Category Archives: Single Malt Whisky

Pulteney 8yo 1990/1998 (63.1%, Cadenhead, 222 bottles, 750 ml)

My good friend Christoph asked me to have a look at a clean bourbon cask whisky and look for mint. As it happens, I have just such a thing on my lectern, so let’s have an adventurous search for mint in this whisky. This whisky was opened on November, 27 2010 at a tasting session with my Whisky club “Het Genietschap” where the theme was “Whiskies younger than 10yo”. This was one of my entries (together with the Kilkerran). I remember I found it very closed when freshly opened. Just have a look at the picture from june 5, 2012. How full it still is.

Color: White wine, light gold.

Nose: Very clean bourbon nose, clean ethanol, some chocolaty wood and musty. Fresh sea air and powdery. Very typical for high cask strength young Cadenhead bourbon barrel whiskies. I’ve smelled everything there is now, no evolution, so we can move on to the taste. Beware it’s 63.1% ABV.

Taste: Strong and spicy, but not woody (just a bit). There’s also some smoke ánd a freshness resembling menthol a bit, but not mint. Everything is in the details. It’s great to taste something that’s spicy, not from the wood. It’s obviously sweet at this high strength, maybe a tad too sweet for my tastes. High alcohol with a lot of sugar can be a bit nauseating. This one’s on the precipice, but didn’t fall in.

As I said this is very typical for those high strength Cadenhead bottlings. They are very clean and reveal quite some information about how the cleanly distilled spirit from a distillery is. This is as honest as it can get, so it’s quite interesting to taste a few head to head. I guess this is a connoisseurs whisky. Not made for your gulping pleasure at a card game. And it can only be ‘enjoyed’ with caution. If you don’t give it enough attention, it will give you very little. The fun is maybe more in analyzing and discovery. The fun is also for those people (like me) who occasionally like their whiskies strong and utterly clean.

I once had a similar bottle of Tormore that was even stronger and older (13yo, 63.9%, 85 Points). There were many things wrong with it, like a very metallic taste, but still I had a lot of fun with it, when ‘enjoyed’ at the right moment. I found myself another bottle before it completely vanished of the face of the earth.

Sorry C. No mint, I’ll have to look further, or you have to taste this for yourself this summer 😉

Points: 84

Talisker 25yo (56.9%, OB, Refill Casks, 2006, 4860 bottles)

And here is Talisker. Talisker is a favourite of mine, a love affair maybe. It is a unique distillery on a unique island. Talisker is always good. So many big names from the past have slipped, some where good in the 60’s, but not now, some were good in the 70’s, but not now. Talisker isn’t one of them. Just buy any Talisker 10yo and it’s great. Even the worst Taliskers are still good. So the quality is alway delivered. Kudo’s to the people of Talisker. And when Talisker went cheating (Cask sold of to brokers or independent  bottlers), Talisker was still very interesting. Just have a look at the different Taliskers issued by Douglas Laing, (as Director’s Tactical). All those casks were probably sold off since they didn’t possess the typical Talisker markers. Peat, pepper and so on. But give these a chance and something extraordinary is revealed to you about the Talisker spirit. And again even the worst Taliskers from them are still good. That’s why I like Talisker very much.

Strange enough Talisker was never issued as a Rare Malt. But saw the light of day in many forms in a Special Release. As a Normal release we have the 10yo, 18yo and the distillers edition (finished in a Amoroso Sherry cask). And de standard Special releases were the 20yo, 25yo and the 30yo. The 20yo was released in 2002 and 2003, the 25yo was released in 2001 and from 2004-2009. The 30yo was released from 2006 untill 2010. In 2011 there were no Taliskers anymore, just a 34yo from 1975, that cost a pretty penny.

Now for this 25yo from 2006, considered to be one of the best 25yo’s (if not thé best).

Color: Gold

Nose: Elegant peat and log fire smoke. Clean and fresh at first, but give it some time to develop. Perfectly balanced. Fern, leafy, wet forest floor. Gravy with a slight hint of mint. Some black peppered butter and toasted wood. Also a mysteriously depth, like there’s something very old that’s been kept secret. Some Brora like farmyness, and river clay. This just keeps developing.

