Category Archives: 88 Points

Tamdhu 23yo 1987/2010 (46%, Mo Òr, Oloroso Sherry Butt #3649, 656 bottles, 500ml)

Earlier I reviewed two young Tamdhu’s, a 2004 and a 2005 bottled by dutch indie bottlers The Ultimate (Van Wees) and both turned out to be pretty good. This time we’ll have a look at a much older 1987 bottling by another dutch outfit, this time Mo Òr (The Whisky Talker). Tamdhu’s are usually pretty good when matured in Oloroso, so I’m guessing this also wil not be too wonky.

Tamdhu 23yo 19872010 (46%, Mo Òr, Oloroso Sherry Butt #3649, 656 bottles, 500ml)Color: Orange gold.

Nose: Lovely creamy Sherry. Nice alcoholic nuttiness. Clay and cask toast. Not too cloying and can be even called fresh, like in a breath of fresh air (carrying a little bit of dust). Licorice mixed with a hint of burnt leaves. Very aromatic, just move it around in your glass and lots of aroma leaps out of the glass. Creamy vanilla and some good oak. Nice balance and highly aromatic. Medium complexity but very appetizing.

Taste: Creamy with licorice and cask toast. Warming, and half-sweet. Clotted cream. However, already from the start this has a “thin” quality to it, which is remarkable since the nose was so aromatic and full. In stead of the creamy and honeyed sweetness, it starts with a sharpish burnt note. Charcoal and in the background a tiny hint of sulphur. The vanilla cream comes later. Smoky toffee. Warming with good creamy sherry and although the start was thin, the finish does linger on a bit.

I’m guessing this was better at cask strength. Very appetizing. good stuff and the kind of Whisky you’ll want to have first when this is in your collection, so easily drinkable. A bottle that will be empty soon, also because it’s only 500ml. Yup, not wonky at all.

Points: 88

Laphroaig Week – Day 5: Laphroaig 16yo 1987/2003 (50%, Douglas Laing, Old Malt Cask, DL REF 814, 276 bottles)

Laphroaig SignThe dark side of the moon. We are now most definitely on the other side of our Laphroaig Week. It started with the highly visible and upfront official bottlings, pivoted around yesterday’s Kintra Laphroaig (sunset Sherry) and now the final stretch home. This final trio starts with this more obscure Whisky, hiding in green glass aswell, but not released by its maker, but sold of for blending purposes, I guess, but rescued from mediocrity by focussing on its single cask traits. Today we’ll be looking at a Laphroaig bottled by Independent bottler Douglas Laing. Douglas Laing started bottling two Laphroaigs under the alias ‘Laudable’ in 2000. Both were 15yo and 1985 distillates. Using the Laphroaig name three further 1985 distillates saw the light of day as 17 year olds. Next up were a large amount of bottles distilled in 1987 and our DL REF 814 is one of them.

By the way, the picture here depicts sister bottling DL REF 745, bottled 4 months later. The reviewed bottle should look similar.

Laphroaig 1987 Douglas LaingColor: Light gold, almost white wine.

Nose: Extremely closed. Quite light and friendly in the nose. Citrus fruits and smoked cold citrus flavored tea, yes Lapsang Souchong comes to mind. Also a promise of sweetness. Not your heavy hitting peat and smoke emitting monster. Nope, nothing like that at all! Very light end vegetal. Pot plants and warm dried out flowerpot dirt. Slightly meaty and quite a buttery smell which occasionally emits a fruity acidic smell. Pear is added to the citrus. Vanilla with a tiny hint of cigarette smoke. Sweaty and even some tropical fruits like pineapple. Didn’t see this coming! Given some air, a slight dab of smoke emerges as well as some peat. It’s almost like the liquid is holding back the aroma’s from emanating. Nice to see how well all these aroma’s fit together.

