Review Posts

Banoch Brae

Banoch Brae is a blended scotch produced as an 'own label' whisky for Nisa. Nisa is an association of small independent retailers, a national 'brand' for your local corner shop, as it were. They have been around since 1977, but I must admit that I've only really become aware of them in the last decade ...

Threesixty Ethiopia Yirgacheffe

Having bemoaned the busy and chaotic packaging of a previous coffee, this week is at the other extreme – an almost plain brown paper bag, with a simple, single colour label on the front. ThreeSixty take the concept of coffee origin to an extreme, by putting an exact latitude and longitude on the labelling. ...

Sea Island Geisha Costa Rica

This week I'm returning to Sea Island, by way of their Geisha Costa Rica coffee. The 'Geisha' in the name is actually the variety of coffee bean; an Arabica bean that was introduced to Costa Rica from Ethiopia in the 1950s, and has recently been making something of a comeback. This coffee comes from the ...

Teeling Whiskey

The Teeling family has been involved in Irish Whiskey for over 200 years; in 1782, Walter Teeling set up a distillery in Dublin and began a family tradition that continues to this day. The current generation of Teelings – brothers Jack and Stephen – founded the Teeling Whiskey Company in 2012, having both learned the ...

Decadent Decaf Indonesia Sumatra Mandheling

After being so impressed by Decadent's Kenya coffee, I resolved to explore their stronger offerings. After all, if it tastes as good as a regular, caffeinated coffee then there's no harm in having a good decaf in the cupboard for those days that call for mug after mug! Decadent Decaf have a small but ...

Jura Tastival 2014

Jura is a distillery I've always struggled to love. This is frustrating because in general I love island distilleries, and being right next to the whisky heaven of Islay, it should be a perfect match. Then again, it's possible that those very expectations are what cause me such trouble. Jura isn't Islay, and it ...

Percol Nicaragua

I know that you shouldn't judge a coffee by the package any more than you should judge a book by it's cover, but sometimes you just can't help yourself. Percol is an example of this; it's a widely available coffee brand that you can find in just about any supermarket. It's reasonably priced. ...

Black Sheep Robusta Revival

Coffee beans fall into two broad varieties – Robusta (Coffea canephora) and Arabica (Coffea arabica). Of the two, Robusta is an easier to grow, higher yielding crop – which translates to cheaper beans – while Arabica is considered to have more refined and less bitter flavour. For these reasons, most premium beans are Arabica ...

Waitrose Highland 16 Year Old Single Malt

After something of a delay, I've finally reached the last of three own-label single malts from Waitrose. At 16 years old, this is the oldest and, potentially, the best value bottle of the range, currently priced at £32. Once again, the distillery is a mystery although the smart money (including comments from my earlier posts ...

Union Hand-Roasted Guatemala, Liberacion

Union Roasted are probably one of the best known London roasters. Their coffee, roasted daily in small batches, is now widely available in supermarkets as well as being available online. One slight niggle is that their own website doesn't seem to match up too well to what's on the shelves – today's coffee, for ...