Happy New Year with SamuelWhisky's chronicle of 2014!!!

Dear friends, followers and supporters of all kinds! Just want to wish you all a very happy and successful new year with some pics and words from my whisky-year 2014!

As you might know, I celebrated my first year as a blogger this year! To do it justice, I tasted the 22yo Connemara, you can check out the tasting note here! But as you know I'm not only doing tasting notes for my blog but also conduct tastings once a month at a local pub called The Red Brick, and do some "private tastings" from time to time. In addition to that I also take care of Laphroaig and Connemara during whisky festivals around Sweden. This year I was also very fortunate to visit two distilleries, one in Sweden and one in Ireland. 

So please feel free to check out some pics that summarize my whisky-year 2014 :) Sláinte!

The first tasting I did this year at The Red Brick was in January, "No smoke without peat!"

Then, in februari, I had some fun at the Linköping Whisky Expo together with Vicky and Martin

I also did a private tasting for friends and family in late february

The second tasting at The Red Brick was "We're all named Glen and at least 25yo". Some really great whiskies in this line-up, but seriously, since all of the whiskies were soooo good, and so close to each other in quality I think it was almost hard to appreciate them. I almost felt spoiled and one simply could not understand how good they actually were… Well, a luxury problem right?!  

Did a private tasting for a friend from work, and her family

On "International womens day" me and my buddies had a great porter and stout tasting. We tasted three kinds of a swedish porter from Carnegie Brewery, four vintages of Brooklyn Brewery Black Choholate Stout, and then tried insanely good, almost wine-y-ish Brewdogs :)

On St Patricks day I had some Connemara Turf Mór!

The third tasting at The Red Brick was a Highland Park Vertical. The 25yo sure is great! 

Took care of Connemara and Laphroaig during the Gothenburg festival, and also had the great honor of working together with Danielle Mckerrell from Laphroaig Distillery

The fourth tasting at The Red Brick was "Oldies from Islay and the other Scottish Isles" and the fifth was "Closed Scottish Distilleries". Then I did a private bourbon-tasting for some friends

  

On the 25th of July I visited Box Distillery in the northern of Sweden! They truly distill some really good stuff, especially the unpeated sherry matured, absolutely brilliant, even before having reached the age of whisky, mmm…

Then I went to Ireland and visited Kilbeggan Distillery (of Kilbeggan Distilling Company), truly a VIP-tour :) Was lucky enough to once again meet up with master distiller Andrina Fitzgerald juste before she left Kilbeggan for the new Tullamore Dew Distillery. I also had some words with brand ambassador Rachel Quinn regarding my ambassadorial work with the Connemara-brand! Also managed to bring some bottles home to Sweden, please read about them and other Connemaras in my small collection here 

Andrina and I

Rachel and I

In the end of august my fan club for Connemara, the 'Connemara Clan', had it's 5yo birthday! To celebrate that I refurbished it from a Facebook group to a page :) you can join the new Connemara Clan on Facebook here and on twitter here

In early september I was very lucky to join a special twitter tasting arranged by anCnoc

Did the sixth tasting at The Red Brick, a Glendronach Vertival! Veeery high standard!

Met up with fellow blogger 'The whisky-nerd' to hand over a bottle from Swedish Firewaters 

On the 10th of October I went to Jönköping to do a Laphroaig-tasting for the June Whisky Club

On the 27th of October, I enjoyed a Highland Park tasting held by Martin, in my home town :)

Martin and I

Then I did the seventh tasting at The Redbrick, the theme was "Campbeltown", very interesting to get an overview of stuff that's not Springbank!

In mid-november I took care of Laphroaig at the Örebro festival, always a great time helping Edrington with their many great whiskies!

In late november I did my last whisky-tasting of the year at The Red Brick, the theme was "Japan - Suntory". The Yamazaki 2013 Sherry Cask sure is good, but I would not agree that it's the best whisky in the world… :) 

In early december I actually did my first Rum-tasting ever! Rum combined with premium chocolate was really good. Since I hardly knew anything about Rum I really had to read and try to learn as much as possible about something that was completely new to me… A challenge but great fun :) My favorite this evening was Vintage 2000 from Diplomatico/Botucal

Then, for the first time I got some really nice christmas gifts! One from the nice people at Swedens top importer and seller of whisk(e)y, Clydesdale, containing some nice fudge and two samples, one cognac and one sherry finished peated whisky. The other gift was from the nice people at Box Distillery who sent me a very generous sample of their 2014 festival edition, which you will see a review of sometime this year :) In the meantime please checkout my review of their latest release

The whisky-year 2014 ended with me, for once actually attending a tasting at The Red Brick! Hasse Nilsson from Box Distilley took care of it all, giving us a very exclusive tasting only containing whisky (and "almost whisky") from Box Distillery. It was yummy let me tell you :)

Hasse and I

Big thanks to all friends and followers, and  to all representatives of brands for the samples and gifts, for a great year! I'm really looking forward to 2015! Please follow SamuelWhisky on Facebook here and on twitter here Sláinte!