Taste: Half sweet and slightly buttery again. Lightly smoked almonds. Fruit syrup. Lots and lots of licorice, ashes and a bitterness that seems to come from smoke. Lightly toasted almonds now with hints of lemon. The acidic citrus note is a great counterpart to the smoke, butter and vanilla. The almond taste stays on for a long time. Altogether half-sweet with toffee throughout. Little hint of mocha-coffee and milk chocolate and even some whipped cream enters the fold occasionally. How is that for complexity? No heavy peat nor a nice garden bonfire so get that out of your system before tasting. Warming.

Quite a strange Laphroaig this is. At first hand it’s not very open and invites you to work it out of the glass. In the end it ís willing to show itself and slowly it emerges out of the glass. Forget for a while this is a Laphroaig, just imagine an old Islay Whisky. The beauty here lies in the details, in the frail and brittle aroma’s, in the great balance and nice complexity. Granted not an easy malt, but if you have the right mind-set it will reward you big-time. So very, very different from regular releases and the profile Laphroaig normally is known for.

Points: 88

Caperdonich 26yo 1980/2007 (56.2%, Dewar Rattray, Bourbon Cask #7349, 164 bottles)

Earlier this month my Whisky club reconvened again and this time we picked Glen Grant and Glen Grant 2 as the subject of choice. Glen Grant 2 is better known as Caperdonich. This 1980 was my entry into the line-up and got a lot of thumbs up. Not the winner in the end, because what Whisky could compete with the great Glen Grant, Gordon & MacPhail bottled to celebrate the wedding of Charles and Diana (the clear winner in my opinion). Also present was a highly praised Duncan Taylor Caperdonich from 1972 and two Murray McDavid Missions from 1968 and 1969…

Caperdonich 26yo 1980/2007 (56.2%, Dewar Rattray, Bourbon Cask #7349, 164 bottles)Color: Dark gold.

Nose: Vanilla, but a very strict kind of vanilla. Lots of influence from the wood. Spicy vanilla. Buttery and creamy. Demerara sugar. This also has a nice luxurious paper like quality to it. Old warehouse full of ageing Malts. A wonderful old Malt this turns out to be. The (dried) spiciness is quite complex. Light honey and nutmeg. Have you ever treated yourself at home to a quality vanilla ice-cream and didn’t do the dishes right away? Remember the smell of the dried out ice-cream at the bottom of the bowl? It’s in this very Whisky. Nice! Dried leaves partly from forest plants and partly from dried herbs and to a lesser extent: pencil shavings.

Taste: Vanilla again, but also a hoppy character. You also try the occasional beer don’t you? Toffee and caramel. Just the right amount of sweets, combined with a very zesty, although, tiny hint of fruity acidity. Red fruits, little forest strawberries, half-dried raspberries and other red berries. Where in most cases the acidity isn’t all that well-integrated, here it works like a charm. The fruitiness continues well into the long finish where the hoppy (cannabis?) bit returns. Is there even a tiny, tiny hint of coconut? All of this is given a good and astringent backbone of oak, that is aiding the Whisky along and giving it character. It’s not overpowering, just, but definitely in there. The high strength is noticeable but the Whisky is never hot.

What a great Malt this is. Fantastic development over the time you’re trying it and what wonderful flavours this gives off. This may take water very well, but I have never been feeling the need to do that yet. Thankfully I still have quite some left in this bottle to play around with and mostly, to enjoy myself with it. A great buy. Sad this distillery is no longer producing Whisky. But you never know how modern Caperdonich would have turned out in the first place. Luckily the old Caperdonichs are often stellar, especially from Bourbon casks.

Points: 88

The Balvenie 17yo “Peated Cask” (43%, OB)

Time for another Balvenie, excuse me, “The” Balvenie. Some say it is some kind of middle of the road dram, and yes there may not be a true cask strength version around. Some say you’re foolish for sometimes spending a lot of hard-earned cash on a Whisky that is in no way full of aroma and almost always diluted. Yes sir, we’ll add the water for you and charge you more for it. They might be right but they also might not get it at all, or at least some of the time. Most statements might be true, but that doesn’t mean The Balvenie is a bad Whisky. Far from it. The Balvenie is about delicacies. It is some sort of homeopathic Whisky. Just a tad of wood here, a tad of wood spice there. A splash of Rum wood for that one and let use a spoonful of Sherry wood there. This time we do not get a peated Balvenie, but we get a Balvenie with a pinch of peat, subtle difference. This version was launched in 2010 and replaces the Islay Cask version which was made with ex-Laphroaig casks, and this one is said to be made with casks that once held peated…Balvenie! Wow.

