Category Archives: Whisky from Master Quills Travels

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 19yo 1984/2003 (50%, Douglas Laing, Old Malt Cask, Sherry, DL REF 406, 636 bottles)

I saw some prices for official Highland Parks the other day, and I just had to try this one. It wanted to be picked. It’s and eighties Highland Park by Douglas Laing. A sherried one that was released almost ten years ago, and the cost then was next to nothing. (around 50 Euro’s). Well a lot has changed in the Whiskyworld the last decade. So Highland Park 19yo. Alas I wasn’t able to recover a picture for this bottle so I will show here a brother of the 19yo, the 17yo that was released two years earlier (Also a 1984). The 19yo I’ll review here will more or less look the same.

Color: White wine.

Nose: Apple sauce, very clean, a little bit of wood and a little bit of spice. Dusty but overall fruity. Lot’s of toffee and again warm sweet apple sauce. Although pleasant, it doesn’t seem quite right. There is something like coal smoke in the distance, maybe even some sulphur. A slight hint of burnt wood and paper and cardboard. The longer this breathes the better it gets. The apple bit wears off.

Taste: Short attack that dissipates quickly and falls again into a fruity sweetness. Alongside the apple there also is some blackcurrant. It’s nice, it’s a lemonade at first, that drinks nicely away. Prickly smoke in the back of your mouth. The 50% ABV delivers good oomph.  Licorice and a hint of wood with a lighter acidic and slightly bitter finish, after the ‘full’ body. The finish is the weakest part.

Likeable, but nothing special. It has its merits, but if I had tasted this blind, I would have never guessed this was a Highland Park. It’s quite far from the official Highland Park’s. I’m guessing Fino Sherry, but also a tired cask. In almost 20 years the Whisky hardly picked up any color, a not a lot of character from the wood itself. No use to compare, but the other Whisky from Orkney, Scapa, I reviewed for Master Quill’s 1st Anniversary was a lot better!

Points: 86

By the way. The depicted 17yo scored 85 Points.

Bowmore 12yo 1988/2000 (50%, Douglas Laing, Old Malt Cask, Sherry, 702 bottles)

The Master of Malt version of an eighties Bowmore did not turn out to be a FWP-Bowmore after all. Looking though the whiskies that have accumulated at Master Quill’s castle, I found another eighties Bowmore. This time an oldie by Douglas Laing. At one point in time, the Laing Brothers thought they would have to show the public what are the ‘young’ whiskies in their Old Malt Cask range, so decided on red lettering and a red tube. Somehow this ‘experiment’ didn’t last for very long, so this look is rather scarce. Lets see if this time we have a genuine FWP-Bowmore on our hands? Is it lavender & violets or peat & smoke?

Color: Light Copper Gold.

Nose: Butter, popcorn, quite some hints of flowers, but not like a FWP. Peat and a decent amount of smoke. Deep almost brooding kind of licorice. Clay, smelly pond in summer, probably a sulphur compound. This organic smell is actually great in this Whisky. Ashes and gravy, meaty.

Taste: Nice elegant Islay. Soft tasty peat, with smoke on top. Lots of caramel, toffee. Nothing is over the top. Perfect non-sugary sweetness in the background. But as with the Master of Malt version, it breaks down a bit towards the end, and has a sweet yet ‘light’ finish. There is something else that is pretty similar with the Master of Malt bottling. Again, the acidity quickly follows the sweetness. They somehow are linked. Do I detect some soap at the end of the finish? If it’s there it doesn’t hurt the whisky much. On occasions it takes the properties of a rum.

Not a perfect Whisky. Has some distillation faults (butter) and some issues with the finish and stability (with air), but overall it’s a very drinkable and likeable Whisky. Again not a victim of FWP.

Beware, this whisky doesn’t take air very well, let this breathe and you’ll see how it breaks down in your glass. Break open a new deck of cards, invite some (lady) friends over for a nice and friendly game and drink the whole bottle in one evening, you’ll do yourself and the Laing Brothers a big favour.

