Whisky Online Blog

Laphroaig 15 red label.... 'Hello!'

You may or may not know but my day job is as the whisky and wine specialist at a Glasgow based auction house called Mulberry Bank. When I took the job earlier this year I was very keen to instigate pre-sale tastings. Auction houses are generally quite stuffy places, lots of beards, shadows, dark corners, tweed jackets, crusty diamond earrings dangling from crustier ears and dust. Thankfully our auction house is the opposite, open, bright, spacious and, unsurprisingly, a pleasantly calm shade of mulberry. I was keen to embrace and promote whisky as something for drinking rather than as mere collectable tokens of profit. This was the inspiration behind putting together tastings that focus on old style, rare and antique bottlings. Last Friday we had our first of these pre-sale tastings, my tasting notes from the bottles we opened are below. It may have been my own tasting but without wanting to sound big headed I think it was one of the best line-ups for any UK based tasting this year. Ok that did sound big headed, but the point is essentially that in the uk these kind of bottles rarely feature in whisky tastings. It speaks volumes about the appreciation gap between UK based and continental whisky aficionados. There are good reasons for this. Firstly the majority of the ‘old bottlings’, many of which are amongst the greatest whiskies ever bottled, were largely done for Italy and various other continental European markets. Also the majority of people connected with whisky in Scotland work in the industry and as such are naturally more concerned with current market products. They shy away from talking about the fact that their whiskies have changed over the years, or bottle ageing, or any of the other issues that  these kinds of tastings unearth and serious whisky nerds tend to concern themselves with. So with that in mind I was keen to try and do a few old style tastings in Scotland. 

Glenmorangie 10yo. OB. 1980-1990. Single cask number: 4318. 60%. 75cl.

An old series of single cask, cask strength bottlings that are now becoming quite rare.

Colour: Gold

Nose: A nice balance between the old and the new. Clearly from a fresh bourbon cask with its aromas of linseed oil, vanilla pods, honeycomb, nutmeg and rice pudding. A very fresh and quite inviting profile that, even at cask strength, is in no way aggressive or overly hot. With time it begins to unveil notes of eucalyptus, fresh parsley, tinned chickpeas, graphite oil and a little fragrant wax. Open up further with orange liqueurs, marmalade, fragile spices and some fresh garden fruits. Really lovely development and a profile that I would describe as very classically Glenmorangie. That is fragrantly spicy, aromatic and elegant, not really a proper highlander in style but not a speysider either, something more individual between the two. Anyway I think you would be hard pressed to find a Glenmorangie these days that has this kind of aromatic complexity. Lets add water… With water it develops beautifully on green tea, wild flowers, minerals, more of these very natural and nuanced vanilla tones and some soft heathery notes. Hints of white pepper, flints, cereals, buttered toast and lilies. Wonderful stuff.

Palate: At full strength this is a big minty, spicy and oily whisky, loads of character and a big mouthfeel. Lots of sweet flavours on top of a more drying, soft tannic sensation. Excellent composure. Leafy and fresh with notes of soot, olive oil, earl grey tea, liquorice, mead, toasted brioche, fresh butter and spicy pumpkin soup. A rare example of a perfect bourbon matured winter dram, warming, balanced and with great depth of flavour. A lovely peppery quality as well that keeps you on your toes. With water: brilliant. A rich, spicy and fantastically concentrated dram, lots of green and earthy complexity and some quite resinous qualities as well. The balance between wood and spirit seems just about perfect.

Finish: Long, slightly mentholated, spicy, a little farmy, oily and with traces of minerals.

Comments: Glenmorangie are probably the leading exponents of modern wood technology these days but I think they have gone too far in that direction and the character of their great distillate has been lost. This is by far the best Glenmorangie I have tasted in years, it shows beautiful complexity, personality, development and balance. Clearly from a relatively active bourbon cask but not one that is so rigorously designed and controlled as to force the spirit into some kind of unified, souless conformity. This bottling shows just how good a fresh bourbon cask can be with Glenmorangie when the balance is struck right and the distillate is a allowed a little more free expression. Is this an extinct style of Glenmorangie?

Score: 91/100

Bowmore 12yo OB. Brown dumpy. Rotation late 1970s/early 1980s. Plastic screw cap. 40%. 75cl.

There are many versions of this one around, almost all seem to be very good.