Taste: Pepper! Animalesk. Sweet and woody (a bit sour). The clay from the nose comes through big time. Ash, almonds and putty. It has some sweetness hidden in the clay, but that disappears quickly. This is some great full-bodied stuff. The finish has some wood in it, slightly bitter and could have been a wee bit more balanced. Water does little for this whisky, so you’d better not.

This is great, but still I do understand why some people don’t like the 25 yo’s in particular. For a long time these didn’t sell so well, and because some of the earlier releases were quite big batches of 15.000 and 21.000 bottles. Now these are mostly still available, but again at the higher price from the beginning. People got wiser and start to ‘get’ the 25yo and started to appreciate them. Now it’s time for you to do the same…

Points: 91

P.S. here is Rockin’ Jan’s take on Talisker 10yo.

Lochside 28yo 1981/2009 (56%, Blackadder, Raw Cask, Cask #617, 202 bottles)

One from the (in)famous Raw Cask series. A lot of ‘stories’ are told about this one. For instance that Blackadder just throw any toasted cask trash they can get their hands on in there during bottling.  That would be a shame wouldn’t it? Blackadder are also the people who bring us bottlings from the Aberdeen Distillers series and the Clydesdale series in the dumpy bottles.

The whisky in the bottles was distilled on the 23rd of February 1981 and was bottled in june 2009. Why do we know the day of distilling, but not the day of bottling? And why does anyone bother to put ‘Oak Cask’ on the label? What else is there? Plastic, Japanese Fig? Still, Blackadder gives us more information than a lot of others…

Lochside Distillery commenced as a Whisky Distillery in 1957, but before that is was a brewery. The side was mothballed in 1992 and demolished twelve years later. Most bottles that are around today are from 1981 and 1991 and come from all kinds of casks, no, not plastic and Japanese Fig, but Bourbon and Sherry. Barrels, hogsheads and butts.

Color: Gold with a slight greenish hue.

Nose: Fresh, spicy, but not very woody. Fat make-up powder. Vanilla with old paint. Licorice. Hints of a damp cellar. Flowery and you would expect it to be dry in the taste. After a while it develops in the glass. Sweat and dry construction wood or sawdust. If you give it some time and work it a bit, than it can be a very rewarding smell. In a laid back or introvert way. Again vanilla ice cream. Nice balance.

Taste: Wow, full body and spicy, Vanilla with apricot sauce. Nice! Yeah, this is it. Slightly beer like bitterness in the finish ánd black pepper. Alcoholic cherry bon-bon. Blueberry juice and creamy vanilla. Yes this has it all. When the bottle was opened at the Genietschap Lochside tasting, this was very closed and hard to score, but it has now opened shop. Very good. Like the nose, you have to work it a bit and give it a chance, but when you focus on the details, this is a gem!

Points: 91

Craigellachie 1982/1999 (61.6%, Scott’s Selection)

And here is another whisky from my lectern. This time an old (bottled in 1999) Craigellachie from Scott’s Selection. The people who brought us the fabulous Longmorns from 1971. Therefore I always have a soft spot for these guys. This Craigellachie was opened on our whisky trip to Switzerland. What I will never forget was the foul smell this whisky gave off when the bottle was first opened, (but tasted good). That was unbelievable. Very soon after that I found that the bad smell was quickly gone and getting better with time. The bottle has some 30 cl left now, so let’s see how this will perform now. The initial score was 83 points.

Color: White wine.

Nose: fresh, dirty ánd clean. Dirty in the sense that it has some hints of asphalt, tar, sweat and mud from a moat. I hesitate to say it, but it has hints of a good fart. But after all those niceties it shows to be a very clean bourbon cask smell. Lemons and some hay with a nice body to it, and no, it’s not a Lowlander. Still all of this fits together well, so you might want to call this ‘balanced’. I like it (now). To me it does not smell too much alcoholic considering the high ABV.

Taste: Sweet and something like Kirsch with some mocha. Spicy but not woody. Apples. Stays sweet, but fortunately not that sickening heavy sugary sweetness you sometimes encounter, no, this sweetness is just perfect. Maybe not the most complex whisky around but still very enjoyable. Just slightly unbalanced in the finish. Fortunately it has some great staying power.

