Meeting at The Morgan, starring The Coopered Tot

Last Friday I had the honor of meeting one of my great whisky friends, Joshua Feldman of The Coopered Tot.  It wasn't just a "Hey, how are you doing?" meeting (though it was that as well), but a meeting inside a lovely museum.  With a lot of whisk(e)y.

Josh was a tremendous host, guiding Kristen and I through the museum as well as his beverage selection.  The Morgan Library is a great little museum on Madison and 36th in Manhattan.  Formerly the home of JP Morgan and his son JP (Jack) Morgan, the museum displays the Morgan's tremendous library, great architecture, elaborate frescos, as well as the art pieces Jack did not sell off.  I also found myself unexpectedly drawn to ancient seals.

Not these:

These:

(source)

The intricate detail the artisans were able achieve three to five thousand years ago gave this contemporary viewer a moment of considerable reflection.  Some of these small cylindrical etchings revealed action sequences like the one above, while some were dramatically spare and subtly honed, like a later period seal of a single bull pausing on a flat plane.  The level of precision, texture, and space scratched into these tiny pieces made those people from halfway around the world and thousands of years previous feel very close and very present.  May we all leave something behind to remind our ancestors that we were once human as well.

And then there was the drinking.

Here's Mr. Feldman:

Here's one of his guests:

Actually my pose was a ruse.  I barely got any notes down because we had such a great time discussing all things malty; such a great time that I probably made him significantly late for his trip out to his kids' summer camp.  Sorry, Josh!

Here's the liquor lineup:

Balcones Texas Single Malt (Batch 12-4) - Really good! It's very young, very crafty, but delicious.  Chip Tate is doing something right out there.  The whiskey is intensely expressive like a barrel strength rye or high-rye bourbon...yet very malty.  Lots of citric fruits, massive waves of vanilla beans, gingerbread cookies, and deep boozy spices.  And heck, Kristen liked it too.

Hudson Manhattan Rye - Also better than I expected, but it's almost quaint next to the Balcones Malt.  Some good dusty spices sitting on a rye bread base.  Pity about the price, though.

Wemyss Malt "The Dunes" Inchgower 29yr - As Josh has discovered, this one can be divisive in the intensity of its character.  Think citric clay, big bursts of floral fruits, menthol, and flowery perfume (but NOT f.w.p.).  I like Inchgower and found this one zesty and bright.

Yoichi 15yr Japanese Single Malt - Fantastic!!! Think Laphroaig without the peat blast, which is a hell of a feat. Gorgeous iodine and seaweed float on a nutty soft malt. Its price is a bit steep for me, but I need to figure how to make it happen.

Brenne French Single Malt (cask 262) - White chocolate, orange peel, saltwater taffy, cardamom. Both K and I liked this one a lot.  It would be nice as an aperitif, but also maybe as a mellow digestif. When trying this, drop your preconceived notions of what single malt should taste like and let yourself float down Brenne's silky creamy stream.

Pine Barrens Single Malt - Josh had me try it out just to see my reaction.  It's so weird but not fun weird.  Somehow both coniferous and chemical.  Pine cones and bug repellant.

Blair Athol 12yr Provenance - Sturdy solid malt. Soft on the oak. Very easy drinking at 46% ABV. Or maybe it was just so pleasant after the Pine Barrens. The Tot says this is the best of the recent 200mL Provenance releases.

Glen Grant 37yr 1972 Duncan Taylor - I think I've found my sherry tolerance point: very old refill sherry malts. I jest, but I don't. Almost all of the old refill sherry matured whisky I've tried has displayed a perfect merging of the wine and malt to the point where it is difficult to find where one ends and the other begins. This is another excellent example and it is dangerously consumable at cask strength.  So, more 1970s whisky for me!

Port Ellen 1982 23yr Provenance (sherry cask) - Oh yeah. Four for four on Port Ellens. PE is the best petrol you will ever drink. Seriously, think Islay boat docks: gasoline fumes, seaweed, salt, smoke from the village chimneys. Plus this one drops a spent matchstick into the mix. Yeah, Murray would flip his lid over that sulfur note, but he can keep his lid flipped, I love this stuff.

