Croftengea 10 year old 2006 Exclusive Malts, cask 485

Yesterday it was Loch Lomond Cleans Up. Today it is Loch Lomond Gets Dirty. But I'm not talking about garbage-smelling rot. I'm talking about The Place With The Funny Stills taking on Islay headfirst. Croftengea is the distillery's heavily peated malt. I'm going to guess it's in the 50ppm range, because this stuff is intense. But it's not a mess, and it thumped my expectations.

Distillery: Loch Lomond
Brand: Croftengea
Owner: Loch Lomond Distillery Company
Region: Highlands (Western)
Independent bottler: Creative Whisky Company
Range: Exclusive Malts

Age: 10 years (22 March 2006 to April 2016)

Maturation: Hogshead?
Cask number: 485
Outturn: 302

Alcohol by Volume: 56.7%
(from a purchased sample)

NEAT
The nose has the weird delights of good Fettercairn and the never-beloved-by-experts-but-totally-beloved-by-me late '80s & early '90s Ledaig, except bigger. Old greasy machines and engines. Bowling shoes in a moldy basement. A slab of plasticky peat. Also some flowers and pineapple, just because. Marshmallows in the palate, then sweet peat and moderate heat. Nothing horrifying; in fact it is very drinkable. Moss and tangy fruits. A hint of bitter greens. It finishes sweet and smoky with white fruits and cinnamon. Loooooong.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv, or 1⅓tsp water per 30mL whisky
Having shed some of the fun fug, the nose edges into Ardbeg and Kilchoman territory. Moss, soot and burnt hay lead the way, with tiny bit of white fruit underneath. Cocoa and cinnamon in the palate, along with plumes of smoke. Also lemons and arugula. It finishes with smoke, sugar and lemons. Peated limoncello?

WORDS WORDS WORDS
Is this a perfect whisky? Nope. It is it awesome? Yep. Great pick, Mr. Stirk. This might be the most entertaining whisky I've had all year. It's zanier than anything coming from Islay while still delivering Capital P Peat.

Unlike certain distillers who age batches of kerosene and napalm in burnt grape juice barrels for a couple years and crown themselves mad scientists, Loch Lomond hasn't made something big and strange and ugly just for the sake of doing so. There's a way into this whisky. Reach out and you'll find tiny familiar handles to grab onto just before the ride starts. You'll make it through without getting hurt, I promise. Plus there is actual complexity in the thing and about as much mouthfeel as the distillery can muster. Is it going to knock Lagavulin 12yo Cask Strength off my shelf? Probably not. But I'd like to see what else Loch Lomond can do with this style.

Availability - Some European retailers
Pricing - €60-€70
Rating - 88

Inchmurrin 22 year old 1993 Signatory, cask 2846

The second pair of Loch Lomond malts I tried this week were such diametric opposites that I was (and am) left astounded by the range of possibilities that can come from one distillery. Even better, both whiskies were good.

Today, I'm reviewing (yes) another Inchmurrin, but one quite unlike the two that preceded it this week. Don't worry, tomorrow's whisky will NOT be Inchmurrin.

As per the online Whiskypedia, Inchmurrin is supposed to be the light and fruity member of the Loch Lomond range. I guess that's a matter of perspective. Compared to most of the distillery's other malts, anything is light and fruity.

Distillery: Loch Lomond
Brand: Inchmurrin
Owner: Loch Lomond Distillery Company
Region: Highlands (Western)
Independent bottler: Signatory

Age: 22 years (24 May 1993 to 7 Oct 2015)

Maturation: Hogshead
Cask number: 2846
Outturn: 224

Alcohol by Volume: 59.2%
(thank you, Sjoerd!)

NEAT
A pretty nose! Peaches, melon and roses up front. Earth and cocoa powder in back. A delicate salty peating with gentle white oak notes. Apple cider and sugary barley. A less delicate, but still graceful palate. Pears, flowers, salt and pepper. Tart limes and brown sugar. Tiny bits of vanilla and horseradish. It's plenty warm, but not as hot as 59%abv can be. It finishes warm, sweet and floral with a hint of milk chocolate. Moderate length.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv, or 1¾tsp per 30mL whisky
Pears, peaches, barley, salt and roses in the noses. The palate is warm, tingly, simple, sweet and barley forward. Lightly bitter with a hint of peat. Barley, sugar, salt and pepper in the finish.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
This is almost cognac. Yes, there's barley and a whiff of peat going on, but if you can imagine a moderately aged (in US oak) cognac at nearly 60%abv, that wouldn't be too far from this Inchmurrin. The one thing that keeps this whisky from soaring is the thinness of the palate's texture, an issue I always find with this distillery's products. But the nose was so good that went I online to price check this thing after the first sniff. I can't remember the last time I did that. Had the palate met the expectations the nose set then this might have been a 90-point Loch Lomond.