Colour: Gold

Nose: A little tight at first but it is a freshly opened bottle. Lets give it a couple of minutes. Ahh now it speaks, typically lush tropical notes although its more focues on tinned fruits rather that the fresh fleshy kind. Lots of syrupy tinned pineapples, passion fruit puree and guava with hints of honeysuckle and a wonderfully resinous background saltiness. Those coastal notes become more and more dominant, dried seaweed, licks of brine, some lemon wax, wet pebbles and finally some very fragrant peat oils and wildflowers. A lovely mix of soft peat, mineral, coastal and tropical notes. Very typical of these old official Bowmores and not a speck of perfume in sight.

Palate: Big for 40%! Very salty, almost like burned salt, tropical fruits again, fresh ones this time, camphor, peat smoke, some very stony mineral notes, like licking wet salty granite. Brown bread, some yeasty gueze beer notes, sharp citrus juice, pineapple, citrus rind, limoncello and hospital gauze. Quite an acrid and powerful profile, very direct and not too easy but undeniably classy and quite beautiful as well. Again we’re very far away from the 80s perfumery style. More subtle floral notes of white flowers and honeysuckle come through after a while, then something like salted honey. Quite an intriguing palate, very entertaining.

Finish: Good length, very warming and full of fragrant smoke, heather and seaweed flavours, more minerals, flowers, salts and fruits. Great.

Comments: These old Bowmore dumpy OB bottlings are not hard to find and are generally all fantastic, I’ve never had a bad one.

Score: 91/100

Bowmore 21yo. OB. Seagull Label. Rotation early-mid 1990s. Batch code: L482A. 43%. 70cl.

The old 21yo bottlings were almost all stunners. If I’m not mistaken the last ‘vintage’ 12yo was the 1973. Which means this one was probably bottled around 1994/95. Anyway, it was certainly distilled in the early 1970s so were in very safe territory.

Colour: Light Amber

Nose: Quite a bit of polished sherry at first which is a bit surprising. Again a freshly opened bottle may take a while to open up. It quickly opens onto all kinds of soft, fleshy tropical fruit aromas, a big exotic fruit salad with background notes of creosote, freshly poured tar, old rope, hessian, some beautifully rich ‘aged’ qualities and fresh peaches. Really beautiful and ever so slightly understated which only adds to the charm. After time some soft notes of bonfire smoke, violets, sultanas and other dried fruits begin to come through. This is a beautifully composed nose and a style that I really adore, proper old school Bowmore. Further delicate notes of medicine, lychee, lemon skins and wax. Wonderful.

Palate: Big, drying, saline, resinous and very fruity, like a tropical fruit juice. A fantastically nervous balance between drying salty and coastal notes and big lush tropical characters. More of these great notes of seaweed, wax, tar, minerals, orange peel, lemon oil, some smoked cereals and oily medical notes like a suggestion of tcp. Still quite resinous and camphory on one side and immensely fresh, breezy and tropical on the other, a real multifaceted dram. Gets a little minty after time with also some more drying herbal qualities, like a rosemary eau de vie or something equally bizarre. Lemon thyme, wet pebbles and bitter chocolate.

Finish: Super long, clean, drying, very tropical and lively, wakes you up brilliantly. Leaves a salty crust around your gums (in a good way).

Comments: The 21yo bottlings were always superior to the 25′s in my wee opinion. This is maybe not as majestic as some of the earlier ‘vintage’ 21′s but this is still brilliant and delicious whisky.

Score: 92/100

Glenlochy 1969-1994. 25yo Rare Malts OB. 62.2% 75cl. 

From one of the very first batches of Rare Malts released back in 1994. Like many of the early batches this was a low outrun bottling and there are several different examples at varying strengths. All of them are now particularly hard to find.

Colour: Straw

Nose: Thick and quite astoundingly creamy on the nose at first, like some kind of vanilla infused motor oil. Notes of riesling, white pepper, petrol, cut grass, olive oil, lemon wax, pebbles, white fruits and minerals. Quite expressive at cask strength with surprisingly non intrusive alcohol. Becomes typically old highland and farmy with some wonderful notes of hay, stables and sheeps wool. With water: it beacame kind of ‘wider’ although it is still quite austere with lots of mineral and oily qualities. Dunnage, wet earth, soft peat, a touch of salt and more farmy notes. This is no easy whisky but it is still wonderfully creamy, quite an old style charmer.

