Bruichladdich 2003-2017, 14yo, Bourbon Barrel MoS 17015, 56.8% – Malts of Scotland

Posted on 12 April 2021 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

I’m not alone in this, although there are many who aren’t exactly agreeing with me too. I generally really love Bruichladdich with a bit of age, from a bourbon cask.

I know I can count on a lot of nodding heads when I say that Bruichladdich did some things wrong with the six million wine cask releases between 2005 and 2015, but lately they seem to be on a roll.

Image from Whiskybase

I got myself a sample of this some years ago, although I don’t remember where the sample came from. Bourbon cask. 14 years old. A good bottler. Sounds good right?

Sniff:
Beatifully malty, with a very coastal salinity. Some heavy woodsiness (intentional third s). Some mint, brine and sand. Golden syrup on pancakes, strangely.

Sip:
Dry barley, dusty husks. Quite sharp, dry oak, some Scottish tablet, maybe some apple with the salinity from before. Very coastal, and exactly the style that makes a ‘laddie good! Lots of minerals. Mossy rocks and such.

Swallow:
Warming and dry. Some charcoal, some old apple, some tablet. Lots of barley again. Very good stuff!

In a way this is very, very straight forward, but I feel that Bruichladdich shines when it does that. I like that the Islay coastalness is present, but it’s not with the ‘regional’ smoke that covers it all.

With this still being available for about € 100, this seems a very acceptably priced Laddie!

89/100

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Glen Albyn 1976-2012, Refill Sherry Butts, 43% – Gordon & MacPhail

Posted on 9 April 2021 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Jon Beach’s Advent Calendar wouldn’t be complete without a dram of all three former Inverness distilleries! The other two are reviewed already (Millburn and Glen Mhor), but the Glen Albyn was still lying in wait.

To be honest I am a bit surprised by the fact that all three of the distilleries in Inverness closed in the culling of the 1980s. It would seem more logical to close down distilleries in harder to reach locations instead of in a city with roads, railroads and a harbor available.

Glen Albyn 1976 GM
Image from Whiskybase

Probably the distilleries were quite outdated by the time they closed or just not efficient enough compared to others. Obviously the whisky went into blends mostly, and the character might not have been unique enough.

Anyway, luckily I’m alive in a time when this stuff can still be tasted every now and then, so let’s do that!

Sniff:
This is quite closed with only some scents of dry white oak, pear and barley. Even with time it stays rather timid, with some barley and oak, a whiff of orchard fruits, but not much else.

Sip:
Dry oak on the palate. Dry barley too. Licorice root, root beer, some stem ginger too. Some toffee, butterscotch.

Swallow:
The finish brings some pulpy wood, tree bark. Still licorice and root beer. Even though it’s quite timid all the way through, the finish is rather long and bring a hint of porridge.

It’s old, but there’s not a lot happening. The entire experience is fairly generic with a lot of aromas and flavors that just scream ‘whisky’! However, that is exactly what makes it generic.

Still, it’s absolutely not a bad dram, but I can see that this, from a blender’s perspective, is replacable by spirit from another distillery.

86/100

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Macallan 10, bottled in the late eighties, 40%

Posted on 8 April 2021 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
Image from Whiskybase

Macallan is one of those distilleries that have spent ages getting their reputation to a stellar level.

Age was important, golden promise barley was important, the best sherry casks from Jerez were important. Only to be kicked down again by themselves when suddenly all these things were no longer valid points.

Suddenly there was the Fine Oak range which diluted half their own arguments, and they followed that up by a nigh innumerable amount of releases without an age statement.

Of course, there are still great whiskies from the distillery, but you have to look for them, and have to be willing to shell out for them.

So, when you get the chance to try a dram from decades ago when everything was better (was it, really?), you do. So, tasting notes to a late eighties bottling of the regular 10 year old as it was then.

Sniff:
Very smooth with a lot of fruity sherry. Plums, dates, peaches, but on top of that a lot of Valencia oranges. It’s very gentle, but not thin.