A great one to drink when playing cards, even with this ABV. Don’t bring too much money to the table though, because some shots of this will lose you your money. At least you enjoyed a nice whisky in the process. The ‘stink’ that was there when opening the bottle is now completely gone, or maybe turned in something more fitting to the taste. So here’s another lesson for us all. A lot of whiskies do need time ánd air. A lot of them just benefit from some oxidation. So be brave and leave the cork off for a while…

Points: 85

Bladnoch 8yo (55%, OB, Beltie Label)

This should turn out to be a very interesting review. If not for you, than certainly for me. Mr Bladnoch, Raymond Armstrong has a lot of fans, just have a look at the forum Bladnoch has. When looking around, this 8yo is considered to be very nice. Also, when you have a look at the average score for this bottle on Whiskybase it turns out to be 86.5 points (8 ratings).

I mention all this, because my bottle of 8yo was officially opened at a gathering of my whisky club last saturday and this Bladnoch was considered to be the worst of the day/evening! Auch! So I gave it a few days and will taste it again now in all tranquility (only some Flower Kings on the stereo). What is wrong, is the whisky bad, or were we doing something else than a proper tasting saturday? We’ll soon find out…

Color: Gold

Nose: Malty and definitively nothing wrong at first nosing. Hint of smoke and butter. Grassy. It smells like it has a more than a light body (for a Lowlander), clean and honest. The butter evolves over time. Mr. Brilleman of the Dutch Whisky Information Centre (WICN), thought us that this is a distillation error, (which sometimes can smell nice). It’s not overpowering so no problem here for me.  Hints of sour wood and powdery. Also slightly fruity. It smells like it will be very sweet and buttery.

Taste: Starts very strangely, like new make, and some woody spice. A little bit soapy and fatty. Sure there are some grassy notes, but not as I’d come to expect from a Lowlander. It’s like the grass turns a bit bitter. I find the taste to be unbalanced to boot, and seems to me as if some feints that found their way into the cask aren’t completely transformed by ageing. I guess this should have been in the cask for a longer while. I also don’t detect any citrussy notes which would make the whisky more refreshing.

After giving the whisky some time to breathe it gets somewhat more balanced and friendlier, some nice spices shine through, with just the right amount of wood. It just doesn’t shed its new-make-and-wood finish.

Adding water added even more balance to the nose, and that’s definitively all right. The palate however got even more simple. Fatty wood and slightly bitter. I’m glad most people like this, because Raymond deserves his success with this own distillation of Bladnoch since the take over. This unfortunately just wasn’t for me. But I’ll find me another one…

Points: 77

By the way the Beltie label should mean this was from Bourbon Barrels. (The Sheep label was used for Hogsheads). Sometimes, both labels were used for Sherry Butts though.

May 25, 2015 [UPDATE]. Now that the bottle is almost empty I feel I have to add something to my additional review. Reading back my notes, the nose is pretty much the same, but I feel the taste has changed, or maybe I have changed. The taste is more balanced, still buttery, but sweet and better integrated. The new make is no longer there. Fresh oak, giving spice and grass. Quite a transformation when it got a long time to breathe. Hurray! First time around it wasn’t for me, and I tried to sell it, but nobody wanted it. I’m happy I still have it. It came ’round nicely. With water the grass and spice got even better and a honeyed note enters the fold, Nice!

New score: 83

Glenfarclas 42yo 1967/2010 ‘Probably Speysides Finest Distillery’ (50%, Douglas Laing, Old Malt Cask, Sherry Butt, DL REF 6245, 385 bottles)

And here’s yet another Speysider and not just any Speysider but an example of Speyside’s finest distillery…probably. Just consider the statement for a moment (maybe not if you’re called Luc). There’s also Macallan, Longmorn and Strathisla in Speyside. I know there are others, but I didn’t want to make this list too long. Glenfarclas isn’t mentioned on the label, but let me tell you this is a Glenfarclas, and a very old one too. I have tasted several very old Glenfarclas, and sometimes they tend to be very woody, but that’s also because there are a lot of very old Glenfarclas around, and 42yo is a long time to spend in a cask. I’m 42 now and I wouldn’t want to spend my whole life in a cask.

To the whisky then. Glenfarclas is still a family owned operation that started legally in 1836. In 1965 it was bought by John and George Grant. Since then there were a lot of Georges and John Grants. Very popular names indeed in that family (and The Beatles for that matter). Sometimes they have extra letters for identification purposes. Next time I’ll be up at Glenfarclas, I’m dying to meet Ringo S. Grant! Good to see a still family owned distillery surviving competing with the big conglomerates like Diageo. There are several more like Bladnoch for instance. Power to them!