Availability - Some European retailers
Pricing - €110-€130
Rating - 86 (that nose, though)

Loch Lomond Weak? Inchmurrin 13 year old 2000 SMWS 112.7

After yesterday's mostly successful whisky, perhaps I should stop poking fun at Loch Lomond. SMWS on the other hand...

Eh, I'll give them a pass if this whisky works. They give this whisky one of their soberer names: "Youthful vigour in a barrel prison". Should that vigour give one a moment's pause knowing the distillery, or should one go back and read the first sentence of this post?

Okay, I'll be honest. I already did this tasting, lining this 13yo up with yesterday's 14yo. They are indeed different whiskies.

Distillery: Loch Lomond
Brand: Inchmurrin
Owner: Loch Lomond Distillery Company
Region: Highlands (Western)
Independent bottler: Scotch Malt Whisky Society

Age: 13 years (27 Sept 2000 to 2014)

Maturation: Jail?
Cask number: 112.7
Outturn: 209

Alcohol by Volume: 58.5%
(thanks to Brett P for the sample!)

NEAT
The nose is all vanilla, oak spice and cardboard at first. With some airing out, notes of fresh cherries, apples, black licorice and bubblegum come out. Then it all vanishes after 20 minutes, leaving behind nothing but heat. The palate is sweet, tart, slightly bitter and very new make-y. Cinnamon sticks and burning face. Its sourness starts small, then gradually takes over everything. So much heat in the finish. Very tart raw spirit. A tiny bit of vanilla, sugar and bitterness.

A bucket of water, please.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv, or 1⅔tsp of water to 30mL whisky
Nosehair singeing heat. Vanilla simple syrup. Wood smoke. Cardboard. Stop. The palate is hotter, rawer, pepperier, saltier, sweeter, cardboardier. The finish is very hot and very sweet.

Swim, ye evil spirit!

DILUTED TO ~40%abv, or about 1tbsp of water to 30mL whisky
Hmm, not bad. The nose shows barley, anise and mint leaves. The palate is much more pleasant. It's minty and spicy, with plenty of fresh ginger. Less sweet, less heat. It finishes with mint and ginger, and a mild sweetness.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
The problem wasn't the incarceration. It's the prison itself. More time in this jail would not have helped. The prisoner probably would have burned the place down, anyway.

The official tasting notes for this thing are Ridic (as the kids say). The international whisky world is full of palate wreckers with actual positive qualities at full strength. So there's nothing to recommend when this whisky is neat. But! At 40%abv it starts to hit its stride. I suppose a masochist could spend some time chopping this whisky's ABV down further and further to find its money spot. Anyway, Loch Lomond is not at fault here.

Availability - Secondary market, I guess
Pricing - ???
Rating - 71 (with lots of water only; at least 10 points lower when neat)

Loch Lomond Week!?! Inchmurrin 14 year old 2003 Sauternes Finish, single cask 16/303-5

Loch Lomond National Park is one of the most beautiful places in Scotland. I highly recommend you visit at least a corner of it.

Loch Lomond Distillery does not make the most beautiful single malts in Scotland. I highly recommend you do not try most of them. That the distillery has, until recently, never shown an interest in conforming to what's popular or normal has made it seem like the last refuge of the whisky hipster.

I inserted the words "until recently" in the previous short paragraph because Loch Lomond has started rolling single casks of its multiple brands into the retail game. So far there haven't been any reported casualties, and the reviews haven't been bad.

Since Loch Lomond is now a thing (I guess?), I'm going to review four of their whiskies, all of which were released over the past few years. I could review five, but, you know, safety first.

---

Hey look, here's a release that's still in stores. In The Netherlands.

image from whiskybase

Inchmurrin is one of Loch Lomond's theoretically unpeated brands, though I have occasionally found something peat-ish in it. This Inchmurrin spent most of its life in regular American oak barrels, then had an unspecified finish time in a Sauternes cask (probably hogshead-sized). I'm a fan of neither unspecified finish times nor aggressive Sauternes casks, so this could be disastrous.

Distillery: Loch Lomond
Brand: Inchmurrin
Owner: Loch Lomond Distillery Company
Region: Highlands (Western)

Age: 14 years (Jan 2003 to May 2017)

Maturation: American oak (probably), then an unknown amount of time in a Sauternes cask
Cask number: 16/303-5
Outturn: 282
Exclusive to: The Netherlands

Alcohol by Volume: 52.9%
(thanks to Matt W for the sample!)

