Port Ellen 23yo 1983/2006 (50%, Douglas Laing, Old Malt Cask, Refill Butt, DL REF 2790, 716 bottles)

Instead of expanding into unchartered territory, let’s do something oppositional and do yet another Port Ellen, and another bottle by Douglas Laing. This time from the old series in the normal scotch whisky bottle and not from the new tall bottle. People tend to think this older look contains better whisky. Let’s see if that’s true. By the way ,I read somewhere that in the few months Port Ellen operated during 1983, there weren’t a lot of good casks around, and they filled almost anything they could get their hands on. This Port Ellen looks quite light in color. Is this from a tired butt or a normal refill Fino butt?

Color: Light gold, almost white wine.

Nose: This leaps out of the glass and can be smelled from a mile away. That’s good! Fruity, musty, animalesk and malty. Salty sea spray, fresh air. Apples with elegant peat and cardboard. Nice distant spice and no wood (tired cask?). Milk chocolate. Yes, this has the kind of orange air tube rubber I like so much in Port Ellen. Actually quite good, I like this nose very much. Does this show how the Port Ellen-spirit actually was? (because of the tired cask)

Taste: Peat and rhubarb. Sweet, big, leafy and chewy. Black tea with clean refined sugar. No rubber here and it’s no monster either. The peat is very mild here and the finish is quite simple. Still it seems to be very balanced, just not very complex. It has the dryness and a bit of the spiciness of the oak, but not the bitterness, and that’s a big plus (not a Chevrolet). It has citrus with cardboard in the finish. If tasted blind, I would have thought it to be some odd ten years younger.

It’s an end of an era, even if it was a tired cask, this is still very typical and good. Really a shame this got closed. In a way it resembles Talisker in it always being decent. This may be no high flyer, but is has a lot of fine moments to give. No I’m not sentimental, this is good in itself. A very nice Islay Whisky. As I’m sipping the last few drops: “Here’s looking at you kid…”

Points: 88

Port Ellen 28yo 1982/2010 (57.5%, Whiskysite.nl, Refill Sherry Puncheon #2039, 100 bottles)

This Port Ellen is from Dutch retailers Whiskysite.nl (100 bottles). It is a cask-share with Belgian retailers QV.ID (72 bottles). Original bottlers Old Bothwell bottled the rest for Germany (Amount of bottles unknown). So there are three different labels for this bottle. Since a Puncheon ranges between 470 and 600 litres, and the angels are not thát greedy, there should be a lot bottled for Germany. Mind you, a Puncheon is never filled to the brim. The bottles gained a reputation quickly and were sold out in a blink of an eye.

Color: Light Gold.

Nose: A day at the beach in the springtime and springtide. A nice musty and fresh Fino Sherry nose. Very distant licorice. No Port Ellen rubber, and not very briny or overly peaty. It’s quite sweet and elegant. The Sherry play a large role in defining this nose. It’s unbelievable how fresh this is. If you give it some time, the tar, smoke and sea saltyness arrive in a very laid back style. Like so many of these, it has a citric component. Since this is no beast at all, you’ll have to give it your full attention. Don’t smoke or eat. Just you with this Port Ellen. It has balance and complexity, but seems so fragile.

Taste: Yeah, creamy, full-bodied Port Ellen. Black and white powder, licorice, vanilla, spicy hay, wow! This has to be cask strength, otherwise it would have been ruined. It hasn’t got a lot of wood (you’ll feel it later on the tongue), but you can detect the toast. Utter balance and very full bodied.

Again no misses with Port Ellen. Very light and delicate, even atypical nose for a Port Ellen, but when you put it in your mouth, the rollercoaster gets going! Beautiful Port Ellen. Ellen’s a nice lass.

Points: 92

Thanks Jack, for the sample!

Glen Grant 49yo 1956/2005 (46%, Gordon & MacPhail for La Maison du Whisky, Refill Sherry Butt, 459 bottles)

I just had to write another one about Glen Grant. Do I really have to revert to Gordon & MacPhail to find me a good Glen Grant? There are a lot of great Glen Grants around, but are they bottles of the past maybe? Here I have another Glen Grant that as it turns out ís from Gordon & MacPhail. Will it be good or do Gordon & MacPhail also have some mediocre casks? This one is bottled for La Maison du Whisky who usually pick good casks, so no need to worry, this probably will turn out all right. Besides, this is no 70’s Glen Grant, but a 1956. The year Alfred Hitchcock became American and made “The man who knew too much”.

