Although this violates my "10 year rule" with Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS") bottlings - I generally won't buy anything under 10 years old unless it's really unusual in some way, I've been burned by a few too many underbaked examples - I decided to take a chance on this 8 year Linkwood. Partly because there is no fancy cask finish - just the core Linkwood spirit and first-fill ex-bourbon barrels - and partly because I just really like what Linkwood brings to the table.
When Edradour - the smallest operating distillery in Scotland - peats their spirit, they release it under the label Ballechin, honoring a long-dead distillery of the same name that operated from 1810 to 1927. The original Ballechin was one of the original seven distilleries in Perthshire, Scotland - now, only Edradour is left.
They only started this heavily peated project in 2003, and this bottle is their third official release, from 2008. It's aged an unknown number of years, matured fully in port casks, bottled without coloration or filtering at 46% ABV. One of only 6000 bottles.
Sadly, The Wine Specialist on 20th St NW here in Washington DC is leaving their current location on July 30, 2022. They told me they'd be returning in 2023, but probably not at the current location - a shame, they were one of the friendlier spots down in the Dupont/Farragut Square neighborhoods to find decent sherry, port, cordials, and sometimes single malt scotch. I particularly miss the older gentleman behind the register who listened to loud jazz all day. Kindred spirit.
I've had quite a few Glen Scotia bottlings over the last two or three years, and I can safely say with full confidence: this is one funky distillery. Owned by the Loch Lomond Group - which is absolutely unafraid to experiment rather radically with their whiskies - Glen Scotia is every bit as funky as its Campbeltown brethren at Springbank and Kilkerran.
This independent bottling from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS") is heavily peated and aged eight years in a first fill bottle. While I am a bit leery of younger bottlings from the SMWS (ten times bitten, eleven times shy, or something like that), it's somewhat common knowledge that heavily peated spirit is at its most muscular, brash, and aggressive at younger ages, and the peat tends to fade away relatively quickly as the spirit enters its mid- to upper-teens. A great example of this is drinking Lagavulin 8 year back to back with the 16 year expression. The 16 year is lovely stuff (despite some recent batch variation) but is quite muted and suppressed compared to the "outspoken" 8 year.
It's safe to say at this point that I'm an enormous fan of Dailuaine, and will buy almost any bottling for their spirit that I find. The last bottle I had, a 9 year from Single Cask Nation, was just lovely front to back. The last sherried version I had, a Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS") bottle nicknamed "Jam-Packed With Darkness" was amazing, as it featured the signature "watermelon Jolly rancher"/"Sour Patch kid" note I get with Dailuaine, but with tons of rich sherry notes overlaid on top, which was surprisingly successful.
(Editor's Note: 10 days after covid, my sense of taste and smell seem to be restored. I have sampled a variety of foods and drinks that I know very well, and finally they all smell like they are supposed to, with a full array of richness and variety. Strangely, the thing that took the longest to come back was ketchup - go figure.)
Master Distiller Billy Walker is a highly divisive figure in scotch whisky. A former research chemist, he began overseeing the distilling process at BenRiach in 2004, and moved on in the 2010s to resurrect Glenglassaugh and - famously or infamously - GlenDronach.
His time at GlenDronach is fairly well known and also somewhat notorious: he added old stock to the various GlenDronach bottlings to enrich the flavor and build the brand's reputation... but when the old stock ran low, he purportedly began re-racking lower quality stock into fresh sherry casks, but not disclosing it. People noticed that the various age statements were tasting thinner and thinner, and some bottlings were noticeably worse than before.