The Balvenie 17yo Peated CaskColor: Sparkling light gold

Nose: Clay, lightly peated and malty. Sweet vanilla and a breath of fresh air. Licorice and more hefty vegetal and meaty notes. Marmite. All aroma’s seem to fit pretty good together. A distinguished gentleman in an excellently cut Savile Row suit. Cheers!

Taste: At 43% it is hardly too light, and it is a warming Whisky. Suits the bad weather outside. A nicely balanced liquid that pours down gently into ones throat. Smoky sweet vanilla, definitely American oak, with notes of peat and tar on top. Not woody at all. Sweet vanilla, but also hard candy sweetness, but not the fruitiness of those sweets mind you. Sugared apricots and honey drops. Cold black tea. Quite a long finish. Lots of staying power. Not really a peated Whisky but a peat flavoured Whisky. Nicely done. Definitely a step up, and sideways (for the variation), from the 15yo Single Barrel and probably my favorite Balvenie with the 21yo Port Wood. Ok, some of the 25yo’s and the thirty are pretty good as well.

This version is bottled at 43% ABV but there is also a higher strength version around. Cask strength, you ask? No, not quite, 48.7% ABV. Batch code on the reviewed bottle: L9097OK.

Points: 88

This one is for Colin and Krzysztof, sorry I couldn’t make it guys.

Littlemill 21yo 1992/2014 (52.9%, The Whisky Mercenary, Bourbon Cask)

Littlemill then. These days everybody seems to be raving about this sadly closed distillery. The official bottling seemed not to be very popular in its day and initially not a lot of tears were shed when this distillery closed in 1997 and subsequently was destroyed in a fire in 2004. Lots of Whiskies from the early nineties are bottled recently and surprise, surprise, a lot of them seem to be pretty good if not spectacular! Here we’ll have a look at a Littlemill that was aged in a Bourbon cask. This particular example was selected by Jürgen Vromans a.k.a. The Whisky Mercenary, who to this day has Always picked some great Whiskies. Just have a look at these reviews: Glenlossie, Tormore, Clynelish, Dailuaine and Cooley.

Littlemill 21yo 1992/2014 (52.9%, The Whisky Mercenary, Bourbon Cask)Color: Light gold

Nose: Fruity, waxy and spicy. Vanilla bean and vanilla Ice-cream. A breath of fresh air, but also some sea wind. Spicy oak with mocha. Extremely pleasant. Thin layer of honey and beeswax. Sugared yellow fruits, but also tiny, tiny hints of mustard. Hints of freshly cut oak but also an old cigar box. Cold tea (plain black tea, without milk or lemon). In the best sense of the word, a wood driven nose. Complex and very appetizing. Sometimes dry and dusty, the next very aromatic. Nice stuff!

Taste: Sweet and highly aromatic. A bit wet behind the ears, youthful oak. Yes this Whisky has been in an excellent cask. Lots of wax, beeswax, earwax, but also natural furniture polish, that doesn’t smell like an oil refinery. The wax and wood have an underlying sweetness and are aided by a nice hint of black fruits, and some oaky bitterness. Very well-balanced, and just right. It was bottled at the right moment. Maybe when it was younger it would have been more fruity, but would it have been such a distinguished gentledram?