Points: 88

Bowmore 26yo 1982/2009 (53.4%, Master of Malt, Refill Sherry Hogshead, 195 bottles)

And here is another Master of Malt bottling. Earlier I reviewed a reduced Tomatin, that was a true disappointment. I didn’t even know it’s possible to ruin a Tomatin, since usually I like Tomatins. So with this one I do worry a bit. This also is a Bowmore of the eighties, which quite often turn out to be your better hand-soap (lavender and violets come to mind). I once tried a 1989 Berry Bros. & Rudd bottling that made me physically ill. That was a first for me, so I tried that one half a year later and it happened again.

Color: Gold

Nose: Powdery and sweet. Not very Islay to be frank, hardly any peat or smoke. Lots of flowers though, soap, also some clay and thick, so it seems to have body. When freshly poured it is very closed. After a while some smoke trickles trough. Hey, waiting even longer there is peat too. All in minute quantities. Again not very Islay-ish. Is this really a Bowmore? Wet paper and a small hint of licorice. It’s not bad, but not very balanced either. Now we have sour oak. It’s fresh, fruity and floral, luckily not over the top lavender-soap eighties Bowmore.

Taste: Sweet and syrup, with ash and some wood. It actually attacks you in the beginning. The sweetness disintegrates quickly into something acidic. It’s like a syrup that shows, when stripped from your throat, some lemon. The attack is nice, and the middle is also quite nice, but bold tastes fade and leave you with a fairly dull and anonymous finish. What can this be, a strange and unusual Bowmore distillate in a Fino Sherry cask? Well, let’s leave it at that.

In the end it’s not a FWP-Bowmore from the eighties, but it also isn’t recognizable as a Bowmore either. It’s ok on the nose and when it enters your mouth is shows some promise. Halfway through though and especially the finish are a bit weak, which is a surprise after the bold body. But the most remarkable achievement is making and finding a Bowmore that has nothing to do with…Bowmore!

Points: 84

Smokehead (43%, Ian MacLeod, Circa 2012)

After the extremely rare and expensive Glenfiddich (what?) I reviewed earlier, time for a more affordable and more of a heavy hitting dram. Sitting inside, hearing the wind outside, it seems an appropriate choice. Smokehead is a Islay Single Malt Whisky marketed by Ian MacLeod, who also have their Chieftain’s series of Single Malts and also own the Glengoyne Distillery, so they know their way around Whisky.

I said marketed, since I have to admit I like the look of this bottle very much, or have a look at the special website they made for this bottle alone. Yes it’s a standard Scotch Liquor Bottle, but keep in mind it’s a very affordable Whisky, but the rest looks great. Just look at the lettering and look of it all. I don’t care much for the choice of words though 😉

Color: Light Gold.

Nose: Peat, peated malt, citrus and then smoke. Peat smoke and paper smoke. Very clean. Clay and butter, hot butter like you get from smelling popcorn. Spicy smoke, like burning off your kitchen cabinet with all your dried herbs in it, or the smell you get when walking outside in a winter evening and smelling all those wood fires coming from chimneys. Still it comes across as very honest, young and untouched. The nose is great, no doubt about it, hope it tastes as good.

Taste: Smoke and burnt wood. Dry peat, very young and un-complex, but also a bit un-balanced. Ash and a stunning absence of saltness. The best Islay Whiskies I know always have a sort of hidden sweetness to it, that this example lacks. It has some sweetness, but it comes across as diluted. Don’t get me wrong, 43% ABV is all right, but tastewise there isn’t that much happening here, which makes it a good first kiss if you’re interested in peated malts. Did I mention the rather short finish?

The bottle looks great, but I liked the nose even better. Tastewise it’s a wee bit to thin for my taste, and lacking some Islay components, you get from more aged Islay Whiskies (the sweetness and the saltness). Excellent choice for those who like peat and smoke, but also excellent for peatheads or Islay-o-philes that have lost at the stock market. At this price and this quality, it’s the Johnny Walker Red Label of the peated malts!

