Episode 80: Not Another Peated Scotch Episode

Welcome back to All Things Whiskey Podcast!  It sure has been a while and life comes at you fast - we all have children now so we had to take a break from podcasting for a bit, but Host Mike Outcalt was lucky enough to sneak over to Host Devin Mitchell's house to sip on some delicious peated scotch.  Join us as we review a sweet lineup of awesome whiskies featuring:

• Glendronach Ode to Embers
• Ardbeg 10 Year Cask Strength
• Ardbeg Uigeadail
• Bruichladdich Octomore 15.3

Long live peated Scotch!  Its great to be back - enjoy the episode and cheers! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:13

Hey, and welcome back to All Things Whiskey Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Elco, Deb Mitchell. All I want to say is like the same thing that the nail stylists, when my wife gets a mani petty, they're like, been a while. Right? They're like trying to guilt you into coming back. But for us, it has been a while. We're coming up on dang dang near one year without podcasting. Wow. It's because.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Which is like that's a whole experience, too. I have to spend like four hours getting my feet ready to just not be embarrassed.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

You should see my hobbit feet right now. My goodness.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Yeah, run on time for the set release for Magic Gathering.

SPEAKER_04 1:04

There you go. Yeah, coming right up. They gotta milk the Tolkien set as much as they can. So um things have been busy. It's uh a little journey called fatherhood. So I think we'll we'll talk about that. And maybe I'll ask you the question. Don't answer this now, but think on it. Fatherhood is blank.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

It's just great, Mike.

SPEAKER_04 1:29

It's all kittens and sunshine, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:31

But one of us has their wife across the table.

SPEAKER_04 1:34

So there you go. And speaking of watches. They're you wonderful. It's Mother's Day. Yeah, almost. Almost. Tomorrow is Mother's Day, if you're wondering when we recorded this podcast. And we were actually going to do this two weeks ago, but my baby was going through sleep regressions. So we went through a month of her not sleeping and decided we had to push the podcast a little bit. So here we are. And what are we doing tonight, Devin? Some peted scotches. Oh no, not another Peted Scotch episode.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

I don't think we've had that many, have we? I don't know. But you can never do too many peted scotch episodes.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

Wasn't the last one we did peted scotch episode? I'm pretty sure. I don't know. Don't don't quote, man. It was a long time ago. We consumed a lot of alcohol.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

But it reminds me of- Well, I remember it could be these exact four bottles, too. We're just doing it again.

SPEAKER_04 2:27

There you go. We loved them so much. We're going back to them. I'm actually going to fact check our own podcast here. So um speaking of the podcast, if you're looking for it, find it on Spotify or iTunes. Let's see, podcasts. Bum bum bum bum bum bum. The last one we did was the Patreon Blind Tasting was a Scotch episode with Mr. Spencer. And he was actually gonna be here too, but he caught some sort of week-long sickness. And he was gonna bring Hontavirus? Not hauntives. Might have been. Maybe. I don't think it was. I don't know if it's here yet. Yeah, Myerson's house. His house is very clean. It's a good house.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Okay, probably not a virus, though.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

Probably something else. He was gonna bring a LaFroy Courage cask strength, lore, lore cask strength.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

And I had one, but I drank it because it was delicious. And speaking of delicious whiskies, the lineup tonight for Peter Scotches will start with the Glenndronich Ode to Embers, and then we move on to a couple of fun expressions from Ardbag, the Ardbag Tenure Cask Strength, new one, very cool. The Argbag Ugadal, and the Bruf Lade Octamor 15.3. So we have some very awesome whiskies to get into. Alright, so we've got the four scotches, and we're just we're big, we're big Scotch fans, and uh for the last year or so I've been wanting to drink what I've been wanting to drink, and Pete Scotch is scratching that itch. There's also some fantastic American whiskeys that I've been drinking too, but Pete Scotch is uh is really singing to me right now, so that's what I wanted to fire up with the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Have they gone up a lot with the import issues? I don't I don't think so, right? I don't know. I haven't really been paying attention, but nothing really caught me off guard.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

It feels like everything is a hundred dollars right now, at least. Yeah. The Glendronich Ode Embers come down. Ode Embers was like eighty-nine, Ardbeg 10's a hundred, oogadal's a hundred, the Octimore was two seventy, something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

I don't know how they get away with that, but somehow we keep buying it.

SPEAKER_04 4:42

Yeah, it's the impossible equation, right? It's a young whiskey that's incredibly heavily peted, and it just somehow it works.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

Yeah, so then they even put it in like the clear bottle now, which makes it look like also still young. Like I just pick a dark bottle like the Ardbeg ones and just be like, yeah, don't worry about it. Don't worry about what it looks like.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

Some of the old Octimores came in dark bottles too. That's what I was saying, yeah. They were in dark ones. Maybe that's the difference between the point one, the point two, and the point threes, right? Um I still have a 6-1 in the bunker. Apparently, that bottle's worth like a lot of money now, which is kind of fun. I might drink it for a special occasion down the line. We'll see.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Tonight wasn't a special occasion. I'm just asking for the record.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

Absolutely a special occasion. We're back podcasting. It's first Mother's Day, man, for Rose. First Mother's Day for Rose. And speaking of Rose, you know, she's taking a step back from the podcast, so you're stuck with me as the producer. Um had to remember how to fire up Audacity here and uh make sure we were recording on the right channels. So hopefully the audio quality is up to snuff. And Rose is she's just not drinking a lot these days, so she wanted to take a step back, and she's pretty much the best mom ever. So happy Mother's Day to her, happy Mother's Day to my mom, my stepmom, who are some other moms in in the world that you want to give a shout out to. Mama Mia.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Just every every mom, just really into moms. Mother Teresa. Not to be taken out of context.

