Teaninich 12 year old 2008 Single Malts of Scotland, cask 715786

(Teaninich cluster homepage)

I'm realizing now that at least 10 out of 17 of the whiskies in this Teaninich cluster are from ex-bourbon hogsheads, many of which are refills. That means more spirit-driven whisky, a good thing! But I hope the tastings don't get boring. Discovering a distillery's spirit character may be fun, but variety is the spice of whisky. Yeah, it's late over here.

Today's Teaninich comes from a hoggie, but its sparring partner, Friday's whisky, is not! Could this pairing offer some perspective???

Distillery: Teaninich

Ownership: Diageo
Region: Northern-ish Highlands

Independent Bottler: Elixir Drinks
Series: Single Malts of Scotland

Age: 12 years old (9 October 2008 - 17 December 2020)

Maturation: Hogshead
Cask #: 715786

Outturn: 296 bottles

Alcohol by Volume: 57.7%

(from a bottle split)

NEAT

The nose is very grainy, as in toasted cereals, but also grain whisky with a dose of rye spirit too. Anise, cherry lollipops, mint extract, and citronella linger behind. It gets VERY floral as it opens, becoming all potpourri after 20 minutes. Raging with raw heat and aggressive sweetness, the palate needs a lot of time to open up, even the notes are parked in the background: cherry lollies, bitter carob, cassia, and white nectarine. It finishes hot and sweet as well, with cassia and cayenne pepper nipping here and there.

DILUTED to 46%abv, or 1½ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

Water subdues much of the nose's graininess, but doesn't mask the potpourri, which almost masks some potentially nice notes of apple butter, tinned peaches, and brine. The palate gets weirder. There's something thin and grainy about it now. It has a dosed rum sweetness and rooty bitterness. Some tangy citrus and fresh cherries appear around the edges. It finishes dissonantly bitter, metallic, and sweet.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Had I tried it blindly, I could have been convinced that this was a single grain aged in a rye cask. It's odd and, frequently, not in a fun way. Though I'm not always a fan of secondary maturations, this 12yo could have used a rebooting in a different cask type, or maybe just a different cask. Clearly, not all spirit-forward pours are life affirming. Perspective!

Availability - Sold out, probably
Pricing - ???
Rating - 76

Teaninich 10 year old 2008 SMWS 59.56

(Teaninich cluster homepage)

Now that the peated outlier is out of the way, it's time for a younger Teanie (I dunno, I'm just making it up as I go along) from a refill hoggie. Hopefully it, or something from this cluster, gets close to the distillery's unpeated spirit. I don't have anything else for this intro because I didn't caffeinate properly this morning.

Distillery: Teaninich

Ownership: Diageo
Region: Northern-ish Highlands
Bottler: Scotch Malt Whisky Society
Age: 10 years old (26 Feb 2008 - 2018)
Maturation: refill hogshead
Cask number: 59.56, "Gardener's question time"
Outturn: 312 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 56.2%
(from a bottle split)

NEAT

Spirit indeed! The nose is all grass, barley, and sugar at first. There's no raw heat, and just a whiff of possibly-yeast-driven florals. Hint of mango too! The palate is neither too sweet nor too hot. It's mostly tinned pears, some limes, and barley. And that's it. It finishes with pears, black pepper, and unripe plums.

DIUTLED to ~46%abv, or <1½ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

There's more outright yeast in the nose now, joining barley and wheat. Apricot skins up front, with a hint of cologne behind (apply jokes here). More notes appear in the diluted palate: those unripe plums, orange pith, some cracked pepper, and flowers. It finishes with more barley and flowers. The only fruit note is bitter orange pith.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

It's like mellow new make! A bit too mild on the palate, but right on the nose with......the nose. While I do wish more was going on with this whisky, that would require more cask time and probably more cask. Kudos to SMWS for bottling such an un-flashy whisky. And had I not consumed the entire sample, this would have been a great reference point going forward.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - around £55-£65 back in 2018
Rating - 81

Teaninich 12 year old 2011 SMWS 59.74

(Teaninich cluster homepage)

On Monday I stated "Teaninich uses unpeated malt", so here's a peated Teaninich. Really, there's no better way to start a cluster than by introducing a whisky unrepresentative of the distillery. It's possible that Teaninich distillery occasionally does peated runs depending on Diageo's blends' needs. There's also a chance that this single malt was aged in a cask that had previously held peated whisky. I just hope it's not a one-dimensional generic peaty beast. Here it goes!

Distillery: Teaninich

Ownership: Diageo
Region: Northern-ish Highlands
Bottler: Scotch Malt Whisky Society
Age: 12 years old (11 Jan 2011 - 2023)
Maturation: first-fill bourbon hogshead
Cask number: 59.74, "For Fawkes' sakes"
Outturn: 279 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 54.7%
(from a bottle split)

NEAT

The nose's peat arrives quietly with minor notes of rubber tubing and charcoal. Dried apricots, peach skin, and sweaty socks are a bit louder, with vanilla and roses in the background. There are some sniffs that don't read peated at all. The palate is a different story. It's full of wood smoke, earthiness, and herbal bitterness. Rock candy, dried peach slices, and serrano chiles provide some depth. The wood smoke carries into the less-sweet finish, which also offers a few orange moments.

