A while ago I organized a Bottle-Share with 8 bottles from Bladnoch, of which one was an original bottling and seven were bottlings for the Bladnoch Forum. Since these bottlings have an occasional gem between them, and they’re dirt cheap compared to other bottlers and whiskies of the same age, it sounded like a good idea!

The Bottlings were quite varied from all kinds of (former) Diageo distilleries that usually are used for blending purposes. You don’t see many Glenburgies and Benrinnes bottlings arounds, and even less distillery bottlings.

So, here’s the chart, as yesterday, counted down from 8 to 1.

• 8: Teaninich 27 – 50.7% (18 points / 2 stars)
• 8: Benrinnes 25 – 51% (18 points / 2 stars)
• 6: Balmenach 26 – 52.8% (24 points / 3 stars)
• 5: Glenburgie 26 – 53.7% (26 points / 3 stars)
• 4: Inchgower 28 – 50.7% (33 points / 4 stars)
• 3: Bladnoch 18 – 55% (4 stars)
• 2: Cragganmore 19 – 53.8% (34 points / 4 stars)
• 1: Cambus 24 – 52.7% (37 points / 5 stars)

When comparing notes to the other Bottle-Shares I have organized, I find that there are a lot of whiskies in the middle range. There are no overly ‘bad’ whiskies bottled, well, at least not those I picked up. On the other hand, there aren’t many exceptionally good whiskies either.

So, the drawbacks of the Bladnoch Forum bottles are that they’re not always as good as you’d like them to be. On the other hand, you really can’t beat a 24 year old cambus at € 60,- and cask strength.

That said, I kind of cheated with the Cambus, since I had tasted that one before and just HAD to get it in here. It is one of the best grain whiskies I have ever tried, especially at this age. Usually the good grains that pop up are forty something years old and you don’t encounter many in their twenties.

My conclusion of this Bottle-Share was that I had good fun doing it, but I’m not likely to go for Bladnoch bottles again anytime soon. There are too many mediocre whiskies in their mix. The next Bottle-Share will be somewhere in October, I think.