Auchroisk 11 Year (SMWS 95.96 "Brake Dust on the Fuchs")

 

For the curious, the name of this is a Porsche reference. My uncle has more or less exclusively repaired and restored Porsches for the last ~50 years, and I have spent a lot of time around them (passively - never got to drive any of the customer cars, ha!). Fuchs is the company that made wheels for Porsche for decades, hence the reference to brake dust. Lots of soot/ash/oil going on in this bottle, I would guess.

Dalmore 12 Year (Berry Brothers and Rudd, "Coasts and Shores")

 

Every three or four months, I get together with a group of friends who have known each other since kindergarten - 40 years this September, which is mind-blowing. We tend to gather early in the morning and sip beer and spirits while reviewing our lives over the last quarter year, comparing and contrasting how life has treated us. Basically exactly what scotch whisky was invented for! 

Benrinnes 14 Year (Blackadder Raw Cask)

 

Today's bottle was one of those where I said to myself "Benrinnes ... surely I've had a boatload of Benrinnes!" ... and then looked at my archive and discovered no, I've only had three or four bottles of the stuff, and maybe a tot here or there at a tasting. So, in truth, I know very little about Benrinnes - owned by Diageo, founded in 1826 (one of the oldest), formerly known for triple distilling but giving that up in 2007, and a user of the vaunted worm tubs to condense during distillation. 

Unnamed Orkney (Highland Park) 15 Year (Berry Bros and Rudd)

 

Almost every time you see "Unnamed Orkney" or "Orkney Islands" on a bottle of independently bottled single malt Scotch, it's Highland Park. I don't know why The Edrington Group (who also owns Macallan and Glenrothes) are so weird about the name, it's an open secret, but there it is. I can't remember a single instance of "Orkney" meaning Scapa. 

Glencadam 13 Year (Single Cask Nation)

 

I had some store credit to use at Single Cask Nation (Thank you, Josh) and after much debate I picked up this most curious 13 year Glencadam. 

Glencadam is a distillery in the Highlands region owned by Angus Dundee, who also owns Tomintoul - which I have a sneaky and probably illegitimate liking for. My very first independent bottling tasting included a wonderful Tomintoul that tasted like marshmallows - I've never forgotten it. 

Laphroaig 9 Year (Single Cask Nation)

 

The second of two bottles I recently picked up from the fabulous gents at Single Cask Nation. This is a 9 year Laphroaig with the final 3.5 years in a second fill PX sherry hogshead. I also picked up their intense and flavorful 8 year Laphroaig a while back, so I'm curious how this compares. 

Bowmore 21 Year Old (Single Cask Nation)

 

Over the last six years or so I have come to REALLY enjoy Single Cask Nation bottlings. I've had the pleasure of actually meeting Josh and Jason, more than once, including an incredible tasting of their favorite SCN bottlings held at Jack Rose here in DC a couple years ago. 

Glenturret 13 Year (Berry Brothers & Rudd)

 

The third of my five Berry Brothers and Rudd (BBR) bottles I splurged on: a sherry-matured 13 year peated Glenturret (also known as Ruadh Maor). 

Ardmore 11 Year (Berry Bros & Rudd)

 

My review hiatus is, for now, ended: I have eight or nine bottles to work through in the next couple months. 

This one is a single cask Ardmore from Berry Brothers and Rudd. Berry Brothers and Rudd is a wine merchant originating in London, and was founded all the way back in 1698 (!), making them the oldest wine and spirits merchant in the UK. 

Until last week, they had no official presence in the United States, but they just opened their flagship store - and it happens to be here in Washington DC! In fact, steps away from an old office where I used to work. 

Caol Ila 14 Year (Single Cask Nation)

 

(Post this accidentally! Rather than go back and make up some banter, I'll present it as I have all my templates - the Single Cask Nation flavor notes, then my own. Enjoy!)

Glen Moray 13 Year (Single Cask Nation)

 

There is really a wide galaxy of flavor available in sherried scotch - both in terms of full maturation and finishing. Some are sugar sweet, dessert whiskies through and through; others - like this bottle from Single Cask Nation, a 13 year Glen Moray - are on the dry side, and lean into the more savory side of the equation. 