Palate: Big and drying with notes of roast chestnuts, eucalyptus, white truffle oil, wild mushrooms, vegetal notes and some very savoury cereal notes. A little quiet and closed on the palate at full strength, lets try with water…  more of these creamy notes now, luxuriously creamy in fact but now with a huge herbal quality as well, like a dry herbal liqueur. A little medicinal as well with more mushroomy notes but also some fresher flavours of lemons and bay leaves. Quite light for a Glenlochy but still very elegant, austere, old style and complex.

Finish: Long, leafy, oily and mineral with notes of graphite oil, baked cereals, malted barley, vanilla cream and black tea.

Comments: I adore Glenlochy and this doesn’t disappoint, it’s a little lighter than I was expecting, old Glenlochys from this era are often a little more ‘extreme’. But this is a delightfully elegant and charming old style malt. Glenlochy is always a joy to drink, one of the most consistent of the silent distilleries.

91/100

Laphroaig 15yo OB. Red 15 label ‘Unblended’. Cork seal. Rotation mid 1980s. UK market. 40%. 75cl. 

Colour: Light gold

Nose: A cavalcade of tropical fruits, bandages, oysters, seaweed, antiseptic, iodine and creosote. What a blinding nose! The topical character is super intense and the peat a little quieter than normal, you might well mistake this for an old 60s Bowmore given it blind. It evolves further with notes of lemon wax, coal, camphor, sea air and yet more intense tropical complexity. Just simply stunning, the kind of fruit quality that simply does not exist in modern whisky.

Palate: Powerful at 40% as only Laphroaig can be. Drying, dusty seaweed notes with masses of tropical fruit salad over the top. Crushed sea salt, fresh top quality espresso, dark chocoalte, devastatingly quaffable, you could demolish a bottle of this in an hour with a couple of whisky chums by your side. Burnt peat, bonfire smoke, green fruits as well, moss, charcoal, barbecue sauce, tar, tcp, mouthwash, fresh mint, eucalyptus oils, Tunes throat sweets, dried herbs, many different kinds of tea, milk and Euthymol toothpaste. Lets stop this madness.

Finish: Hugely medicinal, drying, coastal and endless with a gloriously oily and green fading peat quality.

Comments: If I had to pick a distillery that has undergone the greatest extremes of change in character due to the modernisation of its production process then I’d pick Laphroaig. I’d love to see the guys at Laphroaig who insist their whisky hasn’t changed over the years taste something like this next to the current 10yo. It could almost be from a different distillery.

Score: 94/100

Balvenie-Glenlivet ‘As We Get It’. Macfarlane, Bruce & Co Ltd Inverness. Rotation early 1970s (around 1971/72). 105.2 Proof. 26 2/3 floz (75.7cl).

This was one of the earliest bottlings under the ‘As We Get It’ banner, a title that has been used by several different companies over the years. Macfarlane, Bruce & Co were the first if I’m not mistaken. There are several versions of this one floating around, most are fantastic so I have high hopes for this one.

Colour: White wine

Nose: Unmistakeably old school despite the heat of the high alcohol at first sniffing. A sackful of minerals, wet rocks, flints, all kinds of wax, white flowers, toasted cereals, lemon juice, turpentine and sheeps wool. Gun oil , steel wool, salt, sawdust and some quite pungent farmyard aromas as well. This is very close so some old Clynelish white label with its huge but stunningly beautiful austerity. Big notes of petrol and buttered toast, another one of these old style malts that smells very much like a great aged Riesling. Hints of silage, stables, motor oil and other oily industrial characters. And all this without even adding water! Lets try that now… water doesn’t change it too much, it just somehow becomes oilier, wider and richer. The waxy qualities become more fragrant and there are more of these notes of grass, citrus and wildflowers. It keeps on developing though, you could sit with this for hours probably.