SPEAKER_04 6:21

Yeah, easy with that one. So it's been a long time since we've come back and we've done this, and there's been a ton that's happened, right? We our our daughter was born, she's actually 11 months old now. It's a really fun age. As long as she's sleeping, she's really great during the day and fun to be around, but there's definitely sleep challenges there, which again is why we pushed back the podcast. Uh, I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes back in last year in like June. So I actually stopped drinking. I was sober for eight weeks. I lost 30 pounds. We reversed the pre-diabetes. Now I'm just slowly gaining that weight back through peted scotch and probably cheeseburgers. If I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

Or like Mr. Burns going to the doctor when like they give him that door reference. They're just like, actually, if any one of these moved, like everything would go completely wrong. Your whole body would shut down.

SPEAKER_04 7:20

Indestructible. We moved, so we got a new house, which, if you're moving with a baby, that's a whole thing. Uh, my father-in-law lives with us now, my mother-in-law is m moving in with us part-time, too, so she kind of commutes back and forth. She probably is gonna listen to this episode because she's a big supporter of the show. It's just a whole bunch of life change, right? Uh, work's been demanding. It's hard when we have two sets of married people that have young children to find any time to get together. So Rose is at home with our baby now. Your baby's sleeping, I'm watching him on the monitor, and we have an arsenal of Peter Scotch in front of us. So let's root around, let's start with the Glenn Dronich ode to Embers. Sounds good. And while we sniff and drink this, I want to go back to that question.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

These are all sherried, right? Well, not the Octimore.

SPEAKER_04 8:14

Or is it? Uh, the Octimore is just ex-bourbon, I believe. Let's go take a look. Yep. Ex bourbon. Um, and then the Ugadal is a sherry cask, I do believe. But I do want to go back to that question of being a father is blank and ask you for your your answer on that one.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

I think it's rewarding. You gotta set stuff aside though. I think everybody went into it thinking that ah, we can dial back down a little a little couple things, you know, be a father, and it's like, no, it doesn't work that way. Yeah. That kid just walks up to you and grabs your hand and yanks you away from every single thing that you do. And if you go back to it, he comes back and he yanks you. You guys haven't hit that phase yet, but you will.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

We're we're working on it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

And I agree with you. I've got two answers for my own question of being a father is blank. Um one serious answer and one not so serious. So I'll let you decide which is which.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Well, it's already a not so serious podcast.

SPEAKER_04 9:28

It's true. Yeah, if if there's a lot of serious listeners out there, you know, have a drink and loosen up, please. Hope you have fun. Hope you're enjoying the show being back. So being a father is not quite knowing all of the words to nursery rhymes. I'll give you an example. Ba ba black sheep, have you any wool? No, sir, no, sir. Half bag full. And the first time I sang that, Rose looked at me and the grimace on her face. She was like, Are you serious right now? And I was like, I thought those were the words, and she's like, that doesn't even make sense. How can you you've got a half bag? You don't you you have some, you can't say no, sir. So I've learned my nursery rhymes.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Well, they don't all make sense.

SPEAKER_04 10:26

There's a lot that really don't, like uh two two bluebirds or whatever, fly away, Peter, fly away, Paul. I don't know. That one's very odd. Um, I've learned how to play a lot of stuff on a Glockenspiel. Oh, yeah, you gotta do that. Which is that's been a whole lot of fun, actually. Just uh bing boop boop boop boop, and you give the mallet to my daughter and start smacking it. It's super fun. So being a father is an incredible journey. I really think it's it's one of the most amazing and fulfilling things that I've done, but it comes with a monumental amount of work with it, too. And it's not all sunshines and rainbows, right? It's you're scared constantly for your kid, or you're gonna do something that mess them up. You're responsible for human life, but it's incredible to see them turn into a person. And I don't know, if I give you a third answer, I'd say being a father is unifying. It's brought so many people together in my life, starting with closer to Rose and closer to my in-laws and closer to my own family. My parents and my my sister. I mean, my in-laws are my family, they're amazing people. So my daughter is magnetic that she she brings all these people together and she they just want to love and support her. It's a really amazing thing. So great experience. I think you were the one that told me right before my daughter was born, though, that nothing you can do will prepare you for the amount of work that's involved with this. Yeah, not even a little bit. And I think being a dad is one of those things where it's like you don't fully understand until you go through it, right? Like, I think there's things in life where that that's the case, like buying a house or losing a loved one. I think having an oh I wish Spencer was here because he he he used the term child rearing. And I I just had to like raise an eyebrow when I was talking to him like, do you just say child rearing? And he's like, Yeah, raising a child, and I'm like, Alright, I gotta say child rearing every every opportunity I have now. So um it's an amazing experience, right? And it has changed my life completely. So no regrets whatsoever. Not even a single letter, no records, not even a single letter. Uh, I'm looking forward to seeing what's next, and hopefully that starts with uh baby sleeping a little bit more. So let's dive in. I I keep saying that, but we'll start with the Glen Dronich ode to Embers. I'm interested to get your take on this. I think when I have tried this, the first sip I had, I was like, hey, this is pretty good. And then I tried it again down the line, and I was like, I don't know what I was thinking, I don't like it. And now when I'm trying again, I'm back to I think it's pretty good. I think it's kind of like a shut your brain off type of scotch where it's like I'm not thinking too hard or critically about it. I'm just enjoying what's in the glass. It's low proof. This one is what 48.4%. It's actually higher proof than I thought it was. It drinks nicely. But this is part of their master's anthology, where they have a dominance of sherry casks that they uh enrich with the complexity of their Pedro Jimenez casks. Alright, Devin. Tell me about the old Glendrani here that we're drinking.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

The nose is definitely you can tell right away that it's sherry. I just get a ton of all the sherry.

