Macduff is turning out to be quite the high profile distillery. The independent bottlings are everywhere, and in all age categories. In quality the really old ones (from the ’70s) and the young ones (distilled around 2000) are generally received very well.

This samples from The Whisky Agency had been lying around for a while and I thought it was time to add the review to this here blog. It’s from the ‘bugs’ series.

Nose:
Quite a lot of sherry at first, with just as much oak in there. This is weird since its a bourbon cask… Big flavours with fruit and some spices to follow that up. Raisins, cinnamon, clove and dry roasted peanuts.

Taste:
The palate is rather smooth with a little teasing fizziness to it. It does build up nicely and is never specifically fruity while there are flavours of dried apricot with heaps of spices.

Finish:
I get mostly some nuttiness, wood with some fatty flavours. It goes down smoothly, almost too much so.

This is weird. I’m almost thinking that the label on the sample wasn’t correct since I would swear this one comes from a sherry cask. Apparently not, but I’ve been mislead more often with really old bourbon casks. Apart from which kind of cask it’s been drawn from, it’s a bloody good whisky!

Macduff 1973-2011, The Whisky Agency, Bugs series, 47%, Bourbon Hogshead, available at Gall & Gall Van der Boog for € 169.