Balcones Brimstone - If the Brimstone is on the tasting list, it must bring up the rear.  Big, intense barbecue, mesquite, bonfire notes.  Kristen found a brisket note in it as well.  It's a large, singular experience.  Very Texas.

Josh is a warm brilliant guy and a terrific generous host.  It's a pity we're on opposite coasts, because I could foresee us causing some whisky trouble around New York.

Thank you, Josh, for all your kind words, shared knowledge, and welcoming whiskies.  You have been one of the most important members of the whisky blogging world since the first day you entered it, not only being a great whisky guide, but also by bringing people together both online and off.  When the time is right, we all look forward to the return of The Coopered Tot!

Single Malt Report: Strathisla 14 year old 1997 Cask Strength Edition (distillery-only)

As much grief as I have given Diageo on this blog -- and I have given much -- about their single malt releases and the lack thereof, Pernod Ricard has the same issue.  Pernod owns a number of gorgeous malts, almost all of which are being dumped into their blending vats to make Chivas and Ballantine's (and Passport and 100 Pipers and on and on).  They have selected only two of their distilleries (Glenlivet and Aberlour) to highlight in the international single malt market via a wide bottling range.  They do single bottlings of a few of their other distilleries (including Scapa and Tormore), while the remaining majority are more easily found as independent releases or mixed into your bottle of Glen Campbell.  Pernod, like Diageo, is in the blended whisky business, which understandable considering Chivas and Ballantine's sell millions of cases every year.

I understand this from a business point of view, but from a hedonist's perspective it is saddening because Pernod owns some lovely malts like Longmorn and Strathisla.  When I see Chivas 18yr bottles sitting on the shelf (at a relatively cheap price here in CA), I wonder couldn't they have saved 3-5% of the malt within and bottle it on its own?  The answer is probably not, they have a lot of blended Scotch to sell.

Strathisla 12 year old single malt is a good straightforward drink with a little more body to it than many of the more widely-sold 12 years like Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, and Tomatin.  My only issue with it is its price, about 2 Glenfiddichs.  But that's all we get from Pernod when it comes to Strathisla.  Otherwise we have to search far and wide for an increasingly rare indie release.

There is one exception to this run-on Pernod Ricard rant:  The Cask Strength Editions.  A number of the Pernod Ricard distilleries sell 500mL bottles of their cask strength malt.  These often include, when available: Glenburgie, Miltonduff, Scapa, Longmorn, and Strathisla.

Distillery: Strathisla
Brand: Cask Strength Editions
Ownership: Chivas Regal by way of Pernod Ricard
Age: 14 years (1997-2012)
Maturation: likely ex-bourbon American Oak casks
Region: Speyside
Alcohol by Volume: 59.3%
Batch: SI14010

You know how I'd mentioned that I was going to match up whiskies each week with a purpose or commonality in mind?  Well, maybe not this week.

Here's the connection between this dram and the previous one:  While sipping the North Port-Brechin and remarking out loud to myself about its intense alcohol burn, I suddenly remembered a sample my buddy Whisky Josh OC had given to me a year ago.  (Thank you, Whisky Josh OC!)  I remembered he'd said that it was particularly hot stuff on the palate.  Nothing like a little more ethyl alcohol burn to clarify an evening.

NEAT:
Color - Bright gold
Nose - Big Oak. Tons of vanilla and corn syrup up front. There's a rotten cream note I've found in some other strong malt aged in American oak; luckily it's quite reserved here.  Then there's clover honey, moss, dried apricots, and nail varnish.  Finally there's a big whiff of honey butter in there.
Palate - Yeah, there's a wee ethyl sting to this one.  Underneath it there's chlorine, yeast, cinnamon, honey, and confectioner's sugar. There's a big bready note too, sort of like bread crusts dipped in honey.  After some time in the glass, the malt releases dried grass and bitter almond notes.
Finish - More of that honey, also marshmallows and yeast.  It's still grassy with a light bitterness, and minerally like licking rocks.  But then the long honeyed stretches stand out the most.

