I don’t really try whiskies from the Maltman that often. It’s one of those bottlers that I know exists and releases rather high-scoring drams, most of the time. But when push comes to shove I often have to make a snap decision, and with prices as they are, I don’t want to take the generally rather expensive guess.

I guess that’s one of my peeves with the brand, that they’re a bit on the expensive side. And while that generally results in high quality whisky, you don’t really need to take the expensive guesses and therefore the bottles are not often on my shelf. More or less the same story for Adelphi, for example.

This Blended Malt was the third whisky sample I got from BvdP, like the Rare Ayrshire and the Benromach, and was tasted blind. Because of the blind tasting thing, I also didn’t know the ABV, and this came last, following the almost 60% ABV Benromach, so that might not have been the best idea, but you can’t undrink a whisky anymore than you can unsee your nan in her knickers.

This 27 year old Blended Malt consists of Caol Ila, Aberfeldy, Aberlour, Bruichladdich, Tomatin, Cardhu, Pittyvaich and Glenallachie. So there’s even a closed distillery in there. I always wonder, and not necessarily from a skeptical point of view, why one would blend a cask of Pittyvaich into something like this. The same goes for Aberfeldy, since that’s not known as the most charachterful whisky, so what would it bring to a blend like this?

I guess we’ll never know. What we might know, is what the result tastes like…

Sniff:
Tropical fruits with lots of oak and baking spices. Some walnuts and hazelnuts, spiced cake and milk chocolate.

Sip:
A lot more thin than I expected based on the nose (there’s the low ABV for you). Some dry, mulchy oak for a bit of bite, with dried apricots, figs and dates.

Swallow:
Again, dry with spices and fruits. Tree bark, baking spices and a bit of a dark chocolate bitterness.

This one definitely didn’t benifit from being third in line, but even then it did make itself known. So, there’s quite enough flavor in general, despite being a tad thin on the palate.

It’s a very traditional sherry’d whisky with lots of baking spices and dried fruit. The tree bark notes indicate some European Oak casks to me, but I might be wrong there. All in all a very solid whisky with some decent age to it.

At the price it’s not exactly a bargain, but with 27 years of age and knowing the track record of the bottler, it’s not too bad either. It’s still available for about € 165 in The Netherlands.

87/100