Palate: Neat: this is a huge whisky, immensely waxy, oily, petroly, gree, flinty, oddly coastal and fat. Touches of camphor, medicine, peat, more massive oily notes and some beautifully smatterings of green and citrus fruits. About as extreme in this old style as it is possible to get, super clean but also very grumpy, difficult and wild, not at all sexy, swish or easy like so many modern malts. God I love this. More notes of flowers, hay, muesli, porridge, boiled grains, coal, masses of waxy mineral notes, butterscotch and tablet. If you like this extreme old style akin to old pre-Brora Clynelish then you’ll adore this. With water: it becomes a bit more savoury and bready but there are still these beautiful flourishes of old school sweetness, fresh malt, slight vegetality and notes of mashed potatoes. It’s still massively waxy, mineral and austere.

Finish: Super long, buttery, fat, oily, laden with white fruits, hessian, sheeps wool, hay, metallic notes, more wax, flints and cereals.

Comments: What a brilliant dram! It might as well be from another planet compared to modern Speysiders, let alone modern young Balvenies. The level on this bottle and the screw cap seal were both perfect which means that this whisky is probably as close as is possible to how it was when it was bottled. Combine that with that fact that it is almost certainly a very young whisky, certainly younger than 10, and it has come from very ‘quiet’ wood and you have an invaluable window onto a long departed style of distillate. These characters just aren’t found in modern Scottish whisky making sadly. Of course this style isn’t for everyone but I adore it and I think this is a particularly stunning example. What the hell did they do at Balvenie to eradicate such a distinctive character?!

Score: 94/100

People begin to take their seats for the tasting.

If you are one of the lucky people who attended this tasting and are wondering where the infamous Highland Park tasting notes are then rest assured they have been made but I’m holding them back for a particularly stellar christmas tasting that I am in the process of putting together.

As for the rest of you who didn’t go, this was just the first of what will hopefully be many tastings. The next auction is scheduled for March 28th so the pre-sale tasting will almost certainly be around about the 27th. Keep your diaries free and make a point of being in Glasgow then because if you thought this one was brilliant then just wait till you see what we’ll be tasting next time.

On a personal level 2010 has been a year of extreme ups and downs, thankfully whisky was always part of the ups so I look back on the last twelve months and am happy to see them filled with many great and glorious drams, memories and friends. Probably the biggest whisky development for me was starting this blog which I have enjoyed very much so far and will continue to develop it through 2011. The tastings aspect of it will change quite dramatically in the new year as I am about to go traveling and I suspect there are not quite as many samples of rare and interesting malt whisky to be found in South America (although you never know). In the coming months you can expect to find more scribbling about such spirits as Pisco, Cachaca, Rum, Tequila, Mezcal and various American Whiskeys. However in the meantime I have decided to save the best of 2010 till last. Many writers/commentators/bloggers like to do a top drams of the year thing at this time and while I would like to do that I’m really not up to speed with current releases enough and I’d much rather just do some notes on the one dram that stands out above all others, not necessarily in terms of sheer quality but for its wonderful history and gobsmacking emotional power. It’s this old baby right here…

Mackie's Ancient Brand

Malt Mill!!! Well sort of, actually its not Malt Mill but rather a blend that used Malt Mill as a base malt. This was opened by Serge at his 50th Birthday party much to everyone’s delight. It was bottled for the American market sometime around the early forties and bears a spring cap. There was also a UK version called ‘Mackie’s Ancient Scotch’ and even a version that stated ‘Malt Mill’ on the label although Nick Morgan from Diageo assures us that Malt Mill was never bottled as a single malt (a huge bummer for the legions of whisky loons that would invert their own grandmother to taste the stuff) so this is probably as close as we’ll ever get to trying Malt Mill. But what is Malt Mill and who is this Mackie character? Well…

The site of the old Malt Mill distillery as it appears today at Lagavulin.

