Tag Archives: 15yo

Springbank 15yo (46%, OB, Circa 2003)

So the Springbank 10yo is always a nice dram and really affordable to boot. Springbank 15yo is usually quite a different dram, never simply only an older version of the 10yo. We already know there always is quite some batch variation with Springbank, and we love that. Not every consecutive 15yo is similar to the previous one, and now the 15yo is not a mere step up of the 10yo. Apart from the taste of it, probably the reason a lot of anoraks love Springbank. So without further ado lets finish off this rotten year 2015 (at least for me it was) and aim for a better year in 2016. So I’ll see you again next year, in good health. Slainthe!

Springbank 15yo (circa 2003)Color: Orange gold.

Nose: Funky Sherry, right from the bat, mixed with fresh air. Something completely different from the 10yo. More fruity with fruity acidity from all kinds of different fruits. Apply acidity as well as acidity from dark fruits. Dry and dusty. Lean and sharp, as opposed to the fatty vanilla from the 10yo. It’s not just an older version of the 10yo. Small hints of peat as well as (only) a small hint of the clay and wax from the 10yo at first, but these aroma’s, as well as the sweetness, develop a lot over time, so give it time to grow. Wonderful stuff.

Taste: Sweetish, red fruits, cloying syrup. A bit Port like. Toasted cask. Peatier than the 10yo, but the peat is well hidden behind the Sherry notes. Definitely a lot drier and fruitier from the 10yo. Alas, just like the 10yo, this has not the longest of finishes and the aftertaste is not particularly big as well. Lovely development towards more fatty peat and oil and sweet tar and a hint of licorice and sugared black tea. Extremely well made and balanced.

I remember when this was released, it wasn’t a very popular bottling. Sure it deviated quite a bit from the usual Campbeltown profile. Even today the 15yo isn’t the most popular Springbank. People seem to dish out more for the old 10yo than for this old 15yo. I’m just happy it is here and it is different from the 10yo. I love both, but for me the Sherry brings something new to the Springbank table, and therefore will score this slightly higher (and because I like it more).

Points: 86

Glenfarclas 15yo (46%, OB, Circa 2006)

Almost three and a half years ago I reviewed it’s older brother from the same series, the 25yo. Rummaging through samples stored (read: misplaced) all over the place, I found this 15yo, as well as the 21yo, which I will review next. These two are samples of the standard range Glenfarclas from more or less ten years ago. Today the label look different, although the dumpy bottle stayed. So without further ado, I give you Glenfarclas 15yo.

Glenfarclas 25yo (43%, OB, Circa 2006)Color: Orange gold.

Nose: Dusty and dry, hints of Wine and Sherry. Creamy with vanilla and some nice soft oak. A perfumed woody wind seems to emanate from my glass. The perfumy, jasmine tea, bit seems more powerful with air, up to the point you could almost wear it. Next a cardboardy note joins the slightly minty florality. It smells nice, not “wrong” as most soapy notes often do. Quite some depth. Notes of roasted beef, covered in black pepper as well as toasted oak. Wow, the diversity of aroma’s the Sherry has given this Whisky is amazing. I’ll call this “oriental”.

Taste: Starts with oak and wood, with a smooth and slippery mouthfeel. Some burned oak and cardboard again. Luckily the cardboardy notes don’t ruin this Whisky at all. Warming, fruity and aromatic. Not heavy, cloying of full of raisins. Nope this Sherry is more lively and fruity. This one is bottled at 46% ABV, where as the 21 and the 25yo are 43% ABV. The slightly higher strength hold it up beautifully. Beer-like finish, some burnt notes. The Sherry returns in the aftertaste, but the charcoal, burnt wood notes never leave. Not overly complex.

Well, one thing is for shure, they don’t make them like this anymore. Although this was bottled almost 10 years ago, I can’t imagine the current 15yo will taste, and smell, anything like this. But I could be wrong. I hope I’ll get the chance to try some more recent bottlings of “standard” Glenfarclas (apart from the 21yo I’ll review next).

