Lagavulin 16yo ‘Port Ellen’ (43%, OB, Circa 2006)

Well, after all those old, sometimes priceless, but always hard to get, independent bottles I reviewed recently, it’s now time for something more easy to get. A standard bottle, even sold, in some countries, in your local supermarket, at reasonable prices to boot. Add to that, it’s usually decent quality, so this is a bang-for-your-buck type of malt.

We’re talking this time about the Lagavulin 16yo. The bottle I’m reviewing is from 2006, and I guess because of the high turnover, it is probably bottled in 2006 as well. I don’t know exactly when the bottles with the royal warrant were succeeded by the “Port Ellen” ones, but this could be one of the first.

Many stories surround these Lagavulins. First of all that, when the royal warrant disappeared from the label, the quality went down. In fact the quality was dwindling even before that. Last year or maybe in 2010 I heard that the quality level is picking up again. This year I  hear again that the recent bottlings are not as good as they were once before. So lot of debate about this one, and considering the interest, we know this is a popular one.

I tasted once a bottle from 1992, and scored that 92 points, so lets see how this one from 2006 will compare to that.

Color: Full Orange Gold.

Nose: Smoke and burnt wood (the next day). Black and white powder. It’s less peaty than I remembered, creamy peat. Animalesk and spicy, which makes it a bit ‘dirty’. Salty, sea and seaweed. After a while only smoke and bonfire remains.

Taste: Sweet, licorice with some peat and a slight hint of milk chocolate, almonds and wood. Sugar water. Black and white powder again. Not as rounded as earlier expressions. Smoke towards the slightly spicy and sweet finish that isn’t heavy at all. Salty sensation on the lips. In comparison, this is less complex.

I love Lagavulin, and I understand the producers statements that it isn’t true that Lagavulin 16 got worse. That memory doesn’t serve us well. Well that’s not the case. Earlier bottles are still around in big numbers so it’s not hard to do a head to head between older and more recent expressions. All I can say is they don’t make Lagavulin 16 anymore as they used to, but with all those efficiency regimes and when only the amount of alcohol yielded per tonne of barley counts, you can hardly be surprised.

So Lagavulin 16yo isn’t what it used to be, but how does it do on its own, not compared to the older ones? Well that’s another story, even today it’s a pretty special dram, that still scores pretty high, but I like the new 12yo better, although a completely different dram.

Points: 87

Royal Lochnagar 28yo 1977/2005 (58.5%, Blackadder, Raw Cask, Hogshead #310, 260 bottles)

New Lochnagar was founded in 1845. New Lochnagar? Yes. First Lochnagar was built in 1823, and burnt down by “the competition” just three years later. The distillery was rebuilt, only to burn down again in 1841. So the distillery was rebuilt again in 1845 as New Lochnagar. Lochnagar became Royal in 1848 (it lies very close to Balmoral Castle). No more fires burning down the house, but still a lot of construction going on. In 1906 the distillery was rebuilt yet again and in 1963 completely renewed.

Here we will try an independent Lochnagar, again a Blackadder Raw Cask with cask sediment in the bottle. This time no powdered char, but only small chunks of charred wood.

Color: Full Gold

Nose: Fresh, sea spray wich changes quickly into a damp wine cellar. Very spicy wood and vanilla. Resembles the sweet smell of a bourbon, high on rye. Mocha with a hint of ground coffee. Varnish and fresh mint leaves (not bruised). This smells like it will be very sweet. Very nice nose.

Taste: Strong and sweet, but luckily not as sweet the nose predicted. Butter caramels and the varnish is here again. The whole is very full bodied. Wood with Aspirin (wow, that’s a first). Nutty and ashy. The finish is drier than in the beginning, but still sweet enough to mask a lot of the wood. It doesn’t taste like it, but underneath it’s pretty woody. The dry finish ends in a little bitterness that reveals this woodyness.

In the end a quite nice Lochnagar. The finish is dryer and has some bitterness that seems a bit off compared with the sweetness from the beginning. Maybe not a 90+ scoring malt, but definitively a very interesting Lochnagar if you want a complete collection. Still, with these flaws in the finish I have a little soft spot for this Lochnagar, since the nose and the initial taste are really great.

Points: 88

p.s. This one is at the time of writing still available in Russia for 534 Euro’s

Balmenach 26yo 1983/2010 (52.8%, Bladnoch Forum, Hogshead #2410, 201 bottles)

After an Inchgower I reviewed earlier, here’s another example from the likes of Raymond Armstrong. If he isn’t distilling his Bladnoch, he’s on the look-out for casks of sometimes unusual distilleries. Worth a look, since he isn’t charging a lot of money for these forum bottlings. By the way, his son, Martin, has even more cask strength single cask whiskies on offer.

