Category Archives: Gordon & MacPhail

Tormore 14yo 1998/2013 (50%, Gordon & MacPhail, Exclusive for the Whisky Mercenary, First Fill Bourbon Barrel #1586, 277 bottles)

Easily the longest title for any of my blog posts. Finally summer is over, and the urge to drink some Whisky is back with a vengeance. Not that I’m happy about summer being over, especially when the last five years we hardly had a summer over here…

Next up to warm us up is a Gordon & MacPhail bottling of a 1998 Tormore, they bottled for The Whisky Mercenary a.k.a. Jürgen Vromans. Jürgen tries to pick some great casks for his own hobby-brand of Whiskies. Up ’till now Scottish and Irish products have been bottled under his own label. This time he picked a cask from Gordon & MacPhail. Gordon & MacPhail take their own casks to various distilleries and after they are filled, take them to their own warehouses for ageing. Gordon & MacPhail never sell a cask without it being bottled in one of their series.

Color: Light Gold

Nose: Floral, fresh and sweet, easily recognizable for a Tormore from a Bourbon Cask. They’re always a bit metallic, but in a way I like it. Just have a look here. It’s great to see, ehhh, smell the consistency, or distillery character. There are a lot of similarities between the Cadenhead 1984 and this 1998 Tormore. Nice balance between the sweetness of the nose and the wood spice from the cask. Quite perfumy, with a touch of smoke from the toasted cask, and floral (which is not soapy). Under this all some ginger and sugared yellow fruits, like dried apricots, which add to the complexity of the sweetness. This is how Tormore’s are and this is another fine example.

Taste: Less sweet than the nose let on to believe. Nice darkness with ginger, vanilla, paper and wood. The spiciness in combination with the brooding half-sweetness doesn’t let the finish become sour (from the oak). There is a fruitiness to it, and it seems to me to be from the black fruit department, blackberries? A little bit of mocha, toffee and/or unburnt caramel to round the Whisky off. Long nutty finish with a hint of mint. Pretty well-balanced stuff. I like it and I most definitely want it.

Nice Tormore by Gordon & MacPhail and for sure a great pick by Jürgen. A connoisseurs Whisky, otherwise Gordon & MacPhail wouldn’t have Jürgen take this away.  If you like the profile, this is a very nice Tormore, ánd I have to stress that I am a fan of whiskies @ 50% ABV. Excellent! I really love the Cadenhead but this is equally as good.

Points: 86

Macallan 1980/2012 (43%, Gordon & MacPhail, Speymalt)

Next up an already rather “old” Macallan. Macallan is a brand with a huge reputation as a Sherried Speysider, and therefore a huge following. The quality is unmistakable there, just have a look what older bottles fetch these day at auctions. Since the “new” Fine Oak series, Macallan have again a huge reputation, but this time more as a marketing giant, but again with a huge following. Alas from a connoisseurs point of view it not thát much of a Sherried Speysider anymore, not as they used to.

This is an independently bottled Macallan, and it doesn’t look like a heavily Serried Speysider. If I’m not mistaken Gordon & MacPhail can bottle Macallans in the Speymalt series, with a vintage, when the distillery themselves do not have a vintage of that same year themselves.

Macallan 1980/2012 (43%, Gordon & MacPhail, Speymalt)Color: Orange gold

Nose: Hmmmm, fabulously old and waxy smelling Speysider we have here. Lovely! Old soaked wood and very deep half-sweetness. The initial blast of fruitiness, and waxiness leave the building. What comes next is dry and dusty. The wood turns into old cardboard, but it works. It’s not an in your face Sherried Speysider, but definitely a very nice and elegant Macallan. Quality stuff. Toast and burn paper in the finish of the nose. Hints of a bonfire and vanilla (pudding). The nose is top-class.

