Archives – Blair Athol Vintage 2015

a Klubb23 bottling for a bróðirhood of extraordinary whisky enthousiasts

The Dutch Whisky Brothers are proud to be members of a bróðirhood of extraordinary whisky enthousiasts, which is a part of Klubb23. Now you might be thinking… what is Klubb23 or that bróðirhood?
Klubb23 is a company / club by a good friend of us, Dominic (@maglev_burdock). He had a great idea to create a bróðirhood of only 23 members to explore and share whisky together, but also to bottle together. There are many other groups where you can buy certificates, or partials from casks together, but with this bróðirhood the idea is to keep it within the bróðirhood. Each member will get an option to participate in a project and the “left overs” will be sold to others (although for a higher price point). So you might see some of these bottlings in the wild, or you could buy it through bróðirhood members.

Beside this bróðirhood, Klubb23 is also an Independent Bottler “BYOB-C”. They’ve already bottled some very cool and tasty drams in their Mobsters on Mopeds and Bearded Commando’s range. For more information about these and upcoming bottlings check WhiskyBase (Klubb23 / BYOB-C).
Now we’ll go back to the first release of Klubb23 “bróðirhood of extraordinary whisky enthousiasts” which is an Archives release, exclusively bottled for Klubb23 (Dominic & Guy “Flavourman” from the bróðirhood helped in the decision for barrel pick).
The label design with a Eledone moschata will be reserved for all Klubb23 bottlings because our logo is “a Squid from Belgium” or a Bearded Glencairn, how cool is that!

The Eledone moschata in it’s own environment

So what was this first release by a bróðirhood of extraordinary whisky enthousiasts? We’ll tell you know:

Distillery : Blair Athol
Bottler : Archives
Distilled : 08.12.2015
Bottled : 17.02.2020
Cask number : 900129
Cask type : First Fill Koval
ABV : 62.3%
Bottles : 133
Whiskyid : 166022

Ofcourse all of the bottlings, just like this one, will be unchillfiltered and non-colored.

We have 3 bottles in our collection and we were lucky to have numbers 97, which we’ve opened and shared 50-50 and numbers 99 & 100 to add to our collections.
Now let’s get our notes after a few tasting moments. We’ve tasted it straight after the “plop”, but also with water and with a 50% bottle volume (after our shared bottle):

Notes by @Dramtasic:

Nose: First you really need to let it breath a little bit. Because of the 62.3% ABV and youth, you’ll get that sharp “tingie” ABV up your nose. But after that moment it developed nicely and becomes really interesting. First up you’ll get some red apples fruit notes, but also some slight sulfer notes (which I like if they’re balanced) like musty meat. Then it changes to caramel, vanilla custard, some maltiness and mango! After a while it becomes more candy sweet. This is quite a good and interesting nose!
Palate: This is more full on that the nose. Spices, like black pepper, cinnamon. After the spices there’s room for some dark chocolate notes (the bitter notes) and caramel. Again that maltiness and more earthy comparing to the sulfur notes on the nose. After some time it gets more on the sweet notes of that caramel, but also apples (apple sauce)
Finish: It’s warm and spicy. A medium finish with cinnamon, chili peppers and star anise. There’s also a slight caramel and a hint of mint note after the spice bomb.

Notes by @Whiskypeater:

Nose: It starts off with some vanilla and fresh apple juice (delicious). After that I get lemon candy (do you know that Napoleon candy balls).
Palate: Really different than the nose… Some banana, mint leaves, spiciness from pepper and some red lemonade (that might be the apple sauce my brother gets). With time and some water it developed more on the sweet caramel notes.
Finish: A medium and dry finish. More on the spice notes and some caramel.

What an interesting dram this is! It’s something different and bold from Klubb23 and Archives to bottle a young dram like this with a high ABV. But we think because of the First Fill Koval barrels it matured nicely and added some interesting flavors. It does need some time and it gets more fruity and sweet notes with some water, but it’s a very good first dram in our opinion. If you’re not familiar with Koval barrels… It’s a 30 gallon (113,55 Liters) virgin American oak charred barrel. Yeah, thats an odd volume. But it’s something different to be different.

For our rating system, we’ll use the “Whiskybase scoring card”. We know a rating is a individual opinion, but it gives you an idea beside of our tasting notes what to expect from a whisky.

So that sums it up for this review of the first bróðirhood of extraordinary whisky enthousiasts bottling by Klubb23 & Archives.
If your interested in the bróðirhood, Klubb23 or this Blair Athol bottling… You know how to reach us 😉

Thanks to the bróðirhood of extraordinary whisky enthousiasts, Klubb23 and Archives by Whiskybase for this creating this dram.
And a special shoutout to Dominic for a special friendship and the ability to be part of this bróðirhood.
And there might be something more in the future… Stay tuned!

Slàinte,

Dutch Whisky Brothers