Tag Archives: 1998

Tormore 14yo 1998/2013 (50%, Gordon & MacPhail, Exclusive for the Whisky Mercenary, First Fill Bourbon Barrel #1586, 277 bottles)

Easily the longest title for any of my blog posts. Finally summer is over, and the urge to drink some Whisky is back with a vengeance. Not that I’m happy about summer being over, especially when the last five years we hardly had a summer over here…

Next up to warm us up is a Gordon & MacPhail bottling of a 1998 Tormore, they bottled for The Whisky Mercenary a.k.a. Jürgen Vromans. Jürgen tries to pick some great casks for his own hobby-brand of Whiskies. Up ’till now Scottish and Irish products have been bottled under his own label. This time he picked a cask from Gordon & MacPhail. Gordon & MacPhail take their own casks to various distilleries and after they are filled, take them to their own warehouses for ageing. Gordon & MacPhail never sell a cask without it being bottled in one of their series.

Color: Light Gold

Nose: Floral, fresh and sweet, easily recognizable for a Tormore from a Bourbon Cask. They’re always a bit metallic, but in a way I like it. Just have a look here. It’s great to see, ehhh, smell the consistency, or distillery character. There are a lot of similarities between the Cadenhead 1984 and this 1998 Tormore. Nice balance between the sweetness of the nose and the wood spice from the cask. Quite perfumy, with a touch of smoke from the toasted cask, and floral (which is not soapy). Under this all some ginger and sugared yellow fruits, like dried apricots, which add to the complexity of the sweetness. This is how Tormore’s are and this is another fine example.

Taste: Less sweet than the nose let on to believe. Nice darkness with ginger, vanilla, paper and wood. The spiciness in combination with the brooding half-sweetness doesn’t let the finish become sour (from the oak). There is a fruitiness to it, and it seems to me to be from the black fruit department, blackberries? A little bit of mocha, toffee and/or unburnt caramel to round the Whisky off. Long nutty finish with a hint of mint. Pretty well-balanced stuff. I like it and I most definitely want it.

Nice Tormore by Gordon & MacPhail and for sure a great pick by Jürgen. A connoisseurs Whisky, otherwise Gordon & MacPhail wouldn’t have Jürgen take this away.  If you like the profile, this is a very nice Tormore, ánd I have to stress that I am a fan of whiskies @ 50% ABV. Excellent! I really love the Cadenhead but this is equally as good.

Points: 86

St. Magdalene 19yo 1979/1998 (63.8%, OB, Rare Malts Selection)

As mentioned before St. Magdalene is my favorite Lowland distillery. Compared to the others it seems St. Magdalene always was willing to show some muscle ánd being faithful to the Lowland style. I like lowlanders with a big body. A few days ago I reviewed a Douglas Laing Platinum Linlithgow from 1970, but for ages now this 19yo Rare Malts edition has been my favorite. I know this is only one style of St. Magdalene because there are also some really great St. Magdalenes from the 60’s bottled by Gordon & MacPhail. Those bottles look completely different (dark) and are bottled at 40% ABV, and still can be fabulous. As some of you might know I’m a member of “Het Genietschap” and luckily there’s also a whisky madman there (come to think of it, they all are whisky madmen and women over there), who has the tendency bringing those 60’s St. Magdalenes quite often. André thanks! I hope he lets me take a little sample home someday, so I can review it here…

Color: Gold

Nose: Sweet and full with hints of smoke and very nice wood. Caramel with a some cream and vanilla. Flowery quality, not so much grassy. Yellow fruit. Powder, slightly toasty and spicy again. Bonfire on a damp evening, after a drizzle. And after a while, a second wind. The is another explosion of aroma’s. This time more like sweet lemongrass vanilla yoghurt. The wood turns from spicy to sour. It’s a different ballgame now. More green components now. Plants after watering. Dry summer wind, laden with pollen. Vanilla Ice cream, clay. More smoke…It just goes on and on. One of the best lowlanders I know.

Taste: Sweet and here it is grassy, well more like hay. Big fruity body. Yeah this is my baby! it has some oak, but that’s far away and complements, transports the big bold body. Yellow fruit, hints of peach and a bit more than just a hint of pineapple. Like with the nose, this grows to. The body becomes even more big, with hints of rubber even, can you imagine that, in a Lowlander? The wood taste that emerges is just fabulous. Perfect sweetness that is kept on a leash by a new acidity. Fruity acidity, lime maybe? Not only the acidity, more and more a nice component from the wood makes this a three unity. Also, and this comes very late into the fold: a nutty component. Almonds and chestnuts. This whisky will never end…

I’ve had this lots of times and the fact everything happens in beautiful layers is what makes this whisky unique. Give it lots of time to let it all happen. Use a big copita they use for brandy or cognac. Forget about the strength and forget about water for the first hour you have this in the glass. Give it time, waltz it around in your glass, play with it, sniff it in tiers. Give it a chance and you’ll be rewarded. What a whisky, what an unusual great balance. WOW!

You know about those deserted islands questions? Well, I bring this and a Brora 1972 (and a glass), and worry about the rest later.

Points: 96

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