SPEAKER_04 14:15

Yeah, they say dominance of Oli Rosso Sherry. Does it say that on the bottle? Dominance.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Wow, I just need to start reading.

SPEAKER_04 14:24

If only I could. Those kids would be awfully upset if they could read.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

What does that prominent?

SPEAKER_04 14:30

It's just a meme. Oh, okay. I think it's King of the Hill.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

I get it. Yeah. Kind of like berry notes. Blackberry, raspberries.

SPEAKER_04 14:39

Yeah. Hit me with we got a lot to get through. Hit me with the nose palette finish. What are you seeing on it?

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Honey. A lot of honey on the nose. Palette, I just got kind of like Thanksgiving pies, just thought of like a bunch of berry pies, doughy. Finish is a little lacking, kind of light. Can tell that it's a little maybe a little younger. I'm gonna peg this. It's an on-age statement, right?

SPEAKER_04 15:05

Non-age statement, correct.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Peg this in like the six to eight year range.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

Yeah, I'd believe.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

And it's just kind of peppery and not as peedy as I was hoping for. Yeah, pretty late. I think it's it's peedy, but not like the rest of these bangers that are in this lineup. And I haven't even tried them, but I can guarantee.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

True. And then Octimore, of course, special release every year, but they they crank that Pete way up on most of the bottlings. And of course, with the 15.3, right? Like what are we at? It's some gnarly, gnarly peat here. 307.2 PPM. From my understanding, it's the second most heavily peted scotch ever made.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

I mean, Octamor is basically just like that Dorito challenge chip or whatever. One chip challenge. For some reason, it actually works and is enjoyable.

SPEAKER_04 16:09

Anything else you want to say about the uh the Glendronich?

SPEAKER_02 16:13

No, I think I think I'm good.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

Katie, do you want Katie Mitchell's here too? Do you want to chime in and tell us what you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 16:18

I don't know if that was a proper ode to the Embers.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

I think it was proper. It was good. You think?

SPEAKER_05 16:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

Katie, you want to talk about the Glendronich? It's almost Mother's Day. I think you have to.

unknown 16:33

Okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

We're passing her microphone here. Happy almost Mother's Day, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for holding the cord. You don't have to hold it that way. You can hold it like a normal human. Um anyway. No, I like the taste on it. Um loved the finish. It kind of felt a little ali out of balance for me in a weird way. Like the finish seemed much stronger than the taste, in my completely unprofessional opinion.

SPEAKER_04 17:14

Yeah, totally fine. Valid points. You think it's a little disjointed from the taste to the finish? And maybe that has to do with the age. Who knows? I think that's interesting. So, as it's almost Mother's Day, how about being a mother is blank? Do you want to play the game?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Oh god. Um, being a mother is a blank. Yeah, a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

She's into improv though, so you know, she'll be alright.

unknown 17:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Being a mother is improv.

SPEAKER_04 17:47

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

There you go. Yeah. That's all I gotta say.

SPEAKER_04 17:54

Wonderful. Alright, what are you scoring it? Let's break the ice with the first score.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

First scope it up of the year.

SPEAKER_04 18:01

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Wow. Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

Glendronich owed to Embers.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

One more taste.

SPEAKER_04 18:09

There you go. He's gonna drink it while he scores it. He's a mad lad.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Like a high seven, seven point eight. Okay. Yeah. It's good. Sure. Would I spend over a hundred? No. It's I found it for like sixty.

SPEAKER_04 18:31

It's like eighty-nine, I think. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

It's not too terrible. I mean 89's the old 60. So basically. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:39

Especially in the Scotch game.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Especially in the world game.

SPEAKER_04 18:43

You read my mind. We mind melded. I was gonna say 7.8 too. Like I think it's I think it's good. Again, I think it's a shut your brain off type of whiskey where you're like, eh, just enjoy it, see what happens, right? If you're looking for a not so serious whiskey for a not so serious podcast, boom, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

If you like scotch in general, then you'll probably like this bottle. Especially if you like peated scotch, but also mostly Highland scotches. Sure. I think it's trying to impress anybody. I don't know if I'd pull out this bottle.

SPEAKER_04 19:14

Good bridge between if you are unsure about peat too, because it's kind of lowly peated. It's kind of kissed and toasty. I forgot I didn't even tell you guys my notes. Like, man, we're we're out of practice here. I didn't even give you a nose palette finish on this.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Actually, no, that seems pretty right on. Yeah. So go for it.