DILUTED to ~46%abv, or 1½ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

Some actual smoke sneaks into the nose, but doesn't interrupt the peaches, flowers, barley, and cherry lollipops. The herbal bitterness intensifies on the palate, while the earth and smoke ease back. The sweetness has vanished, and there's a little bit of eucalyptus in the background. It finishes with chipotle peppers and lemon bubblegum.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

I think this was fashioned with actual peated malt. This isn't Islay-esque, instead it seems like a different type of peat (from the Highlands?) was used to dry the barley. It offers an earthy, dry smoke which could be quite nice with the right amount of fruit. The palate works better when neat, but I enjoy the nose better once the whisky is diluted. It reads a bit young, and I'd be curious to try a cask like this with 5-10 more years on it, but I do appreciate that this whisky is not oak-focused at 12 years old. Hopefully more peaty Teaninichs find their way into indie bottlers' hands.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - 88€ was its original SMWS price
Rating - 82

THE Teaninich Cluster

Teaninich had been a vaguely familiar distillery name to me, but I took little interest in the whisky until 2013 when Diageo announced they were investing £50M in a facility upgrade. Clynelish, Caol Ila, Linkwood, and the rest of the known blend gems, I'd understand, but Teaninich? WTF is a Teaninich?

The "T" has a bit of a "ch-" sound to it, and there's an "-ick" at the end. The name is Gaelic of "The House on the Hill". The Munro brothers, a pair of military fellas, oversaw the distillery for its first 33 years (1817-1850) until they leased it to future crook Robert Pattison. Thankfully that lasted less than two decades. Distillers Company Limited (proto-Diageo) bought the distillery in 1933 and have never let it go since. It is The Big D's third largest malt distillery behind the Roseisle and Glen Ord horses, having quadrupled its annual capacity since MacLean's 2012 edition of Whiskypedia.

Until 1984, there was actually an "A" and "B" distillery on site, with the latter getting shuttered due to the big industry downturn. The "A" side was also shutdown for six years (1985-1991) before starting back up again.

1970 called, it wants its architecture back.
(pic source)

Teaninich uses unpeated malt from Glen Ord Maltings, upon which it uses a hammer mill and mash filter (the first Scotch malt distillery to do so), and gives the juice (plus pressed yeast) 78 hours to ferment. Once casks are filled with the distillery's spirit, they're carted further inland to Diageo's warehouses.

A lot of Teaninich samples are hiding in my stash, in fact, I'm not sure how many. This occurred because I tried a bunch of the distillery's single malts and very much enjoyed them. It has been one year since I did a full-blown scotch cluster, so now it's time for me to bring forth all the samples for what will be my largest cluster in nearly three years.

While I'm not sure if anyone else has ever said, "I am thrilled to drink a lot of Teaninichs," I would be proud to be the first. I am thrilled to drink a lot of Teaninichs.

THE TEANININININICHS:

1. Teaninich 12 year old 2011 SMWS 59.74 (Peated!) - "It offers an earthy, dry smoke which could be quite nice with the right amount of fruit."

2. Teaninich 10 year old 2008 SMWS 59.56 - "It's like mellow new make!"

3. ???

4. ???

5. ???

6. ???

7. ???

8. ???

9. ???

10. ???

11. ???

12. ???

13. ???

14. ???

15. ???

16. ???

17. ???

Birthday Booze: Miltonduff 26 year old 1990 AD Rattray

After I paid for my part of a bottle split of this 26 year old Miltonduff, the honorable bottle owner reached out to me saying that he'd opened the bottle and tried the whisky, finding it to be "Just straight SOAP", and offered me a replacement pour of something else. As much as I appreciated the replacement whisky, I also requested a sample of The Soap anyway. I received it and (two years later) drank it along with Wednesday's '80s Bowmore to determine which of the two was the bubbliest, saponific single malt. Yes, I do these things to myself.

Distillery: Miltonduff
Ownership during distillation: Allied Lyons
Current Owner: Pernod Ricard
Region: Speyside (Moray)
Independent Bottler: A.D. Rattray
Age: 29 years (16 Sept 1990 - 23 February 2007)
Maturation: bourbon barrel
Alcohol by Volume: 49.1%
(from a bottle split)

NOTES

The nose has so much vanilla, caramel, pound cake, and whipped cream that it reminds me more of a Canadian blend than single malt scotch. It takes at least 45 minutes before other notes, like orange peel, lemon juice, apricot jam, and baby powder, to appear.

The palate starts off like a mouthful of Werther's Originals. Beneath that caramel candy are tangy lemons, jasmine, and tree bark, with a little bit of soap in the background. With time, the soap note expands but never breaches the background, because the citrus character also grows, and silky sticky toffee appears.