Not every Bourbon cask is just a Bourbon cask, and not every freshly distilled Spirit that is meant to be a Single Malt Whisky is alike. Still when you take a (freshly used or refilled) Bourbon Barrel or remade Hogshead and put new-made Spirit in it, you more or less know what you’re going to get. Sometimes some especially great wood finds its way into the cask, or the barley was great, or fresh, or from a great variety. Sometimes something magical happens. Single cask Whiskies like these are all about the details so it takes an anorak like Jürgen to pick them out. Well done.

Points: 88

Glenfarclas 16yo 1995/2011 (53.9%, Kintra, Confidential Cask, Sherry Butt #5, 120 bottles)

In the depths of my ever-growing amount of samples, I found this sample of an undisclosed distillery named Glenfarclas. Actually, Glenfarclas isn’t stated on the label, but it has somehow become common knowledge that this Whisky was made by Glenfarclas and hand-picked by Erik Molenaar of Kintra from the Netherlands. Erik as well as Glenfarclas have been featured before on these pages, so why not continue immediately with this undisclosed Glenfarclas…

Glenfarclas 16yo 1995/2011 (53.9%, Kintra, Confidential Cask, Sherry Butt #5, 120 bottles)

Color: Copper brown.

Nose: Heavy on the Sherry there! Velvety but also a lot of sulphur. Licorice, dry air and wood. Black and white powder and cookie dough. Lots of aromas and all are on full volume. Meaty (cold raw meat), creamy, vanilla but also some mint and flint. Lot of aroma from wood, without being overpowering. Like the wood of an old door which has just been stripped of its thick layer of cracked paint (and cooled off) (no, I’m not on LSD, it’s an association).

Taste: Full on funky sherry, thick. Coal. Watered down red berry juice with (bitter and sweet) licorice (The Whisky is not watered down, mind you, nor tastes like it’s watered down). Quite sweet at first but quickly taking a turn towards the drier side. Sulphur here again, but all very tasty if you like your heavy hitters. Sometimes a whiff comes across like a rum (heavy on wood). Towards the finish some nice red fruits come to the front. Strawberries (not fresh ones, but ones that have been frozen). Spicy and prickly wood.

Definitely not your daily drinker type of malt, but a nice, albeit flawed expression of a nice Sherry bomb (hello NSA, it’s me again). I like this pick by Erik. It is a Whisky which is far from boring. A lot is happening in this, and not even all at the same time. However, a word of caution. This malt loses a bit of its balance when it gets enough time to breathe. The aromas start to unravel a bit, the wood gets weaker and even worse, a soapy component rears its ugly head, so no slacking with this one!

Points: 88

Irish Whiskey Week – Day 7: Connemara 15yo 1992/2007 “Single Cask” (46%, OB, Cask #K92/34 4126)

Irish CloverThis will conclude our Irish Whiskey Week, a week that was lurking in the mud and only came into fruition when it was almost too late. I already published the first Tyrconnell review here and was writing the second Tyrconnell review (The Port one) when it hit me that I could make this into a Irish Whiskey Week. Irish Whiskey deserves that. In the end Ireland only has three distilleries that are “big”, Bushmills, Midleton and Cooley. No Bushmills Whiskey was reviewed here this time, Midleton was only featured with Jamesons 18yo and the rest are all really Cooley Whiskies. Even The Wild Geese are supposed to use Whiskey made by Cooley. Maybe I should have called this a Cooley Whisky Week…

Let’s finish this week off with a hopefully nice Single Cask Connemara, or peated Cooley Whiskey if you prefer. Strange enough this and a lot (but not all) of its brothers and sister single casks were bottled at 46% ABV instead of Cask Strength. When I look around, even all these Single Cask Connemara’s are sold out, so if you happen to find one get it if you’re interested.

Connemara Single Cask (with a different cask number)

Color: Light gold

Nose: Very light peat, creamy with vanilla. I smell more smoke than peat actually. Again a very elegant peated Irish Whiskey. Clay (a fresh uncolored clay brick kids play with). Very deep, toned down wet wood. Smoked kippers. Needs some air to open up, but I really like what I smell. Behind the smoke there is also some nice sweet fruits and salty licorice and mint. Meaty.

