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KWM 2022 Whisky Calendar Day 19: Millstone 9 Year Old Single Grain Whisky

Posted on December 19, 2022

BONUS CONTENT: Read Andrew's post on The Single Malts of Scotland Ben Nevis KWM Cask here!

by Evan

After spending yesterday with a certified kosher Single Malt Whisky from Isreal, it is time to move back to a more traditional whisky, right? So let's head to the Netherlands! For Day Nineteen in the 2022 KWM Whisky Calendar, we present to you the Millstone 9 Year Old Single Grain Whisky!

Millstone Distillery’s whisky has been featured three times in previous KWM Whisky Calendars. Back in 2017, the Millstone Oloroso Sherry was behind Door 7. On Day 18 of the 2019 KWM Whisky Calendar, we had the Millstone Peated PX Cask. And in 2020, we started our Whisky Calendar Journey with our own Millstone Rye KWM Cask on Day 1. As you can see from just those three different bottles, Millstone Distillery has range.

The Zuidam Distillery was founded in 1975 in Baarle Nassau, which lies in the southern Netherlands near the border it shares with Belgium The Founder, Fred van Zuidam, had accumulated two decades of previous experience in spirits production before deciding to make a go of it on his own. Under his care, the distillery started by making a line of premium liqueurs using natural ingredients, from grain to fruit to herbs and spices used. This methodology continues to this day, as Zuidam spirits are made with no artificial colouring or flavouring. This goes for all of their products, be it their Cassis Liqueur (which is delicious by the way), Apple Flavoured Gin, Dutch Courage Old Tom Gin, Premium Genever, or Single Malt Whiskies and also Rye Whiskies. Millstone whiskies, and beyond that with the Zuidam line of spirits and liqueurs, can be hard to keep up with.

Zuidam's first experiments in whisky-making started in 1994, and regular whisky production commenced four years later in 1998. Even then, the Zuidam family showed patience, not releasing their first single malt whisky commercially until 2007. The first bottling was a 5 year old. It was also the first release to use the Millstone name, which was a reference to the use of Dutch Windmills to stone-mill the malted barley. Nowadays, the use of windmills is no longer enough to supply all of the grist needed.

Fred’s son Patrick van Zuidam is now in charge of whisky and spirit production at the family distillery, and under his influence, the distillery’s line of whisky has stretched into a variety of different styles and grains, including Rye and three-and five-grain blends. Further experiments in growing their own barley are ongoing with the stated goal of being self-sustainable when it comes to grain soon. On the single malt whisky side of things, the distillery uses long fermentation times as well as a Belgian Brewer’s Yeast for the fermentation itself.

I could find absolutely no information on this specif...

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History In A Bottle Day 19: SMOS Ben Nevis 1996 KWM Cask

Posted on March 10, 2026

This post is Bonus Content. It has information on one of the KWM Cask bottles that are featured on the back of our 2022 KWM Whisky Calendar box. You can find the blog post for the mini bottle for Day 19 of our 2022 KWM Whisky Calendar here.

by Andrew

A number of distilleries have a sought-after vintage, which outshines all others. Without question that vintage for Ben Nevis seems to be 1996. Ben Nevis has developed something of a cult following in the last 4-5 years and the reason is that it is the last distillery in Scotland to continue using brewers' yeast to start their fermentations. The distillery’s fermentation is long and in wooden washbacks. The fermentation creates all the alcohol, distillation then refines and concentrates it. So it stands to reason that the fermentation is critical to the profile that results.

Ben Nevis wasn’t much on our radar before we had the opportunity to select this cask. The reason why is pretty simple, there has never been much of it on the market. Independent bottlings are few and far between, and the distillery bottlings have never made it to Alberta. It doesn’t help that Nikka, who owns the distillery, have up to 75% of its annual production shipped to Japan to be matured and bottled as Japanese whisky. So to have the chance to bottle a full gorgeous sherry butt of Ben Nevis… that was a treat!

It got an 89pt score from WhiskyFun, and is averaging 88.38/100 on Whiskybase. I think those scores undervalue it a little, it was a big, gooey, sherried Ben Nevis with tropical fruits. The price was crazy, $180… an absolute steal!

SMOS Ben Nevis 1996 KWM Cask

Andrew's Tasting Note

Nose: Eatmore and polished new leather shoes; dark fruits; nutty with caramel, leather and tobacco; dried apple chunks sprinkled with cinnamon; woody: freshly sawed cedar and a dry-mossy pine forest floor; fig jam and pineapple.

