Feis Ile?

[Cosmic....]

Did anyone make it over or hear any news in relation the this years feis ile?

the laphroaig people have this years bottle online in the friends shop, a 12 year old cask strength, more details below, as usual it is mostly marketing fluff....

~~~~~

I have chosen a single vintage 12 year old that has been matured in once used Makers Mark bourbon barrels. It has been bottled straight from the cask (simply barrier filtered at 57.5 ABV strength).For my tastes this is nearly a perfect expression of Laphroaig of this maturity. However I sent a sample to Robert Hicks for his independant comments. Below are his tasting notes. As always I am afraid that the 2009 Cairdeas has to be on a first come first served basis. In light of the present difficult times I have decided to keep the price the same as last years at £40. Again as always please buy it for yourselves and not E Bay! It really has been bottled for your pleasure not profit!

Colour: Yellow Gold
Nose: From the bottle the impact of the wood comes through immediately with a hint of pencil shavings which enhances the massive peat smoke aroma. Once through this initial impact there is a gentler flavour of red berries and marzipan [almonds]. Binding these all together is a thick creamy, even custard style sweetness.
Body: Very mouth filling and huge
Palate: Without water the iodine and peat smoke fills the coats the tongue only just allowing a trace of the sweeter flavours to show. Again when a touch of water is added there is an initial burst of peat smoke, liquorice and spice. With or without water this has a very powerful mouth filling experience
Finish: Very long with a very dry finish
Feis Ile 2009.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Ordered 2 bottles of this ... I presume this is a large run as I only ordered mine last night and it was still available. Anybody any idea how many bottled? I think is better instead of really limited edition which suddenly costs £200 on ebay once sold out. And at cask strength it is fair value for money ... looking forward to it

[JohnM]

Postage was very reasonable too...

I think there are 5,000 bottles of this. I bet they won't last too long.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Postage was very reasonable too...

I think there are 5,000 bottles of this. I bet they won't last too long.

Thanks for that John ... and yes they'll not last long with only 5000.

Excellent postage all right ... and great for us.

A bottle of the 10yo cask strength in Ally's is €62 so happy to pay £44 to include postage for each of mine.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

John, any sign of yours yet ... it's been 3 weeks at this stage and no sign here.

Of course, probably in saying that they'll turn up today

[JohnM]

No, nothing yet, but it does say to allow 28 days for delivery. I can't remember if they've charged me or not yet. Looking forward to it anyway.

John

[JohnM]

Got mine today...

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Got mine today...

Ditto but a week later

Just opened one up ....

No full notes yet but very very interesting and much better than the last one in my opinion. Full of flavours bucket loads of peat and a medicine cabinet of iodine Not for the shy

[Willie JJ]

Yes the Cairdeas 12yo is very nice i thought. Here's a tasting note for it:

Cairdeas 12yo 57.5% - Laphroaig, bottled 2009

Nose: Huge smoke, vanilla, creosote, salt fish, tar, iodone, soot, draff.
Palate: Tar, vanilla, very sweet, coconut?
Finish: Long scintillating spicy/sweet, more soot and salt at the end.
Comment: Congratulations to John Campbell for this one. It is simply brilliant.


Feis Ile was great fun as usual, although it was busier than ever. There seemed to be more US and Euro visitors than before, presumably due to the weakness of the pound. I wasn't at Lagavulin day or Laddie day as we had chosen to go to Whisky and a' That VI in Ayr on the Saturday, before crossing Arran on Sunday on the way to Islay, so for us the events satrted in Monday.

Monday was Caol Ila day and we did the masterclass with Billy Stitchell. Billy is a quiet chap, but a great host and the class was enjoyed by all. I also bumped into Neil and Joel from the caskstrength.net whisky blog and Tim F from TWE there. The most interesting thing at the tasting was the 10yo unpeated Caol Ila which will be released later this year. If you enjoyed any of the previous 8yo unpeated releases from 2006-8 then watch out for this one as it is very nice indeed.

