J's Whisky Diary

Bull Run Distilling, in Portland, Oregon was founded by former brewer Lee Medoff. The Cask Strength Single Malt was launched in 2016 with a  4 year age statement, while their Single Malt product now carries a 5 year age statement. Just a note for anyone not familiar, the "age statement" of a spirit indicates the age of the youngest spirit in the product; a 25 year and a 2 year spirit, when blended together, are 2 years old. Bull Run produce a range of products including an Aquavit and a barrel-aged Vodka. Nearby Burnside Brewing produces wash for the distillery, which places them somewhere on the grain-to-glass spectrum. This, along with their practice of fermenting the wash hot (relatively speaking, at least 80°F) lend their malt a good amount of character. Ester and phenol formation during fermentation are eventually mirrored in the final product, yielding notes of tropical fruit and clove. Medoff has at least 20 years of distilling experience to his name—hardly an amateur

For something a little different this week, I'm going to do a side-by-side with two products from The Arran distillery in Lochranza on the Isle of Arran. The distillery opened in 1995 and has operated continuously since then; unusually, it remains independently owned and operated. The two products I'll be sampling today are an unpeated 18 year old single malt whisky and an Amarone cask finished single malt with no age statement. For those unfamiliar with the wine, Amarone is a kind of dry, red Italian wine, produced in Valpolicella out of dried grapes. The drying of the grapes concentrates the sugars and flavors in the grape and produces a strong (15% and up) and distinctly flavored wine. Production of Amarone is painstaking and risky and the resulting wine is comparatively rare and expensive. The Arran Malt 18 year old is sherry cask finished and bottled at 92 proof. The malt pours a clear yellow with gilded highlights. First lifting the glass, it's quite soft on the nos