WITH WATER: (in the 43-46% ABV range)
Nose - For some reason the alcohol burn is more noticeable here.  But then there's tree bark, chlorine, peach-colored Smarties, fresh stone fruit, and flower blossoms.  The honey retreats.
Palate - Much less aggressive, but also much sweeter.  More vanilla too.  The dried grass note picks up as does the light but pleasant bitterness.
Finish - Still extensive, a little tangy, with a sugared sweetness.  It's almost a dessert whisky now.

This one is a stinger indeed.  First the alcohol jab, then the honey rushes in to soothe.  I prefer the 12 year old when comparing at similar ABVs.  Though this 14 year old has a number of different characteristics, I'm not sure it's more mature than the 12.  Though having it available at high power allows for more to play.

I'm aware that Strathisla is only 1/4th the size of Glenlivet, but it would be great to have a regular cask strength whisky in its range.  Yes, I know, it would also be great if a bottle of '72 Ardbeg showed up at my front door.  But, in my fantasy land, a young cask strengther would be less of a risk/investment than an 18 year in Strathisla's range.  Though an 18 year would be nice too...

Availability - At the distillery
Pricing - You'll need to inquire with the distillery
Rating - ★★★

Single Malt Report: North Port-Brechin 19 year old 1976 Cadenhead's

There has been much weeping over the closing of the Brora and Port Ellen distilleries.  Nary a tear has fallen for the fate of North Port.  But is the short shrift this rarely-discussed distillery receives well earned or undue?  I'm going to make a final generalized opinion on it via a single 50mL with a questionable neck fill.

North Port isn't a 'port' in the way most of us know the word.  In fact, the distillery's location was at least five miles from the North Sea coast.  "Port" is actually a Scots word for a town's gate.  In this case, the gate was on the north side of the Scottish town of Brechin.  Though the distillery is gone, the town is still there, near the River Esk in corn country, with a thousand year old cathedral in its center.

Built by David Guthrie in 1823, the distillery stayed with his family until it was bought by DCL ninety-nine years later.  During its lifetime the names Townhead, Brechin, and North Port were all used; at some point in recent history the name became hyphenated as North Port-Brechin.  When the worldwide whisky market faltered, DCL (part of what would later become Diageo) went on its infamous distillery closing campaign in 1983.  North Port got the ax that May.  Today a Safeway supermarket stands in its place.

Since North Port's product was almost exclusively used for blends, and its malt was not one coveted, there haven't been many single malt releases.  Diageo dribbled out a few 'Rare Malts' releases.  The main independent bottlers Cadenhead's, Gordon & MacPhail, Laing, and Duncan Taylor have about three dozen of their own, in total.  I'm uncertain when the distillery picked up its current reputation for lower quality, but it may something to do with the reception of some of G&M's Connoisseur's Choice bottlings.  The Rare Malts output didn't seem to win North Port too many new fans either.  (I recommend Scotch and Ice Cream's great post on Tim's North Port-Brechin experience as it parallels most of the word of mouth I've personally heard on NP-B.)  But the Malt Maniacs do have some nice things to say about some of the Cadenhead's and Laing releases.  So how about an old Cadenhead's?

Distillery: North Port (Brechin)
Ownership: Diageo

Independent Bottler: Cadenhead's

Age: 19 years (December 1976 - December 1995)

Maturation: a much refilled former bourbon barrel (or Oak Cask, per the label)
Region: Eastern Highlands

Alcohol by Volume: 63.3% (woo-wee!)

Now that's an ABV.  A little unusual to have such a heavy hitter after 19 years in an "Oak Cask".  With the negative whisky word on the street about this distillery and the massive ABV, I was very excited.  Oh, this could be such a hot mess!  Or, looking at that neck, er, shoulder-fill it could be totally oxidized after seventeen years in glass.

NEAT

Color - Rich dark gold

Nose - Much less burn or prickle than anticipated.  Honeydew melon and honey.  Salted caramels and a little yeast.  Bourbon-like vanilla with cherry and apple candies.

Palate - HOT S***, the taste buds have been torched! Earthy with some barrel char and chlorine.  Salty and sweet.  Fresh apples.  And also burning.

