Zuidam Dutch Single Malt | 46% ABV

Score: 6/10

**Good stuff.**
***TL;DR***
*Dessert in a glass - near a campfire!*

Reliable. Resilient. Relevant?

What do you think? Are we staying relevant?

Whisky is a non-perishable substance for all intents and purposes and thus, at Dramface, we can often be lagging the most current releases, especially since we are self-funded.

Take some of our recent reviews for example. Yesterday’s shiny new Glen Scotia 12yo was pretty spot-on and at the end of July, Wally and several others chimed in on the super-hot and trendy Thompson Bro’s Mystery Malt Series 2 releases, providing their thoughts within days of these bottles hitting shelves. Just a week later, our Nick Fleming provided a unique counterpoint by reviewing a 21 yo Glen Garioch bottled in the 1980-90’s.

Nick’s review is probably more typical of the style and tone of Dramface content, so is this still relevant when the vast majority of us will never see a Glen Garioch from the 80-90’s, much less have the pleasure and privilege to have a dram of this rarified liquid?

It’s a battle we must always face as reviewers because we want to foster relationships with you the readers, yet still remain up-to-date. We don’t want to become known as the site you visit when you want to read about some unobtainium whisky or no-longer-available antique drams, but we also go where our hearts and wallets dictate. So what do we do?

We do what we have always done from the beginning: we write what we want, when we want. I think there is one key word in there that sums everything up nicely. It’s almost an R-word.

For me, it’s the word write. Content creators these days are all focussed on short-form media (TikTok anyone?) and video formats. Dramface, for all intents and purposes, is basically a typewriter by comparison. Ok yes, we do have socials but those point back to the daily written reviews. Yes we have a podcast, but those are somewhat monthly (at best!) and definitely not short-form (case in point, the Colonials Episode 7 at a staggering 3 hours!). And finally, we do have some video content on YouTube but that’s just remodelled content from our podcasts, not some additional or unique content to draw the crowds in. Hell, we don’t even have merch anymore.

We are stone age in comparison to our compatriots. So, are we relevant?

I’d argue yes, with another healthy dose of resilience on the side. So resilient that we have been around for three and a half years now - completely funded by our own purchases and you the community - and are recognised by many search engines as the go-to place for whisky reviews in most countries across the continents.

The 1,300+ long-form written reviews here on Dramface provide balanced thoughts, especially combined with our healthy and growing community involvement in the comment section (seriously guys, thank you for the excellent interaction, keep it up please!), bringing in another “R” word to join the resilience and relevance questions.

We are reliable.

Reliable in the way that you can understand the writer’s intention for the tasting notes and scoring it the way they did from the written content. Reliable in the way that we will always disclose if the whisky was provided to us. Reliable in scoring, even going so far as to disclose if we have implemented a scoring shift, especially within our many writers.

So there you have it, I think Dramface could be described as relevant, resilient, and reliable.

Review

Millstone Peated PX, Dutch Single Malt Whisky, 46% ABV
CAD$80 (£44) paid and widely available

Now, back to the topic of relevance. I must say you’ll be seeing less and less of relevant whisky (i.e. newly released) from Broddy in the next year or so. In fact, my inventory spreadsheet says I’ve got enough whisky to drink (still) for ten years or so. But most importantly, liquid capital is being reallocated. We recently bought a new house and we’ll be finishing the undeveloped basement, keeping yours truly very busy and the bank account drained for the next eighteen months or so.

I’m not bummed at all, for I have quite the collection of whisky and the new digs are quite an upgrade and super sweet (I think I just dated myself for that lingo now that I’ve read that back). And recently while on a camping vacation with the family, 600 km from home, our truck decided to be infected with electrical gremlins that killed computers, modules, and all sorts of not-so-cheap-to-replace bits, stranding us far from home. While we worked everything out and got back home, we bought another truck. Newer. Less mileage. But more money out of the whisky funds.

So while I may not be covering the most relevant stuff in the coming years, I won’t be abandoning everyone here. In fact, read on in The Dregs for why I think up-to-the-minute relevancy actually doesn’t matter as much as being resilient and reliable…

Nose

Filling of a raisin butter tart. Distant wet peat and wood smoke combination. Sticky teriyaki glaze (sweet and savoury). Inside of a tobacco humidor or loose-leaf tobacco shop.

Palate

Dense. Syrupy. Unctuous. Raisin compote with brown sugar dusting. Quite a savoury edge here again, quite similar to a honey garlic teriyaki pepperoni stick. The wet peat & wood smoke combo is very much in the background, riding under the sweet and savoury blanket covering your tastebuds. There is a mild peppery edge, very reminiscent of a proper homemade pepper bacon, that helps counter the sweetness a little.

The Dregs

I think that multiple reviews of a particular whisky are still very relevant, especially in today’s modern world where previous reviews become buried under new content and newer generations can’t be bothered to dig for it (my opinion of course!).

And I also believe that reviews of no longer available whiskies are also still relevant, something you will be seeing more of from me as my funds have been massively reallocated per the above lead-in, for you still get to know the bottler and distillery from such reviews: helping you make the right decision when considering the plethora of whiskies available these days.