Color: Copper Brown

Nose: Wow, this I like. This is the old sherry, with tar, licorice, clay and coal nose that I like so much! It’s farmy (which is not elegant) and has elegant wood. Spicy and winey-sweet. Dark fruits lemonade all over this. Raisins in the finish after leaving it to breathe a little. It’s a nose like this that make me live up to my blues-name: Fat Killer Jenkins, because I wouldn’t mind having a few cases of whisky that smell like this.

Taste: Very balanced because it’s the nose in diluted form. Sherry, tar and asphalt, Black fruits with a lot of wood and a hint of cardboard. Luckily the main character is so powerful, that it is capable of masking a lot of the wood. You just know it’s there on your tongue and you’ll notice it in the finish. But then again, it’s so old, that it should be there and it fits the profile. It has a lot of wood but it doesn’t make the finish overly bitter nor harsh. Not overly complex though, like a nice old cognac.

The not so sound statistical and scientific conclusion might be that you’ll have to get yourself a Gordon & MacPhail bottling of Glen Grant if you want a good one. Well as I said there are a lot of other good Glen Grants around. We’ll have to keep searchin’ to find us one, but for the time being we’ll have this Gordon & MacPhail 1956, and that’s no punishment! The nose is to die for, that alone is worth almost a 100 points. But the whole I will score…

Points: 91

There is also a second one for LMdW. Also a 1956/2005, only this one is from a First Fill Sherry Hogshead that yielded 105 bottles.

Many thanks also go to Christian Lauper of World of Whisky who sent me the picture of the back-label. As far as I know, this shop is the only one in Europe who still has this bottle on stock (CHF 509.00).

Glen Grant 34yo 1975/2009 (50%, Douglas Laing, Old Malt Cask, Refill Hogshead, DL REF 5597, 278 bottles)

I did some rummaging in my boxes with samples and found another Glen Grant. Well I actually found several of them, but I just chose this one. You know Glen Grant, the place that was the first distillery that was illuminated without burning fuel by themselves. This time we have a Glen Grant bottled in the Old Malt Cask series by Douglas Laing. Again in the new tall bottle, just like the Glenfarclas and the Port Ellen reviewed earlier. We know that there are some stellar Glen Grants issued by Gordon & MacPhail. Yesterday we had a Berry Brothers & Rudd version from 1972 that didn’t impress me very much, lets see if Douglas Laing bottled a better Glen Grant. This time from 1975.

Color: (Light) gold.

Nose: This is sweet and fruity, apples and warm apple sauce, a profile that suits 70’s Glen Grants and Caperdonich’s. The next whiff was less balanced and shows some mustiness. Almost herbal, as in herbs that were in water too long. It still smells sweet and musty with some hints of cigarette smoke. Seems strange but isn’t bad. Another very strange smell that reminds me of the acid and estery smell of crushed beetles (not Beatles, have you never stepped on a beetle, when you were a kid?). There was definitively something wrong when distilling this, drunken maltman maybe? After some time some spicy wood comes through the sweet and sour sauce and even later hot butter. All in all it’s not thát horrible as it may read. But on the nose definitively not one of their best casks.

Taste: Sweet and sour again and little wood and ash. Very strange sensation in the back of my mouth when swallowing. Minty apple gravy? (if that makes sense?). It an experience this malt is (Yoda intended). It starts thin and volatile when this enters my mouth, and quickly becomes ‘thicker’, with an attack like pepper from Talisker, and turns into pineapple! The finish picks the wood up again, combines it with spice (pepper), almonds and a kind of sour bitterness from the wood itself.

This is one to remember, and is right behind the Signatory Teaninich that seemed to be carbonated.