Tuesday we did the premium tasting at Laphroaig and had the 12yo Cairdeas along with the 25yo, 27yo and 30yo, as well as some other stuff. All three of the older drams were very special, but they are just too much money for me. The Cairdeas was great value though. Stupidly I forgot to buy one on the island and then missed the web sale (D'oh!).

Wednesday, we went to Ardbeg for a single cask tasting. We had the two toasted oak casks that they released as festival bottles and a pair of 1975 casks amongst others. all brilliant in my opinion, although I'm sure Adrian won't be convinced.

Thursday we went to Jura which is always great fun. We did the stillroom nosing where Willie Cochrane took us through samples of new make extracted from various stages of the spirit run, (foreshots, 5mins into the spirit run, 10 mins, 20 mins, etc., etc.,). I've done this before but it never ceases to amaze me how much the spirit changes as it goes through the run. You can really pick out familiar flavours, from fruity, esthery flavours at the top of the run, down to heavy sulphury ones at the bottom. The we did the tasting of the new Paps bottlings with Willie Tait. Nice enough but too expensive for me. Then finally more nonsense in the blending class with Richard Paterson. All great fun.

Friday we were at Bunnahabhain for a blending class in the morning. The objective of the class was to make a blend as close to Black Bottle as possible. I ignored this remit and decided to make a blend that was as close to my ideal of a perfect blend as possible. I'm glad I did that because we took the end products away with us. We spent the rest of the day soaking up the sun and the bottle of Manzanilla finished 16yo Bunnahabahain that we bought. Later we met up with a bunch of folk from the Spirit of Islay forum and then went to the Bowmore Hotel to see North Sea Gas. A great band but not the best venue.

Saturday brought us to Ardbeg again and after an early morning tasting where we had a lot more single casks, LOTI and a sample that the warehousemen had chosen (if I was an Ardbeg warehouseman I would have hidden that one), we bumoed into some friends from Speyside and sat at the back of may car drinking whisky out of the boot for a couple of hours, before joining in the sheep toss and other nonsense. A very nice man gave us a couple of drams of the original Black Bowmore and some other stuff, which I won't go into detail about, but it was excellent nonetheless.

in amongst all this we drank bottles of the Feis Ile Lagavulin and Caol Ila as well as a lot of other stuff that I took with me and a heap of stuff that others kindly supplied.

All in all a great week as usual.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Thanks a million for sharing WIllie ... great account of you trip. I really love the Lap Cairdeas 12yo now and I think it may be the nicest Laph I've even had for the price. Certainly packed full of great flavour.

[varizoltan]

sounds great, maybe the society go next year

[jcskinner]

Very nice idea. I second the motion.

[JohnM]

Would that not be stepping on Ally's toes a bit? Maybe the Celtic Whiskey Shop could orgainise something?

[varizoltan]

what is the whiskey society for than

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

We could always ask Ally to come with us for a change

[varizoltan]

sure, we can stand on our legs i think

[Willie JJ]

If you're seriously considering a trip to Feis Ile, the main problem will be accomodation. Book as soon as you can, as most folk who go regularly book their accomodation as they are leaving the year before. There are simply not enough beds on the island and trying to get something after Christmas is almost impossible.

I think its a great idea though.

[John]

I'm a believer in not re-inventing the wheel. If Ally has the contacts and knows the scene (and I've heard good reports about tours in the past) and if we can boost numbers and add the IWS name to the tour for a deal then I'm sure it would work out very well. Sounds like a good outing anyway!
J.

[varizoltan]

that is a good idea John,Willie
we may start work on it right now

[varizoltan]

or if worst come to worst, we ask some distillery to sleep in their warehouse and we share with the angels

[Willie JJ]

or if worst come to worst, we ask some distillery to sleep in their warehouse and we share with the angels

I told you Zoltan, people book the best spaces as they are leaving the year before.

[varizoltan]

feckers

[varizoltan]

after 36 long days i got my bottles