Finish - Salt and chlorine.  Cocoa, molasses, and sour apple candies.

WITH WATER

Nose - Holds up well, though doesn't open up much: swimming pools, apples, vanilla extract, apple juice, fruity candies, barrel char, a little earthy.

Palate - The fire is now out, but the whisky doesn't open up at all, even with some time in the glass.  There's more sourness and bitterness.  And it's a little salty with mild malt and soil notes.

Finish - More oak shows up here along with mint and menthol. Lightly bitter and salty.

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It wasn't terrible.  I was bracing for The Craptacular.  But the flaws don't seem to have entirely come from bad spirit (the nose was pretty good actually), rather the whisky seems to have been bottled too early and/or it sat in a worn out cask and/or it was in warehouse's hot spot.

Having just bottled my own little whiskey, I'm getting some first hand experience with maturation rates.  My rye lost tons of liquid, but much less alcohol.  That may have been due to warm storage, very porous oak, or questionable cooperage (or all of the above).  I had to bottle the whiskey before losing too much liquid and thus avoiding a bottle of undrinkable poison.  But that was me, a Long Beach shnook making one bottle of rye in his dining room.

Why was Cadenhead's in such a rush to bottle a 19 year old spirit at 63.3% ABV?  It's a white hot blast of new make on the palate with the oak showing up only a little on the nose (or with a lot of water added).  Would another 11 years in a different warehouse location or a different cask have hurt?  Then Cadenhead's would have been able to sell it at a premium due to the age and rarity alone.  Think of the price on a 30 year 1976 55+% ABV extinct single malt with less than 200 bottles available.  If that resulting whisky matured properly and actually tasted good, the word of mouth would have done them additional favors.

With a good cask and good management, North Port-Brechin malt could turn out decently.  As mentioned before, there are a few bottles that have gotten warm regards from the MMs.  Could Diageo be sitting on some 30-40 year old casks they're waiting to drop on a market devoid of North Port, with bloated prices attached?

I can understand the gripes against the distillery, but I can also see how something good can come of their malt.  I'm not necessarily encouraging anyone to hurry out and scoop up the existing $300+ bottles of NP-B, but I won't be as quick to mock the distillery going forward.  Plus I need to be a little more careful with super-high ABV whisky in the future.  Those behemoths may be fun but, damn, I'd like to keep most of my taste buds for future Single Malt Reports.

Availability - None

Pricing - Unknown

Rating - 74

Whiskey #200: The Rye Storm (Part 2)

(Click here for Part One)

Here it is, The Rye Storm:

Distillery: Corsair

Independent Bottler: D4P Whiskies
Type: Barrel-aged rye spirit

Age: January 31 to July 13, 2013

Maturation: 2 liter new American Oak barrel
Limited bottling: 1

Distillery Region: Tennesee and Kentucky, USA
Maturation Region: Long Beach, California, USA

Alcohol by Volume: North of 50%, South of 70%
Chillfiltered: No
Colored: No

What's in a name?  A number of things.  The "The" is in honor of the other "The"s: The Macallan, The Glenrothes, The Glenlivet, The Glenmorangie, etc.  The "Storm" is partially a tweak on the whisky industry for their inability to come up with original names, see: Islay Storm, Cutty Stark Storm, Talisker Storm, and Talisker Dark Storm (three of which came into the market within a year of each other).  It's a storm of whiskey, busy, loud, and potentially destructive in its alcoholic intensity.  But mostly I named it The Storm after the events in my life that took place while the whiskey was aging.  Rather than rehashing it, I'll just leave the link here.

I learned a lot from "making" The Rye Storm.  If I had another first-fill barrel, I'd try to figure out how to char it further.  I'd also measure the humidity and temperature around my home to find the coolest, driest spot.  Perhaps using a quieter spirit, one with less muscle than Wry Moon, would suit home booze such as this.  Plus the $100 initial investment in three bottles of spirit won't be a surprise.