A Glen Grant that is obviously flawed and seems much younger than it actually is, but the strange bits were indeed an experience, I wouldn’t want to miss. Luckily though, I bought only a 3 cl sample of this, because a whole bottle wouldn’t be funny…

Points: 85

Glen Grant 1972/2006 (46%, Berry Brothers & Rudd, Cask #1982)

Glen Grant came to life in 1840, and is being famous for being the first distillery with electric lights! (in 1861 already). But after that it’s very quiet. Apart from distilling not much happening here. In 1961 a descendant of the original founder made a deal with Armando Giovinetti which made Glen Grant the most sold Single Malt in Italy and as far as I know that maybe even true today. Half of what Glen Grant makes went to Italy. Since 2006 Campari is the owner of Glen Grant, so its even became Italian! The Italians love their whiskies young and the Glen Grant 5yo seems to be very popular over there, together with a version without an age statement.

Color: Copper gold.

Nose: At first fresh and sea like, but that quickly transforms into wax, wood and spice. A dab of dried yellow fruits, but not much. Definitively a 70’s nose, a bit like Caperdonichs from 1972. Probably no coincidence that Caperdonich was founded as Glen Grant 2. Altogether dryer and more cold tea like. Yep, more spicy and some light mocha and raisins. Also a slightly floral and perfumy side to it (and some tar). So after some time in the glass, it distances itself from the typical Caperdonich nose.

Taste: Initially full-bodied, spicy yet not overly woody. Some wax and ash, but that’s also gone very soon. Also some distant tar and a little bit of coal. Yeah that’s the stuff you get from an old malt. Some sourness from the oak. You wouldn’t have said that it was reduced. In the middle and in the finish though, it ís a bit thin, and reducing probably wasn’t a good idea. The wood comes very late and is the main part of the finish.

It’s a decent Glen Grant, but nothing stellar. When I come to think of it I don’t even think its very balanced. I see this going for up to 250 Euro’s at Whiskyauction, and I can think of hundreds of other bottles for that kind of cash, that would outperform this Glen Grant. A nice piece of history from the seventies, but nothing more.

Points: 86

The Benriach 37yo 1968/2006 (52%, OB, Batch 3, Hogshead #2712, 157 bottles)

Benriach, also known as The BenRiach. Founded in 1897, sold to Longmorn Distilleries Co. two years later and mothballed from 1903 to 1965. Wow, that’s a long time! Interesting about Benriach is that a lot of experiments were done there during the seventies (and eighties). Tests with peat, new oak etc. Lot’s of those experiments are released today.

Benriach issue several different vintages in batches. The first batch was released in 2004, the year Billy Walker bought the distillery along with Intra Trading. (These guys also bought Glendronach in 2008). Not a lot of experimenting with the bottle to be reviewed now. A bottle from the third batch released in 2006. Just a nice little hogshead filled in 1968 yielding only 157 bottles, quite the angels share, but still 52% ABV.

Color: Full gold, almost orange.

Nose: Waxy, elegant and promising body. Fruity, apple sauce, peaches and dried apricots. Dare I say waxy? Some dry powder and paper. Hint of banana. Creamy light vanilla. Crème brûlée and custard. Also some almonds and a slight hint of licorice are thrown in for good measure. Very balanced. Also it has a promising sweetness you would expect from a Bourbon. Very likeable nose, can’t go wrong with this. If you like fruity, you’ll love this!

Taste: Very elegant wood and a great creamy sweetness. Chewy mild banana and peach yoghurt and a hint of red or black fruit (candylike). A pinch of smoke in the back, and obviously some wood, but that’s ok, it hardly gives off some bitterness. A bit short and light finish with a slight inbalance.

Enjoyable, recommendable and very fruity. It could have gained triple A status if it would have some added bits that would counterpart the fruit. It is good/great, but lacks some complexity you would have expected of such an old malt.

