Tag Archives: 1990

North British 25yo 1964/1990 (46%, Signatory Vintage, Cask #10451-10454, 1300 bottles, 75cl)

Well lets end this month with something different. Wow! Look at the label. Pure Grain Scotch Whisky! Today we call this a Single Grain Whisky. North British was founded in 1885 and lies near Edinburgh, on the site of a former pig farm. North British is a joint venture between Diageo and The Edrington Group. I don’t think Diageo needs an introduction, but the Edrington Group today is best known for their Highland Park and Macallan distilleries and The Famous Grouse and Cutty Sark blends.

Grain whisky is usually made in a continuous column still. Most important is that this still operates continuously as opposed to a pot still. The alcohol from a continuous still is much cheaper to make. The spirit is made at a higher strength (ABV) and has less flavor, more neutral. This kind of whisky is made for blended whisky, and is not often bottled by itself. If bottled by itself, like this single grain, almost all of it is aged for a prolonged period of time, to get as much flavor as possible from the cask is matures in.

Color: Gold

Nose: Clean sweet rum. Not overly woody, but the wood speaks. Fantastically old and creamy. Lots of vanilla. Spicy and floral. The floral part does remind me of roadside flowers in bloom. A very summery feel, and we need summer just about now. Fresh butter, cookie dough, creamy and very lively. If I could, I would eat this!

Taste: It’s the hint of clean yellow, light rum, the nice wood, the creaminess and the vanilla that come right through into the taste, but that’s it, nothing more. It is great as an example of an old grain, and it’s likable and utterly drinkable. A whisky lemonade, gone before you know it. Just hook this up to a soda machine that adds bubbles to your drink. This will be your summer refreshment! Alas in a bit of a diluted fashion. This should have been cask strength probably. It’s fabulous and very, very, simple.

As I have found in the past, old grains usually do smell the part, but lack a bit in the taste department. This smells fantastic but has a very simple taste, with a finish to match. I found this whisky to gain a lot of taste and balance from a lot of breathing. Do you like it? You bet I do!

Points: 84

Thanks to Michel for providing the sample!

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

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