Color: Orange Copper

Nose: Musty and leafy. Fruity, spicy and maybe some acetone. The odd combination of gravy with honey. Thick. Body, yet not too heavy. Then a coffee note: something like mocha and cappuccino, maybe a whiff out of the old fireplace in winter. It’s a treat to smell this, but it doesn’t smell so old as you might expect.

Taste: Dry and spicy wood. Slightly fruity with paint, and even a bit hot, which in this case is great! Honeyed licorice. When freshly opened it had a strange finish, but after a month or so that’s completely gone. So time was on its side. It has some bitterness in the finish but that doesn’t mean the whole is woody or even overly woody, no, the wood is fine here.

To sum it up, it doesn’t seem so old, it sure is balanced, but misses some complexity you might want if you buy such an old whisky from the sixties. Still it’s not bad though, not bad at all. And oooh, I like the heat in this, definitively a big plus.

Points: 88

Note: When this was distilled in November 1967, The Beatles were at Abbey Road Studios doing mixes for their Magical Mystery Tour album, and recorded their Christmas disk for the fanclub…so now you know.

Strathisla 25yo (40%, Gordon & MacPhail, Pinerolo Torino, 75 cl, Circa 1980)

And here’s already the second Strathisla by Gordon & MacPhail. This one has bottlecode SC999 and Gordon & MacPhail used these bottles roughly between 1981 and 1987. But if I would have a guess, this seems to be closer to 1981 than 1987. And thus this would be a late fifties distillate! (And the previous 15yo Strathisla, one from the mid seventies). That’s quite a difference and will probably be evident in the taste and smell. Also note that this 25yo is notably darker. Like the 15yo, this bottle was also bought for a ‘Genietschap’ Tasting. But this time for a tasting hosted in Switzerland.

Color: Copper, orange / brown.

Nose: Old Sherry. This is deep and spicy. It has some butter that fades quickly. Tarry, coal, old bottle effect and very, very appetizing. You just want to smell this as long as it stays liquid. Fabulous. No other word to describe this.

Taste: Sherry again, tarry and coal is in here too. Sometimes a whiff of sweetness passes across your palate. Laurel licorice and wood, which make it spicy. There are even some cherries in the finish. Again this is an old sherried whisky from the times they made this with steam or something, because for me again it has the traits of an old steam locomotive. It’s probably no coincidence that Jack Wiebers has a ‘Old Train Line’ series.

The Strathisla is warming, even when you think at the same time that the 40% isn’t enough. Imagine this at a higher strength or even cask strength for that matter. One thing is certain: they don’t make them like this anymore. Try to find it and dish out a lot of cash, because it’s worth it. Just have a go at this standard G&M, 25yo Strathisla, and find yourself a sweater made from those fabulous looking Strathisla sheep!

While the 15yo was initially considered a fake by the ‘Genietschap’. This 25yo definitively was not. It was considered the best of the evening.

Points: 94

P.S. If any of you turn out to be, Italian tax-band specialists, mine is Series EX, number 426944. Let me know if you know from which year this is.

Caperdonich 35yo 1972/2008 (50.3%, Duncan Taylor for The Nectar Belgium, Cask #7424, 136 bottles)

Duncan Taylor, once Glaswegian brokers in whisky casks. Now of Huntly in the North East of Scotland. These guys have some massive amounts of great casks lying around. I know a lot of bottlings they did that are legendary. For instance: Tomatin 1976, Bowmore 1966 and Bowmore 1968, to name but a few, but there are a lot more. But it’s not only the vast amount of casks, it’s also the quality, and consistency of their whiskies, and grains. Duncan Taylor are definitively among my favourite independent bottlers.

Color: Orange Gold

Nose: Wow, double wow. This is fabulous! Old Bottle and überfruity. Apricots, peaches and sugar-coated oranges. Very organic and even a bit nasty, but all in a very good way. I guess we already have one of those legends on our hand. It has some earwax and wood, but not as much as you would have thought for something that’s 35 years old.