In the early 1900s there was a famous whisky man named Peter Mackie, a resourceful, forceful and notorious whisky maker and seller who was fortunate enough to be the agent for both Lagavulin (a distillery he owned) and the neighboring Laphroaig. However in 1907 he lost the agency for Laphroaig and out of spite and frustration decided to make his own Laphroaig up the road at Lagavulin. However as we all know by now it is, for various mystical and scientific reasons, pretty much impossible to completely replicate another distillery’s make at a different site. So Mr Mackie did not make Laphroaig but he did end up making Malt Mill and he must have found a use for it because it was made as a single malt until 1960. It was said to be one of the most heavily peated spirits ever produced, with floor malted barley dried with exceptionally old, deep dug peat. Direct fired stills, worm tubs and long ferments would all have contributed to an exceptionally dense and old style make. The stills used in the latter days of production were modeled on Lagavulin and in fact when the two distilleries were merged into one in 1960 the stills from Malt Mill were used to make Lagavulin until 1969 when the distillery was modernised. So if you can get your hands on any of the old official Lagavulin white label 12yo bottlings from between 1972-79 then there’s a good chance that all the liquid inside was distilled through Malt Mill’s stills. We tasted a 1979 rotation 12yo on Islay a couple of years ago and it was, like most old OB Lagavulins, stunning, about 95/100 if I remember correctly. So who knows, Malt Mill was probably stunning as a single malt. I asked Nick Morgan from Diageo about the possibility of any Malt Mill existing in sample bottles anywhere in the archives. I thought this might be a real possibility as blenders and excisemen were always taking samples for the labs and several could still exist. The answer was a not too encouraging ‘probably not’ but not a definite no so that’s something at least. There is one known sample in existence, a tiny bottle of new make spirit from the last distillation in 1960, a clear glass bottle sealed with red wax that is occasionally displayed at the distillery. Needless to say, persuading Diageo to open this bottle would be like trying to get the Queen to make a cameo in a porn film.

If you tinker with the Google-tron it will inevitably regurgitate this image for you, apparently an old bottle of Malt Mill, if Diageo are correct this must either be a blend or, far more likely, a great, big, dirty, stinking FAKE! So it seems that the only thing we can do (obviously when I say ‘we’ I mean me, sorry about that) is taste this Mackie’s stuff.

Unfortunately reading the back label reveals it is undoubtedly a blend. Every repetition of the word 'blended' reads like a stab in the palate

Mackie’s Ancient Brand. US Import. Rotation early 1940s. Spring Cap. 4/5 Quarts. 86.8 proof. (Malt Mill blended probably with Lagavulin and, sadly, some grain whisky also, impossible to know for sure though what the mix is.)

Colour: Dark, dirty gold with a real greenish tinge. (This is probably from the corruption of the metal and paper underside of the spring cap seal.)

Nose: Well this is the most peaty blend I’ve ever encountered, it jumps out of the glass and across the room before you even stick your nose in there. In fact it is a good deal peatier than many ‘heavily peated’ malts, that intense aroma of raw, root, earthy, dark peat is more pronounced and intense than anything you’ll find current bottlings of Octomore or Supernova, they appear positively limp wristed by comparison to this thing. Massive notes of seashore, boiled seaweed, wet dogs, thick, simmering, crusty peat, tincture, engine oil, peat oil, grist, malt barns, green olives in brine and some fruity notes of fig rolls and dried apricots as well. Sultanas, menthol, steel wool and other beautiful old style metallic notes of rusty iron, graphite and pencil shavings. Camphor, seashore, hessian, minerals, soot, various spices, a little soap and iodine. Very old school, like an old OB Lagavulin 12yo but with more oomph.

Palate: Soft delivery but again the peat flavours are massive and concentrated, very coastal, oily and now a little waxy as well with even more naked minerality. Green notes and more metallic characters with some raisins, creosote, tar, fishnets, kreels, cordite, eucalyptus, aloe vera, white spirit, muesli and old workshops and farmyard flavours. Very immense and very old school, quite incredible after so long in bottle, something to be said for spring caps. Further notes of earth and medicine with salt and pepper and more simmering spiciness. Green fruity flourishes in the background and becomes eventually quite elegant with some notes of varnish and beeswax.

Finish: Long, oily and, yes, very peaty. Beautiful metallic notes, menthol, medicine and seawater notes.

Comments: I am reliably informed that this is very similar to an old 1950′s rotation bottle of Lagavulin, if this is so it would probably mean that Malt Mill was quite a bit heavier than Lagavulin, if you can imagine such a thing. Anyway there is no way to know for sure what the make up of this blend is but it definitely contains a high proportion of Malt Mill and in terms of taste, you’d be forgiven for saying it was 100% malt. It’s a beast.

Score: I’m reluctant to score this because it’s such a pointless thing to score really. In purely olfactory analytical terms I think it’s worth 93/100 but on an emotional level and considering I’m probably never going to taste such a thing again, then it’s more like 100/100. Huge thanks to Serge for opening this quaffable little time capsule.

There is always one last dram to be had for the patient ones among us...