Taste: Sweet with an edge. Estery and some acidity, that makes for great balance. Creamy and soft-toffee. Hints of black tea and a tiny hint of anise. Hardly any wood, which is a bit odd after give or take 32 years in the cask. The wood does show itself in the tiny bitter (and soapy) bite that graces the finish.

Absolutely a fine nose, alas the taste doesn’t match up. It somehow lacks some complexity. Having said that it is a damn fine Whisky, that for the price is easy drinkable. Gone before you know it. Therefore easily a favorite when on my shelves. For me a tad too much reduction here, I would have liked this at 46% ABV. Old Fino?

Points: 89

Thanks to Stan for the sample!

Lochside 18yo 1991/2009 (56.7%, Gordon & MacPhail, Reserve, Refill Bourbon Barrel #15220, 106 bottles)

Yet again we have one of the many 1991 Lochsides, and one of the many that were issued as a Gordon & MacPhail Reserve. This one was picked by Dutch retailer Van Wees. Gordon & MacPhail code for this one is JI/ACAC. The spirit was distilled on September 18th, 1991 and eventually bottled on October 15th, 2009. Picked by Van Wees in July 2009. Those of you that meticulously read this blog probably had a Deja Vu experience. We know this bottle, we know this lay-out. Well yes and no. February 4th 2013, I published a review of quite a similar Lochside, opened by Master Quill’s Apprentice (like this one). That was Cask #15217, here we have sister cask #15220, distilled and filled on the same day. This one was bottled some five months earlier, so here we have a chance to compare the two, to see what the effects are of another, but similar cask, and almost half a year of maturation…

Color: Gold (ever so slightly fuller in color)

Nose: Clean and fruity. Distant wood. Clay and organic. Dusty with smoked ham. All in good balance, but nothing pops out. A very quiet Lochside. The esters I remember from the “other” Barrel, are here too. Vanilla from the wood. The yeast is way down in this one, and there is no peat, rubber or petrol. It’s easier on the nose (more balanced), more rounded out, but also less complex. When nosing this a long time, slightly more (sour) oak comes along, but still not a lot, and it gets fresher, but in a mint and menthol kind of way. Also cherry liquor bonbons. The chocolate from them are in this Whisky too.

Taste: Sweet and farmy, with a great sweetish attack. Definitely less woody, at first, than the other Barrel. A nice peppery bite, next to the sweetness and the fruity, farmy notes. Again a nice big body, aided by the ABV. Honey and a great balance. Here too a chocolate liqueur bon-bon. Big body with a matching long and balanced finish. The wood is a lot more contained within this Lochside. Less vanilla though, so the wood reacted differently, it gave slightly more color, but less wood and vanilla. If you let it breathe for some time, the wood does play a larger role, and overall this is less “deep”.

You can’t go wrong with these kinds of Lochsides. There are a lot of 1991 bottles around, but they all are slightly different. sure the family resemblance is there, but I’ve tasted more of the 1991 G&M Reserve, and they all are variations of a theme. I feel it’s safe to say that some four or five months of extra maturation has a smaller effect on the maturation of a whisky, than te particular staves that were used making the barrel. Maybe I’m wrong. I just can’t imagine that the differences between cask #15217 and #15220, come from the small difference in maturation time. Here the “younger” one is more balanced but also less complex. For me I prefer the nose of barrel #15220 over #15217. Considering the taste, this one is easier, and less complex, but it has a better balance. All in all it’s definitely the same family, but the easiness, better balance and containment of the wood, the added farmyness and the difference in fruityness, makes me score this even two points higher. I just like this one better!

Points: 88

Thanks go out to Erik for providing yet another Lochside sample.