Points: 77

Glenfiddich 32yo 1974/2006 (47.3%, OB, Private Vintage, for La Maison Du Whisky, Cask #10260, 198 bottles)

Let’s continue with Glenfiddich. Known for their big out turn and fairly priced Whiskies. No cheap entry-level Glenfiddich this time, like the 12yo “Special Reserve” I reviewed earlier, but a super-duper premium Glenfiddich that costs a fortune these days. Cask number 10260 was bottled for the 50th anniversary of La Maison du Whisky. Who hasn’t visited one of their fabulous shops in Paris & Saint-Denis (France) or Singapore? There are a few pretty great 1974 Glenfiddich bottled, even one for Playboy (Cask #10245) and H.M. Queen Elizabeth II (of U.K. fame). So not a bad club to belong to. Here Majesty’s Cask was #2336 (not quite a sister cask of the Playboy one, I would say). Or maybe Glenfiddich filled a lot of casks in 1974. Who knows?

Color: Full and dull gold.

Nose: Old bottle. Oceanic and creamy. Wow. Musky and organic, with fatty old wood (not dry wood) mixed with newer plywood. Clay. Absolutely stunning wood smell. Smelling this you know you have something special on your hands. When smelling this for a prolonged time, you get in the territory of cardboard that has been added to the wood that is more upfront. Through the wood and the cardboard is also something clean, fresh and lively like lemongrass, cola, mint and old lemon skins, but also the more heavy shoe polish and clean wax. Great complexity and balance.

Taste: Again old bottle. Spicy toffee with clay. It’s sweet and has hardly any wood at first! Full mouth. Chewy and waxy. Fantastic. Slightly sour, somewhat thin and papery finish, and the wood came in late, but it is there. It’s more the spice from wood, than the wood itself. Clean and elegant.

Well, obviously you can’t really compare the über-standard 12yo to this, can you? Because all the time when I was trying this, you can clearly see where this is coming from, and it does have a big family resemblance. This definitely is the father of the 12yo.

Points: 91

Ardmore 18yo 1992/2011 (46%, Mo Ór, Bourbon Hogshead #5013, 286 bottles)

Three months ago, I reviewed two Ardmore’s, and was very pleasantly surprised, not to mention impressed. At a certain moment I even called it the present day’s Brora, or something of that nature. First a 1992 bottled by Domiek Bouckaert a.k.a. The Whiskyman, that scored a nice 89 points, and second a 1993 by the omnipresent Gordon & MacPhail. G&M’s version still got a very nice 87 points. Both malts were available for (much) less than 100 Euro’s, and that’s a steal in today’s feverish market. Today after a week’s absence, let’s have a go at this 1992 bottled by Mo Ór. Let’s hope it will do as well as the other 1992.

Color: White wine.

Nose: Nice, fresh acidic and aromatic lemon, but it has a lot more going for it. The wood comes across as pretty sweet with lot’s of vanilla. A storm of fresh air, as I said, very fresh and quite clean. Barley. I remember the other Ardmore’s as more dirty versions of Ardmore. I can hardly detect any peat in this and the smoke does need some time to manifest itself. Perfumy it is and slightly buttery (hot butter). Actually this is a lovely whisky on the nose. Not very complex, but it does have a well-balanced nose.

Taste: Hmm, licorice, clay and the (earthy) grains from the nose return. I expected a bit more of an attack, but it stays a bit back. Well don’t underestimate the smoke now! That’s here in abundance, but there isn’t a lot more coming from this. I guess this one was quite clean and lovable from the start, but I feel the reduction to 46% ABV didn’t benefit the Whisky this time. It has a late and mild fruitiness to it, pineapple and the fatty, sweetish smokiness is quite nice. Still as with the nose, the palate is undemanding and of average balance. The finish is of medium length.