Taste: Sorry, but its wow again! It has a spicy punch after all those years. It’s palate matches the nose. The same fruits for me, and almost no wood and it hasn’t been an inactive cask either, just look at the color. It also reminds me of a very well aged perfect Zind Humbrecht Gewurztraminer. This would have been almost perfect, (because does perfection exist on our planet?), when the finish would remain somewhat sweeter and retain the fruityness and if it could have kept its balance some more. In the finish, the wood plays a greater, drier and a bit sour and thus unbalancing role. But it maybe nitpicking, because this Caperdonich receives a well earned…

Points: 93

Kilkerran 6yo 2004/2010 ‘Work in Progress 2’ (46%, OB, 15.000 bottles)

This time a ‘new’ Campbeltown malt. Although the original Glengyle started in 1872 and closed again in 1925. The ‘new’ one started in 2004. Most of the distilling equipment come from the defunct Ben Wyvis distillery. Campbeltown used to be the center of the whisky world, but only Springbank and the intermittent Glen Scotia remain. Slowly some old names are revived. Longrow and now Glengyle. The name Glengyle was not for sale as the distillery was, so it’s called Kilkerran instead. Since 2009 an annual work in progress is released. We’ll have a look at the second WIP, that has the grey label.

Color: Light Gold.

Nose: Oily, fatty, some distant peatyness. Meaty, gunpowder and lightly smoky, so it has a firm body. Tarry and Crème Brûlée Later on even some coffee and a powdery note.  This has already got a very promising character. After nosing this you already know you’re gonna like it! Well I do. If some whiskies are elegant, this one is of the street, it’s dirty, it’s a bit naughty. Ahhh yes, we like naughty.

Taste: Yeah! Leafy and simple. It’s like dry leaves infused in some velvety light oil with licorice. It has some wood, but as a nice component of the whole. In the middle of the wood sits something sour. It’s almost a designer dirty whisky. Not overly complex, but oh so enjoyable. This is great and 46% is just right for something like this. In the finish you’ll have some black pepper first and after that a hot flash, like some red pepper powder.

We all like to say that the old stuff is better, and “they just don’t make it like that anymore”. Now just have a look of some of those new malts around. And it’s not only Kilkerran, but Kilchoman too, aren’t they making fabulous stuff? And the stuff is just seven years old to boot. Both of them. And if this as good as it is now, how will it be at the planned 12 years old? We just have to wait untill 2016 to try that. But untill then we’ll be just as happy with the annual WIP’s. Forget about cocaine and XTC, there’s a new uncolored and unchillfiltered drug in town and it’s called Kilkerran…(and Kilchoman).

A work in progress, keep on working people, you’re on the right track here.

Points: 86

To be complete:

The first work in progress had a white label, is 5yo, was issued in 2009 and yielded 12.000 bottles.

The third work in progress had a mossy green/cream label, is 7yo, was issued in 2011 and yielded 15.000 bottles.

Port Ellen 25yo 1982/2008 (50%, Douglas Laing, Old Malt Cask, Refill Butt, DL REF 4112, 589 bottles)

Its raining like crazy outside, and I have this Port Ellen on my lectern, so probably no better moment to have a go at this. Seize the day, the moment is now! There may be no tomorrow! Heed the call of the elements!

Douglas Laing sure did have a lot of Port Ellen ex-sherry casks lying around, and a lot of those casks were from 1982. Even though it wasn’t the best of years for Port Ellen (it closed just a year later), a lot of those 1982 casks turn out to be pretty fabulous. I bought this particular bottle because of the word “creosoted” on the label. I definitively want to find out what that tastes like.

Color: White Wine.

Nose: Wow, always a great peat smell, Sweet and succulent, oily, old puffer, kippers and tar. Citrussy and grassy too. Powdery? This really smells like it’s dived up from the bottom of the sea. Even if this turns out not to be the greatest Port Ellen, this nose is all worth it. Dirty and clean at the same time. Ergo very balanced! Smelling this is great but it’s also intriguing. There is more lying around the bend. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is more to it than meets the nose…

Taste: Sweet and rubbery. Ash, liquorice and tarry rope (is this the creosote?). Definitively a fishy note from the peat, what suites this whisky well. Coffee, mocha, very appetizing. For a dead distillery, and a 25yo whisky, this is very lively. Candy with pepper in the finish and some slight bitterness (with tar), from the oak, but it has to be that way.

You might say it’s not up to par to other Port Ellen’s, since you could consider this not to be the most complex example or it’s drinkability and (virtual) lightness. But I’m having a lot of fun with this one, its lively and I’m thoroughly enjoying myself. I’m pouring myself another dram of this.

Points: 89