Lochside 1991/2003 (43%, Gordon & MacPhail, Connoisseurs Choice, JC/FG)

I once tasted the 2007 version of a 1991 Gordon & MacPhail Connoisseurs Choice Lochside and really wasn’t too happy about that. It was very light as opposed to the Lochsides chosen for the Gordon & MacPhail Reserve range. I don’t know if its only reduction that shows the difference, or maybe better casks are chosen for the Reserve range. I said ‘better’ as opposed to ‘different’ since I know that in both ranges Refill Bourbon Barrels were used. If you want to compare this 2003 Connoisseurs Choice bottling with a Gordon & MacPhail Reserve bottling, Please take a look at Cask #15217 I reviewed earlier. There is a difference of almost 17% in ABV between these two!

Lochside 1991/2003 (43%, G&M, CC, New Map Label, JC/FG)Color: Light Gold.

Nose: Fruity and light, maybe slightly sweet. Hints of distant smoke. Slightly waxy and more yellow fruits. Peach, apricots that sort of fruit. Not banana’s! Slightly malty, but its a young Whisky. Besides this, it also has a powdery and dusty side to it. Hardly any wood and very clean and easy. Still I can’t get rid of the image of diluted sugar in the back of my mind. Clay and a little bit of wood after a few minutes in the glass.

Taste: Well this starts with, …wood and some clay! Something I would have never guessed smelling this. It starts with wood and some character building bitterness. Than a quick brake-down and very short finish. This all happens very quickly. Let’s try again and see what else is in this. Very malty and watered down yellow fruit syrup, again in the apricot part of the garden, but not very sweet. Floral again. Do I detect some smoke in the taste of this Lochside? It isn’t a rounded out Whisky. It has some markers and that’s it really. Unbelievably short finish, with more bitterness than expected.

Your un-complex and summer malt this is. Very light and inoffensive. light, clean and fruity and dare I say, feminine? It the Whisky worlds answer to Lemonade (just without the acidity). The sour part is replaced by some fruity sweetness and a floral perfume. On the palate the wood does its magic. Spicy and a bit bitter.

For me this Whisky really did suffer from reduction. When compared to other 1991 bottled by Gordon & MacPhail (at cask strength), this can’t match up to those. Is it the reduction, or the casks chosen for use in the Connoisseurs Choice range and the Gordon & MacPhail Reserve range?

Points: 80

Glen Keith 38yo 1967/2006 (53%, Gordon & MacPhail, Reserve, for La Maison Du Whisky, Refill Sherry Butt #3876, 215 bottles)

And then there is Glen Keith. Glen Keith lies a stone’s throw away from Strathisla. The spirit from Strathisla was pumped to Glen Keith for filling into casks, but also the boiler at Glen Keith warms water for Glen Keith’s production. Glen Keith’s production started in 1958 with three stills (triple distillation). In 1970 the first two stills in Scotland that are heated by gas were installed. Soon after that, the distillery stopped the triple distillation. In 1983 a sixth still is installed. The distillery is mothballed since 1999, but plans are to restart the distillery next month (April 2013).

Chivas Brothers (owned by Pernod Ricard) already opened two of their mothballed distilleries. Allt a-Bhainne in May 2005 and Braeval (a.k.a. Braes of Glenlivet) in July 2008. If memory serves me well, Chivas Brothers also have Imperial. Alas, Imperial was considered not economically viable for reopening. (It was “old” and had the ‘wrong’ capacity, to small for a company like Chivas), so Chivas presented plans in 2012 for a new distillery to be built at the site of the old Imperial distillery. So the demolition of Imperial started around december 2012 and is now also gone for good.

Color: Copper, cloudy.

Nose: Musty Sherry with a lot of wood. Dried oranges, and sugared orange skin. Crushed dead insects, well they really don’t make them like this anymore! Cloves which fits the orange skin perfectly. Mocha with orange cordial. A forest in the rain. Oak planks. A Whisky with character.

Taste: Old bottle effect. Very spicy oak but not over oaked. It’s heavy on the wood but that not a bad thing here. A lot of wood and paper. Along comes wood spice and some bitterness. It is so clearly a Whisky from another time, that this one needs it. Luckily the rest of the body is quite ‘heavy’ too, but not in your face. It’s a rather quiet malt. Hot butter, sugared oranges and some coal. It actually is pretty sweet, but the sweetness is hidden well behind the wood and oranges. A bottled antiques shop with a long warming finish.