Ben Nevis 11 Year (Single Cask Nation)

 

I never really rated Ben Nevis until I met a whisky friend via the Scotch Malt Whisky Society who swore left and right that they were just as funky and rich as I found Ardmore. So I began exploring Ben Nevis, and soon after had a 15 year from Blackadder that just stunned me completely. Rich, farmy, funky, it was phenomenal. So I became a fan.

Caol Ila 11 Year (Blackadder Raw Cask, Sherry Butt finish)

 

Well, well, what do we have here? A sherry-finished Caol Ila of middle age, raw and unfiltered, presented by my favorite independent bottler? Sign me right up. 

Craigellachie 13 Year (Signatory Cask Strength)

Craigellachie has sort of come into its own, in terms of notoriety and reputation among dedicated whisky drinkers. Once confined to the dusty prisons of the back shelves, people are now taking notice of the robust spirit that has full flavor (and occasionally wildly meaty notes due to the sulfur molecules left behind by the worm rubs they still use). 

Benrinnes 16 Year (Blackadder Raw Cask, Montilla/PX wine finish)

 

This is an interesting one because it's a sister cask to the other Blackadder Benrinnes I had not long ago - that one was cask 309928 and was 15 years old with a rum finish. This is cask 309926, 16 years old and with an unusual Montilla PX finish. 

Linkwood 12 Year (Blackadder Raw Cask, PX Finish)

 

Linkwood is a distillery that is unknown to the public at large, but fairly well-known in the Scotch community. Owned by Diageo (and thus consigned to being blend fodder for Johnny Walker and such), there are myriad fantastic varieties from independent bottlers, almost all of which are known for delicate but persistent fresh grass or hay notes and rich orchard fruit. 

Ardmore 32 Year (SMWS 66.246 "Cigars, Sauternes And Sautéed Sultanas")

 

Very old whisky (30+ years) is always expensive. Part of this reflects high demand - whether or not that demand is justified - and part of it reflects the lengthy investment by the distillery. A cask racked in the warehouse for three decades is necessarily taking up the space that two 15 year whiskies could be using... or three 10 year whiskies, and so on. 

This 32 year old Ardmore - my favorite distillery - is a Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS") release, matured in a second-fill sherry butt for what appears to be the entire maturation. I assume the sherry butt was relatively inactive, to allow for a 30+ year maturation without over-oaking the whisky or saturating it in sherry and losing the distillery character. 

Ardmore 15 Year (SMWS 66.229 "Tarred and Re-feathered")

 

The previous Ardmore I had from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS") was a super chocolate bomb due to a really potent finish in a Trinidadian rum cask. Lovely stuff. This Ardmore - sequentially, the next cask they picked up from Ardmore - is finished in a PX sherry cask, so I'm hopeful for another good marriage of flavors. 

Ardnamurchan 6 Year (SMWS 149.3 "A Walk in the Woods")

 

Ardnamurchan is one of the newer distilleries in Scotland, and probably the most prominent of the new crop to emerge in the last decade or so. I've had a couple of their official bottlings (excellent) and also a single cask from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS") which was quite good, although a little offbeat. 

SMWS just released a couple more single cask bottlings from Ardnamurchan, and I picked them up. One is peated, one is unpeated; this is the unpeated offering. A brash 6 years old, filed under SMWS's Young & Sprightly category. 

Tamdhu 7 Year (SMWS 8.43 "Shaded by Flowers")

 

Tamdhu is an underrated distillery, founded in 1897, and currently owned by Ian MacLeod Distillers (Rosebank, Glengoyne, Smokehead blended, Sheep Dip blended, many more). I only see independent versions of it from time to time, and apparently it's been a long time since the Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS") had a cask from them. This cask, the 43rd that SMWS has released from Tamdhu, was matured for 7 years in a first fill PX sherry butt, and released as part of the 40th anniversary of the SMWS.