Birthday Booze: Longmorn 43 year old 1968 Gordon & MacPhail, cask 909 for Van Wees

Allow me to recap age 43: I got divorced, caught Covid-19, was booted from one company to another, injured one rotator cuff just as the other was completing 18 months of healing, was told my left ankle has nearly no tendon left, got back to my pre-parenting weight for like 1 month, and obtained a cat whom I swear is trying to kill me in my sleep. To celebrate the close of this uneventful year, I am relieving my 1968 Longmorn sample bottle of its contents.

For those not in the know, G&M dropped a clench of outrageous Longmorn casks for Van Wees seemingly all at once, about a decade ago. Today's whisky is one of that clench. I didn't buy any of those bottles because the €500-€700 price range was out of my reach. Casks like this would go for 5x that amount nowadays and still sell out. I am not the target demographic for this delicious whisky.

pic gently lifted
from whiskybase 

Distillery: Longmorn

Ownership at time of distillation: Longmorn-Glenlivet Distillery Co

Region: Speyside (Lossie)
Bottler: Gordon & MacPhail
Range: Reserve
Age: ~43 years old (15 February 1968 - June 2011)
Maturation: first fill sherry butt

Cask #: 909
Outturn: 523 bottles

Exclusively for: van Wees
Alcohol by Volume: 55.4%
(from a bottle split)

NOTES

Nose - It reads like neither 55+%abv, nor a 1st fill sherry butt, or perhaps contemporary bottlings have conditioned my senses the wrong direction. First, fresh black plums and floral white peaches. Damp earth and toasted almonds. Lychee syrup. And then the guava, oh the guava! Madeira? Hints of dry gravel and Walker's shortbread in the background.

Palate - Oh. Oh dear. All the citrus. All the stone fruits. All the tropical fruits. I dunno, I'll try to list the things. Lots of oranges (cara caras, mandarins, bloods), figs, yellow peaches, guava, mango, dunnage, a soft earthy peat. It's tart and righteous. Massive, but never hot.

Finish - Glowingly tart. It's a citrus freakout, with Rainier cherries, mead, incense, pound cake, and a lovely bitterness also arriving in endless waves.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

As complex as the nose was, the palate was my favorite part. What a lovely thing. This fruity-fruit-fruit Longmorn era produced some of the most delicious single malts I've ever tried. If you get an opportunity to try Longmorn distilled in the 1960s, or early 1970s, seize it! There are some Longmorns even better than this specific one, but I'm perfectly happy to settle. Good bye, 43!

Availability - Secondary market
Pricing - ????
Rating - 92

Killing Whisky History, Episode 23: Longmorn 15 year old, bottled late '90s - early '00s

I hereby sacrifice the beloved Longmorn 15 to Persephone to bring spring forthwith!

 

Longmorn 28 year old 1985 SMWS 7.100

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, known for giving their whiskies "funny" names, offering WTF Is Wrong With You? tasting notes and charging members a triple-digit fee just to buy whisky, bottled the Longmorn I'm reviewing today.

Like the 1985 Longmorn I reviewed on Monday, this whisky was matured in a former bourbon cask, but SMWS provides more specifics than First Editions, as Society says its a refill hoggie. Despite their similar maturation periods and vessels, and their identical vintage, they are two very different single malts.

Distillery: Longmorn

Ownership at time of distillation: Seagrams
Region: Speyside (Lossie)

Independent Bottler: Scotch Malt Whisky Society
Funny name: Hawaiian holidays
Age: 28 years (September 24, 1985 - 2014)
Maturation: refill ex-bourbon hogshead
Cask#: 7.100
Alcohol by Volume: 58.7%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No

NEAT
Its color is dark gold, almost like a sherry cask. The nose holds heaps of sugary milk chocolate, like Milk Duds and Twix bars. Toffee pudding. It gets oakier with time, but also picks up melon, lime and citronella notes. The palate is zesty and hot. Limes (lots of 'em), lemons and fresh ginger. Brine, toasted oak spices and a little bit of malt. It finishes malty, salty and peppery. Sweet citrus and a hint of milk chocolate.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv
Wow, the nose actually intensifies! It's a halloween bag full of chocolate bars. Vanilla bean and toasted coconut. There's also a rumble of dried herbs underneath. The palate doesn't change much. Mostly zesty citrus with toasted oak. Maybe a little sweeter. Peppercorns and mint leaves. Mild herbal bite. The finish is longer, zestier. A little bit of nutty fudge. Hint of bitterness.