For those planning on doing some barrel-aging at home, please make sure you follow any directions provided regarding curing and cleaning the barrel.  Also be very aware that most of the barrels being sold for home maturation are not as impeccably coopered as the ones used by the larger booze industry.  Even with a cool dry basement, you'll still need to anticipate a considerable Angel's Share.  If you have any questions or thoughts on this drop me a line here or send me an email.

Now, back to The Rye Storm.  Unlike certain craft whiskey bottlers, I will not call this California Rye.  The spirit was made by Corsair in either their Kentucky or Tennessee distillery.  Nor can I call it Straight Rye Whiskey due to its youth.

Here are my specific notes on how the nose and palate developed:

Day 0
Wry Moon is loaded with cracked white pepper and cinnamon Red Hots candies on both the nose and palate.  There's also a distant vegetal grain quality that lingers in the background.  Its highlight is the cocoa powder in the finish.

Day 36
Nose - Not much change. A little calmer. Less of the white pepper.
Palate - The spices have become more varied, sharper. Vanilla and chocolate notes have come into focus. Easier to drink.

Day 91
Nose - Softer spices up front, harsher ones in the back. Hints of vanilla and honey from the oak. Pepper and Red Hots have receded slightly. Maybe floral and anise notes?
Palate - ABV feels stronger as there's a big ethyl buzz. More sugars. Texture starting to thicken.
Finish - Hot chocolate.

Day 122
Nose - Still very spirity, but a little floral.  Honey, brown sugar, and baking spices.
Palate - Same as Day 91.
Finish - Lots of milky hot chocolate.
Not much changes when water is added. Maybe the nose is a little fruitier, perhaps the cocoa moves forward in the palate.

Day 164...

NEAT
Color - Dark gold
Nose - Right up front: Cinnamon, maple syrup, cocoa powder, and something between coriander and cardamom. Lightly floral, but a lot of those Red Hots candies.  A tiny bit of vanilla.
Palate - Still very new makey. Cocoa, white pepper, Red Hots, cinnamon schnapps, and ethyl.  Actually, a little malty too.
Finish - Milk chocolatey rum. Some malt and chlorine.  Very lengthy, due to a likely high ABV

WITH WATER
Nose - Cinnamon bread and kirsch
Palate - No change.
Finish - Dark chocolate with cayenne pepper

Following the nose's development over time was my favorite part and it sniffs better than it sips.  The palate is still very spirit heavy, think: Goldschlager Whiskey.  But once the rough palate passes, the chocolate finale is lively and enjoyable.

Availability - A single bottle

Pricing - One's liver cells?

Rating - 72

---

ONE LAST THOUGHT:

In yesterday's post, I mentioned there would be two uses for this barrel.  The Rye Storm was the first fill, after which I discovered the cask had soaked up 64mL of rye.  What sort of second fill use would follow???  Stay tuned.  Two months from now D4P Whiskies may have something else in store...

Whiskey #200: The Rye Storm (Part 1)

I made some rye.  Correction, I barrel aged some rye spirit.  I named it The Rye Storm.  Over the past six months, I've been indulging in this experiment in the background, far from the daily routine.

Here's a video I threw together of that recaps some of the post below:

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A Barrel!

My brother-in-law, Andrew, and his wife, Leslie, bought me a two-liter pre-charred barrel for Hanukkah last December.  (Thank you, guys!!!!) Within minutes of holding the barrel in my hands, I knew what I wanted to do with it: two things, equally important and intertwined.  Aging rye spirit would be the first part.

I wanted to make sure the spirit I'd use had a very high rye mashbill, since that's the sort of stuff I like to drink.  Having tried Corsair's Wry Moon (46% ABV) on a couple of previous occasions, I knew it was the only rye white dog that I liked on its own.  Of course, for Wry Moon, Corsair uses malted rye rather than the unmalted rye utilized by most rye producers.  That would definitely affect the flavor.  They also use a tiny portion of Chocolate (or roasted) malted rye, which really does give the spirit a light cocoa note.  This wasn't going to be a harmless comfy rye, it was going to be a little odd.

Challenges!

The barrel itself held some challenges.  I didn't know what the char level was, which is a complication since that would directly affect the maturation and final product.  Also, I wasn't sure how well coopered it was.  In a related issue: Our condo stays very warm. During the day when no one's home (and the A/C isn't running) there isn't a cool spot in the entire joint.  How much spirit would I lose to the angels?