This is now my favorite Christmas malt. Just smell that dried Orange in combination with the cloves. It’s not a perfect old bottle though, but it’s so clearly a time capsule. It’s impossible to not love this. I was always a big fan of Strathisla of the sixties and seventies and this Glen Keith is therefore really no surprise at all. Merry Christmas everybody!

Points: 92

Highland Park 12yo 1997/2010 (56.2%, G&M, Reserve for van Wees, Refill Sherry Hogshead #5823, 271 bottles)

In this day and age of battles, battles for oil, battles in politics, and even dance battles, now there are also battles in Whisky. The guys in the picture are Jan Beek (right) and Dennis Mulder (left). They do tastings/battles to see who bottles the best Whisky, the distilleries themselves or the Independent bottlers. Jan represents the independent bottlers and Dennis the official bottlers. Time for my own battle. Well not a battle with axes and swords. Earlier I reviewed an official Highland Park 12yo and scored it a decent 85 points. Here we have a this independent 12yo Highland Park, bottled by Gordon & MacPhail and selected by Van Wees, so mostly sold in the low counties. Let’s see if this Gordon & MacPhail 12yo can beat the official 12yo, and score more than 85 points…

Color: Lively orange brown.

Nose: Extremely sweet, spirity, spicy and woody. Raisins, lots of raisins. This smells exactly like a PX-Sherry. Apart from the thickness of it all, it does smell dryer later on because of the wood and spice. Gravy and meaty, something that fits the Sherry profile too. Definitely some honey and heather in the nose. Which surprises me since the Sherry cask might be very overpowering. Tar and sulphur come late into the mix. I love the coal and tarryness of sherried single cask Highland Parks. Burnt wood. Bonfire from a distance at night. The opposite of elegant I would say. The longer it breathes in the glass the better this gets. It reminds me of some of the better early seventies good sherried Whiskies.

Taste: This is sweet PX-Whisky with a bite. It starts out sweet and quickly turns into spicy wood. Syrupy sweet. But the initial sweetness terns into dryness because of the woody attack. Again coal, tar and even some licorice. Fireworks and a cold freshly half burnt log. Demerara Rum with a lot of smoke. It’s sweet but not quite honeyed. And no heather to be tasted too. Some dark chocolate and cola. Do I really taste a hint of soap?

OK, it’s a 12yo Highland Park all right, but this version has nothing to do with the official 12yo of today or any day for that matter. It’s a beast, but a lovely beast. If you can handle heavy Sherry, than this is one for you (and me). In the end I like this one better than the official 12yo, so this battle is won by Jan Beeks axe. But the whiskies are completely different and both have their moments. One is elegant and light(er), the other a beautiful beast at high strength. Still, I like the older official bottlings of Highland Park.

Points: 87

Inverleven 1991/2012 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail, AB/JDAD)

This is the latest Inverleven bottling of the now defunct Inverleven Distillery by Gordon & MacPhail. Gordon & MacPhail still have casks of Inverleven lying around, but have told me since Inverleven is a closed distillery, and the whisky more and more rare, this is the last time Inverleven was bottled in this series. Next time it will be issued in a ‘higher’ series (and hopefully at a higher strength). Inverleven is a whisky made in two Copper Pot Stills on the premises of the Dumbarton Grain Distillery. Whisky was made in these stills between 1938 and 1991, when the Stills were removed. Grain Whisky is still made here in a Column Still. For a while even a Coffee Still was in operation making the very rare “Lomond” Whisky (from 1959 to 1991). By the way, this is not Loch Lomond Whisky, that actually is only a few kilometres away, far enough to be a Highland Whisky. Dumbarton is the home of Ballantine’s blended Whisky.