DILUTED TO ~40%abv
The nose shifts gears. It's become muskier and earthy. Watermelon candy and papaya. The chocolate now shows up in the palate, as does some vanilla. The limes and ginger and herbs remain. Nuts, chocolate, vanilla and limes in the finish.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
This was a refill cask? I can't imagine what the first fill whisky was like. Or was this Longmorn re-racked?

Like Monday's '85 Longmorn, this whisky's nose is its strong point, and the whole package improves greatly when diluted. While I often prefer leaner whiskies, this one's sniffer is so entertaining that I'd choose it over the First Editions bottling. Still, neither are in the same solar system as Longmorns from previous decades, so be careful with your monies.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - ???
Rating - 86 (with water)

Longmorn 27 year old 1985 First Editions

Longmorn single malt from the 1960s and 1970s may be some of the loveliest whisky ever made. But I've found 1980s Longmorn to be a little more, say, normal. I don't know why it changed. Their stills didn't switch over to steam firing until 1994. Could they have changed their barley or yeast? Or does it have something to do with Seagrams taking over in 1978?

In any case, 1980s Longmorn usually costs only a fraction of the price of the '60s and '70s stuff. Plus it can actually be found at retailers from time to time. I've reviewed two Longmorns from the Reagan (or Mondale) Decade, here and here. And now I'm going to review two more, a pair of 1985s I tried side-by-side this weekend.

The first Longmorn is from a bottle split I did with Chemistry of the Cocktail. Jordan reviewed the whisky last week. Let's see how this one fares...

Distillery: Longmorn

Ownership at time of distillation: Seagrams
Region: Speyside (Lossie)
Independent Bottler: First Editions

Age: 27 year old (1985-2013)

Maturation: ex-bourbon cask
Bottle: 57 of 216
Alcohol by Volume: 52.5%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No

NEAT
The color is a light yellow gold. Perhaps a refill cask? The nose is very grain forward. Plenty of malt. Apples, mint leaf, dry cheese, lemons. A whiff of chlorine. Smells a little dusty sometimes. A hint of wood smoke. Butterscotch. The palate is hot and filled with tart, acidic citrus. Salt, malt and caramel. Not terribly expressive. It finishes hot and peppery, with tart citrus.

Will water help it out?

DILUTED TO ~46%abv
Yes. A little bit of tropical fruit slips into the nose. Richer oak notes. Ocean air, a slight phenolic thing. Vanilla, herbs, malt. The palate is calmer, fuller. The citrus reads brighter, less acidic. Sweet lime things. Roasted salted nuts. A hint of milk chocolate. The finish is actually longer at this strength. Limes, salt, nuts and caramel.

Dare I......

DILUTED TO ~40%abv
The nose changes quite a bit. Dunnage and fermenting fruits. Fresh green grapes and green apples. Almond extract. The palate grows sweeter. Citrus and malt, with a soft bitterness. Simple but balanced. The finish shortens up. Mostly sweet and tart citrus, with a hint of malt.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
I struggled with the first few ounces of this whisky in the weeks before this review. The heat, acid and tartness were a bit rough on the mouth. After completing this tasting, I fully agree with Jordan; dilution opens this Longmorn right up. The palate and finish were best at the 46%abv level, though I really enjoyed the nose at 40%. So if this bottle has been open on your shelf for a long time due to a lack of enthusiasm, then pour a glass and add some water, a little at a time, until you find the right spot for your palate. It won't make you swoon, but it'll transform into an above average Speysider.

Availability - A few US retailers still have a bottle or two
Pricing - Usually north of $250, though Jordan found it for half that price because magic
Rating - 85 (but water is a MUST)

Single Malt Report: Longmorn 26 year old 1987 Cadenhead Small Batch

As I mentioned in Monday's review, we stopped off at Cadenhead Whisky Shop in Edinburgh towards the beginning of our Scotland trip.  Their Edinburgh store is surprisingly snug and doesn't appear to be well stocked, but I think most of the bottles are sitting in a closed off room in the rear.  Out front there's a chalkboard menu of what they have in stock, as they do in a few of their other stores.  Though the list was extensive, I could find anything that interested me.  But what did arouse my curiosity was the Cask Ends Cage.