Sip:
The palate has a note of black pepper that brings a bit of punch, but is otherwise a tad thin. More so than the nose. Still, there’s a lot of fruity sherry, oranges, peaches, mandarin. More oak than I expected too.

Swallow:
A bit dry on the finish, and nicely warm. It becomes a bit more malty and wood focused than it was before. Less fruity. Some raisins towards the end.

A good look into whisky from the eighties, and Macallan from the eighties, but with the relatively young age and low abv it falls quite short of greatness. In all honesty I expected more from this, and it doesn’t do Macallan’s reputation justice, I think.

86/100

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Glen Moray 1992-2018, 25yo, Bourbon Hogshead, 52.5% – Cadenhead

Posted on 7 April 2021 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

I generally quite like Glen Moray. Especially from independent bottlers, because the official bottlings tend to be rather too soft and gentle, almost a bit flat. Of course, they bottle all kinds of randomness at the distillery through the Distillery Only bottlings, up to peated sherry bombs even.

Back in 2011-ish the SMWS released some great 35 year old bottlings that I really loved, and Cadenhead has been releasing some early nineties stuff over the last couple of years. When this one showed up in Jon Beach’s Advent Calendar I was curious to find out where this one would land!

Sniff:
Fresh apple, dried apple, grilled pineapple, some honey sweetness. Sweet licorice, barley.

Sip:
The palate continues on the dried and grilled pineapple, with quite some honey sweetness. Some peppery heat from the alcohol, but otherwise a very comfortable dram to drink. Some baked apple sweetness, with sugary puff pastry. A bit of baking spice.

Swallow:
The finish shows more barley and less pineapple. Honey, caramel. All in all a bit sweeter on the finish. Slightly more typical of Glen Moray.

It’s very nicely fruity with quite some different flavors going on. The finish goes in the direction of generic Speyside honey flavors and doesn’t continue with the fruity notes of the palate, which is a bit of a pity. The licorice note on the nose was interesting too.

87/100

This is still available in Italy for € 119.

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The Brexiteer 27yo, 1991-2019, American Oak Barrel 7389, 46% – Whisky Center

Posted on 6 April 2021 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
Image from Whisky Center

The other sample I got sent from Whisky Center is The Brexiteer. A burnside blended malt, which we all know to be teaspooned Balvenie. Officially not a single malt but the amount of Glenfiddich in it is negligable, so it does taste like Balvenie.

Interestinly the label says it’s 28 years old but the math doesn’t check out, and it’s actually a 27 year old.

Burnside is also nowhere on the label, but it was mentioned in the tasting pack I got. I guess that’s smart since Burnside is a name mostly used by Cadenhead. Even Adelphi stopped using it after one or two bottlings, just to not claim someone else’s ‘brand name’.

Anyway, tasting notes!

Sniff:
Right off the bat there’s loads of barley, with dried lemon and moss. Slightly foresty, with ferns. Also some star fruit, and after a while there is old oak and earth.

Sip:
Dry on the palate, with white pepper for some heat. Dry oak shavings, star fruit and apple. Some white grapes too.

Swallow:
The finish shows more tree bark, less fruit and some wood spices. A bit mulchy even.

I would have expected a 27 year old Balvenie to be slightly more honey sweet than this one is. It might be that the honey-taste-receptors in my mouth had taken a day off of course, but it didn’t really show up. Then again, I don’t think that’s a bad thing because there’s quite a lot happening on the foresty-mulchy front, and I prefer slightly drier whiskies anyway.

In short, this is quite a good whisky, and for a 27 year old Balvenie quite acceptably priced at € 179 too.

88/100

Thanks a lot to DJK from Whisky Center for sending me the sample! Solid stuff!

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Ben Nevis MacDonald’s Traditional, 46%

Posted on 5 April 2021 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer
Image from Whiskybase

In a recent sample exchange, Tom chucked in a sample of this Ben Nevis NAS. In recent years this distillery has become much more popular up to a level that their regular 10 years old is more often sold out than it is available.