NEAT
The nose is......not disastrous. Pears, caramel, apple cider vinegar and McIntosh apples start things off. There's some heat to it, and brine and butterscotch. Pine sap and a slight oakiness. The palate is also inoffensive, even cheerful! Tart citrus, vanilla pudding, flowers and salt are in the foreground. It has some pine, mint gum and drying tannins. It's VERY sweet, as is the finish, which has mint, citrus, vanilla and pine.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv, or <1tsp of water per 30mL whisky
The nose reads more solidified, or at least it's tougher for me to separate the notes. White fruits and pine sap. Calvados and maple syrup. The palate is sweet and tart. More peppery, like green peppercorns. Caramel, mint and lemon-lime soda. It finishes warm and sweet. White fruits, flowers, sugar, lime candy and a little bit of oak.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
My stars, Loch Lomond has made a modern whisky. This thing is sweet and oaky with nothing that would frighten away the casual drinker. Normally I'd say such a whisky was well engineered, but here it was all about cask selection.

While it's not my style of whisky — it's much much too sweet for my delicate temperament — I'll focus on the positives. The Sauternes influence is very mild (yay!), the whisky swims well, it'll never put up a fight and it's absent even the slightest hot dumpster note. What a curious start to the week.

Availability - The Netherlands
Pricing - ~€80
Rating - 82 (those with sweet teeth would rate it higher)

Craigellachie 21 year old 1995 Clan Denny (and some history)

Craigellachie was co-founded in 1890 by Peter Mackie, the creator of the White Horse brand. Twenty-five years later Mackie's company took over the distillery entirely. In a series of terribly exciting name changes and mergers, Craigellachie's owners went from Mackie & Company to White Horse Distillers to Distillers Company Limited (DCL) to Scottish Malt Distillers (SMD) over a period of six years. In 1998 its owners (then United Distillers) sold the whole Dewar's suite of malt distilleries (Aberfeldy, Aultmore, Royal Brackla and Craigellachie) to Bacardi.

Though Craigellachie was originally created to bolster the production of White Horse and Old Smuggler blended whiskies, it now swims mostly in Dewar's and William Lawson's. Its malted barley is peated at 1-2ppm. Technically that level matches Glenmorangie's and shouldn't be noticeable, but its sulphuric spirit seems to lend many Craigellachies a perceptible phenolic edge.

I'm rounding out the week with the third straight single sherry cask from 1995, and the fourth consecutive Craig from a Laing company. Here's the list:

Monday - the official 13 year old

Tuesday - 14 year old 2000 from Old Malt Cask
Wednesday - 18 year old 1995 Old Malt Cask, cask 10589
Thursday - 20 year old 1995 Old Particular, cask 10962

Here's the whisky:

Distillery: Craigellachie
Ownership: Bacardi
Region: Central Speyside
Independent Bottler: Douglas Laing
Label: Clan Denny
Age: 21 years (Oct 1995 - May 2017)
Maturation: Sherry Butt
Cask #: DMG11769
Bottles: 197 (cask split?)
Alcohol by Volume: 48%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No
(from a purchased sample)

NEAT
Its color is very light, without a trace of gold hue, which is curious after two decades in a sherry butt; or maybe not so curious. The nose starts off with Kilkerran-esque soil and crispy leaves. Then chives and plaster. Lots of lemons and pears, with a hint of mango. There's a little bit of gunpowder green tea in the background as well. This all fades out quickly. The palate reads like an unsweetened green juice. Cucumbers, kale, grass, peppercorns and vegetable stock. There are also smaller notes of metal, grains and paper. After about 20 minutes a little bit of simple syrup shows up, as does vanilla. That green note continues into the finish, as does the metal. With time it gets more tannic and a few raisins appear.

DILUTED TO ~43%abv, or 3/4tsp of water per 30mL whisky
The nose brightens up with notes of lemons, limes and apples. There's also vanilla and cinnamon that doesn't mesh with the earthy notes. The palate is sweeter, friendlier. Tart berries and mild bitterness keep the sweets from going overboard. The salty broth remains, while the pepper reads slightly sulphuric. Grows more tannic with time. It finishes tannic, metallic, citric, sweet and earthy.

WORDS WORDS WORDSo
Fifth-fill sherry butt, perhaps? When neat, the whisky is all over the place, not fully formed. It does improve with water, mostly due to the appearance of the fruits. Meanwhile, when the oak does show up, it's all tannins and vanilla. Overall, it's not ugly, weird or unique enough to be fascinating. It's just unbalanced like a premature whisky, and too tannic like an overmatured whisky.

Though this series didn't end on the most positive note, I enjoyed Craigellachie Week a lot more than Glenlossie Week. I'm going to continue window shopping this distillery's stuff in the future.