SPEAKER_04 19:33

Yeah, kind of toasty on the nose. Uh pipe tobacco. I got a really interesting note on that one. Cherry cola. Cherry Coke. I feel like it smells like cherry coke.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_04 19:42

And then uh those red wine and berry notes. I said red licorice red licorice. How now brown cow? Right. White pepper. Pretty creamy, right? I think there's some fun stuff going on there. Like it's enjoyable notes. I just don't think it's super robust. I think it's uh an interesting whiskey, though. Alrighty. And with that said, we're gonna move on to the Ardbeg 10-year cask strength.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Say I'm about to take the paddle boat up to Isla.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

Hey, there you go. Toboggan down from the highlands over to Isla, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Yeah, the zip line to the toboggan, to the paddle boat. What other infeasible modes of transportation can we think of?

SPEAKER_04 20:30

Yeah, it's a long one, but it works. Alrighty. We're on to the Ardbeg tenure cask strength. And my understanding is this was a 2026 committee release, and it's the first time that they've released a cask strength bottling like this. A tenure cast strength, since they released one in 2003 in Japan. Wow. So here we are, what, 23 years later? And we finally have the chance to try this. So I saw this and I was I was hyped up about it. I'm like, I gotta get a bottle of this. And let's read here, right? Reading. For over a quarter of a century, the famous Ardbeg committee has sipped it, savored it, and sworn by it. The iconic Ardbeg ten years old. But whiskey on everybody's lips, the very same. At cask strength, the most talked-about release in the distilleries, modern memory, finally bottled at your impassioned request. Can't imagine how many people are like, can you please just put this at cask strength? Like I would love that. Drawn straight from American Oak and Bur American Oak bourbon barrels, Ten's revered Petey Paradox is pronounced with rich aromas of smoke, sea spray. Smoke and sea spray giving way to smooth natural sweetness. And this one's 10 years old. Uh 61.7%. So huge scotchy proof there, and we love cask strength scotch.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Now I want to know what sea spray is. Sea spray. Does that come in like a little bottle in Scotland? Have you been on a boat before? Or well, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

Have you been sprayed by the ocean? Yeah. That's sea spray.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Yeah, but how does it get in the whiskey? Do you just like capture it with a net? Splash it on the barrels.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

Go around and spritz them. Here, I thought this would be fun too, just because it's been a while. Can you hold my microphone, Katie? Yes, sir. Thank you. Rank that cork pop out of it. Wow, so that's sea spray, huh? That's sea spray right there. Okay. Smell it. There you go. So let's dive into this one a little bit. Sea spray. Yeah. Sea spray by Isla.

unknown 22:54

What it's called when you don't wear a deodorant.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Yeah. Just hold your arm pit up. What it's called when you don't wear a deodorant. Hold your arm pit up, let the sea spray it. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:08

Alright, let's take a minute to digest here and then we'll get back to talk about this one.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Alrighty, Mr. Devin. You've had a chance to go root around and explore the Ard Ardbeg. The Ardbeg. Ardbeg.

SPEAKER_04 23:24

Can you mispronounce Ardbeg?

SPEAKER_02 23:28

Ardbeg. Ardbeg. You see. It's kind of hard to mispronounce Ardbeg.

SPEAKER_04 23:35

A-R deb. Arkansas D Beg. AR. Terrible. At least Ardbeg's an easy one to say. Thank goodness. And it doesn't have some crazy name for this committee release, too. It's just the tenure cask strength. Um, so shout out to Ardbeg for making that one easy on me. Much appreciated.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Yeah, we like drinking, not thinking.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

I was elected to drink, not to think. That type of deal, right? Uh tell me about this one. What do you got going on? What do you like about it?

SPEAKER_02 24:10

On the nose, just like Do you like it? Very salty. Like spray. Sea spray. Brine blasted. Some good honey. I think I got a weird note on it that I really like. I kinda kind of like pistachio notes.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

Interesting. That's fun. I do want to interject and say at Costco, you can get the saltiness. Yeah. You can get Maldon salt, which is like just this tub of salt, and it's big salt flakes, and then you can like salt bay them, right? You just dump the salt flakes off fingers off your elbow onto your food, like big crispy salt chunks. It's awesome. It's kind of a game changer for like adding a little bit of extra deliciousness to foods. And like I get a little bit of that on here. Okay. A little bit of salt dash. Salt dash. Salt bay it, yeah. Alright, so back down the back to you.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

On the palate, a little bit briny in a good way. Lots of citizens. I love briny. Lots of like orange and lime and lemon. And then onto the finish, it is the maybe one of the longest finishes of all time. Like it just sits there, burns, tingles. It's like a fire you can't put out.

SPEAKER_04 25:25

I'll give you a hell yeah for that one.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah, I was got kind of weird, like a little bit of a subtle dark chocolate to it. Hmm. I could see that. Yeah. Yeah, it's just peppery, smoky. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:40

Yeah. I'll mirror some of your thoughts on that. Okay. Especially with that finish. Man, that is a smoky, sooty, barbecue burnt chicken briskety finish. Like crazy.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

It's got good barbecue like just flavors on the palate, too.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

Yeah. My stepfather used to make a dish called burnt chicken. And I don't know how he did it. He would put he burned it. He'd put a bunch of chicken on the grill and he would just burn the hell out of it. I mean, he would like way overcook this chicken. It would be like black on the outside, straight burnt. But then you'd go eat it and it was like moist and tender and delicious on the inside. And I asked him, I was like, what kind of magic are you doing here to make this happen? And he told me the whole recipe, and he was like, Yeah, just put it on the grill and burn the hell out of it. How'd you make it that good?

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Put your flame up to 750 and can't even you can't even cook the inside before the inside or outside jars. It's not impossible.