This time around, the cask didn’t do much for the whisky, probably second or third refill considering the color and age. Still a well-earned…

Points: 84

Inverleven (Dumbarton) 18yo 1987/2006 (57.9%, Cadenhead, Closed Distilleries, Bourbon Hogshead, 276 bottles)

And here is another Cadenhead’s, from the same kind of cask, from the same year 1987, with three years more ageing. Cadenheads call this Distilled at Dumbarton, made with Inverleven stills. Everybody else calls this whisky just Inverleven. To clear things up. The Single malt whisky that was made this way, was called Inverleven. Inverleven was made untill 1991. This was made with the ‘normal’ type stills. In the same building was also a Lomond type still that was installed in 1959 at the Dumbarton distillery and ran untill 1985 (With the malt being called “Lomond”, not Loch Lomond). Loch Lomond lies close by to the north. Only a few kilometres away, still Loch Lomond is a Highland Whisky, and Inverleven a Lowlander.  To wrap things up. The Dumbarton Distillery was the spiritual home of the Ballantine’s Blend.

Color: Light gold. (Darker than the 15yo Cadenhead).

Nose: Grassy and clean. Balanced, fresh and citrussy. Not sharp fresh lemons, but more deepness to the citrus. It not quite grapefruit. Old very ripe lemons maybe? Toffee and syrup. Candied old lemons, that’s it! In the back some nice elegant wood. This nose is definitely nicer than the 15yo, it’s more mature and balanced. Still the nose of the G&M was even more elegant, and woody. If you look for it carefully, in the depths of this Whisky you can smell a little bit of ether and acetone.

Taste: Sweet and spicy. Ok, the wood plays a role, but in no way like that of the G&M. The sweetness is also a bit more laid back compared to the 15yo Cadenhead. Great balance, fantastic balance actually. There is this perfect balance between the sweetness, the caramel, (more caramel than toffee) and the spiciness of the wood. Also some austere waxiness. Having said this, it still seems to lack a bit of complexity. The G&M seems to have more of that, yet every time I return to this Whisky is get better and better. Allow this to breathe and you’ll be rewarded. It could have remain a bit thicker in the finish, but still this is a stunner.

This version is definitely better than the 15yo, so maybe the extra ageing did some wonders, but you’ll have to allow for cask variation. It’s also better than the Gordon & MacPhail version. But both definitively have earned their place on anybody’s shelf. All of these Inverleven’s are Whiskies like no other. Quite a unique nice Lowlander. Highly recommended.

Points: 88

Inverleven (Dumbarton) 15yo 1987/2003 (58.1%, Cadenhead, Bourbon Hogshead, 294 bottles)

I ended the last post about Gordon & MacPhail’s Inverleven with the hope that they wouldn’t reduce the next issue (so much). Frolicking around in my stash of samples I unearthed this unreduced Inverleven bottled by Cadenhead’s. It’s from another year, so this may have a different profile, but still worth checking out. Dumbarton was foremost a Grain Distillery. The distillery was built in 1938. In 2002 the distillery was closed and demolition commenced in 2005. I’ve added a picture here, because I have always liked the big red brick industrial complex on the river. By the way, after stopping the production of the Inverleven malt, the Stills went on to Islay to produce Port Charlotte at Bruichladdich.

Color: White wine.

Nose: Grassy and murky, like sitting next to a ditch in summer, not bad, but certainly not lovely as well. A lot of citrus fruits. Lemon, lime, tangerines, but over this a lot of dried grass and hot butter. A slightly meaty or gravy like component emerges from all this. Quite fresh and slightly estery. Hints of mint when nosed vigorously.

Taste: Sweet and fresh. Lively, leafy, slightly woody and again lemons. Some underlying caramel and this type of whisky at this strength makes this hot, but that’s not a bad thing. Caramels, vanilla and toffee, are the main markers here. Not very complex. After some breathing, the bite of the wood enters, but luckily not a lot of bitterness.

Compared to the 1991/2012 G&M, this has even less than half of the wood the G&M. So this is more grassy, lemony and much sweeter to boot. This one lacks complexity, and even though the G&M was on the brink of becoming a log of wood, that one was more complex and therefore more interesting. This Cadenheads is easier to drink (as long as you like cask strength whiskies), sweeter and fresher. Still I like this type of Lowlander profile. Sadly gone.

Points: 84

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.