Sweet caramel, lemons, sea salt, and that hint o' soap finish things off.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

I've sworn off AD Rattray on two previous blog occasions due to my experiences with too many of their wonky casks. Third time's the charm?

The good news: This is less soapy than Wednesday's Bowmore. The nose isn't bad, and it improves with time.

The bad news: Why does a 26-year-old scotch smell like an 8-year-old Canadian blend? Soap + tree bark on the palate? Not great, Bob. Soooooooo much caramel everywhere.

Though this whisky isn't broken, there was something unusual going on with the cask and not in a fun way. Again. So, yes, third time's the charm. No more AD Rattray casks for me.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - ???
Rating - 75

Birthday Booze: Peat's Beast 34 year old 1985 (Bowmore)

Yes, I am including one '80s Bowmore among my Birthday Booze, because what the hell. Though I am a bit startled by the new generation of whisky fans who unironically find perfumed soap and artificial violet notes as features, not bugs, of the whisky production process. (Yes, and Troll 2 is peak cinema.) Or are the newest moneyed whisky drinkers unable to discern when old and/or expensive whiskies are crapola?

I don't know. But indie bottler Fox Fitzgerald thought it wise to finish a half dozen or more '80s Bowmore casks in Cognac-seasoned vessels. Maybe this is just crazy enough to work. At some point in the past, I thought it was a good idea to engage in a bottle split of this whisky. For science.

Distillery: Bowmore
Owner: Beam Suntory
Region: Islay
Independent Bottler: Fox Fitzgerald

Range: Peat's Beast
Age: 34 years old (1985 - 2020)
Maturation: ?????, then Cognac casks
Outturn: 1800 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 47.1%
(from a bottle split)

NOTES

The nose is unique and......kinda great. First, wrap flower kiss candy in maple candy, then smoke it. Then do the same with seaweed-wrapped sour apple candy. And how about a slice of cinnamon cake next to a blob of pine sap and a few band-aids, in a fish market.

On the other hand, the palate. Burnt hay, burnt moss, burnt Crème de Violette, burnt floral soap. Now I'm sipping shampoo with a flower kiss candy chaser. Some curiously clean peat smoke floats up from the background.

Lemons, black pepper, Crème de Violette, shampoo, and burnt hay finishes it off.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Yes, we all have our kinks. You like to pay $400+ to drink violet shampoo. I like Jess Franco films. I also love this whisky's nose, fashioned by the insane idea of bringing cognac into the mix, and it keeps me from failing the entire thing. This is it for my '80s Bowmore samples, but it's not the only possibly-soapy sample in the stash. For my next review...

Availability - Maybe the primary market, probably the secondary
Pricing - ???
Rating - 71

Birthday Booze: Speyburn 37 year old 1975 Clan Cask 3413

The Birthday Booze posts are going to go on for a while because that's the mood I'm in.

In 2012, Speyburn Distillery bottled a single cask for their official fan club, and it wasn't something like a 7 year old Virgin Oak creature, but rather a 37 year old PX cask! As far as I can tell, they never did such a thing again. Luckily for me my good friends, the Doctors Springbank, purchased a bottle back then. I didn't meet the Docs for another six or seven years, but apparently it was just in time for them to share a pour with me. Thank you, folks!

pic source

Distillery: Speyburn
Ownership: Inver House (via Thai Beverages plc via International Beverage Holdings Ltd.)
Region: Speyside (Rothes)
Age: 37 years old (1975 - 2012)
Maturation: Pedro Ximenez cask

Cask #: 3413
Exclusive to: Clan Speyburn
Alcohol by Volume: 55.4%
Chillfiltered? No
e150a? No

(courtesy of Doctors Springbank)

NEAT

The nose begins with a mix of dark chocolate, dried blueberries, dried currants, and brine. After ~40 minutes, Fig Newtons join in, as does a subtle farmy note. After an hour, there's cinnamon sprinkled on baked peaches and walnuts. A nice musty dunnage note hits the palate first, followed by limes, wet stones, and tannins. Nutmeg and an earthy molasses fill the background. Lime pith and pulp, honeydew, nutmeg, and baking chocolate finish it off.

DILUTED to 50%abv, or ⅔ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

Due to the whisky's age, I'm being cautious with the dilution. Date rolls and old Calvados float up to meet the nose, followed by raw almonds, maple syrup, and a hint of anise. The palate gets mustier, tarter, sweeter, and figgier. The sweetness merges well with oak spice and bitter citrus in the finish.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

I don't know how many, if any, such gems remain in Speyburn's Rothes warehouses. In fact this may have been their oldest official release, with a 1973 single cask being the only one from an earlier vintage. The whisky feels its age, but in the best way, with a mustiness and earthiness which meld perfectly with figs and dates, so you know it won me over. The whisky carries a steep price on the secondary market, perhaps the highest of any Speyburns I've seen, so you should surreptitiously seek out Clan Speyburn members and drink their whisky.

Availability - Secondary market
Pricing - ????
Rating - 90