SPEAKER_04 26:42

Yeah, and like I get that here, where just like this burnt chicken, brisket, burnt in crazy burnt meats type of finish, and it lingers forever. That's a crazy finish.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

God, I want barbecue so bad right now. What's the place over by your work? Oh man, smoking yards? Smoking yard. Man, you want to talk about losing a lot of money to whiskey. There you go. Smoking yards is another deal.

SPEAKER_04 27:10

So for my notes, I wrote ash, burnt ends, brine. It's that sea spray's there. Brisket, vanillas. Um on the palate, I get vanilla toffee, white pepper. It's a big peppery. Yeah, it's very white peppery. It's like 122 proof or something, right? Right around that range. I mean, that's huge for scotches, and we love cask strength scotches, right? Barbecued meats. I did get a big like charred apple note. And then like again, going kind of like where you had pistachio, I said cantaloupe, like a weird, like melony type of flavor. But it's creamy, oily, viscous. Yeah, I think it's a a a cool whiskey. We were trying it and writing. Like the melon note. Yeah, cantaloupe. Interesting. We were trying this off, we would just pause the recording, and I just had to stop and go, ah, it's really good. So I'm interested to hear what you would rank this on the echelon of the Poet Up slash all things whiskey podcast sale.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

It's like one of those things where you don't want to spend the money for the bottle, but then someone just gives you like a quarter ounce taster and you try it and you're like, ah, goddamn it.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

Yeah, no, no shit. It was really good.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

I'm gonna give that. Hold on, one more drink, you know. That's my thing. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 28:40

Game of Thrones song while it does it. Doo doo doo do do do do do do do do. By the way, just like shameless plug for a knight of the seven kingdoms. If you guys are if you're listening to this and you haven't watched that show, it's awesome. Fantastic show. It's like kind of like a more whimsical Game of Thrones until it's not. And if you watch the show, you'll know what I mean. We'll have to do. I'm not like a nine-five. Nine five, yeah. Yeah, fantastic. You know what? Total mind meld from me, because I was gonna say nine-five too. You're gonna have to ask me what I think of the next one first, because otherwise, for the rest of the night, I'll just say I agree with you. I think nine-fives warranted there. It's like that's fantastic. That's like the pinnacle that's up there in the upper echelons of the whiskies that we really drank, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:24

It's like one of those things where the fans complain enough and then they finally get it, and it's amazing, and they're like, ah, but we're not gonna keep making it. Like, oh, cool. Oh, sorry. Got a little taster on you.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

Yeah, it gave you a glimpse of the impossible here.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Oh man, we would, but oh geez.

SPEAKER_04 29:41

Check in with us in 23 years when we release the next one. See you in what 2049? It's not a tenure. Yeah, we're not making it. Yeah. Oh man. 2003 Japan, 2026, Denver, Colorado. Where's it gonna be in 2049? Toronto? Who knows? Who knows? I think 9.5 is awesome. That's a really, really, really fun whiskey. Anything else you want to say before we move on to the Oogie?

SPEAKER_02 30:11

No.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

Alright.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Pause for dramatic effect. Alright, we are moving on to third whiskey of the evening.

SPEAKER_04 30:24

This one's gonna be the Ardbag Oogadal. The Oogie! And this one here sitting at 54.2%. Non-age statement. They do say right on the front the flavors you can expect from this. Okay. Treacle, bacon, and bonfires. Treacle bacon bonfires. Say treacle bacon bonfires. Treacle bacon bonfires. Treacle bacon bonfires. Here, hang on.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Treacle bacon bonfires. Treaco bacon bonfires.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

Treacle bacon bonfires. Katie, thank you for joining in on the shenanigans. The Ardbag Ugadale takes its name from the brooding mysterious lock, which provides the peat laden water for Ardbeg. Rose hates when I read fairy tales with that voice. Or like, I'm like, mas eh, you having a bully day? The brooding laden waters of the locks, eh? And she's like, please don't read that to our daughter on that voice. And I'm like, bully, bully. It's the only voice you got. This is a special vatting of different styles of art bag marrying together traditional deep smoke, traditional, deep, smoky notes with luscious, sweet, raisin y tones of old X sherry casks. Treacle bacon bonfire. Ooh, I just kind of clinked my glass and it made a nice little clinky noise. Ooh.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

Your clinked glasses clinking my glass.

SPEAKER_04 31:53

Oh, su oh, she's just clanking. The Hardley boys. The Hardley boys. Two young whippersnappers with a penchant for solving mysteries. It's basically us, but drinking Pete Scotch.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

I don't know if anyone understands their reference anymore.

SPEAKER_04 32:09

Nah, they might not. Yeah. That's a South Park. Yeah, that's a South Park. Yeah. Alright, you want to pause and think through this? Alright, hang on. Let's ride. Broncos Country. Let's ride.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

Is it on?

SPEAKER_04 32:27

Yeah, it's on.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 32:29

This is this is in the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Alright, switching it up here. Asking Mike first. Mike, what do you got on this? Nice. That's it. Just nice. That's it.

SPEAKER_04 32:39

Nice. That's it. That's the end of the show. Pack it up, boys.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

Ooh, that's a good podcast. Pack it up. Pack it up.

SPEAKER_04 32:48

So we were paused and we were trying this one, and I kept telling Devin and Katie, I'm like, man, I'm gonna give you guys some dumb notes. Just like the stupidest notes that you've ever heard. Because I think they're real. I think my notes are valid. And your notes are valid too. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

You have like susicle notes. Sucle?