Points: 83

Borgoe 15yo “Single Barrel” (40%, Suriname)

After the pride of the SAB company why not move on and have a look at their Grande Dame. Where the 8yo was released in 2006 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of SAB, this 15yo “Single Barrel” was released in 2011 to commemorate the 45th anniversary. Maybe next november we’ll see the next anniversary bottling, a 20yo maybe? The 8yo and the 15yo thus are specials, but there is also a more standard range Borgoe. The first one of those is called the Borgoe ’82 “The Jubilee Blend”, the second is called the Borgoe “Extra”  and the third and last one is the Borgoe 5yo “Vintage”. By the way, all White Rums made by SAB have different brand names, so Borgoe only exists as a Golden (or Dark) Rum, whichever word you prefer. Borgoe uses both simultaneously.

Borgoe 15yoColor: Orange gold.

Nose: Very funky smelling. Still caramel and toffee, but there is a lot more going on. Very nutty. Organic clay. After the fatty and creamy introduction, Wood and deep sugared fruits. Honey with dark brown banana skin. This is completely different from the 8yo, not just an older version of it. I’m not completely sure everything is as it should be , but whatever it is, I love it. Fresh cigar box wood. Pencil shavings and dust. Just like the 8yo, the aroma’s it started with take a back-seat and it turns more dry. Smells like a worthy super premium Rum to me.

Taste: It starts out with the simple sugary sweetness, like the 8yo, as well as the fresh woody bit. After that, everything changes and it becomes incomparable to the 8yo. Where the 8yo went down in a hurry, this 15yo sticks to your throat and takes a long time to get down, developing along the way. Perfect balance between the nose and the taste. Again the thick creamy and nutty aroma. Tiny hint of burnt wood bitterness, but that only aids the wonderful taste. Excellent length in the wonderful tasting finish and a good aftertaste. Some tiny acidic wood note appears in the aftertaste, but that is hardly a problem, when so much other aroma’s keep lingering on. This one is far from tasting “thin” even when it shares the low ABV of the 8yo: 40%.

One thing strikes me as odd. The website mentions: “Our own master blender created this special Rum along with the best Rum makers of the Caribbean” and on the back label it states: “The golden rum was selected from each single barrel by our master blender and blended to ultimate perfection”. So several Rum professionals created this Rum or only their master blender? How can this be from a single barrel and be blended? Did they blend the Rum, put it back into a barrel, marrying it and then bottling it from a single barrel? Strange…

Twice the age of the 8yo, twice the price of the 8yo but also twice the taste of the 8yo. Definitely worth the money, if you can find it, because it seems quite hard to get lately.

Points: 86

Bruichladdich 15yo (46%, OB, First Edition, 2003)

Earlier I reviewed the Bruichladdich 10yo. That was one from the first batches to be released, right after the distillery was sold to Mark Reinier & Co. The first releases were that 10yo, the 15yo I’m about to review and a 20yo. Ten years ago that is how a standard range looked. Age was everything back then. Today we’re not that far removed from an age, where age statements seem to be only for people with Lamborghini’s. Real ones, and I don’t mean the tractors too. It’s all about demand people. The 10yo I mentioned before didn’t float my boat, so I’m not sure what to expect with this 15yo. Let’s have a go shall we?

Bruichladdich 15yo (46%, OB, 2003)Color: Medium gold.

Nose: Reminds me of the 2003 10yo with just some more of everything, in fact, this one doesn’t want to stay in your glass! Fresh citrussy barley. Hint of peat and a little bit of smoke. Smells quite sweet for such a Malt. Garden bonfire. The sweetness is fatty and oily, or you can call these aroma’s well-integrated.  The more I smell this, and the more air it gets, the better it becomes. By now it’s already way better than it’s 10yo brother (or sister). Nice succulent wood, again integrated with the sweetness. Hints of vanilla, not much, and fresh, some distant fruitiness. I spoke too soon. The vanilla part grows bigger with more air and becomes creamy. Sweet yoghurt with peach. Lovely. Great balance and quite appetizing. I hope it tastes as good.