And, at the end of the day, if you are actively seeking out reviews of a particular whisky, distillery, or bottler, a single data point is useless; it’s pin the tail on the donkey stuff. Search online and you’ll get hit with a multitude of “best fits” based on your criteria and history, varying between traditional written blogs/reviews and upbeat and flashy videos. How do you sort the wheat from the chaff? The signal from the noise?

Well, perhaps you’ve noticed that we do like to help you here. Understanding that we never intend to be The Last Word with any review, we also always take time to list alternative opinions below every article, from trusted sources, where they exist. We hope you find that helpful.

We feel it is much more important to be reliable in our scoring and perspectives, and be resilient enough in the volume of whiskies reviewed - such that anyone visiting Dramface for the first or hundredth time could become familiar with, and most importantly, trusting in the consistency of impartiality, scoring, and justification of the reviewers. Perspectives that ultimately will influence your decision.

This is an interesting one to score too, only because I need to don my impartiality hat and forget that I’m Dramface’s resident Millstone fanboy. This is the bottle that made me sit up and pay attention to this little Dutch distillery many years ago, and thus there’s an emotional tug.

I had planned on covering this core range release earlier this year, but our new writer and resident Dutchman Mason Mack penned his thoughts before I could lift a finger, awarding this a prestigious 7/10. I personally think this release is a solid 6/10 given Broddy’s scoring scale, which hopefully you have all become accustomed to by now. It’s a great tasting and unique whisky however it could use a few items that would tick it over into my elusive 7/10 territory, such as dialling down the PX sweetness slightly while introducing some more baking spice-like notes.

Now since we are in the final throes of summer here in the northern hemisphere, and chipping in on my colleagues' efforts to do the same, I thought I would share an on-theme cocktail that has been a favourite of late…

The Smoky Single

This is a simple one to make or remember:

2 parts Millstone Peated PX
1 part Zuidam Orange Liqueur

The star of the show here is the Cognac-based 40% abv liqueur from Zuidam (aka Millstone). It’s a versatile component that can be used in a multitude of ways: just use your imagination (orange cognac-soaked pound cake anyone?). I’ll regurgitate how this lovely spirit is made direct from Zuidam’s website:

This rich Orange Liqueur is created from a distillate from fresh sweet and fresh bitter oranges and a superb French Cognac. The oranges are hand selected, washed and cut in half before they are distilled. During distillation the essential oils that are mostly in the peel are captured in the grain spirit. We only use the best part of the distillation that has the pure and fresh orange flavour. The Cognac is artisanally distilled and aged in French Oak Barrels for a minimum of three years. Our liqueurs contain no added fragrances, colors and flavors.

The spirit is potent and also viscous, entraining small bubbles with ease after you’ve sloshed it about. While the larger bubbles, with their greater buoyant forces, make their way to the top, the small microbubbles remain entrained for minutes. Yum! Seriously, get some of this!

Presumably the grain spirit is blended with the cognac for the final product, however I’ve yet to confirm this or been able to determine the rough ratio. Regardless, this liqueur is gorgeous and you need some on your shelf.

One thing I struggle with is the strength of most highballs. They are often too low, using 40% base whisky and then further diluting with flavouring components, well before being further reduced with ice. This cocktail comes in at a stout 44% (at 2:1 ratio), perfect to dilute down to 20-30% with a healthy chunk of ice. I hate, and I do mean hate, cocktails that start at 20-25% abv before dilution with the melting ice. While the first sip tastes great, the bottom half is expensive and terribly-flavoured water. It drives me nuts when the cocktail is a tenner or more. If you toss a few cubes or a big block into this cocktail, you’ll likely finish your drink at a perfect sipping 20-25% strength, while the first half is a whisky-lovers dream in the mid-to-high 30’s!

So there you have it. On paper, this sounds similar to an Old Fashioned but it’s actually quite adjacent. The orange liqueur is much more prominent and “pure” in flavour than an orange peel which eventually leaches some pithy bitterness in the latter half of the drink. The bitters are missing, but are actually replaced with a nice subtle peat note riding underneath. Objectively, it is fairly sweet at first sip (before significant dilution) owing to the orange liqueur and the PX sherry from the single malt so if you want this less sweet, dial back the liqueur a titch.

I couldn’t find a name for this drink online and I’m not exactly well versed in the latest mixology and cocktails, thus I’ve simply named this as a “Smoky Single”, drawing a direct line to whisky lingo as both components come from a single distillery.

Should anyone be willing to give this a go, and be willing to share, I’d love to hear how you get on with it.

**Broddy from the future here: I realized I might have given this cocktail a boring albeit accurate name. Upon going through my normal photo setup and pouring this cocktail, I’ve realized something stellar under the scrutiny of my Fuji’s macro lens (all hail Fuji BTW).

This cocktail, when mixed with an ice cube, gives off mega CME vibes (coronal mass ejection) and all manner of cool surface-of-the-sun swirling vibes. The cocktail looks all cool and calm when pouring in the initial single malt component, but when adding the cognac liqueur all hell breaks loose. The mixture instantly occludes, swirling in protest, shifting forces of various reactions and differentials and providing a torrent of visual stimulus. The stratification of different layers, swirls of mixing reactionary components, and slow trickle of released gases from the pores of the ice cube are rendered in stunning real time visuals (bordering on IMAX, yo Christopher Nolan hit me up). So while Smoky Single is perhaps apt, I think a far sexier name would be ‘CME’.

Score: 6/10

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. BB

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