Now, there is one last thing to be done. It is around this time each year that people hand out awards, best dram, best distillery, that kind of fluff. Anyway I have a wee award to be given out, not your average one though, as someone who sells a lot of bottles of whisky I get the opportunity to read many labels and marketing bumpf. So it is with great honor that I announce the first winner of the ‘Whisky Online Whisky Bull Shit Of The Year Award’

There have been many valiant attempts this year, the marketing droids just seem to push themselves further and further each year, Glengoyne, Laphroaig and Jura all made valiant efforts, as did repeat offenders and old favourites Bruichladdich but lets celebrate a newcomer instead, the winner by a mile is Tobermory! Their vomit inducing effort on the booklet enclosed with this year’s 15yo expression was whisky bullshit of the highest order. In case you missed it I’ll recreate it here in all its bowel-knotting glory.

“There are only a small number of bottles available around the world of this jewel-like 15 year old dram, but its exceptional provenance and the craftsmanship it is imbued with, are perceptible in every rare drop.

Perhaps inspired by being in the world-famous Tobermory distillery (founded 1798 and still the island’s only distillery), our Master Blender Ian MacMillan, a man of 35 years’ experience, is an obsessively dedicated artisan and perfectionist. Not content with the standard 15 year period of aging, he developed a rare dual-location-maturation; first transferring the spirit into gloriously refined Gonzales Byass Oloroso Sherry casks and then painstakingly moving each cask from the mainland, where the whisky develops, back to the island for its final year. Here they look out on to the Sound Of Mull allowing the delicate liquids within to absorb the Inner Hebrides’ life-giving ocean mists.”

What a piece of work I think you’ll agree, as soon as you’ve finished with the sick bucket I invite you to enjoy one last time that most breathtaking of closing phrases “the inner hebrides’ life giving ocean mists.” What a money shot that was, think of the marketing offices the length and breadth of the whisky world full of young executives tentatively placing an old service revolver to their temples as they see in one line the ultimate potential of whisky bullshit laid out in Godlike glory before them. Unattainable, unbeatable and suitably incomprehensible, how could anyone top that? Tune in next year to find out.

From all of us at whisky online, have a fantastic hogmanay and all the best for the new year. I hope you all start 2011 as you mean to continue, I know I will.

Slante!

Glengoyne, "untainted by humility or common-sense."

I like Glengoyne, it’s one of those spirits that seems to age to fruit laced perfection between 28-38 years while younger expressions often display a spicy, flavoursome verve. In short: frequently delicious, often complex, always entertaining whisky. However, for me there is one nigglesome thing about Glengoyne that is written on every bloody bottle and that is the self-aggrandising slogan “untainted by the harshness of peat smoke”. Now I am not a peat-freak, I’ve tried to cultivate a healthy appreciation for all styles of whisky/key, so it really pisses me off when I see this kind of snobbishness lofted around by the distillery owners themselves (surely snobbery is our department?). It’s not all that common thankfully, most whiskies are refreshingly modest in their packaging, but just occasionally this sort of gushing, nonsensical crap can squeeze through and Glengoyne have long been one of the worst offenders. Here is an example from the blurb that is printed on the back of the seventeen year old bottling:

“Unlike most other single malt whiskies, Glengoyne has traditionally dried its malted barley using only warm air. This ensures that there is no overwhelming peat smoke in the finished malt. The result is a subtle, complex and generally more satisfying whisky is which all of the delicate flavours are fully expressed.”

Indulge me for a moment while I analyze a few tidbits from this blurbery. First up is the use of the word ‘traditionally’. I think you’ll find Mr Glengoyne that ‘traditionally’, ie over 100 years ago for arguments sake, almost all barley would have been dried with some kind of peat, wood or coal, thus deriving some phenolic traces from the resulting smoke and fumes. If you are fortunate enough to taste any whisky produced before WW2 you’ll be hard pressed to find anything without obvious traces of peat. Completely air dried barley is a more modern phenomena. Secondly, the “generally more satisfying” comment, or massive sweeping generalisation to be more precise. Surely this is entirely down to mood and taste? If on a gentle summers evening with friends I am offered a Glengoyne as an aperitif before dinner I’m sure it would capture the essence of the moment like few other malts could. However if I arrive at a warm fireplace in a welcoming bar in the dead of winter after trekking twelve miles through a soul-shredding, sub-zero blizzard, covered in the frozen blood of the wounded deer to which I had to administer a mercy killing, things will be somewhat different. In those circumstances my first thoughts are not “Man I really fancy something delicately floral with a wealth of subtle malty complexities.” No, I want something with enough peat to turn my ear wax flammable and cause tufts of sphagnum moss to start sprouting through my beard!