Taste: Quite sweet and very creamy with a woody, bitter edge to it. Again the sweet yoghurt with peach and toffee. Reminds me a bit of the great Bourbon casked Whiskies from the seventies. Great entry and a similarly great body. Not a lot of development though, but with something that tastes this great, who cares? Towards the end of the body the slightly peated toffee sweetness takes a step back and lets the wood through. It’s there, without taking over, barely though. You felt it coming: “but”. The flaw is in the finish. It breaks down a bit and is slightly shorter than the nose and the great body suggested. A wee bit too much reduced? Yes I know, its 46% ABV., but that doesn’t matter. This is how reduction with water, sometimes alters the finish. The aftertaste moves in to the territory of soap and stale beer and a minute amount of hops, but that sounds worse than it actually is, so don’t worry. Not a lot is left in the aftertaste, and there is only one remedy for that. Take another sip so it all starts all over again.

Points: 85

El Dorado 15yo “Special Reserve” (43%, Guyana)

Almost three years ago I reviewed the 12yo El Dorado, and it’s time to move up a bit. This 15yo “Special Reserve” is not simply a three year older version of the 12yo, no, it’s a different product altogether. A long time ago Guyana had lots of distilleries, but today only once remains. It’s called Diamond. Every time a distillery closed, it’s still(s) were carefully removed and placed at another distillery. This went on for some time untill only Diamond remained. Diamond thus has lots and lots of stills from distilleries that are closed, and they are not the least known names in Rum, with Enmore, Uitvlugt, Versailles and Port Morant among them. This gives Demerara Distillers Ltd. (DDL) a lot of possibilities in blending their Rums.

For instance. The 12yo contains Rum that was made predominantly in a Two Column Metal English Coffey Still (SVW), a still that was originally at Diamond. Added to that is a Rum made in the Enmore wooden Coffey still (EHV).

The 15yo also has predominantly SVW with an addition of EHV, but the 15yo has more, it also has a large amount of Rum made with the double wooden pot still from Port Mourant (PM) and little bit from the Versailles single wooden pot still (VSG). Doesn’t that sound like a match made in heaven?

El Dorado 15yo (43%, Guyana)Color: Caramel copper orange brown.

Nose: Less sweet and it has more oak than the 12yo. The sweet part also has more depth to it. Caramel and toffee obviously with a tiny hint of latex paint. Cloves. It may sound crazy but the sweetness seems drier and has a slightly burnt note to it. Tarry maybe or even meaty. Smoked dried meat and salty and dusty Caribbean winds. On top a wonderful elegance. Add to that the spicy and vegetal note of oak and we have a winner here, well wait, I haven’t tasted it yet, but the nose is wonderful.

Taste: The oak and spiciness are the first aroma’s you’ll encounter. Burnt Sugar, slightly tarry and a faint hint of sugar itself, but yes, it’s sweet. Silky sweet. Cask toast and reminiscent of Cognac. Give it some time and the oak is not only dry, spicy, vegetal with wet wood, no, it also releases the aroma of waxy vanilla pods, which emerge like the sun coming up in the morning. Wonderful combination of flavours. Complex and entertaining. Long finish with a wonderful balanced aftertaste, with a shift in time towards vanilla. Before the vanilla aftertaste, the finish gets a bit of the fruity acidity that reminds me of the Abuelo 12yo, which I don’t care for too much. It distorts the balance a bit, but in this case the rest of the components are so strong, this El Dorado knows how to deal with that. Just sayin’. Sure, this has added sugar and it is too sweet (it dominates the finish and aftertaste). Luckily the Demerara Rum, this is, knows how to deal with it, making this 15yo a Rum worth your time and money.

