Due to my shenanigans on Sunday, I didn't promote this new #what3whiskies terribly well. So please, take a couple of minutes to find out about @thedramble.bsky.social of @londondistilleryco.bsky.social clairevokins.substack.com/p/meet-matt-...

#BlindDrams 5 Scores a 4. Lots going on here - and all in-check with it too. Noice. Sounds like Avril Lavigne - Complicated

#BlindDrams 5 Taste: Broad and expressive. Salted caramel, millionaire's shortbread, rose hips and Turkish Delight. Charry smoke and cinder toffee together with tart stewed red and dark berries.

#BlindDrams 5 Nose: Highly expressive. Polished teak furniture, rose petals, scorched creme caramel and candied orange peels. Salted caramel, sticky toffee pudding and fine cigars. Deep cask influence - rather dechar/rechar in character.

#BlindDrams 4 Scores a 1. Whilst well-known for my general enmity of wine casks, I'm also sadly not a fan of gristy profiles. Sounds like jazz instructor Terence Fletcher saying "Not my tempo"

#BlindDrams 4 Taste: Juniper vs barley. Unusual. And a bit gristy with it. Dried reed and flax, touches of burnt leaves, pine cones and twigs leading into sweet mentholated oakiness.

#BlindDrams 4 Nose: Burnt juniper, orange peels and jellies. Edges of potpourri herbalness. In time, pineapple juice and freshly cut hay. Interesting.

#BlindDrams 3 Scores a 3. Perhaps it's not quite the weather for it - but everything here sits well within my usual penchants. Sounds like The Editors - Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors

#BlindDrams 3 Taste: Sweetness first - almost agave like - green, underripe orchard fruits and fruit gels. Then, a wispy, but enveloping light-touch smokiness - dry and papery, with edges of medicinalness - well-judged to sit with the sweeter elements

#BlindDrams 3 Nose: Licks of germolene and surface cleaner sit with week-old cinders whilst lemon balm, lemon posset and meringue offer a welcome sweeter/creamier character alongside firepit toasted marshmallow.

#BlindDrams 2 Scores a 3. Taking no prisoners with the intensity here. Sounds like Shaggy - Mr Boombastic.

#BlindDrams 2 Taste: Bolder now - white pepper, cinnamon fireball heat. Crackerbread and pastry alongside apple peels and some creamier toffee. Impactful stuff - not messing

#BlindDrams 2 Nose: Earthiness - damp soil and mulch, musty cellars - all lifted by green fruits and golden barley. Coffee grounds join the party alongside cacao nibs.

#BlindDrams 1 Scores a 3. Hot and spicy but easily tempered with reduction. Sounds like a Spice Girls reunion

#BlindDrams 1 Taste: Gooseberry tartness alongside sour apples and flapjack cereals. Building cask pepperiness leads into palpable chilli bite and elements of cooling mintiness. Hot and spicy. Bit too much. Water a boon here - takes the heat out and doesn't overexpress the active wood in play.

#BlindDrams 1 Nose: Crunchy barley sugar, cooking apple, white jelly babies, sherbet fountain (with the liquorice stick), tart cases with singed pastry

This edition of #BlindDrams is sponsored by the small but mighty (and 100% neccesary) desk fan #BTC55 #Melting

Here we go... www.bbr.com/products-100... #BigDay #TheLondonDistilleryCompany #TLDCRevival #LondonDistillery

Got an agave spirit over-accumulation issue? No problem: welcome to Mezcal Wheel of Fortune

Doing the do for @londondistilleryco.bsky.social and Rare Find at Croydon Whisky Festival

#BlindDrams - a notably good showing - barring the sojourn for the unneccessary pervertery - 3,1,3,3,4

#BlindDrams 5 - completely solid - and of course, entirely my tempo - scores 4.

#BlindDrams 5 Taste: Solid minerality - hewn granite and salt alongside soft toffee, berries, apples and edges of lemon peel together with spent coffee beans. A peated crowd-pleaser and archetypally Caol Ila.

#BlindDrams 5 Nose: Hoorah. An appropriate conclusion. Sweet peat - smoked cherries and berries, apple pie around a campfire, touches of light medicinalness and lemon meringue - part dainty, part filthy....ideal.