SPEAKER_04 33:11

Flim flam flottery. Flim flamflam. Whimmy wham wam wazzle. That's a futurama reference there. So uh I think there's like a red winey from the the sherry influence. It's kind of like a Pinot, like a real sweet red wine. Like a Washington State or an Oregon State red wine type of deal. I wrote roses. I don't know, it just smelled kind of floral to me. I also wrote scorched strawberries. I don't know how there's like that sweety fruity burn to hell type of note there. It's a really fun, really fun one. Black and milds. And here's a here's a wild one. Nope, no polito. Black and milds, yeah. Swish of sweets. No, no. I wrote no polito, like cactus juice. Like a little cactus. I think there's like some interesting like vegetal note, and once upon a time.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Kind of like a mezcalish note, a little bit. Kinda. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:18

Yeah. I had uh I had a roommate that used to juice cactus back in the day. As roommates do. Yeah, there you go. And like I've I've tried grilled cactus before, and like I swear there's this weird cactus-y note in there, and I love it. On the palate, I'm gonna hit you with treacle bacon bonfires, baby.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

I didn't write that down.

SPEAKER_04 34:41

Treacle bacon bonfires. Hit me with another treacle bacon bonfires. Treacle bacon bonfires. Treacle bacon bonfires. It's like Thundercooker Falconbird. Um I don't know. I think when you write something on the bottle, you should expect to find it in the glass. And I think this maybe does it better than any other whiskey that I've had, where they said this tastes like treacle, bacon, and bonfires. And I'm like, you know what? Nailed those notes 100%. So it's creamy, red wine. It's such an easy drinker for like 55%. Like it's not where the 10-year cask strength at that 120, it's up a little bit in proof, was very fiery and white pepper heavy. This is just kind of like sweet peat and barbecue, really delicious. You can swish it around the mouth all you want. Just a touch of that white pepper. But on the finish, I was finding maple syrup, um, the sweet peat, red licorice. I read all sorts of fun stuff down there. A real easy drinker for its proof. Like you would expect this to be kind of punchy in the mouth, which it is with flavor, but it doesn't overwhelm you with any of the crackland spice.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

Crackland's spice.

SPEAKER_04 36:02

Crackland's spice.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Say it. Also, just because you guys can't see, Mike wrote his notes at like a 45 degree angle. Oh, eight by eleven piece of paper.

SPEAKER_04 36:11

Just the most illegible handwriting you've ever seen, too.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

It's just fifty-five percent of it's wasted.

SPEAKER_04 36:19

Yeah. And unwritable. Gotta do what you gotta do. Gotta do what you gotta do. Alright, you want to take it? What do you got on this one? Do you score it first? Nah, you do your notes and then let's score it. But then that's gonna leave me scoring it first. No, send it over to me to score it first.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

I'll do it. Alright, on the nose. I got some weird stuff too. I'm excited for it. You brought up like all the wine notes. I put like just really strong red grapes. I got a lot of red grapes on it. That's fine. Didn't say wine though. And like I just get a lot of peach and nectarine type. And that just carried the fruit all over the place on this one for me. So on the palate, got peach, like a really faint anise peat, and like I don't know if it's just suggestible, but like that bacon, I just looked for it as hard as I possibly could, and I I found it on the palate. I think it's definitely there. Um the finish for me was strange. I I feel like it just takes like a three-second break and it's not bad and it's not watery, and but like it just kind of blinks for a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 37:35

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Yeah, I don't know. Like I couldn't I probably tried it like four or five times, and I got the same thing. Like I was looking for notes, looking for notes, and it was just like nothing. And then that peach came back and like kind of like just kind of like faint raspberry and stuff. But overall, like a super smooth drinker. Absolutely love this one. Yeah. But not as much as the other art bag. So I'm gonna go with uh we almost did it. Man, fans were on the edge of their seats on that one. I think you're gonna hate my rating 10. Hate it.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

Like, I think again, bacon treacle bacon bonfires. Like it just it does that so much better than like any other bottling that tells me what the notes are.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:30

I absolutely love it. I think this is probably my favorite whiskey that I've been drinking recently and certainly of the year.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 38:38

Very robust, easy to drink, crazy flavors. Everything tends to work together really well. I'd agree with all that. I give it ten. I absolutely love it. I think it's just fantastic. It was my favorite whiskey right now.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

How about you? I give it a nine. Like I definitely like it, but I like the punchiness of the tenure more.

SPEAKER_04 38:59

Yeah. I give the Oogie a 10 and the 10 a 9.5. Yeah. There you go. Well, nothing should get a 10. I know. That's why I told you you were gonna hate this rating that I'm giving this. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

I don't hate that rating. I just hate you as a person. Oh, that's fair. That's okay. There's a lot of hateable things about me. Yeah, yeah. Like I'm not salty when we play Magic, but I'm salty about that.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

You get a little bit of Peter Scotch and Devin and tell you how you really feel. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

Maybe I rated this one a little low. It's very good.

