North British 13 Year Single Grain Whisky (Blackadder Raw Cask)

 

This is a new one for me - I've never had anything by (or even heard of!) North British Distillery. Apparently it was founded in 1885, and is located near Edinburgh. Currently - and this is really interesting - it's a joint venture between beverage giants Diageo and the Edrington Group. The grain output is used for both Johnnie Walker and Famous Grouse. It's also apparently the last working distillery in Edinburgh, and is routinely nicknamed "the NB." 

Lagavulin 8 Year

This is a real treat - I found the fairly recent Lagavulin 8 Year on major discount at my local liquor store. It was significantly cheaper than the 16 Year, which isn't common here in Washington DC.  This was created to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Lagavulin distillery, which is one of my very favorites. It's fairly well known among drinkers of heavily peated Scotch that the younger the age of the liquid, the rougher the smoke tends to be, to the point of being unruly and sometimes unpalatable. Let's see how this turns out... 

Invergordon 43 Year (Exclusive Malts)

Today I attended the yearly whisky tasting at Arrowine liquors in Washington DC - last year was entirely Kilchoman, a distillery very close to my heart. This year I had seven generous samples, all of which I documented thoroughly and will appear here. The first was was a 43-year single grain from Invergordon.