Despite those quirks and despite the fact I'd never done this before, I went ahead and set lofty goals.  I wanted to end up with something approximate to a three-year-old rye; some oak, but not too much oak.  I still wanted the white dog to bark through his house.  Since the barrel's surface area is so small, leading to a lot of spirit/oak contact, maturation would happen 5x-10x faster than a normal bourbon barrel -- so said the instructions.  So, I thought it would take 3 to 4 months.  I'd rotate the barrel every week, then taste it every four weeks.  The Wry Moon bottles would work perfectly for bottling the result since they have a very tight cork.

On January 31, I filled the barrel with the Wry Moon.  I was left a few ounces of the spirit from the third bottle that I could compare and contrast with the developing experiment.  A dark corner was found where the barrel could be tucked away.  I figured that after three or four months, there would still be 1.5 liters left, enough to fill two bottles.  A 22% loss to the angels sounded like a comfortable overestimation to be safe.

Tee-hee-hee.

From my notebook:

At 36 days - 12.5% of the volume has been lost. No color, remains very clear. No change on the nose. Slightly easier to drink, perhaps a wider variety of notes on the palate.

At 74 days - 24% of volume lost, less than 1400mL already. Color remains the same. Decision made to hold off on nosing and tasting for a couple weeks.

At 91 days (3 months) - 31.1% of volume lost.  The spirit has begun to take on some color. The nose has been considerably softened. First hints of oak vanilla and honey. Big hot chocolate finish, a little more sugary on the palate. Sudden realization: The liquid is evaporating much faster than the alcohol, this is considerably hotter than the original 46% ABV.

At 122 days (4 months) - 42.2% of volume lost. Liquid evaporating more quickly as the weather gets warmer. Color looks good, like a light bourbon. Still spirity, but a little floral with some nice baking spices on the nose.  The palate remains similar to before, though getting smoother and thicker.  Adding water to sample didn't result in any changes.  Realization: Will need to age as long as possible, but not so long that the rye will turn into a poisonous thimbleful.

At 164 days (about 5 1/2 months) - 61.5% of volume lost.  Just enough to fill one bottle.

The Rye Storm has arisen.  In the next post, I'll talk about the brown stuff in the bottle.

Two BIG milestones for Diving With Pearls

Judging by Google's two blog metric resources, Diving With Pearls has surpassed either 50,000 pageviews or 120,000 pageviews.  I'll go by the former, since the latter likely includes the swarm of spambots that circle this page every day.

To my human readers, THANK YOU!  Thank you for visiting and returning.  The online universe is enormous, I am very grateful that you choose to stop by this little corner of it to see what's going on.

To those who have found this site via Google searches for Johnnie Walker Black Label, Chivas Regal, Talisker Storm, Glenfiddich 12, Katy Perry's boobs, Justin Bieber, surprised kittens, Barack Osama, or Hankey Bannister, welcome!  Most of those subjects will never be posted about again, sorry. :(

A lot of change is going on here in my offline life.  I have resigned from my job.  There's about a week and a half left of it before I start a new chapter.  I'm committing to my writing career full time (or part time once I get a part time paying job).  While that may provide more flexibility for the blog, my financial means will be changing a little bit.  This is part of the reason I've reduced my whisky bottle purchases to 2-or-so-per-month for the last three months.  Now I have to stick to that approach.  Speaking of which...

After last week's Clynelish reports, this blog finds itself awaiting WHISK(E)Y #200.  Whisky #100 was a fun one in that it had allowed me to see how a single malt and its drinker changes over a year's time.  Whisky #101 was just plum serendipitous.  Number 200 will be something a little different.

With finances being a little tighter and whisky prices continually bloating will this blog see whisky 300?  ABSOLUTELY!  400?  Probably.  Going forward, I'm going to keep trying to group the reports into Taste Offs or verticals or themes since that's more educational (and fun) for you and I.