SPEAKER_04 39:35

Yeah, I you know, I've waffled back to the bottom.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

But I wouldn't put it I wouldn't put it above the 10. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 39:40

Yeah, that's fair.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:42

Cool. No, I mean still a nine's a stellar score, and a nine-five for the ten, you're awesome. I mean, you can't go wrong with either of those bottles. They're really great. Okay, let's move on to the last and final whiskey of the night. This is going to be the Brufalati Octimore 15.3, which was actually the last year's release that I specifically sought out, and I got the last bottle of it from Bevy's Parker as a birthday present for my wonderful wife Rose. So thank you, Rose. Appreciate you. Right on. Alright, we got the Octamore 15.3. And again, this was a birthday present from Rose, and it was very expensive. And you know, if you're gonna buy a super expensive whiskey, right, as like a birthday present, it's gotta do something special. And from what I understand, this is the second most heavily peted whiskey ever made. 307.2 ppm parts per million. The only other more peted, heavily, heavily peted whiskey was the Octamore 8.3, which was 308 ppm. So we're kind of splitting hairs there. But I was lucky enough to have a sample of the eight, and the peat was like dense and suffocating, really overpowered everything. So I'm interested to see how you think this was.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

Do you know what the typical fentels are for ILO Pete?

SPEAKER_04 41:07

For core expressions, I think usually it's like around 40 to 50 or 55.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Really? Okay.

SPEAKER_04 41:14

Yeah, and then Octos, they always crank it up. I think they're like whatever, 70 to 90 to 300, right? So you never know what you're gonna get. And I had a chance to sit in with the master distiller when they released the 16 series, which was really fun. And from with Adam Hannett, the master distiller, uh used to be uh Jim McEwan, but he moved. Oh, right, yeah. Yeah, he moved to Waterford whiskey in Ireland, which then has just recently gone out of business, I believe. And so Adam Hannett was a master distiller, and he was telling about the us about the impossible equation, right? Which is young whiskey, super heavy peat, somehow delicious, right? You like the things that shouldn't work, and the weather plays the biggest impact on how heavily peated the whiskey become or the barley becomes as they peat it, right? So I did sit in on this digital call with Adam Hannett. It was like nine in the morning or something, and we're like, here, drink all these Octimores, the 16, 1, 2, and 3. And I was like, awesome way to start a Tuesday or whatever it was. All right, let's take a pause and uh then go through this. This one's a real interesting one. I'm I'm excited to see what you guys think. Alright, we're on to the Octamor 15.3. And I can tell you, this is like again at 307.2 Pete's part per million. When you open the bottle, it's like it'll stink up your house type of peat. You're like, oh god, that's Petey type of like sets off your fire alarm and that kind of peat. Yeah, and Katie's joining us because she loves Pete It's Gotch, and I gave her a little sniff of this, and it's one of those like whoa type of deals the first time uh just on a monopeia every time you sniff this. So I'm interested. You want me to talk about this first, or do you want to go? Yeah, sure. I did the first two. Yeah, you did the first two. I'll do this one. Again, going back to weird notes. I got like crab apple. Crab apple. Lots of green apple, deep, deep, dense smoke. Again, stink up your living room type of smoke. Um I actually wrote on my notes here stinks up the house. So good luck getting the smell of peat smoke out of your house after this. Pete can live in this house 100% of the time. Pete! P-E-A-T Pete.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

Yeah, right. Not Peter Parker type. Other Pete, get out. Any multidimensional Spider-Man stuff, not welcome. Nope, not welcome. Not welcome.

SPEAKER_04 43:52

Pete Scotch, welcome. That's right. I wrote it's a it's a melony type of night. I wrote honeydew melon. Like a big melon. Definitely some brine. Definitely some brine, some smokiness. Birthday cake with seared apple sour candies. Like really weird stuff happening here.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

As birthday cakes are made.

SPEAKER_04 44:16

Yes. Like if you took sour apple Jolly Ranchers and like Sour Patch Kids and just sprinkled them on your birthday cake, like that type of weird stuff. Like just really crazy stuff. Gotcha. On the palate though, bright citrus, white pepper. It's super, super creamy, like impossibly creamy. And then I think my marquee note one I really love here, torched meringue. Torched meringue, because it's like it's smoky, but it's sweet and desserty. Like I don't know how they do that type of stuff. Finish, very peachy. Peachy finish. Peachy on this one, huh? Hookah smoke and like a building smoke, too. At first, I'm like, oh, it's not that peaty. And then it can like smoke stack just keeps rolling and rolling and rolling. Like one of those everlasting finishes.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

It almost tastes light your paper company on fire because they don't pay you enough kind of smoke. No. Okay. Don't go commit uh you know person. Yeah, yeah. I gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 45:18

But it's it's a a long, peedy, smoky finish that kind of rivals that Rdbeg 10 cask strength that we had. So really, really fun. What do you got on this one?

SPEAKER_02 45:28

I thought the nose was like bready doughy. It's so peedy that it's really kind of hard to extract a ton more out. And I had a lot of that honeydew melon that you had on there. Yeah, interesting. Um, palette. I I wrote mossy, which is obvious with the peat, but it's just like you've been licking some rocks recently. I mean I I mostly just said that because like you know, the which one was it? The tenure? Yeah. Like that was like a very clear barbecue smoke. This is a very clear, like obvious vegetal smoke. Interesting. Okay. And I thought it was really creamy and had bubblegum notes on the palette.

SPEAKER_04 46:18

Yeah, there's something like weird and like kind of synthetic and sweet going on there. I can see bubblegum being a really awesome note.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Uh finish did the exact opposite of the oogadol. The oogie. Like just immediately was dynamic, just in your face, sizzling all over your palate. No blanks, and just long and strong, baby. Nice. Pretty good. Very nice.

