Discover Whisky

Hardly seems any time at all since the last Scotch Malt Whisky Society tasting at Queen St. but here we are again. Sadly Mike got sent off to London on business at the last minute - he missed at least two cracking malts.

Now before we go any further I’m going to talk about naming, because reviewing malts to the wider world is a bit awkward if you can’t tell people what distillery they come from. People don’t associate tastes with numbers the way they do with names. Up till now I’ve followed the SMWS line of only showing bottling numbers but in the context of a blog it’s all a bit artificial and anyone who wants to know the name can find it online anyway with very little effort. I’ve become aware that the main reason for continuing the “secrecy” is to prevent people thinking that the standard bottlings that you’ll find in your local off-licence are going to taste like the society’s specials, but given that we’re making it plain that these tastings are very much out of the ordinary I don’t see that as a real danger. So I trust they’ll forgive me naming the distilleries this time round.

So on to the first dram and what a choice to begin with!

1. Glenfarclas

The Society’s tasting panel name - Caribbean Beach Party

Bottling number - 1.151

10 years old, 63.3%

Colour
Medium light gold

Nose
Distinctively Glenfarclas, this took me back to a bottle that my best man bought me nearly 30 years ago. Robust, butterscotch, spicy, hint of rum, light smoke.

First taste
Incredibly rich and honeyed, sticky toffee pudding, a little Seville orange and a bit of peppery spice. This is seriously strong but to me it’s not overpowering, although some of my tasting compatriots found it so and immediately headed for the water. For a 10 year old this has incredible depth.

Second taste
The warmth and quality just gets better and better. Despite the strength the spirit only gives an edge to the richness and an accent to the touch of smoke that sits in the background. A little more fruit surprisingly appears as the taste matures in the mouth. The smws panel reckoned Papaya but I don’t know that taste well enough to say.

Finish
Long and spicy

Later
Unlike some malts that are left in the glass for a while it maintains all its integrity, dark spicy fruit notes are prominent.

I didn’t care to sully this with water - it was too good as it was - but it would probably have taken it quite well.

Conclusion
Glenfarclas is an old favourite of mine, particularly the 105 proof version and this was a supercharged version of that with oodles of depth and quality. As I said on the night, when you can drag me away from the west coast islands this is what can do it. And this bottling is remarkable value - I think Olaf said £43.50 (check out their site to make sure) which is scarcely more than a standard over-proof bottle. At that price it’ll be snapped up.

In complete contrast we moved on to

2. Glenkinchy

panel name - Exotic taste of summer
Bottling - 22.28

21 years, 54%

Colour
Pale yellow

Nose
Light. Melon and Lychee.

First taste
More complex than expected. Light on the tongue but quite vibrant. The far eastern fruits are there to match the nose but there’s a lot more going on underneath as well.

Second taste
Flowery notes come through, Elderflower perhaps.

Finish
Longer than expected given the lightness of the tastes

With water
Spicey dried fruit comes through but not in any overpowering sense, just enough to give more character.

Later
Some toffee notes. Not one to leave for too long but then you wouldn’t be doing that would you?

Conclusion
I could easily have used the word “unexpected” in just about every line of this tasting. This is a subtle and interesting whisky with far more depth than most Lowland malts that I’ve experienced. It would make a fine light apperitif or a summer afternoon dram, and I’d expect a lot of people to like this.

Our next is a real rarity and a possibly unique flavour:

3. Glenugie

Panel name - Tickled by monstera deliciosa
Bottling - 99.11

29 years, 43.4%

Colour
Pale honey

Nose
This one left us all feeling that we’d come across the major note before but none of us could place what it was. Maybe Apple Strudel? Waxy, a hint of diesel oil, leather, but there’s also something else that none of us could pin down.

First taste
Spangles (that was mentioned in the November tasting on a whisky I didn’t care for but the context is rather different this time), and all of the same flavours as mentioned in the nose.

Second taste
After much discussion someone came up with a touch of soft cheese. Very unusual.

Finish
Again cheesy, and longer than expected

With water
Not strong enough to withstand water which takes too much edge off it.

Conclusion
This is very unusual - I actually hadn’t heard of it before and you may never come across it again as the distillery, which was in Peterhead, is long gone. As a contrast to the others it was fascinating and provoked a lot of discussion.

In complete contrast again we moved on to the realms of sherry:

4. Tormore

Panel name - Pouring treacle on cut grass
Bottling - 105.13
26 years, 56%

Colour
Tawny sherry.

Nose
Brazil nuts, cherry cola. I was in close agreement with the society’s panel on this one - not always the case.

First taste
Cough syrup, black treacle, warm, upper mouth tastes. Lots of influence from the sherry cask it was matured in.

Second taste
Slightly bitter counterpoint to the sherry richness.

Finish
Medium long and rich.

with water
Opens out to a xmas cake taste.

