Category Archives: Advent Calendar 2014

Advent Day 5: Stronachie 10 y.o. (A.D. Rattray)

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Secret Spirits Advent Calendar Day 5 – December 5th128

Stronachie 10 y.o. (A.D. Rattray)

Distilled at Benrinnes

43% abv

Score:  80.5/100

 

A whisky from the Secret Spirits Advent Calendar First Edition. 

Stronachie…Benrinnes.  Tomato…tomahto.  Let’s call the whole thing off.

Or wait.  Let’s not.  Let’s drink some whisky.

If you’re doing some checking into the Stronachie distillery you’re most likely apt to hit dead end after dead end.  The distillery simply doesn’t exist.  Anymore, that is.  The original Stronachie distillery was shuttered in 1928.  In a very telling quote from the A.D. Rattray website (attributable to…who knows?): “The obliteration is total.  Only the name remains.”

So how is it then – warm at home at Christmas time 2014 – are we Advent-Calendar-following souses drinking Stronachie 10 year old for Day 5 of December?  ‘Cause Tim Morrison and the team at A.D. Rattray decided a few years back to replicate the style of the original distillate (through some reverse engineering of a rare old bottle of the original Stronachie from 1904…very similar to the recreation of MacKinlay’s Shackleton whisky) and relaunch the brand name under their own auspices.  After they had determined the flavour profile of that old turn-of-the-century malt, they scoured existing distilleries to find the whisky with a profile that most closely aligned with that 1904 control bottle.  Said malt turned out to be Benrinnes.

In short, Stronachie is Benrinnes bottled under a different name.

So there’s the history (albeit very condensed).  Let’s try the whisky now.  A rather tasty young bottle that is readily available under the A.D.R. banner in fairly broad markets.

Nose:  A surprising amount of citrus.  Sharp and rather young, but all pleasant notes.  A touch of dried apricot.  Very clean oak and a little bit of furniture polish.  There’s a slight off note here, but so minor as to be negligable.

Palate:  Oh, wow.  Love the arrival here.  Immediate lemon notes.  Kind of bitters after a moment or two though and moves into nuttier notes.  Almost Jura-esque, actually.  Getting a sort of wine-like influence too.  Some pith.  Malty, to be sure.

Thoughts:  Surprisingly complex for a 10 y.o., though not entirely my thing.  Has some personality though and seems to be a better drink than I recall the old 12 year version being.

Bonus:  My mate, Jonathan, and I are gonna blog on these drams side by side through the season.  Here’s a link to his notes on the same whisky at SingleMalting.com.

 

– Reviewed by:  Curt

– Photo:  Curt

Advent Day 4: “Peat Chimney” 12 y.o. (Wemyss Malts)

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097Secret Spirits Advent Calendar Day 4 – December 4th

“Peat Chimney” 12 y.o. (Wemyss Malts)

Blended Malt

40% abv

Score:  85/100

 

A whisky from the Secret Spirits Advent Calendar First Edition. 

Alright.  Now we’re wading into familiar waters.

Peatheads, rejoice!  This Wemyss blended malt is an Islay-phile’s wet dream.  Any of the chosen few out there that have made the pilgrimage to Scotland’s Hebridean peat mecca will immediately be swept back to the island’s quaint and rustic charm.  Especially those chilly early mornings with the smell of chimney smoke and seabreeze in the air.  This is bottled Islay.  For those that may never make the journey…sit back with a couple of youtube clips and a glass of this “Peat Chimney” in hand and you’ll at least have something of the virtual experience.

Being a blended malt means that this whisky is a vatting of single malts (with no grains thrown into the mix!) from more than one distillery.  Since I’m going on nothing more than the rather austere and sparse (and classy, I might add!) label, I honestly couldn’t even tell you if all of the component malts are in fact Islay whiskies.  I’ll work on the assumption that this is indeed the case – simply based on the flavours I’m getting from this one.

It’s anyone’s guess, however, as to which distilleries are represented in this concoction.  We do know that getting Ardbeg and Lagavulin stocks for blending or independent bottling purposes is next to impossible these days in our superheated global whisky market.  This is likely also the case with Kilchoman and Bruichladdich.  The most likely candidates therefore would be Caol Ila, Laphroaig, Bowmore and Bunnahabhain.  The profile here doesn’t even remotely hint at this latter distillery either.  So…a little bit of guesswork is as far as I’m willing to go with this one.  Either way…it’s a treat of a dram.

