 10 year old, and this really ups the ante, when you nose and taste it, you get hit with lots and lots of green, new mown lawns, dandelion and most of all pine needles. You get Christmas feel or a foggy and wet fall day in the forest. Oslo being surrounded by pine forest on 3 sides means this is not a new thing for me, but of course it’s super concentrated in the whisky. Very different from the others. It was the last whisky I drank and the aftertaste lasted and lasted, only when I started to eat half an hour later and drink Pepsi did it go away, sadly I might add. Very enjoyable.


And finally the best of the best

Hakushu Single Malt Whisky 10 y.O, well I shouldn’t use the word best, but my favorite, I liked it so much I actually went back for seconds. What made this one stand out was a lot of red fruit, first red apples and then a stronger red berries taste, I spent quite some time on this one, sitting outside in the cold winter air the nose mixed with the cold air and you got this really fresh malt taste to, and the red berries continued to present itself.

Both these two are next on my to buy list

Oslo Whisky Festival special-

Howdy pard.

Well it’s six a clock this evening I have spent a few hours with my dad at Oslo Whisky festival, it’s the 7th annual festival but it’s my first time at a whisky festival, I have to thank the people a whisky whisky whisky, I did not know about it until some user I can’t remember told about it, so thanks to him. I had planned on going to this festival for several months, it was at ingeniørenes hus which often rent out it’s space for everything really my dad said he had had dance lesions there in the 50s, so the place get used a lot.

The festival was in two big rooms and you had a cafeteria to, you had Norwegian championship in nosing, there was a good selection but only by Norwegian standards, any European or British supermarket would have just as many or more whiskies to show off. Almost all of them are available in the Wine monopoly, with a few exceptions.
It was a two day event but we only went there on the second day. For 350kr or about £35 you get emission, a nosing glass, a pamphlet and 10 bongs, each 2cl glass of whisky cost from 1 to 4 bongs depending on how much the whisky cost at the monopoly. You can also buy 5 more bongs for 100kr

Now to put that into perspective that means in theory you can get 5 2cl glasses for about 100kr, or 10cl, in a bar that would cost 120kr for a good 2cl glass of whisky. So this is very cheap compared to going out. But still not cheap since alcohol is never cheap in Norway.
As the day went on hundreds of people showed up, it got really full and louder as people got more whisky in them.

Here follows a short review of most of the whiskies I tried today, the two favorite gets their own post later today or tomorrow.

First up was Black and black that’s black grouse with cola, with a twist of lime, the grouse people knew that with 12-30 year old single malts they had to get at the consumers on a different level, so they had 3 cocktails with the grouse, black and black, one with standard grouse and ginger ale, that sounded really good and I’m gonna try it at home later on, because I really like ginger ale, especially the Canada dry. On and finally snow grouse with cranberry juice, Now back on the black and black, it was quite good, it was marketed as a more tasteful fuller option instead of the jack and coke, and I do agree it was quite good, but the problem is that even grouse that are blended are quite expensive in Norway, and I’m not sure it’s worth the money

Up next is the two bourbons, this is stuff I don’t buy myself so it’s good to try something different, I don’t mind bourbon a lot of people don’t like it, but I find fare to good bourbons are actually quite nice. Now all bourbons taste bourbon, they got a taste I think all of them got, and it can be quite hard to find different tastes then just the bourbon, the maker’s mark was up first, it’s a mild bourbon, it got the good bourbon nose, which I find is better than the taste, it got the sweet bourbon taste but not much more, a fine dram, but not as unique complex as a single malt.

The second bourbon was Knob creek, again clearly a bourbon maybe a little sweeter then Maker’s Mark, a little cola taste, this one is one of the few whiskies that was at the festival that isn’t available at the monopoly. Again nothing wrong with it, and clearly more palatable then Jim Beams standard selection.


This one I have wanted to try for a LONG time, basically since I started to drink whisky. Mostly because Ralfy did a review of it. It tasted like a malt, it had a very malty taste, a very very slight hint of peat. But the most interesting part of it was the finish which had a good black pepper taste.I fine whisky and had I live in a place were modest whiskies were priced modestly I might have bought it often, but right now it cost a 100kr more than Bushmills 10, and I’m not sure that lovely pepper finish is worth those 100kr

Glendfiddich 30, this one I tried just because I wanted to drink something older then myself, and it a good 5 years on me, but I’m really glad I didn’t buy a full bottle of this, it was really underwhelming, besides a hint of vanilla there really wasn’t much to say about it, it got the bourbon cask influence, and vanilla, but that’s it.

There was actually quite a bit of Japanese whisky at the festival, I tried two, the other one is actually my favorite I tried today and will get its own post.

Yamazaki 18 Years was the second I tried the most interesting thing about this is just how it transforms when you add a bit of water to it, it was like two completely different whiskies, had I not poured the water myself and knew it was the same whisky it would have thought it was two different ones. With water you get this really big floral nose and taste, like eating sunflowers while smelling roses. REALLY floral.