Balmenach was licensed in 1824, but existed much longer as an illicit farm distillery called Balminoch. Not earlier than 1992 the first official bottling is released, a 12yo Flora and Fauna. Not long after this United Distillers (now: Diageo) sold Balmenach to Inver House Distillers, with wich came an end to the Flora and Fauna bottling.

The new owners released between 2000 and 2002 only three rare bottles. A 27yo from 1973, a 28yo from 1972 and a 25yo from 1977 celebrating the queens jubilee (still shaped bottle). No more official bottlings have emerged yet. Today Balmenach is owned by Thai Beverages.

Color: Gold

Nose: Sweet and malty. Citrus, oranges with creamy wood and custard. Very powdery and paper like. Clean, what you smell is what you get. Creamy wood is the main part, but nothing overpowering. Candied apricots. Hints of cigarette smoke.

Taste: Spicy wood, sweet and sour. The sweet and sour is fruity. Again candied apricots and bitter lemon peel. Lemon with vanilla. Quite sweet and a lot of wood and bitterness in this one. Warming beer with its hoppy finish.

Actually a quite nice whisky. Fruity, overall likeable, with just one ‘flaw’. It’s quite woody and bitter. Although not overpowering.

Points: 84

Thanx to Erik L. for bringing the bottle!

Port Ellen 29yo 1982/2012 (55.5%, Old Bothwell, Cask #2041)

Today my good friend Erik L. came over and brought two bottles with him. Today I’ll review the first one of those, yes, another Port Ellen! So when we thought we had it all yesterday with the Blackadder Port Ellen, we continue today with a Port Ellen from Old Bothwell.

Old Bothwell is a company from Bothwell, Lanarkshire Sur near Glasgow Scotland. It’s a company that specializes in bottling their own stock of wines and spirits with the possibility of personalized labels. In the whisky-world they became quite famous for bottling a series of great Port Ellen’s. Alas Old Bothwell just bottled their last cask of Port Ellen, so now they will move into other whiskies. First up are a Tormore 1988/2012 and Macduff 1980/2012.

Color: Gold

Nose: Very peaty and foremost, very smoky at first. Reminds me of one of the Douglas Laing Port Ellen‘s reviewed earlier. Bonfire, lots of fire-parafernalia such as ash and smoke. After (some) breathing, more perfumy and salty peat, it smells a bit like peat from flowers! Very nice balance. Citrus, lemon, and again a bit meaty. Again, I don’t get the rubber Port Ellen’s used to have for me. It’s probably not there in 1982 Port Ellen’s. Fresh, sea-air laden with mint. This has also a vegetal side to it. As you might have guessed, this nose is very nice.

Taste: Half sweet, big bodied and vegetal. Peppered and slightly bitter/woody peat. Ashy. In a good way a lemonade like quality due to some fresh lemon peel and sea air. It definitively reminds me of sea air that can be smelled here in Holland too. Seems to me this has yet to reveal its full potential. The wood here is sour, and leaves a somewhat strange bitterness on the finish.

Let this breathe for a while. I guess the second half of this bottle will be the better half. The bottle I’m tasting now, is almost full. But this Port Ellen already scores…

Points: 89

Port Ellen 26yo 1979/2005 (56.9%, Blackadder, Raw Cask, Sherry Butt #2015, 497 bottles)

Again rummaging through my box with trophies collected on my travels, I found another Port Ellen. I like Port Ellen, so please forgive me, for yet another review. Port Ellen is the closed distillery from the immensely popular island of Islay, known for its peated whiskies. Always around in abundance, prices were ‘moderate’ for a closed distillery from Islay. Today stocks are depleting, and prices tend to rise sky-high, and it won’t be long untill there’s nothing left. Even if casks still lie around, Port Ellen isn’t getting better by ageing even longer. Maybe casks will be transferred into stainless steel holding tanks to stop ageing and fetching a lot of money when bottled is a few years’ time. Who knows. Since 2001 Diageo releases Port Ellen annually in their special release series. The first release fetching at least a 1000 Euro’s at auctions…

Port Ellen was founded in 1825, and was sadly closed like many others in 1983. Although the distillery is dismantled, the site is still there. Today it’s home to Port Ellen Maltings. Where barley is malted and all the other distilleries of the island are customers…

Color: Gold (with black cask sediments, floating around).