Points: 89

Talisker Distillers Edition 1988/2001 (45.8%, OB, TD-S: 5CO)

We’re on a roll with those Taliskers, so why not continue the saga with another one. Maybe this less recent Distillers Edition? The Distillers Editions are finished expressions of the ‘normal’ Classic Malt line and was introduced in 1997. Then Cragganmore (Ruby Port), Dalwhinnie (Oloroso Sherry), Glenkinchie (Amontillado Sherry), Lagavulin (Pedro Ximinez Sherry), Oban (Montilla Fino Sherry) and Talisker (Amoroso Sherry) got treated to a happy marriage with a Sherry or Port. All said to be complements to the original style of the distillery, not overpowering it. Due to the success of the new range, expansion was to be expected. In 2006 a Distillers Edition of Caol Ila (already in european oak!) finished in Moscatel and Clynelish finished in Oloroso Sherry was issued. And last but not least in 2008 Royal Lochnagar finished in Muscat was issued. We’ll probably see more expressions released in the near future.

Color: Dark gold almost copper, a bit darker than the 10yo reviewed yesterday.

Nose: Fresh, sea spray, a bit musty and woody. Easily recognizable as a Talisker with added sweetness, toffee and some meat (often with Sherry).

Taste: it’s a Talisker all right. It seems to be less peaty, added licorice and more woody. The Amoroso casks do give off some extra wood. If you chew this whisky, you can easily detect the sourness that oak can give off. It’s not mere months the whisky was finished, but probably longer if not a few years. The oak is in the same spot where normally the pepper attack would be. I for one can’t detect the pepper anymore in this, and that’s a bit of a shame. Thick round body with a floral touch, violets maybe. I know that added caramel rounds out a body, but it seems to me the Amoroso does that trick here. Compared to the 10yo, this is more…ehhh round. All the extremes are toned down. Chewy and sweeter than the usual 10yo. Just a tad less balance in the finish.

I’m not convinced this is better or if this type of sherry is the best for Talisker. It’s good, but I prefer the 10yo. Funny how this resembles the 10yo more and more, when you let this breathe for a prolonged time in your glass. Interesting take on Talisker.

Points: 86

Talisker 10yo (45.8%, OB, Map Label, Circa 2002)

By special request a Talisker 10yo. Alas I don’t have a recent one open, so I’ll have to review an older expression that was bottled some ten years ago. I think this was from 2002 (L15R00029697), but it could be even some years older than that. Lot’s of names to distinguish the looks of the bottle, but this one should be the Map label (in Cream map box and a Brown glass bottle). Just have a look at the picture.

For those of you who have read my review of the 25yo from 2006, I don’t have to mention again how great I think Talisker is and how they are keeping the usual suspects on a high level of quality. Also consider the amount of Talisker they make these days!

Talisker saw the light of day in 1830. For a long time even, Talisker was triple distilled, but they stopped doing that in 1928. Like any good distillery they also had a big fire (1960). Talisker returned to form just two years later with exact copies of the destroyed equipment, mainly the five stills. In 1972 the malting closes. After that once in a while some equipment is replaced, but nothing major.

Color: Gold

Nose: Yeah, this is the good peat! Very elegant and classy! After that creamy and toffeelike. Fern, clay, plants on wet soil. Hints of orange skin, no tangerine skin. Warming nose and given some time it even gets salty which really is rather silly in a description of the nose. This really is what I like.

Taste: Sweet, pepper attack, pepper as in black-and-white power or licorice. Hint of apple instead of citrus. Again elegant and balanced, and really no wood to speak of. The pepper attack stays on the tongue for a while and get some toffee in. So nice. This really shows you it’s the base of the 25yo’s to be. Its nice, but shows you the potential in growth. Such a shame there isn’t a cask strength version of this. That really would have been something.

This profile is great and if you want this, you’ll have to pay some serious cash to buy yourself an old Islay whisky or even Brora. I know, an older expression of the standard 10yo Talisker is getting more pricey lately, but still nowhere near to the prices asked for the aforementioned bottles. Do yourself a favour and get it while you can, and beware, this is dangerously drinkable. This will be empty before you know it. I left myself a 125 ml sample of this, but I almost drank it all writing this! Stay away, just drink milk instead, its good for you, unless you are lactose intolerant I guess.

Points: 88

Redbreast 15yo (46%, OB, 2005 Batch [L53273071 11:54])

Bourbon week is over. The king is dead, long live the king. Now we’ll try a very nice one from Ireland. Ireland, like the USA like to call it Whiskey, with ana extra ‘e’. I’ve already tasted a lot of Irish whiskies, and I know that Redbreast 15yo is one of the best there is.