The "Cask Ends" are 200mL bottles of various Cadenhead releases.  Despite the name, these are probably not the final cask drippings that fall short of a 700mL bottle.  I'm pretty sure there were more than 3 bottles of a few expressions (math: 4 bottles would equal 800mL, more than enough for another 700mL bottle) in the cage.  Plus what are the odds that three "Cask Ends" bottles of a 1987 Longmorn were just sitting gathering dust in the cage for the three years since its release?  I have no real complaints about the Cask Ends, in fact they are an excellent idea.  These 200mLs provide an rare opportunity to try out single casks (and small batches) without splashing out for full bottles.  I wish more indies would offer something like this.

Distillery: Longmorn

Ownership: Pernod Ricard
Region: Speyside (Lossie)
Independent Bottler: Cadenhead
Range: Small Batch

Type: Single Malt Whisky
Age: 26 year old (1987-2013)

Maturation: two(?) ex-bourbon hogsheads
Bottles: 402
Alcohol by Volume: 49.5%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No

As with Monday's Tomatin, I tried two pours of this Longmorn side by side, one neat, the other reduced (~43%abv).

NEAT
The nose is simple but solid.  Lemon peel, bran flakes, plain digestive biscuits, and dried heather.  After a while, some subtle notes of orange blossom honey (it's what we have in the pantry right now) and vanilla linger.  The palate starts off super malty, almost chocolatey, with notes of vanilla bean and clementines.  Then in a surprise attack it shifts into an expanding pastel sphere of limes, cara cara oranges, and sweet grapefruits.  The limes and grapefruit remain for the very long finish.  Some orange candy, cactus (a first!), malted barley, and cooling tingle.

WITH WATER (~43%abv)
The nose gets brighter.  More citrus, less grain.  Maybe some white cherries and macintosh apples.  A hint of tar in the background keeps that brightness in check.  The palate keeps most of the malt from the neat version, but it also has a fruit salad of mandarin oranges, pineapple, and white grapes.  Hints of vanilla, caramel, and eucalyptus in there too.  Sweeter than the full strength version.  The tingle in the sweet finish is more citrusy here.  Vanilla simple syrup, malt, and eucalyptus make appearances as well.

COMMENTARY:
What this single malt has that's missing from Monday's Tomatin, Hunter Laing's recent 29yo 1985 Longmorn, and nine out of ten modern whiskies is Capital 'D' Development.  When this Longmorn's palate shifted gears and opened up, not only was I stunned, but I was stunned that I was stunned.  Perhaps I need to be making a habit of drinking better whisky.

Back to this whisky, specifically.  The nose is nice, perhaps better with water, but the palate is where the show's playing.  I recommend it neat, though some of you sweet tooths would prefer it with water.   Great stuff.  I don't think it's available at its original price, which is too bad because I'd recommend it right there.

Availability - A few bottles remain in continental Europe
Pricing - £36 for this 200mL; was originally £130-140 for 700mL, now around £170-£200
Rating - 89

Single Malt Report: Longmorn 29 year old 1985 Hunter Laing "Old & Rare" for K&L Wine Merchants

Hey, about a whisky you can (as of the writing of this post) still purchase in the United States?  This one is a single cask sold only through K&L Wine Merchants, who seem to have a heck of an exclusive deal with indie bottler Hunter Laing.  In this instance they have a 1980s Longmorn, something one doesn't see much of anymore.  I absolutely adore good old Longmorns, so I was looking forward to this.

I came by a sample of this long-aged Speysider thanks to my installation as the substitute LA Scotch Club host for the K&L Strikes Back event at Lost Property in Hollywood on April 10th.  Andy, Mr. LA Scotch Club, was out of town that night, so it was David OG and I who held court.  Actually, it was 99% David OG.  I was just there to take care of money stuff, check people in, and be the keeper of the bottles.  I grabbed a sample for myself that evening and now here's my review seven weeks later:

Distillery: Longmorn
Ownership: Pernod Ricard (via Chivas Bros.)
Independent Bottler: Hunter Laing
Range: Old & Rare
Age: 29 years (October 1985 - July 2015)
Maturation: refill hogshead
Bottle count: 251
Alcohol by Volume: 51.9%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No
Exclusive to: K&L Wine Merchants

Its color is yellow amber, a good sign the oak levels are moderate.

The neat nose starts off with a great fruit basket: limes, lemons, grapefruit, mangos, and clementines.  The vanilla note here is subtle, thanks to the refill-ness of the cask.  There are also roses, cherry lollipops, lime jello, and citronella candles.  With water (~46%abv), the limes and lemons grow louder.  Toffee pudding, butterscotch hard candies, and peach gummy candy notes arrive.  With water (~40%abv), it's still very pretty.  Fresh flowers, peach candy, and toffee lead the way.

