Happy New Year! Let’s go over the past year once again and make a list of our personal highlights of 2022 before we start a new year of whisky reviews.
530 tasting notes. That’s the amount of whiskies and other spirits I reviewed in 2022. I was surprised myself – usually it’s half that amount, more or less. This is obviously related to the regular duo tasting and big sessions of up to 10 different bottlings. It’s an attempt at clearing my desk as more people send me samples to assess.
The tempo gradually increased in Corona times (plenty of free time) but now that things are back to normal, I’m struggling to keep this pace. A session with ten spirits takes at least half a day to prepare and remember this is not my day job. Eventually I will have to choose between giving up the daily rhythm or dialing back the session size and move back towards a one-a-day concept.
On the other hand I’m thinking of introducing a rapid fire concept at the end of each month: merely two lines and a score, that’s it. It would allow me to roughly give my thoughts on things that would otherwise be left out. Feedback on this would be much appreciated!
Best new whiskies in 2022
Somehow my top scoring new bottlings “only” achieved 93 points this year. In previous years we often had 94 and 95 points.
Gordon & MacPhail is still responsible for most of my highlights among the new releases:
- Milton 72 Years 1949 (48.6%)
- Glen Grant 64 Years 1957 ‘Mr George Legacy’ (56.1%)
- St Magdalene 39 Years 1982 ‘Recollection’
These three were outstanding and definitely deserve the entire podium. In fact Gordon & MacPhail have no less than six releases in the top-10 this year, although some of them were older bottlings.
Diageo provided three new releases with very high scores: Caol Ila 32 Years for Wu Dram Clan, Talisker 44 Year Old and Lagavulin 1991 Cask of Distinction. Wonderful drams, all 92 points in my book. Wu Dram Clan also deserves credit here.
If you wanted a more affordable whisky with the same 92/100 score, the best choice was the Speyside Malt 1990 by the Thompson Bros in my opinion. The Islay Malt 1989 ‘Hip Hip Hooray’ from The Whisky Jury was also a perfect option, but more expensive.
A special mention for the NAS 30 Year Old from Decadent Drinks for having such an interesting concept with a unique profile.
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The best old(er) release I tried this year was the Brora 30 Year Old (Special Release 2002) and the Brora 1977 Rare Malts. Oh how we miss this distillery! Kudos to Whisky Auctioneer for putting together such an epic Brora tasting.
Favourite other spirits in 2022
Cognac is still my favourite malternative, although I’ve had a series of excellent rums as well. Both are offering a lot of pleasure and often at a lower price than whisky. These were my personal highlights:
- Laurichesse Lot 75 (Malternative Belgium & The Whisky Jury)
- François Voyer Lot 48 (Malternative Belgium)
- Prunier Lot 40 Grande Champagne (Wine4You)
- Vallein Tercinier Small Batch 41-43 for Kirsch Import
- HD 1992 (Colours of Rum)
- Clarendon 1995 (Precious Liquors for Auld Alliance)
Best value whisky in 2022
When looking at value for money, my personal aim is to find a whisky that scores 90 points or higher for less than € 250. Easy observation: it’s nearly impossible today. Only two bottlings come close:
When looking at widely available official bottlings, my favourites include the Talisker 11 Year Old (Special Release 2022) and Lagavulin 12 Year Old (Special Release 2022), Redbreast 21 Year Old, Talisker 10 Year Old (2022), Bladnoch 14 Year Old (2022), Tamdhu Cigar Malt #1, Port Charlotte SC:01 and Octomore 10 Year Old (2021).
Whisky blog statistics
In total there were 1.10 million visitors this year, a 5% increase compared to last year, which was already a record year. When looking at the visitor locations, the UK and USA are still increasing their share and are very close together (combined roughly 35%). Germany (7%), The Netherlands (5%) and Belgium (4%) complete the top-5.
Then further down we saw significant increases in India, South Korea, Taiwan and South Africa. We lost our one visitor from North Korea, maybe the censorship filters have been tweaked…?
As expected, the most popular page was the one with details of the Special Releases 2022 (thanks to Google). The one announcing the Springbank Local Barley 2022 followed at quite a distance, together with the Macallan A Night on Earth in Scotland review. Does that mean whisky investment is still a hype?