Palate: round, rich and fruity; there is a soft silky body full of dried dark fruits: raisins, sultanas, date squares and figs in honey; dark milk chocolate and Caramilk; not quite molasses-y enough to be in Eatmore territory, but it is close; pineapple in sweet & sour sauch; honeyed and decadent with burnt caramel and maple syrup; the leather and tobacco move in with soft spices; sherried and woody but balanced in both cases.

Finish: big, drying, fruity and spicy; the fruits and caramels fade leaving traces of their past glories; not as complex as the palate but elegant nonetheless.

Comment: this is a big rich and sherried Ben Nevis with a soft coating body; there is a touch of more tropical fruits, but it is the sherry tones driving the bus on this one; the nose is good, the palate is great; Ben Nevis has built a cult following among whisky geeks, and this is ano...

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KWM 2022 Whisky Calendar Day 18: Milk & Honey Elements Sherry Cask

Posted on December 19, 2022

BONUS CONTENT: Read Andrew's post the ONLY Bowmore KWM Cask so far here!

by Evan

It is Day 18 for our 2022 KWM Whisky Calendar. If you are following along in real time and it is December 18th for you as well, that also means that today is the start of Hanukkah. With that in mind, returning to the distillery of Milk & Honey in Tel Aviv, Israel seems apropos, doesn’t it? Today we will be tasting the Milk & Honey Elements Sherry Cask!

While doing eight days of Milk & Honey single malt whisky would have been a fun way to celebrate Hanukkah, we sadly could not make that happen.

So, just how do you get a Kosher ex-Sherry cask? First of all and for my own edification, here is a definition of Kosher from Chabad.org:

“The Hebrew word “kosher” (כָּשֵׁר) literally means “fit.” The laws of kosher define the foods that are fit for consumption for a Jew (as well as the ritual items that are fit to be used), but the word has come to refer more broadly to anything that is “above board” or “legit.””

Scotch or other whisky aged in ex-Sherry casks can be problematic for those following a strict Kosher diet. The reason for this is… Well, I am not going to weigh in on that. I am an ignorant heathen and after spending far too much time reading various views on the subject, I have stepped no further toward enlightenment from whence I started. I will again turn to Chabad.org for an explanation regarding kosher wine, which should fit for sherry as well:

“The production and handling of kosher wine must be done exclusively by Jews. Wine, grape juice, and all products containing wine or grape juice must remain solely in Jewish hands during the manufacturing process and also after the seal of the bottle has been opened. We are not allowed to drink any wine or grape juice, or any drink containing wine or grape juice, which has been touched by a non-Jew after the seal of the bottle has been opened.”

So, if a whisky was aged in an ex-sherry cask which cannot be Kosher because of the handling of the wine that was in the cask before the whisky was, that would potentially mean the whisky was not Kosher as well.

To make things even more confusing and difficult to prove whether a sherry or wine could be kosher, many wines use animal bi-products to fine or filter the wine before bottling. That would not be considered Kosher.

So, how does Milk & Honey Distillery make a Kosher Single Malt Whisky that was aged in Sherry Casks? Here is what they say on their website:

“To create this whisky, we travelled all the way to Jerez, Spain to oversee Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez sherry made especially for us. The casks, once filled with quality sherry and seasoned for one year...

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History In A Bottle Day 18: Old Malt Cask Bowmore 21 Year KWM Cask

Posted on December 19, 2022

This post is Bonus Content. It has information on one of the KWM Cask bottles that are featured on the back of our 2022 KWM Whisky Calendar box. You can find the blog post for the mini bottle for Day 18 of our 2022 KWM Whisky Calendar here.

by Andrew

Bowmore was my first love when it comes to Scotch whisky, and as long as we have been bottling single casks, I wanted to bottle a cask of Bowmore. The distillery doesn’t sell casks, so that left independent bottlers as the only option. I had high hopes for a parcel of casks samples from an independent bottler owned by a Morrison… there is more than 1, and I won’t say which one. But you’d think, given the family owned the distillery before selling it to Suntory (Morrison Bowmore Distillers), that surely, they would have some good casks… if they did, they weren’t sharing them with us. I tried for years to find a cask of Bowmore to put our name on and failed, until we finally got a sample from Hunter Laing that had our name on it!

