It’s always nice to find background information to certain bottlings. Like this label stating ‘oakwood casks’, contrary to all kinds of whisky that was matured in other kinds of wood.

Oh, wait. That doesn’t exist in the world of Scotch…

Anyway, Mannochmore isn’t one of those high roller distilleries in Speyside. Mostly used for blending purposes by Diageo, it is perhaps most well known for the Loch Dhu whisky, which consistently scores incredibly low, everywhere. The blended whiskies it is mostly used in, are Johnnie Walker and Haig.

Until that Fable release a couple of months ago, I don’t think I ever owned a bottle of Mannochmore, and apparently have never been tempted to buy one. Even though I’ve been drinking whisky with fervor for the last decade or two, there are quite some distilleries that have never made it to my shelf in their 70cl representation.

This one, apart from a sizeable lack of information on the label, is an oldie of which I got a samples from Tom T., a while ago. It was about time I wrote my notes for it.

Sniff:
The nose starts rather crisp with notes of fresh lemon, as well as candied lemon. There is barley and freshly cut grass. With a bit of time it gets a bit more rich, with notes of barley and some porridge. Some vanilla and oak too.

Sip:
The palate is intense, which isn’t too suprising with an ABV of slightly over 60%. Not awfully hot, though. Quite fruity with lemon, tangerine and apple. Fresh barley, vanilla, biscuits and tinned pineapple.

Swallow:
The finish is a bit more rich again, with more focus on oak and barley than before. Still, there’s a lot of yellow fruit with apple, pineapple, lemon.

With Mannochmore being rather under represented on this here blog, I have no idea whether or not this whisky is typical for the distillery and era of production. If so, I might have to look into getting some old Mannochmore. If not, who knows what will happen.

At least this one suits me very well. I like that there are notes of the barley that went into the whisky, the cask that contained it, but also lots of fruity notes that were not atypical for 70s distillate. Very good stuff indeed!

90/100