Nose: Thick and elegant or is it? Dry Fino Sherry and crushed beetle. Peat and kumquats. It smells like a bush, very vegetal. Black tea and flowery perfume. The citrussy wood is great in this one. When left to breathe for a while it’s wonderful altogether, and a mixture of hot tea, with dry black tea leaves comes even more to the fore. Stunning!

Taste: Thick, spicy, sweaty and sweet. Black and white powder. Very balanced. Alas no Port Ellen rubber. Again Fino Sherry. Bold, round body with distant peat and milk chocolate. Clean at first, and dry,with a very nice gritty and dirty bonfire finish that tends to be sweet and sour (green apples), but not bitter. Every sip is like a chameleon, different every time.

Ahhh, the Raw Cask series, a series where filtration got a new meaning. This is a series where the whisky is certainly not chill-filtered. It is probably filtered through a chicken wire fence. Some people even suggest, the stuff floating in these whiskies have sediment thrown in from anywhere and is not even from the original cask. Well I’d like to believe… It looks original and rustic and I don’t have a clue what it does for the taste. If you drink it all, you can imagine what it does for the mouthfeel, well not much really, the flakes just tend to cling to your palate and tickle. This is a very good Port Ellen and it deserves a well-earned…

Points: 91

Glenfarclas 25yo (43%, OB, Circa 2006)

Earlier I reviewed a very old independent Glenfarclas, let’s see how one of the official Glenfarclas’ will do. The standard line is quite extensive, As there is a version without age statement, Heritage and an 8yo, 10yo, 12yo, 15yo, 17yo, 21yo, 25yo, 30yo and a 40yo. And lots and lots of other bottlings, of which the Family Casks is their newest, most complete, most expensive and most succesful series.

Color: Orange Gold.

Nose: Nutty and powdery. Malty and quite dirty. Laurel licorice with coffee. Chocolated coffee beans. It’s all there but with low intensity. Asian spices with hints of citrus fruits. Chewing gum mint.

Taste: Thin sweet sherry, wood and licorice again. It almost tastes like sugary cannabis. Grassy. Earth and chocolate with fungi. Cardboard. Espresso aftertaste. Hint of tar.

For me its a bit too weak, I think this kind of whisky needs another three points of proof. 46% ABV just sounds about right for this one.

I have tasted this whisky several times and from different batches. It’s pretty consistent, some are better than others. Be careful with oxidation. This will suffer from it. Don’t keep it open for too long.

A great family owned distillery, which I like better at cask strength, but maybe that’s just me.

Points: 86

Cardhu 22yo 1982/2005 (57.8%, OB, 3600 bottles)

Cardhu is a very special distillery in the portfolio of Diageo, since it is their biggest selling malt (Spain and France mainly), but when talking to other enthusiasts the response isn’t all that…well enthousiastic. There is only talk of old bottles of Cardhu. Since 2006 a special cask reserve is issued, which isn’t welcomed with open arms, but since it sells so well, it must be the ultimate entry-level whisky. Personally I don’t like it.

Founded in 1811 by the illicit distiller John Cumming, who became legal in 1824. In 1884 the old distillery is replaced. Purchased by John Walker & Sons in 1893. Then in 2002 a small revolution took place. Cardhu, the whisky was silently changed into a vatted malt. (Several single malts blended together). The bottle and the label stayed the same, just the word ‘single’ changed into ‘pure’. Well this didn’t last long,  in 2004 the ‘pure malt’ was withdrawn. Luckily in 2005 this 22yo was issued.

Color: Gold.

Nose: Hmmmm, smooth. Sweet mocha. Fatty milk chocolate. Very elegant wood. Noses sweet and yes, smooth. It doesn’t seem overly complex, but is does smell very balanced. Everything fits and is instantly likeable. Hint of mens cologne, and an even smaller hint of sweat. Great!

Taste: Sweet and malty, with a sweet/spicy kick, and a peppery, warming, yet still sweet finish, with some butter and cream. A combination to die for. Very good. The wood profile is great, it’s there, but some components aren’t. Not a lot of bitterness, some sourness, but still it’s there with its spiciness. Again not overly complex, but all that’s there is great! Apricots on syrup are presented very late in the finish, excellent vegetal and green finish. Even though the fight between the sweet and sour seems a bit unbalanced, it is very interesting.