Taste: Sweet almonds. Sugared nuts. Small hint of peat, very elegant and toned down. Warming. Great balance. Ashes and a tiny amount of wood bitterness. Definitely a very tasty whisky, a mile (not miles) away from the regular young Cask Strength version, which is a lot cleaner, but also full of aroma, with less complexity. The finish is long and goes down the throat like a syrup, slowly and warms you up nicely. It leaves you behind with salty lips. I called this more complex than the cask strength version, but in itself it is not very complex, shall we say medium complexity?

Again we have here a very good Irish Whiskey that is impossible to buy these days. Not a lot of Connemara is bottled as a single cask and I’m wondering why. It is great stuff, even when its reduced to 46% ABV. I hope more bottling will be made like this. It’s a shame it’s that scarce.

This is the end, Irish Whiskey Week is over. A final comment? I have to say that this final Connemara is very different from my beloved Redbreast 15yo, and maybe even a tad better, what lovely stuff. I was surprised at the quality of the Jameson’s 18yo and how it reminded me of the Redbreast. Another plus was the quality of the Kilbeggan 15yo blend and the quality of both Connemara’s. But the sad thing is that all the good Irish stuff is hard to come by. Kilbeggan and Connemara Single Cask are both almost impossible to come by, and that’s a shame.

Points: 88

Glen Scotia 18yo 1992/2010 (52.6%, Kintra, Sherry Hogshead #141, 62 bottles)

These days some people pick their Whiskies by the color and, this one has color abundant. A nice dark Sherried Campbeltown Malt. Some Sherried Malts work wonders and some are too heavy. Judging by the color, you never know what you’re  gonna get. I almost sound like Forrest Gump here don’t I. Glen Scotia is hardly a working distillery and it hardly is a popular distillery. Well, what kind of Whisky is this then, was it a gamble picking this up, and is it worth the money? Let’s see…

Glen Scotia 18yo 1992/2010 (52.6%, Kintra, Sherry Hogshead #141, 62 bottles)Color: Copper gold

Nose: Smoky sherry with a nice touch of oak. Red fruits in alcohol. Nice cask toast (uniquely acidic) and also slightly tarry. Sweet. The red fruits make way for deeper black fruits. Excellent development! The combination of these three and the fashion they fit together does remind me a bit of Demerara rums, although without the sweetness. The way the burnt, woody and toasty parts of the nose fit together is excellent. All this from a Sherry Hogshead with Glen Scotia in it. Great. Who would have thought. With some air, also some powdery and floral notes pop up, with tiny hints of lavender soap.

Taste: Sweet and creamy, but (luckily) again helped by the character building qualities of the toasted wood of the Sherry cask and the right kind of Sherry that was in it. Mocha, milk chocolate and Demerara Sugar (on the lips). Not weak and also not cloying or heavy. Great balance and very, very tasty. The acidity from the nose, the wood and the burnt sugar stay on to form the finish. The finish is a wee bit to dry (wood and paper) and could have benefitted from a little bit of honey and slightly better balance. Still, that’s me nit-picking, this is excellent stuff.

A stunning pick by Erik Molenaar. He only bottled 62 bottles of this so I’m wondering where the rest of the cask has gone. Could he only get 62 bottles, was the rest of the cask already sold? Who knows. Just like his other 19yo Glen Scotia, this is an excellent Whisky and if anywhere encountered, don’t hesitate to pick one or both up.

Points: 88

Ben Nevis 21yo 1992/2013 (46%, The Ultimate, Sherry Butt #2312, 695 bottles)

Next we’ll have a look at an indie Ben Nevis. I love Ben Nevis, it usually is a malt that strikes a chord with me. For me Ben Nevis is still a distillery working today that is able to churn out very good Whiskies, and for sure is one I’ll always keep an eye out for. That said I also am realistic. Not every indie Ben Nevis is good. It isn’t a distillery I would buy indie bottles from without tasting first. Although pretty good, The Golden Cask Ben Nevis I reviewed earlier, did have a strange, funky finish, which makes it, in my opinion, less of a daily drinker. The Ben Nevis we have at hand here was sourced from Signatory. Just have a look at the cask numbers The Ultimate and Signatory are putting out from 1992.