Inverleven 1991/2012 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail, AB/JDAD)Color: Gold.

Nose: Very fresh, citrussy and creamy. Dry leaves in the autumn. So, lots of lemon and vanilla ice-cream. Very nice, slightly sour and spicy wood. Wood in wet earth. Never overpowering. Elegantly spiced, but all the spice is from the wood. Fresh air. This seems to me, based on the nose alone to be a great summer or autumn Whisky. For a Lowlander ánd a Whisky at this strength, this has a very rich nose and very good balance. I can only hope the whisky tastes as great as this nose does.

Taste: Well the first sip I took was quickly gone. So quick that the only taste that came to mind was sweet pineapple and after that I already tasted the spicy bite of the wood, which again is not overpowering, but firmly present. From the second sip I have some vanilla, caramel and even later on a dried grass element. It’s not quite hay.  The initial sweetness, dries out quickly. Malty.

Quite a lot of wood in this one. And the first time around I found the finish to be short. Second time around, when the Whisky had some time to breathe the finish became a wee bit longer. Still, the nose is very nice and the wood shows itself in the nicest of ways. After breathing the woody part got bigger as well, but the finish got a little bit unbalanced. Maybe this got reduced too much? Let’s hope that the next 1991 Inverleven get’s a better chance at 46% (and maybe more…).

Points: 85

Thanks to Stan and Alistair for the sample.

Lochside 18yo 1991/2010 (59.7%, Gordon & MacPhail, Reserve, Refill Bourbon Barrel #15217, 149 bottles)

Here we have one of the many 1991 Lochsides, and one of the many that were issued as a Gordon & MacPhail Reserve. This one was picked by Dutch retailer Van Wees. Gordon & MacPhail code for this one is AJ/JBEC. The spirit was distilled on September 18th, 1991 and eventually bottled on March 8th, 2010. Alas we don’t know exactly the date when Han van Wees tasted it and picked this ;-). Kudos to Gordon & MacPhail for all the information on the bottle and back label.

Color: Gold

Nose: Clean and farmy or organic. The wood is upfront too. Slightly yeasty and estery, which makes it a bit fruity. But the fruit isn’t here in abundance. Actually it is pretty dusty and comes across as dry. Do I detect some fatty peat in here? Small hints of rubber and smoke. This definitively is one to work with, and then the best things are in the details. There are some hidden treasures in this. Some vanilla, cream and petrol. Complex and nicely balanced. The longer I nose this the better it gets. Definitively peat and clay in here. Salty too. I’ve got to stop nosing this, otherwise this will never end…

Taste: Sweet and woody. On the precipice of bitterness. Still the bitterness is controlled by the sweetness. Nice big body, and the ABV helps with this. Creamy vanilla again, but with a bite from the wood. In the depth there is some sugared dried yellow fruits, Apricots are the most recognizable. The sweetness is also aided by some late acidity, that transports the hint of yellow fruit. It seems to me as if someone squeezed some lemon into this. peppery, woody attack. The finish is slightly off-balance, but overall this is a very good malt.

It seems to me you can’t go wrong with these kinds of Lochsides. There are a lot of 1991 bottles around, but they are all different. sure the family resemblance is there, but I’ve tasted more of the 1991 G&M Reserve, and they all are variations of a theme. Even the reduced Connoisseurs Choice are very drinkable summer whiskies. If that is the case I would say that these 1991 Reserve’s are more of your winter dram. Recommended.

Points: 86

Thanks go out to Erik for providing yet another sample.

Strathisla 30yo (40%, Gordon & MacPhail, Pinerolo Torino, 75 cl, Circa 1980)

Happy new year! I wish all my readers a great year full of fulfillment, health and great drams. please don’t settle for mediocrity. Try to broaden your horizons for true beauty that can be put in your mouth, but do it in moderation, we don’t want to create modern drunks.