Points: 91

Rosebank 15yo 1990/2006 (61.1%, Gordon & MacPhail, Cask, Refill Sherry Butts #1605 & 1606)

Time for another Lowlander. Rosebank this time. I reviewed a Glenkinchie recently. The Distillery Diageo chose to be in their Classic Malts range. The obvious choice for the whisky drinker would have been Rosebank, but Rosebank didn’t make it, got closed and in part, turned into a restaurant. Just like with Brora, a lot of people keep hoping for a resurrection. Who knows. For the time being, lets see if this Rosebank is any better than the Glenkinchie reviewed earlier.

Color: Gold

Nose: Extremely fresh with lemons, lemongrass and apple skin in the summer. Leafy, powdery and woody with some caramel thrown into the mix. A sort of garden of Eden. Given some time a more meaty part starts to play a role. And is it the toast from the butts or dare I say that it has a slight hint of peat?

Taste: Sweet (clay) and leafy, woody and powdery. Fits the nose perfectly. Great balance here. Finish stays well constructed, because it doesn’t break down into sour wood, as with a lot of other whiskies like this. It does show some bitterness from the wood though, and vanilla, especially after some breathing.

It’s very good, and very typical for a Lowlander ánd Rosebank, a good Rosebank that is. Compared to the Glenkinchie, I think the jury is in favor of the Glenkinchie…just. Both bottles are good, just a tad different from one another and the Rosebank being the more typical Lowlander and the Glenkinchie having a more interesting composition.

Points: 88

Mortlach 10yo 1989/2000 (57.2%, Wilson & Morgan, Barrel Selection)

…and here is my second entry for our Genietschap gathering. Yesterday I reviewed an older expression of the ‘standard’ 16yo Flora and Fauna, and that was pretty good!

This Wilson & Morgan bottle was the opener of the day. Chosen for that reason because it was the youngest one.

Color: Copper Brown.

Nose: Yeah Baby! Heavy thick Sherry, meaty, but without the harshness and without the Sulphur! What a character and that at only 10yo. Raisins. Tarry and dry. Nice and you can even call this fresh and perfumy.

Taste: oh yeah (again!). Dry Sherry (at first) with tar and coal, than sweeter with a peppery attack. The coal, fabulous, just an old steam locomotive in here, and warm asphalt. Again there is nothing off here, not much wood, no sulphur and not harsh.

Very nice play between a sour and sweet note in the finish (amongst others some orange peel). It’s not only very good, but very interesting as well.

Would I have known it then, this would have been bought by the case! I’ll do something bold here, and score this young one at least…

Points: 90

Mortlach 16yo “Flora & Fauna” (43%, OB, L19T00187153, Circa 2002)

This saturday Het Genietschap had another gathering. This time at Jos’. Jos usually has one and the same theme: “lets enjoy any whisky”. This time, like last year, he choose a single distillery theme. Last year he choose Strathisla, after we found some nice Strathisla’s at Max Righi’s shop.

One of the other gems he found there, was a very old 20yo Sestante Mortlach, so the theme for this year soon became Mortlach. I have to admit, I really love a tasting with a single distillery theme, especially when a lot of bottles are brought in. Strange enough that was not the case with Strathisla, but with Mortlach we had 14 of them, and an extensive aftertasting with some other gems. (Laphroaig 10yo unblended bottled in the mid 70’s!).

So I brought two Mortlachs, this one being one of them. This is a Flora and Fauna bottling from ten years ago, and as was proven to me, there can be quite a difference between bottlings in this series. So it would be great to compare this to the most recent version of this. Without further ado:

Color: Orange

Nose: The nose explodes in the glass, and can be smelled from afar. Nice rich sherry, very balanced and warming. There is some coal in there, as is some asphalt, tar and some smoke. A small hint of mint. Slightly perfumy and powdery. Some added lemon peel freshness with vanilla. Not overly complex, but an instant hit.

Taste: Chewy sherry, sweet and very likable. Very smooth. Perfect balance. Small amount of woody bitterness to counterpart the sweetness, but the latter wins. This is a grown (wo)man’s lemonade. Dangerously easy drinkable. Inside the sweetness also some licorice, tar and sugared almonds can be found. The finish is the same and slowly dies away. Late in the finish there is, and dare I say this: pineapple. Very balanced and well made.

This is just a perfect Flora & Fauna bottling. Maybe just a tad too sweet, but that depends on your mood. This bottle is very nice, but at the moment I can’t vouch for more recent bottlings. When I have a chance to taste a more modern one, I’ll write a comment, so watch out for that in the future.

Points: 88