I’ve been drinking alone a lot more lately. Rather than hunting for someone to drink with, I just open a bottle at home. Partly laziness, partly work being busy, and partly because it just tastes better at home… I’m turning into a lonely drunk. Anyway…

Kilkerran 8 Year Old Cask Strength

Kilkerran is delicious, but it always bugged me a little that it wasn’t cask strength.

The bottle

It’s cheap too. Tastes a lot like the 12 year. The only thing is that the alcohol was pretty sharp at first, so I let it sit for a week or two and it settled down nicely.

Signatory Mortlach 8 Year Old

I bought this one after trying a sample, and it’s cheap and tasty. Under ten years you can’t expect much maturity, so if the alcohol doesn’t stick out, you can call it good. However the world changes, good whisky keeps on coming.

Stagg Jr.

A whisky with a bit of history behind it. It’s the junior of the seriously expensive George T. Stagg, but I didn’t find it all that amazing… What I did like is the punch, probably thanks to the high proof. The colour isn’t actually pitch black, by the way; there’s a black paper stuck on the back of the bottle.

For a snack, Alain Ducasse chocolate

Pricey, but deli…

Calvados APREVAL Pays d’Auge XO

I bought this after hearing it’s one of the really good Calvados. Calvados is distilled from apples, so it tastes like a long-aged apple jam. On top of that there’s no harsh alcohol bite, so it goes down easy. The proof is on the low side, though; at cask strength I imagine the sweetness and the strong alcohol would play off each other nicely. It seems to turn up on the market now and then, so I’ll have to track one down.

Edradour

This whisky was just too good. It’s an IBISCO Cask, and it showed me what a great sherried whisky is all about. Some days in life are just like that…

To commemorate how good it was, I photographed the back with all the details too.

I’d be lucky to run into it again in this lifetime…

Malt whisky from the Fuji Gotemba Distillery

Gotemba Distillery is better known for its grain whisky, but the malt is pretty good for the price too. They recently discontinued Fuji-Sanroku, which is a real shame, and I wonder if they’ll keep the distillery-exclusive bottles around…

Royce’ rum raisin chocolate bar

Probably the best whisky snack you can easily pick up at the Haneda duty-free shop. The only problem is… eating this while drinking whisky makes you fat… and I really need to lose more weight…

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