No, this surely is not an older version of the 12yo. This 15yo is so good it makes the already great 12yo and simple entry-level Rum. Not true. If you want a sweet and supple Rum, get the 12yo. If you want a more woody and spicy Rum, get this 15yo. Or better, get both! This must be one of the secret hidden gems of the Rum world. This is something I will have around as long as its available and tastes like this. Excellent. Don’t get it, please leave everything for me!

Points: 88

Pusser’s British Navy Rum “Nelson’s Blood” 15yo (40%, 2013, British Virgin Islands)

To make it a trio of Navy Rums over here at Master Quill is easy. At arm’s length I have the wonderful Pusser’s 15yo, a small batch Rum. Yes a Rum that has actually matured for at least 15 years in Bourbon Barrels. Or so they say. Pusser’s make the claim that (part of this Rum for sure) comes from century-old wooden stills and that the Rums are sourced from Guyana (Port Mourant is made with wooden stills), but also Rums from Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad (all three not from wooden stills). Another claim made by Pusser’s is that some of the Rums were fermented in open vats where naturally occurring yeasts ferment the sugars in around 72 hours. Pusser’s 15yo contains added sugar.

Pusser's British Navy Rum 15yoColor: Orange Brown.

Nose: Thick fatty nose. High ester Rum from Jamaica meets Demerara Rum from Guyana. Add to that some brown sugar. Those two are pretty obvious. Just like the Red Label I reviewed the day before yesterday, both heavy types of Rum  don’t stay around too much. They just popped in to say hi and sort of left. Caramel, dark chocolate with sugared mint. (After Eight). Vanilla powder, raisins and slightly herbal. Sweet smelling and well-balanced. Brown sugar and milk chocolate. Definitely from the same family as the Pusser’s Red Label, but heavier and overall even “better” smelling. Again farmy notes. Elegant wood, old shop interior. Charred wood. Great complexity, this keeps on giving and giving. Wonderful.

Taste: Sweet and syrupy at first, followed by a dry Jamaican style high ester Rum. Hints of vanilla and do I detect some cola and ahorn syrup? Here we don’t have a heavy Demerara note. This is just too easily drinkable and just a bit too smooth. This really needs a higher ABV sister version. It’s also quite sweet, maybe they’ve added a bit too much extra sugar. Demerara and Jamaica should bring enough sweetness (or aroma) to the mix. This somehow almost seems like an addictive taste to me. It’s hard to put down, despite its sweetness. There is something about this Rum. I still can’t quite put my finger on it, but I like it very much. If a gun was put to my head and I had to think of something I would say its the Jamaican bit in this Rum…

I adore this 15yo, it’s an amazing blend. When I start with a Rum like this, it’s hard to put down. Everything seems right, everything is well-integrated, and even the bottle it comes from looks great. It’s just a wee bit too smooth and a wee bit too sweet. This should have been bottled at a higher strength. Even the simpler version I just reviewed is bottled at 42%. There even exists a higher strength version, bottled at 54.5% ABV. Please make a higher strength version of this blend too, please!

Points: 87

Laphroaig Week – Day 1: Laphroaig 15yo (43%, OB, Box, Circa 2005)