Conclusion
Heavily sherried whiskies are seldom to my taste but this was a good one and my nearest neighbour at the table really enjoyed it. I wouldn’t drink it often but as a winter warmer and companion to the festive season I can see it being popular.

At this point I hadn’t read the society notes for our last whisky and Olaf told us he’d considered a fine Ardbeg but decided instead on this one. Hope rose in my taste buds immediately and I wasn’t disappointed because the first sniff identified it immediately. Short of handing me a gold bar he couldn’t have brought a bigger smile to my face.

5. Caol Ila

Panel name - Captain Pugwash
Bottling - 53.139

27 years, 55.2%

Colour
Pale yellow. Surprisingly none of the green tinge that it usually exhibits.

Nose
Unmistakeably Caol Ila but not quite as slap-in-your-face as some younger versions. Slightly medicinal as any Islay should be but not too much. Redolent with promise of wonderful tastes to come.

First taste
Heavenly!! Light and open, fragrant, peat smoky, complex, a hint of lime. Staggeringly good.

Second taste
And it gets better and better, so many layers of tastes interacting. Marvellously subtle. Some sweeter notes appearing, peach syrup. The society’s notes mentioned all sorts of seafood - scallops and lobsters and I can see where that’s coming from (oh for a glass of this with delicately cooked scallops in olive oil) but the whole amalgam almost defied analysis because it hung together so well. We talked about the bonfire-on-the-beach impression that I’ve used before to describe this so it was nice to have that confirmed.

Someone mentioned peatiness but here I disagree with common opinion - I don’t see Caol Ila as peaty but as peat smokey. To me peaty is the taste of those dark rivers in Perthshire, the taste you get in whiskies like Blair Atholl. Yes of course many Islays are peaty but Caol Ila has a much lighter flavour which is much more reminiscent of the light smoke and pure white ash you get from the dried peat briquets that are common in Ireland.

With water
Yeah right, wild horses could’t get me to put water in this, not even for a review. It’d be a crime.

Finish
Typical cask strength Caol Ila but much more so. It lasts and lasts and lasts and there isn’t a taste like it. (If there is somebody tell me what it is!)

Conclusion
Ok, you know I’m biased, but this is simply outstanding. Probably the best whisky I’ve tasted in the last 5 years and maybe a lot longer. I really can’t praise it enough. If I could get regular supplies of this I’d even walk past Talisker for it.

Overall Thoughts

A big thank you to Olaf for such a varied and interesting selection, with a big strong starter, a couple of thought-provoking and unusual tastes to follow, a big sherry flavour in the penultimate spot, and a spectacular finale to die for. When you’re trying to choose malts to match the tastes for a varied panel you usually have at least one that is a bit disappointing for at least a few of them - though which one it is is different for them all. This time I can say I enjoyed all of them in different ways and they all provoked memories and comment from the whole group. I have to mention the Glenfarclas because it was not only very good but also fabulous value. However Olaf and I had discussed previously that of all the distilleries there was only one which their tasting panel had never rejected a cask from, and that is Caol Ila. This one demonstrates why.

After cheese and oatcakes we headed downstairs for some convivial discussion - can you guess what Olaf and I were both drinking?

I remember, many years ago, trying Lagavulin a few weeks after finding Laphroaig too medicinal for my young palate, and quite liking it. However for some reason our paths have hardly ever crossed since then. Memory and changing tastes often play tricks so I was interested to see what my opinions of it would be now.

Lagavulin 16 year old, 43%

Colour

Deep amber

Nose

Oh, this is good. You can tell immediately. Warm, slightly salty.

Taste

Initial taste
Exactly like the nose, love at first sip. Brings to mind a warm summers day by the seashore with the grass warm under your feet. There’s a real feeling of mature quality; the fact that it’s older than the normal “standard” malts at 16 years old is very evident. It makes me wonder what the Laphroaig, which readers may remember I thought was not yet fully developed, would have been like at this age. I also wonder what the special 12 year old bottlings of Lagavulin will be like - I’ll definitely be finding out! Did I mention it was warm?

Later taste
The saltiness increases slightly, but not to excess as was threatened with the Bunnahabhain. A little caramel comes through, and increasing suggestions of sweet sherry. The sweet and the salty battle for supremacy but in the end they settle for parity in a balance that retains interest and vitality.

Finish

A strong distinctive finish that stays mostly at the front and sides of the tongue and lasts a long while.

Conclusion

This time the memory merely understated the quality - or the young tastebuds couldn’t yet appreciate it fully. I like this, a lot; better even than the Ardbeg and very close (though a rather different style) to the Caol Ila. It has something in common with Talisker in the rich complexity and saltiness. Perhaps a little more sherry and caramel than the Skye classic, perhaps not quite so many interwoven flavours, but very satisfying indeed. In my list of favourite standard single malts this has now taken a place in the top three - displacing Bowmore (which I’ll be reviewing next) and Highland Park - which is high praise indeed.