In 1997, for our 25th Anniversary, we bottled a cask of 21-Year-old Bowmore distilled in 1996. It was not the sherried style of Bowmore that I was hunting early in my career, but rather the most subtle and tropical style I favour now. A whisky that is not overrun by the cask, but rather complimented by it. A vessel to add character and allow for oxidation. In a perfect world I would have loved for this to be bottled at cask strength, but it drank well at 50%, and the price was great at $200.

Funny story about the day the whisky first arrived at KWM. It was the fall of 2017, and Jim McEwan who was still with Bruichladdich was in town. He had been the distillery manager at Bowmore when the whisky was made and said he might have filled the cask himself… A coincidence too perfect to ignore, he was more than happy to sign the first 90 or so bottles to arrive in store!

Old Malt Cask Bowmore 21 Year KWM Cask

Andrew's Tasting Note

Nose: creamy, floral and sweet; a touch of Parma Violets (sweet lavender candies) clotted cream, Crème Brule and salted caramel ice-cream; light-savoury-smoke, lemon and pear drops, vanilla bean Jelly Bellies and wine gums.

Palate: creamy, buttery, oily and fruity; silky layers of honey and vanilla are rolled out with lots of soft fruits: guava, Midori melon, green banana and lots of citrus; more wine gums; the smoke is delicate, floral and decadent, with more lavender and peppermint; the clotted cream carries through on a dry British scone; more ice-cream too: a double scoop of salted caramel and Earl Grey tea.

Finish: long, silky and creamy with layers of fruit, floral tones, elegant smoke and gentle toasted oak. Comment: this was worth the wait; a beautiful malt; my kind of Bowmore!
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KWM 2022 Whisky Calendar Day 17: Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select

Posted on December 17, 2022

BONUS CONTENT: Read Andrew's post on the amazing Berry's 40-Year-Old Blended Scotch that was ours here!

by Evan

We are now on Day 17 for the 2022 KWM Whisky Calendar! If you are following along in real-time, that means we only have a week until Christmas Eve. Where does the time go? Oh well, nothing can be done about the speed at which life takes us through December. We may as well suffer quietly and console ourselves with today’s bottle: The Jack Daniels Single Barrel Tennessee Whiskey!

Now, I should be honest. I have tried damn hard over the past few years to undermine Andrew and his highfalutin ideals about Scotch being better than American Whiskey and his ongoing proclamation that Bourbon is the simple man’s drink. I do my best to find Bourbon mini bottles that we can include in our Whisky Calendar in hopes of spreading the word that great whisky can also be spelled with an extra ‘E’ (though don’t ask me why it needs that E. I blame the Irish) and be made from mostly corn.

All this being said, I never expected we would end up having a bottle of good ol’ JD in the KWM Whisky Calendar. Don’t get me wrong, there are some bottles of Jack Daniel’s that are fantastic in my opinion. Indeed, Whisky Advocate just named the Jack Daniels Bonded Tennessee Whiskey their 2022 Whisky Of the Year. I personally feel the JD Bonded Triple Mash is even better. Even then, both are eclipsed by the mighty and delicious Jack Daniels Single Barrel at Barrel Proof in my opinion.

I don’t believe I have even tasted the regular Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel in about a decade – and that was likely in a bar where there wasn’t anything else reasonable available. So, it has been a while.

For Day 16 in this year’s KWM Whisky Calendar, we had the GlenDronach 12-Year-Old and I spent a bit of time talking about a company named Brown-Forman. Well, guess who owns Jack Daniel’s? Bingo!

Brown Forman also owns another two distilleries in Kentucky. We featured the Old Forester Bourbon on Day 13 of the 2021 KWM Whisky Calendar. Old Forester Bourbon is made at the Brown-Forman Distillery in Shively, Kentucky, which is part of Louisville. The Old Forester range of bottles is one of the best of any Bourbon producer, in my opinion. The Old Forester 1920 is an absolute gem. The other Brown-Forman-owned distillery in Kentucky is Woodford, which resides in Versailles. Outside of these three American Whisky Brands and the company’s three Scottish distilleries, they also own a few other liquor brands as well. These include

Herradura Tequila
Finlandia Vodka
Gin Mare
Chambord Liqueur

The company also just recently got into the rum game: In October of this year, Brown Forman purchased...

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