Laphroaig SignSecond of March and it’s still winter over here. Days starting with scraping ice from car windows and the occasional slippery road. Now and then a faint, watery sunshine and even a snowflake was spotted this year (luckily). Since this is primarily a blog about Whisky, why not try seven Islay Whiskies for conditions like this? Seven I hear you say? Yes you understood correctly. You know what that means, another Master Quill Week! I already mentioned Islay, but what are we going to do with Islay? Not too long ago we already shared a Bowmore Week, and yes, now it’s time for another week about a single distillery (from Islay). This time we’ll be focussing on Laphroaig, as you already might have guessed considering the sign above. Why another Islay Distillery? Simple, because I felt like it! But it’s not ony that. 2015 marks the 200th anniversary of Laphroaig! Up untill now three Laphroaigs graced these pages with their presence. At first an independent bottling by The Ultimate, next up was the official 30yo and last, but alas also least, the new Laphroaig NAS named ‘Select’. These three are a selection of official and independent Laphroaigs, a selection of Bourbon and Sherry casks. This week will be no different. Today we’ll have a look at the boxed version of the 15yo. In 2006 Laphroaig replaced the box for a tube, and I’m guessing this example is probably from just before that time. Laphroaig 15 BoxColor: Ocher gold. Nose: Ahhh great fruity peat. Yellow and red fruits. Black coal. Coal dust and ever so slightly tarry. Small hints of vanilla ice-cream. A truly fantastic nose. Just the nose alone shows you that Whiskies like this can’t be made anymore. Maybe this is an older expression of the 15yo (bottled before 2005)? Slightly burnt wire and steam. Hints of cooked vegetables emerge over time. Taste: Sweet, clay and fruity again. Not very peaty and the taste is much simpler than the nose was. Hints of almond shavings and a kind of delayed warming sensation. Elegant and pretty old tasting peat. Part of this Whisky must come from older casks. Crushed beetle, and cask toast in the finish. Burnt wood. Almonds ánd Amaretto combined with some sugared yellow fruits. Cancel my remark about (the lack of) complexity. Not true. It needed some time to develop. Given even some more time the fruitiness develops more and more into Amaretto and the peat develops into a wonderful kind of peat, ashes and a little bit of smoke. Top notch! Extremely different from my first love from around that time, the 10yo at export strength (43% ABV). Remember the 20cl hip-flask bottle? This 15yo is a lot more elegant and nicely crafted. Utterly complex and a wonderful companion to that 10yo. I haven’t even mentioned the cask strength version of the 10yo from that time. What a trio that was. Life was good back then! By the way, Laphroaig will be releasing several one-off special  bottling commemorating their 200th anniversary and supposedly one of them will be a 15yo. Hope it is anything like this boxed 15yo.

Points: 89

Aberlour 15yo 1988/2003 (50%, Douglas Laing, Old Malt Cask, DL REF 875, 306 bottles)

After all that recent stuff, today it’s time for an oldie from Douglas Laing. Here we have an Aberlour that was already bottled in 2003. Almost all Aberlours that find their way into the realm of independent bottlers seem to come from Bourbon casks or sometimes unusual, or (atypical for Aberlour), Sherry casks. Looking at the color, the amount of bottles drawn from the cask (at 50% ABV), I’m guessing this will be not too far from another independent Aberlour I reviewed earlier.

Aberlour 15yo 1988/2003 (50%, Douglas Laing, Old Malt Cask, DL REF 875, 306 bottles)Color: Sparkling light gold.

Nose: Fresh. Fruity, papaya and some passion fruit, with vanilla. Seems to me this came from a Bourbon Hogshead. Very clean and winey, but also some cold and fresh real butter. Some oak and residual sugar. Quite some aroma, since this leaps right out off the glass. Well balanced, but not very complex. Dusty. Low on spiciness, which is typical American oak.

Taste: Sweet, spicy and definitely some oak now. Quite hot. Somewhat fruity and sweet with typical vanilla and pudding aroma’s, and also some toffee and caramel. A desert in itself. Just like the nose, this is aromatic but not very complex. Medium length finish.

Totally anonymous typical ex-Bourbon casked Whisky. Lots of these Whiskies make a good dram and the beauty lies in the details. Just have a look at some bottles from independent bottles who get a chance to select their casks and find that beauty (like The Whisky Mercenary). With this example however, the Whisky is unmistakable good yet anonymous. This could have been anything. Lots of bottles like this were released by the bigger independent bottlers like Douglas Laing and especially Cadenhead’s, who for a while seemed to have some kind of monopoly on Whiskies from refill Bourbon casks. So not bad, but anonymous.

Compared to the Golden Cask Aberlour I mentioned above, I think the Golden Cask version had slightly more to say and was also slightly more complex. This Douglas Laing version was sweeter and therefore more easily accessible and likable.