My only very slight concern is that any older versions might not be any better, as the sweet sherry flavours might take over, but I’ll happily try them out just in case!

For this first survey of Islay single malts I’m sticking as much as possible to standard versions that you should be able to get from most decent off-licenses (liquor stores for our American cousins). This will give us a comparison point when we come to the more exotic versions later on and will allow our less experienced readers to progress through the tastes with us on our explorations. Our journey starts with a malt known as the “hidden” Islay because it is far less well known than some of the others:

Caol Ila - 12 years old, 43%

Produced just a few hundred yards north of Port Askaig on the east coast of the island and looking over the sound to Jura. The name means “Sound of Islay”. The distillery, which once had its own puffer, was rebuilt in 1974.

Colour

The colour is a pale yellow, with not so much of the greenish tinge that some of the other variants of this malt often have.

Nose

The initial nose is subtle, and predominantly smoky. Deeper inhalation gives a warmer impression with a hint of iodine.

Taste

Initial taste impression
There is a balance of flavours here that makes analysis quite difficult. Smoke certainly but not overwhelming, and unlike a Dalwhinnie (much improved in recent years) there is a lot more going on than just good smoke. Peat, like any Islay, but again not overwhelming. There is a hint of … what is it? Liquorice? no not as strong as that, Black Treacle perhaps. The more you try to pin down individual tastes the more they slip away; just when you think you’ve tasted something sweet it turns into a hint of citrus.

A few sips later
There is some suggestion of grass, but definitely a salty grass, redolent of fresh winds sweeping across the machair - no possibility of this being from anywhere other than an island, it has Islay written all through it. A relaxed warmth on the front and centre of the tongue precedes a lovely peat influenced finish that lingers in the back of the throat.

Adding a (very) little water
Not as much effect as with the stronger proof versions but there seemed to be a subtle hint of rich bitter chocolate, which I must admit wasn’t what I expected.

But balance is the word I keep returning to, the overall taste is like all of these and none of these. There’s a natural balance of flavours here that master blenders would give their right arms for. You can see why this malt has been so popular for blending - apparently about 90% of their output goes into a number of blended whiskies. But thank heavens we have the pure malt available - it’s not that long ago that some single malts were simply never sold in their natural state.

Conclusion

Not as smack-in-the-mouth gorgeous as the cask strength versions I’ve had in the past but for a standard bottle of 12 year old 43% this is seriously good stuff. I may have to do an AB comparison against my long-time favourite Talisker in this category. I’ll need to do it soon before the Caol Ila bottle runs out - I seem to be becoming an Islay addict!

My next Caol Ila purchase may be a stronger proof version and it may have to wait till I’ve bought something else for the Islay tasting, but there will definitely be one. And if for any reason it had to be this standard version then I could live with that; this is a very good whisky indeed.

As part of our efforts here to keep focussed and get information on whisky, tasting notes etc out as quickly as possible we’ve been working hard to develop our new posting schedule - so that all of our subscribers are able to get regular updates.

From February we’ll be doing two ‘core’ postings a week.

• Mondays - The Discover Whisky Weekly Digest
  • Look at Whisky News from the week that was
  • Look at up coming stories
  • Interviews
• Thursdays - Discover Whisky Tasting Notes
  • Review of a whisky every week

February Whisky Tastings

Over February we’ll be posting four brand new tastings of Malts from across Scotland - Bill’s focussing on Islay whiskies so everyone better keep him right!

1. Caol Ila Malt Whisky Review ¹
2. Ancnoc 12 year old Review ²
3. Ardbeg ³
4. Glenmorangie ‘Qunita Ruban’ ⁴

That will bring us up to the end of February and we can start saving up our pennies to get some new reviews/tasting notes for March - I’ve got my eye on doing a tasting of Cragganmore ⁵ in March.

Thanks from Discover Whisky in January

Thanks this month go to the guys at Spencerfield Spirit - I’ve been chatting to Alex by email and on the phone and hope to get over to Fife to meet them. They’ve also got a blog - good to see that whisky is becoming big online and that lots of people are starting to get involved.

Footnotes

1. Caol Ila Website - they don’t seem to have a website so link points to an information page about Caol Ila
2. anCnoc Website
3. Ardbeg Website
4. Glenmorangie Website
5. Cragganmore Website - no Cragganmore website so this link points to an information page too

Slainte

Just as a good whisky matures over the years so do our taste buds. My first experiences of single malts were at the age of 18, and thinking back to the types that I enjoyed then they were vastly different to those that I now favour. Back then I appreciated smoothness; the soft, sometimes almost honeyed flavours of the Speyside malts, Glenfiddich, Glenmorangie, and with Glenlivet the undoubted king. In many ways this reflected my tastes in food, which were only just branching out from a fairly bland British culinary upbringing. Just as I appreciated a good steak over a modest stew, I could recognise the quality of rich smooth malts over the rougher blends.

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