It’s also nice to see the calendar bringing some peat and heat into the mix.  An absolute necessity for these cold winter climes.

Nose:  Immediately reminiscent of a Port Charlotte, sans that butyric note Bruichladdich is famous for.  Iodine.  Oysters on the shell…with a squeeze.  Smoke, of course.  Tar and ash.  Salt licorice.  Gets more ashy and a bit meaty with some time.  Yes…that’s a good thing.  Tangy.  A bit of a BBQ note.  There may be some fruit here, but it’s buried at least six feet under the peat.

Palate:  Woah!  Very dry and ashy.  Flinty too.  Salt water (and maybe some of the little critters that might live in said water).  Dry smoke.  Peaty, earthiness.  Some powdered cacao.  Nuts, of some sort.  Finally, a little bit of sweetness to work as a foil to the phenols.

Thoughts:  Definite personal appeal here.  Not quite a rawk star, but definitely a rather kickass indie band in your favorite bar.  Can’t get over how DRY this is!

Bonus:  My mate, Jonathan, and I are gonna blog on these drams side by side through the season.  Here’s a link to his notes on the same whisky at SingleMalting.com.

 

– Reviewed by:  Curt

– Photo:  Curt

Advent Day 3: 1993 “Samaroli Spey” 21 y.o. (Samaroli)

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Secret Spirits Advent Calendar Day 3 – December 3rd013

1993 “Samaroli Spey” 21 y.o. (Samaroli)

Cask #1974 American Oak

45% abv

Score:  89.5/100

 

A whisky from the Secret Spirits Advent Calendar First Edition. 

Ok.  Not gonna lie.  I’m drinking ahead with my advent calendar.  I have to in order to ensure I can get these updates posted daily.  At this point I am through the first ten whiskies, and man…I gotta say…Samaroli are absolutely knocking my socks off.  These folks obviously have some killer casks at their disposal.  I simply cannot wait to get my hands on more of their releases.

With that out of my system, let’s dive in and try the wee bottle from behind door number three: a 21 year old malt called “Samaroli Spey”.

As I’m not doing any research on these whiskies while drinking my way through (it’s more fun just to simply enjoy the dram and publish some very raw notes), I had no clue which Speyside distillery this malt was from until I started pulling together this post over my morning coffee.  While copying the link to Jonathan’s review (see below) I noticed that he referred to this “Samaroli Spey” as a Cragganmore.  Ok.  Fun stuff.  Cragganmore is a Diageo holding, and not a distillery that has a particularly broad range of expressions on the market (primarily just a 12 y.o. and Distiller’s Edition…at least locally, that is).  I have tried a couple of other Cragganmore indies, and found ’em to be anything from ‘better than average’ to ‘very good’.  Having said that, let’s see what Samaroli can do with this typically rather tame spirit.

Nose:  Very soft.  Very nice.  Honey and nougat.  Sugar cookies.  A little bit of white chocolate.  Spicy bourbon notes.  Grapefruit and orange.  Pie crust.  Sponge cake.  All sorts of white or green fruits and nearly any ‘light’ and ‘soft’ dessert you can imagine.

Palate:  Wow.  Stunning delivery.  Just the ‘woosh’ of oily loveliness at first.  Coats everything.  It’s after that the flavours all expand outwards.  Flan.  Green grapes.  More of those bourbon spices and some wet wood notes.  Cinnamon.  Apple.  Fruit skins.  Not quite as awe-inspiring as the nose, but still delish.

Thoughts:  This whisky came from a very gentle barrel.  I sort of wonder what would have happened with a few more years in wood?  Either way…already a great whisky.

Bonus:  My mate, Jonathan, and I are gonna blog on these drams side by side through the season.  Here’s a link to his notes on the same whisky at SingleMalting.com.

 

– Reviewed by:  Curt

– Photo:  Curt

Advent Day 2: 2007 Aultmore 7 y.o. (A.D. Rattray)

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Secret Spirits Advent Calendar Day 2 – December 2nd122

2007 Aultmore 7 y.o. (A.D. Rattray)

Cask #900015 Sherry Cask

50% abv

Score:  84.5/100

 

A whisky from the Secret Spirits Advent Calendar First Edition. 

First Aultmore reviewed for the site.  Again…another distillery that isn’t often represented in the single malt spheres.  Most of the spirit from this Speyside distillery ends up buried deep in the Dewar’s blends, for better or worse.