Points: 84

Glen Moray 15yo 1998/2013 (46%, Cadenhead, Bourbon Hogsheads, 684 bottles)

This is the third Glen Moray on these pages. Although I use a 100 points scare for scoring drinks, and in my opinion Whisky is one of the best drinks around. Whisky usually scores in the upper ranges of that scale. So any good Whisky scores at least 80 points. Both Glen Moray’s I reviewed before, one 13yo Dun Bheagan, and one official 8yo, didn’t make it across the 80 points-line and are therefore considered bu connoisseurs to be “mediocre” at best. However, if you read my reviews carefully, they still have enough going for them, and are still pretty good drinks, or pretty good Whiskies for that matter. It’s just that a lot of Whiskies score higher than these Glen Moray’s. But here is another Glen Moray, one by Cadenhead, so lets see if this will score in the 80’s or even higher?

Glen Moray 15yo 1998/2013 (46%, Cadenhead, Bourbon Hogsheads, 684 bottles)Color: White wine.

Nose: Quite closed, or isn’t there much happening. Alcohol, hints of sweet yellow fruits. Even though it isn’t a white wine finish were Glen Moray are almost famous for, it does remind me of a white wine finished Glen Moray. Hints of margarine and vanilla. Soft touch of oak. Very restrained, it just smells like fresh air.

Taste: Yes typical thin Glen Moray again. A crumb of old dark chocolate. A little bit of oak, and an acidity resembling a wine finish. Usually Glen Moray tends to get overly sweet after a wine finish, and I can’t say that’s the case here. Lots of maltiness and a little bit of paper and bitter oak in the finish. Good, it gives it character. Anything better than that strange acidity.

Extremely light color, again casks (probably two) that weren’t very active any more. I am not completely sure this isn’t a white wine finish. A very clean expression, and that’s me being positive, because not a lot seems to be happening here… (Mind you, this is still a damn good drink!)

Points: 76

Glenfiddich 15yo “Distillery Edition” (51%, OB, Litre)

Glenfiddich is still the mother of all Single Malts and deserves our respect, even when snuffed about by connoisseurs. That in fact would be very unfair, since a lot of (older) Glenfiddichs have proven themselves to be more than great. It has been more than a year and a half when I reviewed the 15yo Solera Reserve and now comes the time I’ll review another 15yo. This time the 15yo distillery edition.

Glenfiddich 15yo Distillery EditionSome time ago there used to be a 15yo Cask Strength, which was exactly 51% ABV too, just like this one, so I can’t help but feel this is it’s replacement. Who else in their right mind would think that all Glenfiddichs at Cask Strength come out at precisely at 51% ABV? The 15yo is also a pretty special age statement for Glenfiddich, since all hand bottled Glenfiddichs were released as 15yo’s.

Color: Copper gold

Nose: Spicy and creamy sweet. Hints of, slightly soapy wood and quite heavy on the caramel. Damp earth, fresh-cut grass and quite some Sherry influence. Typical sugared vanilla note from ex-Bourbon casks. Vegetal but also dried meat combined with wood-spice. Sawdust and dry. Whiffs of fresh air drift by. Not bad at all…

Taste: Starts with sweet wood and a spicy and slightly acidic red wine note, although this probably hasn’t seen a wine cask. Sherry must have “done” that. The sweetness sticks and stays right through the finish. Licorice and vanilla. Full and nutty body. Nice fruitiness shows up in the finish.

A nice Glenfiddich aided by higher strength, showing this has more potential than the usual 40% ABV Glenfiddichs. I know Glenfiddich is seen by many as an easy and simple entry-level Single Malt, but if you are able to look past that there is a lot of potential here. Definitely a mixture od ex-Bourbon and ex-Sherry casks (which is also stated on the label). Like so many Glenfiddichs this is decently priced, and considering this is 15yo, comes in a litre bottle, has 51% ABV and still doesn’t cost much, this would be a stong contender for any bang-for-you-buck award. Recommended.

Points: 83