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.