The neat palate reads hot and tight at the start.  Tart citrus proves to be the biggest note throughout.  There's salt, some maltiness, a little bit of sweetness, vanilla, and a floral note.  Seems to need water to open up.  With water (~46%abv), it still has that tart bite, though it does become somewhat fruitier and floral.  Hints of malt, sugar, vanilla, and tangy lime candy.  With water (~40%abv), there's more malt, some baking spice, vanilla, and a peach hint.

The neat finish is tart, sharp, minerally, with hints of malt and vanilla custard.  With water (~46%abv), it's still mostly tart and tangy citrus.  Some quiet notes of vanilla and toffee pudding.  With water (~40%abv), it continues to get quieter.  Hints of canned peaches, vanilla extract, and chocolate malt.

COMMENTS:
The nose is the winner here, as it delivers all those fruit notes I so adore.  It has depth and dimension, as well as stamina as it stands up to well to water.  Had the palate matched the dynamic nose, I would have broken my rule about >$200 bottles and bought one of these for myself.  But the palate and the finish never really open up nor switch into another gear.  Time and water help the palate a little but shuts down the finish.  Thus this goes from an A- grade nose to a B palate to a B- finish, for those keeping score.

What I will say is that the current price of $199.99 is, in the current market (the usual qualifier), a great price for an almost-three-decade-old single cask Speyside.  The original $349.99 sticker is closer to what the market would call for, but it doesn't seem like this whisky flew off the shelves as fast as needed so K&L dropped their price, something we all wish other retailers did.

Availability - Exclusively through K&L Wine Merchants
Pricing - $200, was $350
Rating - 85

Single Malt Report: Longmorn-Glenlivet 13 year old 1974 Cadenhead

First off, I'd like to thank Cobo for supplying me with this whisky.  Older versions of Longmorn are amongst my favorite things.  Whatever the Longmorn folks used to do at the distillery worked very well.  I don't know if the change happened when they switched to steam firing in 1994 or further back when Seagrams took over and management changed in 1978.  Clearly, I need to drink more Longmorn in order to explore this further.

So here's how this one worked out.  Cobo drank the first half of the mini and then he sent me the second half.  There was about six months of oxidation sitting between the two tastings.  That time allowed for quite a bit of change as there were some differences in our experiences.  More about that after my notes...

Distillery: Longmorn
Ownership now: Pernod Ricard
Ownership then: The Glenlivet Distillers

Independent Bottler: Cadenhead

Age: 13 years (1974 - 1988)

Maturation: "Sherry Wood"
Region: Speyside (Lossie)

Alcohol by Volume: 46%

The color is light gold.  The nose first gives off a slight dusty metallic whiff.  It's not as strong of an Old Bottle Effect as other dusties I've had, but again this one had some air before my tasting.  After the OBE vanishes quickly there's a rush of tropical fruit (think mangos and pineapple) and strawberry Bubble Yum.  Underneath that is an earthy note, a little manure and hot hay.  Smaller notes of jasmine flowers and toffee linger, as does something pine-ish from the wood.  Whole lotta malt in the palate, though the sweetness stays reined in.  Plenty of oranges (peel and oil).  Peeps of Campari-like bitterness, Tobermory-esque porridge, and farm-y......farminess.  It's very lightly sherried and there are hints of the nose's tropical fruit.  Both of those elements linger through the finish, intertwined with the malt note and citrus oil, the whole package growing more candied with time.  There might be some cough syrup and mocha hiding in there too.

While this didn't buckle my knees like the ol' Scott Selection Longmorns (a pair of which were recently reviewed by My Annoying Opinions), I still really liked this Cadenhead bottling.  The fruit, earth, malt, and bitters just clicked for me.  And that might have had something to do with the six months of oxidation.  Cobo sampled this mini when it was first opened and found it to be tight, hot, woody, and sour.  I found those same difficult characteristics in the old North Port-Brechin Cadenhead mini I'd tried last year.  Do these little green bottles need some serious oxygen to open up?

If you do have the luck of finding bottles of '60s to early '70s Longmorn nowadays, they will cost money.  Those single malts age very well, thus the 30+ year olds are gorgeous and graceful and bold and lively and adjectives.  This 13 year old ain't quite there, but it's still very very good with some air.

(For more opinions on this whisky see the whiskybase listing and Johannes's review at the bottom of his Longmorn page.)

Availability - Auctions?