I'm sticking to my intention of easing non-whisky subjects back in, but, frankly, at the end of a difficult day I don't want to talk about anything but whisky and sleep.  (There's a joke in there somewhere about a sleep blog being a real snooze, but I won't go there.)  I'm excited to see what the new life will bring and I promise to write about my new successes.  My best wishes to all of you!  Stay tuned for #200...

1997, Clynelish, and I

In 1997, I got laid for the first time.  I got my first car.  Watched my first porn (talk about vintage!) from end to end.  Got drunk for the first time.  Fell in love with silent cinema.  To me it was the sunset of my childhood.  It was 1998 that overthrew everything, when I was crushed and rebuilt for the first time.

But that's all romance.  Many other great and terrible things have happened to me before and since.  The actual years really don't actually demarcate the real experiences, they just provide ways to label elusive time.

Despite the three previous posts about independently bottled 1997 Clynelish, I have no grand conclusions.  Yet it is possible that there's a link between Clynelish and I.  In order to get there, let's first try to quantify online Clynelish reviews:

Whiskybase with its crowd-sourcing has the largest sample size.  Though Whiskyfun and the Whisky-Monitor occasionally overlap, it's clear that Serge has reviewed more Clynelish than the rest of his Malt Maniac crew combined.  Though they may look different, the tables above actually say very similar things:

1.)  1997 Clynelish doesn't score much higher than the vintages around it.  With the largest sample size of the listed distillation years it averages impressively between a strong B to a low B+.  But then again, the other Clynelishes do as well.
2.)  There seems to be quite a number of different 1997 Clynelish releases (the "Whisky Count" fields), the most by a bit if you sum the tables up.
3.)  Look below the 1997s.  Look below the red lines.  Watch how the amount of Clynelish releases quickly dwindle to nothing.

Back to these points in a moment.

Of the '97s, I have tried 6 so far (Go, Me!).  They range from decent to great.  But, quite frankly, Clynelish tends to put out consistently decent to great whisky each year in its watered-down, filtered, and colored official 14-year-old form.  What the independent bottlings allow us to do is purchase Clynelish from someone other than the drinks giant.  They also sometimes give us the ability to try 'Lish in its original strength.  Those are indeed benefits, the former for the sake of capitalism, the latter for a less restricted experience.  But I'm not convinced that the indie bottlings are significantly better than the Diageo one, nor am I convinced that 1997 was a consistently tremendous year/vintage for Clynelish.

As noted in the above charts, 1997 does seem to have been the last year the indies received a ton of Clynelish barrels from Diageo.  After that, it appears as if Diageo (and related blenders) cut short the outflow of Clynelish to other sellers.  So could this be another case of 1997 being viewed with wistful fancy?

With Diageo rushing into building new distilleries and cranking up production in existing ones, it's doubtful the conglomerate will allow someone else to sell its best assets soon (or ever).  So, when it comes to 1997 Clynelish, there has been a lot of it and much less from following years.....and it's good just about every year......so is its vintage really any better than others?  Is the Clynelish distilled in November 1997 really better than the stuff distilled in February 1998?  I'm not sold on that.

Admittedly, I didn't do this Clynelish Taste Off correctly.  I should have had a dozen samples spread out over the surrounding years.  Though that isn't within my means, it would have provided clearer results.  But, at the same time, I never expected to come to these conclusions.  I had thought I'd just rave about the four '97s and move on.  They were all good, at least one was great.  Yet the regular 14 year old 46% ABV Clynelish from Diageo is great as well.

Independent bottlers provide variety, expansion, and an opportunity for consumers to give their business to companies much smaller than giants like Diageo.  They do this for 1997 Clynelish like they do it for '89 Blair Athol, '95 Imperial, '94 Miltonduff, '91 Auchentoshan, '90 Glentauchers, '89 Jura, and hundreds of other distillery vintages that may or may not be well-regarded.  When looking at that first table above, you should focus on the 86 in the Whiskybase Whisky Count column.  That represents 86 separate releases of 1997 Clynelish.  If not for the indies, there would be only one Clynelish for us to try.  Perhaps that potential lack of freedom (not the idyll of vintage) is the most important element to take with us.