Only one small step ‘below’ it is the MacDonald’s Traditional and it’s only a step below it because it’s a NAS whisky. The price is about the same, and maybe that’s why this is quite easy to get hold of.

Let’s just dive in, and see where this one lands.

Sniff:
It’s quite malt forward, with a crisp scent behind it. Slate, snow, moss. Undercooked cookie dough, some vanilla and dried apple, and after that there’s a whiff of brown sugar.

Sip:
The palate is a bit more intense than a regular entry level NAS. That’s probably some peppery spiciness and the slightly higher ABV. Quite sweet with cookie dough and vanilla. Brown sugar too, with hints of barley.

Swallow:
The finish is a bit more green, with slightly more spirit driven and mossy notes. It’s also a bit less sweet with tree bark, ferns, fresh apple and pear.

When you approach this as an entry level dram, it’s quite a well done one. It’s not overly complex but is not just some random whisky on which some additional cask influence is forced. The spirit shows nicely and gives it a bit of richness.

So, a well done dram, one that warrants some sipping too.

85/100

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Springbank 12, 1991-2004, 46% – Hart Brothers

Posted on 2 April 2021 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

At a point in time when whisky was still a lot more affordable De Whiskykoning was not just a bottle-shop, but also an importer of several brands. Stuff happened and things changed, but there is still some stash from back in the day available in the shop.

What’s there mostly is Hart Brothers bottlings, like this Springbank. Distilled back in 1991, three decades ago. Of course, it’s not one of those 700 euro bottlings with a higher age, but it is a nice window into Springbank’s style of distillation for larger markets.

Sniff:
Funky and old fashioned. Hints of old leather shoes, moldy cellars, cement. Dried lemon slices, barley dust, some oak. A bit of coastal salinity, some dried apple, and a minor hint of rye bread. I guess that’s the grain and citrus mixed up.

Sip:
The palate has quite some minerals, but also hints of iron. One of the more metallic whiskies I’ve had, I think. Quite intense with barley, coastal salinity and minerals. The funkiness of the nose is dialed back quite a bit.

Swallow:
The finish is suddenly much more focused on weirdly sweet with overripe apples and pears, to the point of fermentation. Less coastal, still quite metallic. The funk is back with hints of mushrooms, moldy cellars, leather.

Well, this is quite hard to rate, to be honest. It’s more interesting than delicious, and actually ridiculously inconsistent. There is a lot to like though, and as an ‘easy drinker’ it’s quite fine. But when I sat down for it properly, some flaws show up.

Then again, even though there are those flaws, I enjoy this whisky. The metallic notes are not that nice to have, but the apples and pears in combination with the more coastal notes makes up for a lot.

86/100

Still available here

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Mortlach 1978-1998, 20yo, 62.2% – Rare Malts Selection

Posted on 31 March 2021 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

By now the Rare Malts Selection is quickly becoming the stuff of legend. It’s not even that all of them are stellar whiskies, but enough of them are to lift up the entire series. And when they are stellar, I mean truly stellar. Think of Brora, Clynelish, Port Ellen and Rosebank, for example.

Another thing that makes the Rare Malts selection stand out is the rather insane ABV that most of them are bottled at. It’s quite common to see these bottling at over 60%, while they are all pretty well aged whiskies.

What’s also funny is that Diageo tried to do something similar to this again with their Manager’s Choice. The entire project went down in flames, more or less. Of course, they are collecting some value nowadays, and some of them have always been (Lagavulin, Clynelish, Talisker). But for the first decade these were out, they just didn’t move.

Not too surprising, because who’s going to buy 9 year old Glenlossie at 200 euros?

Anyway, back to this Rare Malt. I got the sample from Jon Beach through his advent calendar. I’ve reviewed some whiskies of it in the past, while some others were already on the blog before. The summary of the entire calendar is that it contained no whisky I didn’t like, although not all my expectations were met.

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
True to character with hints of pan seared beef. Hay, straw, barn yard. Barley ears, lemon zest. Oak and a hint of beeswax, varnish.