Redbreast ia a triple distilled pure pot-still Irish whisky from the New Middleton distillery from County Cork, owned by Pernod Ricard. This bottle is from a 2005 batch when it was still called “pure”. Due to new rules for whisk(e)y, “pure” was deemed to be a very confusing word, so now it is called a single pot still Irish Whiskey instead.

There’s only one other pot still whiskey these days and that’s Green Spot. Redbreast is a blend of old whiskies from sherry butts and bourbon barrels. The difference between a single malt and a single pot still Whiskey is that the latter also uses unmalted barley, and therefore cannot be named a single malt. Besides this there are a 12yo (40% ABV) and a new 12yo, which is 57.7% ABV.

Color: Dark Gold

Nose: Malty with red fruit, but red fruit in a spicy way, almost smells carbonated. Milk chocolate and clean. Definitively some wood shines through. probably some older casks in there than 15yo? After a while more meaty, like a good Flemish stew made with dark beer.

Taste: Red fruit and blueberries, blueberry candy. Unique. It’s something we like in 60’s Bowmores (just a 100 times cheaper). Very smooth. Mocha and a hint of caramel or toffee.  Some tree sap, and slightly bitter oak, or maybe bitter chocolate. Again, are there some older casks in here? Besides the dark fruits, I guess I am tasting banana and some coconut too. After some oxidation, the woody part is enhanced and the fruityness is a bit more subdued.

All in all a very nice example from Ireland. And it sure has a place of its own, since it’s different from anything from Scotland or the USA. This just has to be compared to both 12yo’s and Green Spot. Recommended.

Points: 86

Bourbon Week – Day 7: Parker’s Heritage 1996/2007 (63.7%, OB, First Edition, 750 ml)

Sadly the Bourbon week is almost over. I had a lot of fun with it and (re)discovered some true gems of American Distilling. I’ll definitively do another Bourbon Week again. So, to close this week off, here is the first edition of the Parker’s Heritage Collection of Heaven Hill. Distilled in 1996 the year of the fire, so we can’t be sure where this is distilled. If it is from before the fire, than it’s from the original distillery in Bardstown. If it is from after the fire it can be sourced from anywhere or even distilled by Heaven Hill distilled in another distillery where they rented time to distill. It’s not from the new plant (the old Bernheim plant in Louisville), since they started to distill there from 2000 onwards.

Color: Brown

Nose: Very deep slow-moving smell, that has to be force-sniffed out of the glass (a Glencairn). I’ll give it some time. On paper this seems to be a brute, and brutes can be very shy. Gravy with toffee, still very closed. Overall the gravy plays a big part as a component for this nose. Almost like it’s a syrup, a sense of foreboding. Like a giant, waiting to erupt. For now its still quiet. It smells of a caramel cain, or something we Dutch call “Hopjes” a kind of caramel, coffee, toffee candy. Yeah, that’s it. Slowly the wood comes out. Plain oak, no elegant polished mahogany, but slow-moving unpainted oak and sawdust. Mind you, the oak smell and the sawdust are two different smells. Also a food-like sourness that seems to be partnered with the gravy and the Hopjes.

Taste: Wow, what a body. Again dry wood combined with a rum-like depth and virtual sweetness. Tarry and thick. Halfway through a short burst of wood and char, that moves away again, to leave room for the return of the rum. It’s maybe a tad unbalanced in the finish and the strength and the deep refined taste doesn’t make this for everybody, but if you’re into this, well it doesn’t get any better than this. For me this is a Bourbon that didn’t have a lot of rye in the mash bill.

This is one where the word savoring was invented for. Just give this a lot of time, and you’ll thoroughly enjoy this. Just drink this when you have a moment alone for some contemplation. Don’t let it be interrupted by noise or by the feeling you still have to do something. A bedtime dram, when you’re the last one to go to bed. Top, have fun with it!

Points: 87

P.S. Reading around a bit, some claim this is a Wheated Bourbon made by Bernheim meant for Old Fitzgerald. others claim that it is made in the Original Heaven Hill Distillery (Bardstown) in April 1996, before the fire that was in November 1996. You decide what it is…