SPEAKER_04 46:49

Am I scoring it first? I think you want to pass it back to me? You scored the first two first. Okay, yeah, back to you. The first two first. I'll score the second two last. I'll give this um 9.5. I think it's right there. I think it's awesome. That heavy peat is incredible. It does a lot that is to be desired. I think again that the thing keeping me out of this, or you know, the only objection to this is price, right? Super expensive bottle. You're gonna have like 280 bucks for this bottle.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

It's price and it's age, right?

SPEAKER_04 47:27

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

It tastes fantastic. So I guess you don't really care what the age is. Right. But I feel like everyone's important thing. You spend that much money, you're just sitting there left guessing, like, but what if it was like a 10 or 12 year old?

SPEAKER_04 47:43

Right. We'll never know. That's not how they roll with the the Octimore series.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

So whatever they're doing is obviously working, so I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_04 47:53

I think there are like a select couple of Octimores that are older, like certain special releases. $1,400 a bottle. Super special releases of Octimore. But when you drop that type of coin on the bottle, you want it to perform at a really high level. And I think it does, but there's just that tad of disappointment where I'm like, oh, it's not the 11 out of 10 that I thought it would be. Impossible number. If you don't think 10 should exist, 11 shouldn't exist. Pretty good. But it's pretty awesome, right? Again, when you drop that type of money, you want a bottle that does something really special. And it's the second most heavily beaded whiskey ever, right? And like I took a sip ten minutes ago, and it still feels like my mouth is just uh inside of a hookah tray or something, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:43

And I appreciate that it's one of the only scotches that comes with the pronunciation above the lettering, even though you can probably just figure it out on your own.

SPEAKER_04 48:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Yeah. Where is that for Bruf Laddie?

SPEAKER_04 48:57

Octav. Yeah, they're not going to tell you what how to pronounce Brukladage.

SPEAKER_02 49:02

Yeah, like Octav. Oh, oh, never mind. It's pronounced Octavore.

SPEAKER_04 49:08

And they do, it's like they're hiding Bruf Laddie on there, yeah. Octavor. Yeah, they tell you right there. Thank you. We need more Scotch brands telling us how to pronounce their brands. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

What are you scoring this? You said 9.5, right? 9.5, yeah. What do you get on this one? You ready? Yep. 10.0. I'm just kidding. You would never give out a 10. I know, that just did uh get you triggered.

SPEAKER_04 49:39

Didn't work. Sorry, I called your bluff. This is good.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Like, real good. Mm-hmm. I think I'm at like a 998. Ooh. Very nice. Very good. There you go. 9.8. Again. And I still don't get it. This is probably like what my seventh or eighth time trying different Octamor expressions. And I still don't get it, but it's so good.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

Maybe that's the enigma of the whole thing where it shouldn't work is what makes it really good.

SPEAKER_02 50:17

I mean, that's how I always felt about the Liberty Pull rye with the Pete did. Sure. Yeah. Shout out to James. I don't like rye. It's kinda young. Put a bunch of peat in it. It's great.

SPEAKER_04 50:28

Yeah, killer stuff. I sadly finished my bottle within the last year here, and it was just amazing, right? What a cool thing to juxtapose the spice of American rye with that smokiness and peat. It's awesome. I love what they're doing. It's about as close as we could get to doing peated scotch while supporting a craft distillery. So we had the heavy hitters here.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

Octamore's the winner for me. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 50:58

Yeah, I was gonna say uh choose one in the lineup to revisit. If you had to revisit one of them, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 51:03

I might revisit it in five minutes. I mean, I'm just kidding. I like all of these, right?

SPEAKER_04 51:11

Yeah, they're all very good. I really do think there's some super fun, heavy hitters.

SPEAKER_02 51:15

Glenndronics lacked a little bit, but I mean, we're far away from the territory and saying that's not a good whiskey.

SPEAKER_04 51:22

Yeah, absolutely. Right. And I don't think you can go wrong with any of these, right? I I think the Octimore is fantastic, super unique. The Ardbeg 10 cask strength brings something to the table that people have been asking for for 23 years. And then the Oogie is like my favorite whiskey in existence right now. So hell of a lineup here. I'm glad we could fire up the microphones and do this again because it's been far too long. And now I'll be the guy sitting around trying to find free time to edit this dang podcast to get it out to the people. Gotta wake up early. There you go. 4 30. Even earlier than I've already been waking up. We get 5 a.m. wake-up calls every day right now. Yeah. Yep. On weekends too?

SPEAKER_02 52:09

Yep. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 52:10

I don't write the rules, I just play the game. Don't hate the game, hate the player. Yep. Well, Mr. Mitchell, absolute pleasure as always, firing up the mics, talking about these heavily peted scotches. Thank you to our friends here at Octamore, Bruff Laddie, Ardbeg, Glen Dronich for making awesome, awesome whiskeys. Super excited to see what they do next. Yeah. Anything else you want to say before we get on out of here? No, do the do the sign-offs. I don't quite know how to say this, but uh Worcestershire.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

That's right. That's the pronunciation above it, too, right?

SPEAKER_04 52:56

Without further ado, I'm your host, Mike Outcall, signing off. Dad Mitchell signing off. Keep drinking tasty whiskies and heavily peted scotches in Game of Thrones and Exit. Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do Rose always cuts this part out, so I figured we'd turn around and do that. I figured we'd leave it in, yeah. She's usually just like you guys are cut and cut off, and we're out of here. So that's it. Good night. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.