Sip:
Dry and bees waxy, with ‘tea wax’, oak, barley. Again the slight hint of seared beef. Hay, straw, a bit farmy. Quite sharp, for the age, but not surprising with an ABV like this. Hints of cork, lemon rind.

Swallow:
A huge finish, that just doesn’t seem to dissipate. Dry with hints of cork, oak, straw. The waxiness is mostly gone.

This honestly just is what Mortlach does best, and it’s not even from a sherry cask. The beefy notes on the nose sound weird but are actually very, very tasty. Combined with the other notes and the massive ABV this makes for rollercoaster drinking, but all in a good way.

Of course, this stuff is unaffordable now (600 euros, as we speak), but even at that price I wouldn’t be disappointed.

90/100

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Craigellachie 2006-2021, Barrel 900942, 60.4% – Whisky Center (Ignatius I)

Posted on 30 March 2021 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

A couple of weeks ago Dirk Jan Keijser of Whisky Center kindly sent me some samples from a tasting pack he’s selling with Versaille Dranken in Nijmegen, if I’m not mistaken. It contained some Glenfiddichs which I still have to taste, and two samples of Whisky Center’s own bottlings.

So far, I’ve tried the Whisky Center bottlings, and this post is the review of the youngest one. A 14 year old Craigellachie bottled quite recently. At a massive ABV, I might add. Of course, being the semi-professional whisky geek, I verified all my information on this before I tried it, so I wouldn’t be blown away by the alcohol percentage of this whisky. NOT, obviously.

Sniff:
A rather rich nose, with old wood and soil/dirt/earth. Steeped barley, with hints of pine and a whiff of resin. White bread with poppy seeds.

Sip:
A somewhat sweeter arrival, but the dryness builds. Pink peppercorns, some honey and quite a lot of oak.

Swallow:
The finish is rather classic. Slightly thin, with some straw and grass. Hints of oak, some pine resin.

For a 14 year old whisky this shows quite some character. Luckily the ABV wasn’t too hot, and showed itself mostly in the dryness on the palate.

Overall it’s a tad thin, and that’s my greatest complaint about the whisky. I like that it showed the notes of pine and resin, with poppy seeds and therefore a rather different approach to a lot of middle-of-the-road Craigellachies. Which, let’s be honest, Craigellachie mostly is.

86/100

Image and sample provided by Whisky Center, thanks a lot! It’s available there, too.

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Glen Scotia 20, 1992-2012, Hogshead 08/71, 50.4% – Archives

Posted on 29 March 2021 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

If I’m not mistaken this was in the first batch of whiskies ever released by Archives, which has since become a more-or-less household name for whisky fanatics in The Netherlands, and abroad.

I got my hands on a bottle recently, when a fried of mine started pruning his collection. With this being a decently aged whisky from a distillery I like, it sounded like a good idea to do a share with it.

There’s a lot of junk in the glass, even though it was clean before I poured the whisky. Almost like a Blackadder Raw Cask, but without the bigger chunks.

I don’t really mind this, but it not something you come across often. Except, of course, with Blackadder’s whiskies.

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
On the nose there are some hints of charry wood, but that might be suggestive. Apart from that it’s fairly gentle, but there is more funkiness than normal for Glen Scotia. And Glen Scotia is not shy of being a little funky. Some custard, some hessian, some dried apple.

Sip:
The palate brings some heat, more than the nose suggests. Red chili peppers, dry oak, a lot of dryness. There’s sawdust, hessian, dried apples, old oak. It mellows with a little bit of time. It still has some of these charred wood notes, embers, soot.

Swallow:
The finish starts with some of the harshness again, some of the heat. The wood notes linger longest, and the funkiness is a bit more pronounced than it was on the palate.

It’s a solid whisky, with a bit of an off-kilter profile for Glen Scotia. Slightly less balanced with more funkiness than normal.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s keeping the whisky from scoring higher than the 86 points I’m giving it.

86/100

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