Well what would be a better start, than with an old Strathisla! In the past I tried some nice old Gordon & MacPhail Strathisla’s from this series. The review for the 25yo can be found here, but together with this 25yo I tried the 21yo and that was similarly spectacular. Mind you these are the old 80’s bottlings for the italian market, and whiskies with these labels were issued for a couple of decades, so every batch will differ (massively). The 21yo and the 25yo were quite dark, and hopefully not colored, and being from the early eighties, the distillate is early sixties or maybe even late fifties.

On the menu this time is the 30yo, which is certainly a fifties distillate (glass code SC999). Gordon & MacPhail have some vintage fifties bottlings and they all are lighter in color than the bottlings with distillate from the sixties, as is this one. There is a later version with glass code 4699 (75cl), that probably contains distillate from the early sixties again, since that one is definitely darker than the version reviewed here.

Color: Golden Honey.

Nose: Steam and a hint of coal. Definitively old style whisky. Yes just nosing it briefly already gives me goose bumps. Shure, no thick cloying first fill Oloroso Sherry here, but something that is just as good, just more elegant and stylish. It’s like comparing James Bond to Usain Bolt. Honey sweet combined with steam. Old apple compote with grandma’s toffee. Together with the steam there is a hint of smoke and a little bit of lemon curd. Thick and fresh at the same time. Wow.

Taste: The taste isn’t as thick as the nose suggested, nor is it as sweet as I expected, and the first sip is quickly gone. A short attack of very elegant wood. It’s wood as wood is supposed to be. Old books. Hardly oaky and hardly bitter. Waxy and some old candied yellow fruits, apricots, but not as heavy and thick as Caperdonich 72’s. Short finish. The 21yo and the 25yo performed better in that respect. Treat this elderly Whisky with respect, but be bold and take bigger gulps. The whisky itself, maybe is a tad fragile and subdued, but hey, the stuff was made some 55 years ago and along the way was reduced to a mere 40%, so give it a break will you?

Having tasted the 21yo and the 25yo earlier, as several other sixties versions too, this one (being lighter, and less heavy sherried), was actually a little disappointing. The disappointment however, lasted for 20 minutes at the most. I learned to look at this Strathisla differently, being a lighter fifties version, and I have to say that the second glass already showed me some heaven again that is so abundant in the 21yo and the 25yo versions. Wow again, but definitely different from its brothers or sisters from this series.

Points: 91

Ardmore 17yo 1993/2010 (56.2%, Gordon & MacPhail, Reserve, First Fill Bourbon Barrel #5747, 244 bottles)

Let’s do another Ardmore and compare it to the day before yesterday’s offering by The Whiskyman. We all know that 1992 is somewhat of a good vintage for Ardmore. So let’s see what happened in the distillery a year later. This 1993 was bottled by Gordon & MacPhail and they were so kind to do that for Van Wees of The Netherlands.

Color: Gold

Nose: The same meaty, slightly peaty nose as The Whiskyman’s offering. Nice soap with green apples and other fruits. Leather. Dryer and more powdery. A little more wood too.

Taste: Great fruity sweet start, more ashy. Somewhat less complex and a tad more sourness from the wood. Same kind of peat. The peat itself is more chewy and more farmy. Toffee. Some mint in this one too. Rare black fruits in the drier and warming finish, but overall, a little less impressive than yesterday’s Ardmore.

This is an Ardmore, no doubt about it. Just nose it and you’ll smell the family resemblance to The Ardmore bottled by the Whiskyman. It’s from another year, but the nose is quite similar. In the taste department it’s a bit less balanced, but still has a lot going for it. I’m always a sucker for those black fruits in the finish. Like old style Bowmore for instance.

These 90’s Ardmore’s seem to me to be the Brora’s of the modern age. Great stuff. Recommended. I definitively have to look into Ardmore some more. So hopefully to be continued.

Points: 87