It’s an oft-quoted number, but apparently about 90% of whisky produced in Scotland ends up being bottled and sold as blends.  Obviously then it would become imperative for blenders to have vast quantities of component malts (and grains) at their disposal.  The result – unfortunately for us malt snobs – is a bunch of distilleries from which we get a disproportionately small sample set of whiskies to taste.  It’s also incredibly difficult to be able to speak to a distillery’s profile and thumb print characteristics with any sort of authority.

This exact problem is the case with Aultmore.  Nearly 3 million litres produced annually and sweet f*ck all for bottlings on the shelves.  Oh well.  I guess we just need to appreciate them a little more when the opportunities present themselves.

So…not having a lot in the way of points of comparison, let’s simply dive into the glass: a malt that surprises with the enormity of its sherry influence.

Nose:  Wow.  Hefty young sherry.  Chocolate and thick fudgy/toffee notes.  Cinnamon and toasted oak.  Ginger snap cookies.  Spice cake or muffins.  Toasted rye bread.  Mince pies.  Suisse Mocha flavoured coffee powder and dark vanilla.

Palate:  Spicy as all hell.  And different than any other malt I’ve met.  Deeper on meaty and leathery notes than the big fruits I’d expect from young sherry bombs.  Manzanilla perhaps?  Dunno.  Think old school Mortlach meets Aberlour a’bunadh.  Still getting some fruit notes though, but they’re more like very dry fruitcake and orange zest.  An odd spice note I simply can’t place.

Thoughts:  I love the fact that this is an ‘in your face’ age-stated 7 year old.  Exactly what I’ve been wanting to see whisky makers do.  Nothing wrong with being young and proud…so long as it’s good.  And yes…this is.  Very odd.  But good.

Bonus:  My mate, Jonathan, and I are gonna blog on these drams side by side through the season.  Here’s a link to his notes on the same whisky at SingleMalting.com.

 

– Reviewed by:  Curt

– Photo:  Curt

Advent Day 1: 1997 “Citrus Burst” Linkwood 16 y.o. (Wemyss Malts)

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Secret Spirits Advent Calendar Day 1 – December 1st037

1997 “Citrus Burst” Linkwood 16 y.o. (Wemyss Malts)

Cask #7189 Bourbon Hogshead

46% abv

Score:  88/100

 

A whisky from the Secret Spirits Advent Calendar First Edition. 

This is a heck of a surprising dram from Speyside’s Linkwood distillery.  If you’re scouring your local spirit seller, you’re apt to realize quite quickly that this is not a distillery that boasts a very high profile.  It is however one from which it is imperative to track down whisky at some point in any acolyte’s never ending whisky journey, as I’ve tried some rather special Linkwoods over the years.

Additionally, for a wee bit of fun (at least for this whisky geek), this release is the first independent bottling I’ve ever tried by Wemyss Malts.  If this malt is any indication, Wemyss and I should have a long and happy future together.

Truth in advertising for a change?  Wow.  Novel idea.  The ‘nickname’ on the bottle is a misnomer by no means.  This is indeed a citrus burst of a dram.  Don’t expect a tart lambasting of the taste buds, however (or an astringent nasal spiking).  This is actually a much softer whisky than the name would belie, bringing a very well-rounded attack and what I can only imagine would be almost universal appeal.  Light…fragrant…infinitely sippable.

A great start to the calendar, and the Christmas season.

Nose:  Cinnamon and ginger.  Citrus notes, as we’d expect with a name like this.  Maybe orange and lemon zests.  Trifle-like dessert notes.  Lemon muffins.  Slightly floral.  Perfumed, even.  Cranberry jelly.  Almost ‘Lowland’-ish.  Spice pantry.  Nice nose, in all.  Clean, with broad appeal.

Palate:  An almost custard-like arrival.  Moves into tangy fruit filling, before the spices explode.  There are some strong bread/grain notes that serve to remind just what the heart of this drink really is.  Syrupy canned fruits.  Finishes on notes of grains…like chewing raw barley.  Sweet and lovely.

Thoughts:  A sort of ‘old school’ malt, in its own way.  Very easy drinking though.  I can see this being a great gateway malt.  More sophistication here than you’d initially suspect.

Bonus:  My mate, Jonathan, and I are gonna blog on these drams side by side through the season.  Here’s a link to his notes on the same whisky at SingleMalting.com.

 

– Reviewed by:  Curt

– Photo:  Curt