Ben Nevis 21yo 1992/2013 (46%, The Ultimate, Sherry Butt #2312, 695 bottles)Color: Light gold, with a slight pink hue

Nose: Yeah, now we’re talking. Fatty, buttery, vanilla and fruity. Lots happening and everything seems to fit together quite nicely. Fantastic fruitiness, all sorts of mixed up fruits, red, black and yellow fruits. Almost impossible to discern any of them. Caramel, mocha and strawberry combined with sweat. The wood shows itself here as nutty. Yes this is very special. Do I detect some old school Whisky here?

Taste: Sweet but also a little bit acidic. Very appetizing. Some burnt notes and quite spicy without it being woody. Marzipan and again lots of fruits with some nuts. Highly complex, and I’m imagining this amount of flavor and its complexity might not be for everyone. Hints of smoke, and it has a curiously hidden sweetness to it. Maybe its high in fruits that it only seems to be sweet. Pure enjoyment. Is it without flaws than? Yep this Whisky suffers a bit from a weak finish. Everything that is so well-balanced in this Whisky is absent from the finish. It has some power but after the big body, the finish is a bit weak, and missing some of the big flavors that were so apparent in the body. But hey, this to me is still a pretty good Whisky.

I have to admit, I love Ben Nevis. Most of the times I encounter one, albeit blind or not, I seem to like it. It has characteristics I do like personally. I rated a full bottle of this 86 Points. This review is written about the last drops from the bottle. It is excellent and since I’m going to score this even higher, I’d say this needs some air people.

Points: 88

Glentauchers 16yo 1997/2013 (54.3%, Gordon & MacPhail, Cask Strength, for The Whisky Exchange, Refill Sherry Cask #5580)

Yes, another first on these pages. Glentauchers. A favorite amongst connoisseurs! Independently of each other, I hear a lot of people who work in the Whisky-business, that this is somewhat of a guilty pleasure for them, so worth to check one out. I got a chance to try this Glentauchers bottled by Gordon & MacPhail just before it was bottled, and although it was bottled some months ago, finally it is now officially released.

Glentauchers 16yo 1997/2013 (54.3%, Gordon & MacPhail, Cask Strength, for The Whisky Exchange, Refill Sherry Cask #5580)Color: Copper Brown.

Nose: Raisins, butter and pretty winey. Quite floral. Fresh Sherry. Ashy and great wood. Bourbon honey and perfectly creamy. Looking deeper, it’s more leafy and paper-like, more dry. This doesn’t seem very complex at first. The distillery character is still there underneath and the Sherry is like a blanket on top. Smallest hint of salty smoke and even less of dried fish. Little bit of licorice and citrussy acidity. Bonfire (but not the smoke of it, more the presence, does that make any sense?). Nice balance.

Taste: Ha! great stuff. Full on Sherry, not to sweet, not too dry. Creamy and chewy with spicy wood. Wow. The middle drops quite a bit, but picks up near the end. Warming caramel and sweet and woody finish, with some bitterness. Licorice and a little bit of soap even, the floral bit returns. Again nicely balanced stuff. Bit of a rollercoaster. Salty lips.

This new Glentauchers just goes to show that the route taken by Gordon & MacPhail is the best way of doing business. Most other independent bottlers fish out of the same pond, and mind you the pond is drying out, like the Aral sea. Less and less (good) aged casks are finding their way onto the market, and with that also the quality drops. In the end a lot of independent bottlers will have to fold. Gordon & MacPhail have a strategy of clever cask management. They send their privately owned high quality casks up to the distillery, have them filled, and store them at their own humongous warehouse facility. This way they have good casks, and by that, control over quality.

Points: 88

Many thanks go out to Stan Reid for pulling this one out from under the counter.