Peat, sometimes there's no such thing as too much.

Now as fantastic as some Glengoyne bottlings are I think they need to be taken down a peg or two with this whole peat malarkey. So here is a list of peated whiskies that I think almost all serious whisky lovers would probably rate higher in terms of quality and complexity than almost all Glengoynes. Ever. So there!

Endless Ardbeg bottlings distilled before 1977.

A plethora of Legendary Laphroaigs from pre 1978.

Countless Bowmores distilled pre 1974

Almost all Broras from before the mid seventies.

Several legendary Port Ellens

Many of the Longrow bottlings from 1973/1974

Some phenomenal casks of Glen Garioch from the late sixties/early seventies.

Almost any old Lagavulin 12yo white label.

Many fantastic old bottlings of Talisker.

Not to mention some stunning expressions of Highland Park, 1972 Ledaig, Ardmore and Caol Ila that benefit enormously from varying degrees of peat.

Obviously that is a very personal list but it is also a list that covers many of the most desirable and expensive bottlings in the world, bottlings that have become so for a very good reason. I’ll wager a single bottle of Laphroaig 10yo from the fifties would be worth more to most people than almost any Glengoyne you could think of. This is because maybe there is something about the greatest examples of peated whisky, the way they manage to retain all the subtleties of malt and fruit but with so much more, something that truly hooks peoples hearts and minds. I feel a bit bad after all that, I’m being a little unfair to Glengoyne, please remember I love the whisky, I just hate the anti peat comments. Glengoyne isn’t untainted by peat smoke, it’s just unpeated, in the same way that Lagavulin is not ‘enhanced by peat smoke’. While I wouldn’t like to see Glengoyne’s character change, I also wouldn’t like to see every other distillery making unpeated spirit as well. Variety is the spice of life and Glengoyne’s patter reads like some kind of warped whisky racism.

Glengoyne 40yo, good whisky but if only it had a little more peat. (just kidding)

I think having ranted about poor Glengoyne for so long it’s now time to redress the balance and say something much more positive about their great whisky. I tried the new(ish) 40yo in London recently and loved it but I’ve only just gotten round to writing notes for it.

Glengoyne 40yo. OB. 1968-2009. Single sherry butt. 250 bottles. 45.9%. 70cl.

Colour: Old Tokaji

Nose: High polished antique sherry with lots of bubbly fruits underneath and some remarkably fresh notes of crisp green apples and fresh limes. Hints of honeysuckle, toffee, wild flowers, cereal and butterscotch. This is really typical of these great old Glengoynes and their uber fruit style. Now there are notes of beeswax, marzipan, pear liqueur, old books, sultanas, many fruit syrups and cordials with a really gentle custardy/vanilla undertone. Lovely complexity to the nose, lets see if the palate can keep up…

Palate: Big, round, fruity and intensely concentrated, massive notes of orange liqueur, seville orange marmalade, milk chocolate, pine resin, menthol, tobacco leaf and more orange rind. This is really orangey whisky, the futures bright for Glengoyne (sorry!). Now comes greengages, more sultanas and raisins, kumquats, lychee and mulling spices. Hints of wood, spice and hessian follow with a lovely drying tinge at the end.

Finish: Long and filled with all the same fruity complexity and resinous, mouth-coating glee.

Comments: Great old whisky, we’ll forget the price for now but it is fantastic old Glengoyne with all the distillery’s trademark complexity and fruit. Considering what the 17yo has to say about the evils of peat I wonder if as you go up the Glengoyne range the older and more expensive the whiskies become the more vicious the denouncements of peat become. So on the 21yo it states “None of that brown boggy shit in this whisky” and next year’s 40yo will simply state “FUCK ALL PEAT!!!!! WORSHIP THE GOD OF NAKED MALT!!!!” Or something along those lines anyway. The Glengoyne marketing guys can have that idea for free. All I ask in return is a case of Laphroaig. And £1 million.

Score: 92/100