#BlindDrams 4 - part dessert treat, part brooding sherry bomb. Certainly has some corn-centric flavour as others have noted - could be USA-based. Scores a 3

#BlindDrams 4 Taste: Deep polished oak, vanilla, char and toffee give way to chocolate nuttiness, leafy sherry wine, cellars and rancio

#BlindDrams 4 Nose: Bombs away. Baked plums, chocolate pecans, tart cases and plenty of lacquered wood flooring. Burnt toffee, dedicated coconut, sweet popcorn and stewed fruit compote.

#BlindDrams 3 - The colour initially worried me - but this more than stands up beyond silly preconceptions. Pleasingly balanced sweet whisky - scores an easy 3

#BlindDrams 3 Taste: Sweet throughout. Stewed red berries, ginger beer, foam prawns and cherry cordial. Batternberg cake, crumbly digestives and super controlled cask space bring up the rear. Digging it.

#BlindDrams 3 Nose: Strawberry bootlaces, Nesquik powder, bourbon biscuits and DibDabs. Pink in colour, pink in flavour. Spread jam, berry compote and with some sweet, candied herbaness. Feeling like a rather pleasant port cask here. Much happier ;)

#BlindDrams 2 - Wine + Matt = an invariable nope. Score a 1

#BlindDrams 2 Taste: Much more cask now. And we’re *deep* into wine cask pervertery. <dirty look> Milk chocolate covered berry fruit gives way to intense dryness and grippy tannins together with balsamic acidity, cardboard and some muddy back palate flavours. No!

#BlindDrams 2 Nose: Golden syrup, honey spread over toast and freshly-made pancakes. Edges of red fruits - raspberries and strawberries, with some agave-like vegetalness and Golden Graham biscuits. Certainly wine cask territory -but how much perversion are we going to end up with?! <shudder>

#BlindDrams 1 - Great profile for an opening dot, and rather seasonal with it. Light, focussed and with solid drinkability - scores an easy 3.

#BlindDrams 1 Taste: Super approachable - and still very freshly focussed. Crisp green apple, sharp cider and pressed flowers alongside sunflower oil, lemonbalm and salted caramel

#BlindDrams 1 Nose: Spring has sprung. Lemon bonbons, meringue, honeysuckle and cut grass alongside milky cereal, nougat and vanilla toffee

Starting to pull all the strands together for the upcoming 'revival release' of The London Distillery Company londondistillery.co.uk/the-restorat...

Arts & crafts for the win

Today, I have mostly been making a cask head stencil

A lovely group of whisky people made for a wonderful first preview tasting for @londondistilleryco.bsky.social last night!

Looking forward to sharing some new and revived @londondistilleryco.bsky.social drams with folks soon!

#BlindDrams 5. Was always going to tick a variety of my boxes. Scores a 4. Simples.

#BlindDrams 5 Taste: Straddling forest/medicinal peat and with some polished oakiness implying a solid maturation. Dusty oak furniture, lanoline and felt roofing sit alongside lamp oil, delicate lemon gel and damp cellar. Plenty of body here and as such tastes older than it noses. Diggin' it.

#BlindDrams 5 Nose: Ending correctly. Bituminous, leafy and with asides of bicycle types. Edges of medicinalness and coal tar developing. Fish stock and smoked ham provide culinary input, whilst the oakiness is fairly polished and honed and is joined by mushroom earthiness.

#BlindDrams 4 - All rather likable throughout. Scores a 3. .... Is still growing on me. In 30 mins time, it might well have even gotten a 4. But the time is now, so the score remains.

#BlindDrams 4 Taste: Sticking with the theme from the nose - powdery lemon, menthol -> almost Lemsip. Golden syrup - translating into some very decent body throughout the mouth. Barley water, white pepper and cooling mint in the back palate.

#BlindDrams 4 Nose: Lemon bonbons with powdered sugar - erring into travel sweets. Milky coffee and breakfast cereals. Developing notes of pineapple rings and foam bananas. Pretty fresh and zingy.

#BlindDrams 3 - Well-aged, well-managed grain whisky - ergo scores a 4

#BlindDrams 3 Taste: Grainy-days. Super sweet - but in context I'm digging it. Been sat in oak for sometime this, so there's little edginess remaning. Dark mahogany, polished teak floors toasted bread, creamy toffee, spun sugar and malted milk. Down with it.

#BlindDrams 3 Nose: Immediate sweetness. Big bourbon-led sugary popcorn and all the associated grain whisky trimmings - floral vanilla, honeycomb, coconut and edges of ethyl acetate. All as one might expect for ze column still.