Pricing - Unknown

Rating - 89

Single Malt Report: Longmorn 15 year old 1992 James MacArthur

Today is the first of five Fridays wherein My Annoying Opinions and Diving for Pearls will post simultaneous reviews of one whisky each week.  Five Fridays, five single malts.  MAO and I split a few bottles, swapped a few samples, and drank a few things, all resulting in this audacious leap forward into the future of whisky blogging.  (And here is MAO's post!)

Today's whisky is a 15 year-old Longmorn bottled by James MacArthur in his/their Old Masters series.  It comes from a single cask that was actually divided into two separate releases (here's its Italian twin on whiskybase).

As per the label, the Longmorn was aged in "Sherry Wood", an oak species called Quercus Lumsdenus, I believe.  The label also carries a quote from the great Scottish poet Robert Burns which reads, "An honest bottle and a good friend." Like most writers, Burns was probably both very lonely and very opinionated, so when he conversed with his whisky he clearly took its silence as a sign of warm approval.

Can you tell that I have nothing else to say about this whisky?  There is a serious shortage of Longmorn on this site, and I have a sad lack of experience with its often prized ex-sherry-cask versions.  So here's the site's first:

Distillery: Longmorn

Independent Bottler: James MacArthur & Co.
Series: Old Masters

Age: 15 years (1992-2007)

Maturation: "Sherry Wood"
Cask number: 62553

Region: Speyside

Alcohol by Volume: 59.5%
Chillfiltered: No
Colored: Probably not

As mentioned, I'm new to sherried Longmorns and wasn't sure what to expect, so I did two separate tastings.  The whisky in the second tasting was slightly oxidized.  I'm going to arrange my notes a little differently this time because there are a lot of them, sorry...

Nose neat - At first, cocoa powder and malt.  There are both Kit Kats and Twix, alternating.  Fresh fruits, too, along the lines of apricots and plums. The high ABV is very present at the start.  But after about 15 minutes, something really nice develops.  The cocoa and malt combine and welcome in a fresh mango.  Then some butterscotch, fried plantains (better than bananas), baked apples with cinnamon, and floral powder.
Nose neat with oxidation - More cinnamon and pepper this time. Caramel apples.  The fruits are bolder, while the chocolate is mellower.  Some mint chip, anise, and toffee shows up.  Unless its my imagination, there's a whiff of both wood smoke and the ocean too.
Nose with water - Grows more floral.  A little tooty too.  The chocolate recedes.  But there's orange peel, toffee, toasty grains, and limes.
Nose with water and oxidation - Soiled hay.  The citrus now smells like lemon zest.  The floral powder note is still there, as are the toasty grains.  Both cherry cordial chocolates and dried cherries.  The mango note arises again.

Palate neat - Lots of chocolate sauce: Hershey's to some folks, Midnight Moo to Trader Joe's customers.  Then there's hay, fruit cocktail, a hint of prunes, and a little salt.  It still packs quite a burn for a 15 year.
Palate neat with oxidation - The salt and hay notes are still here.  The chocolate reads more as cocoa powder than sauce.  Some cayenne pepper thrown in.  Then a progression from fruit juice to black coffee.
Palate with water - The chocolate recedes here too.  More malt and caramel.  Both golden raisins and Raisinets show up.  The sherry gets a little dry.
Palate with water and oxidation - Three or four levels of good bitterness operating simultaneously.  The sherry is dry again.  Malt, tart lemons, and maybe some of the nose's mango.

Finish neat - Chocolate first, then molassesy rum, toasted barley, tobacco, and that prune note.
Finish neat with oxidation - Nice and dark.  Coffee, dark chocolate, black pepper, and menthol.  Just a peep of fruits in the back.
Finish with water - Sweet barley stuff up front, with oak notes in the background, and leathery tobacco in the midground.
Finish with water and oxidation - Sweeter, but the bitterness is still present.  Hints of chocolate, caramel, and tobacco (think Black & Milds).

Okay, I'll summarize:
Fresh out of the bottle the whisky is surprisingly chocolatey.  But with some air, the nose gets more complex and gains fruit and floral notes that remind me of the few much older Longmorns I've tried.  The interplay between the chocolate and fruit is nice.  Both the nose and palate demonstrate that the wine and wood haven't submerged all the good barley underneath.  I'm not sure if its because I haven't had much cask strength whisky lately, but this one seemed very hot right out of the bottle.  I think the palate benefits from some water and air, as it seems a bit tight at the start.  Even then, the nose is the star of the show.

Availability - Sparse

Pricing - probably $100-$120

Rating - 87