Though Craigellachie's malt can be quirky, it can't compare to the oddities that lurch forth from next week's distillery...

Availability - Probably sold out
Pricing - ~€90
Rating - 78 (with water)

Craigellachie 20 year old 1995 Old Particular, cask 10962

Craigellachie Week Continues!

Monday - the official 13 year old

Tuesday - 14 year old 2000 from Old Malt Cask
Wednesday - 18 year old 1995 Old Malt Cask, cask 10589

Another 1995 sherry butt from the Laing family. This time it's a 20 year old from Douglas Laing's Old Particular series. This was the matchup I was really looking forward to.

An enjoyable contrast in styles, these two whiskies did not disappoint. Yesterday's Craigellachie was clean and fruity. Today is...well......

Distillery: Craigellachie
Ownership: Bacardi
Region: Central Speyside
Independent Bottler: Douglas Laing
Label: Old Particular
Age: 20 years (Sept 1995 - Dec 2015)
Maturation: Sherry Butt
Cask #: DL10962
Bottles: 314 (cask split?)
Alcohol by Volume: 51.5%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No

NEAT
The nose floats up in flurry of contradictions that somehow work. Soil, honey, caramel sauce, oranges, sand and a hint of sulphur. Then witbier, black raisins, fruit leather, dark chocolate, salt and wood smoke. The palate is full of baking spices and cracked pepper. Then salty toffee. Orange peels and orange blossoms. Mildly sweet, it grows tarter with time. Less hot than the 18, despite a higher ABV. It gets sweeter in the finish, where there's dried currants, tart lemons and orange blossoms.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv, or 3/4tsp of water per 30mL whisky
The nose picks up a savory, salty meatiness. Hints of the orange blossoms and dark chocolate. A little more sulphur. Sweeter than before, the palate is full of raisins and white fruits. Smoke residue and a little bit of herbal bitterness. Its tartness expands with time. The finish matches the palate, but with more citrus and pepper.

WORDS WODRS WORSD
I'd read about the meatiness of Craigellachie's spirit before, but this is the first time I found that sort of note. The sulphur level never gets too high, and actually fits right into the crowded, yet organized sniffer. It's not really a dirty whisky, but it shows no interest in the prettiness of its cousin cask. And this one swims much better.

This 20yo does remind me a little bit of that fun K&L Hepburn's Choice single cask from three years ago. I had a lot more of that one to drink, so things really aren't even, but I'd bet this Craigellachie would win out overall. It's a style that doesn't appeal to some, or many. But it works for me. And its another great bottling I'm sorry to have missed.

Availability - Probably sold out
Pricing - ~€100
Rating - 89

Craigellachie 18 year old 1995 Old Malt Cask, cask 10589

Craigellachie Week Continues!

Monday - the official 13 year old

Tuesday - 14 year old 2000 from Old Malt Cask

And today, it's another Old Malt Cask Craigellachie, and it's another sherry butt. AND I tried it along with Thursday's Craigellachie:

The tasting notes are going to be long enough so let's just skip to those.

Distillery: Craigellachie
Ownership: Bacardi
Region: Central Speyside
Independent Bottler: Hunter Laing
Label: Old Malt Cask
Age: 18 years (Nov 1995 - June 2014)
Maturation: Sherry Butt
Cask #: HL10589
Bottles: 730
Alcohol by Volume: 50%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No

NEAT
The nose says, "This is the sort of clean sherry cask that would give Jim Murray a hard hat." Lots of stone fruit skins, cloves, flowers and baked apples. Cherry candy and orange peel. Toasted grains, salty air and cut grass. Other than its heat, the palate is very gentle. It has a bubblegum sweetness to it. Lemons, sweet grapefruits and ginger. Pleasant oak spice. Ginger and sweet citrus in the finish as well. Some salt and smoke. A good length.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv, or 1/2tsp of water per 30mL whisky
The nose feels hotter? Flowers and apple skins. A little bit of malt. Not much else. Tart citrus and sticky sugar in the palate. Uh oh, here comes some woody bitterness. The finish is sweet and tart, with a hint of smoke. Thankfully the bitterness fades.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
No water for this one please. It's a real pleasure when neat, and probably as sparkly-clean a Craigellachie as one can find.

Oh, and let's look at the official tasting notes for this one:

COME ON, Y'ALL! And by "Y'ALL" I mean Hunter Laing. "Sweetly Mellow With Vanilla", "Smooth", "Full Bodied with Vanilla", "Sweet Hint of Sherry"?????? You couldn't make a pencil stiff with descriptions like that.

Anyway, this was a very good whisky. I'm sorry I missed out on it.

Availability - Probably sold out
Pricing - ~€100
Rating - 88 (neat only)