Knockando The Time Warp! Knockando 12 year old 1966 (OB) Justerini & Brooks Dateo Import

The Whisky Wayback Warp deposits us in 1966, just four years after W & A Gilbey merged with United Wine Traders to become IDV, and more importantly when Knockando distillery was still malting their own barley.  By the time his whisky was bottled in 1978, the maltings were forever shuttered and Grand Metropolitan had taken over.

The Grand Metro takeover wasn't all bad.  Almost immediately upon their ownership change in 1972, Knockando's single malt was first released.  It was done by utilizing the name of Justerini & Brooks on the label.  Justerini & Brooks (also part of Grand Metropolitan) had achieved worldwide success with their blend J&B Rare.  In fact in 1963, they were the second Scotch brand to sell one million cases in a year (after Cutty Sark did so in 1962).  So the brand recognition was strong, thus, "Here's another J&B scotch!" approach.

Thank you to Cobo for this great photo.  And thank you, of course, for a sample of this whisky.  The Single Malt Sentinels approve.

Distillery: Knockando
Ownership at time of bottling: Grand Metropolitan (via Justerini & Brooks)
Importer: Dateo
Type: Single Malt
Region: Speyside (Central)
Age: 12 years
Distilled: 1966
Bottled: 1978
Maturation: ???
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

Its color is light gold.  The nose begins full of peach and papaya, limes and lemongrass.  Then orange pixy stix, bubblegum, and a whisper of vanilla bean.  After some time......apples, salty butter, fresh wood pulp, caramel, and cassia bark.  The palate's fruit is a bit tarter than the nose lets on.  Some bold bitterness up front, then sugar later on.  A bit sharp at first, almost austere (fancy word!).  But eventually, the nose's bubblegum shows up and some sweet barley sugars emerges, brightening things up.  Hints of blood orange and grapefruit appear later on as well.  The finish is quite dry, like a minerally white wine.  Some tart citrus.  A tiny bit of sugar.  Lots of grass/chlorophyll.  A moment of ripe bananas and the essence of Juicy Fruit gum (without the sweets, if you can picture that).

What a nose!  So fresh and bright after 37 years under the cork.  I didn't mind the woody notes that appeared later because they danced so well with the fruity spirit.  After the beauty queen nose, the palate seemed almost blue collar, a lean mean malt.  I think you'd have to dig super dry white wine (like I do) to really enjoy it.

If you're looking for other opinions on it, Serge reviewed it almost eight years ago.  And I think Cobo likes this one quite a bit.

This was a lot of fun.  Whatever could be on deck for tomorrow?

Availability - Auctions

Pricing - not as expensive as most other distilleries from this era

Rating - 87

Knockando-do-do De-da-da-da: Knockando 24 year old 1979 Justerini & Brooks (private bottling)

Photo and sample courtesy of Cobo

Cobo won this bottle at an auction and sent me a sample.  The bottle's personalized label reads: "The whisky in this bottle was distilled at the Knockando Distillery during 1979. It was drawn from cask and specially bottled to commemorate the 50th Birthday of George 12th December 2003."  We don't know who George is other than a very lucky individual.  Hopefully there were other bottles and George was able to enjoy them.  But I'm seeing a water stain on the label and now I'm wondering if something terrible happened to George.  Like a flood or sobriety.  George is a great guy.  Give him a break, God.  ;-)

Distillery: Knockando
Ownership at time of bottling: Grand Metropolitan (via Justerini & Brooks)
Type: Single Malt
Region: Speyside (Central)
Age: 24 years
Distilled: 1979
Bottled: 2003
Maturation: ???
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

The color is light gold.  The nose is big on florals (blossoms and soap) and is very delicate.  Dust, cotton, fuji apple skins, honey, and lemons right from the tree.  Whipped honey butter and cantaloupes.  Hints of grapefruit and the ocean.  The palate starts of musty, like a much older bottle.  Then there's apple juice, vanilla beans, and burnt toffee.  A slight note of industrial plastics, another of carpet.  But overall it grows sweeter and spicier with time.  The moderate length finish has the apple juice and vanilla beans as well.  Though it's more like vanilla meringue here.  Bit of the carpet fiber note too.  Like the palate, it also gains spices and sweetness with time.

This is a fragile-feeling whisky whose nose seems like its about to float right off its face.  The nose is quite pretty (and I would say "feminine" if that didn't make the oceans seethe) with its flowers, fruit peels, and honey (again!).  The palate is mild and gentle as well, though its charms escaped me quicker than those of the nose.  Still, this is a heck of a thing to be reviewing and I'm very thankful to have had the opportunity to do so.  Thank you, Cobo!

Availability - Ask George

Pricing - see "Availability"

Rating - 81

More Knockando for you: Knockando 26 year old 1980 Duncan Taylor Peerless

With today's Knockando we're taking a step back to 1980.  This the only independent bottling of my Knockando review sextet, as well as the one that spent the most time in its cask.  Indie bottlings of Knockando are rare, likely due to the cask hoarding Diageo chooses to do for the popular J&B blend.  Whiskybase lists only 18 indies; The Malt Monitor lists only 7; Serge has reviewed only 4.  Diving For Pearls now has 1.

Distillery: Knockando
Bottler: Duncan Taylor
Range: Peerless
Type: Single Malt
Region: Speyside (Central)
Age: 26 years
Distilled: June 1980
Bottled: March 2007
Maturation: perhaps a refill ex-bourbon barrel?
Cask #: 1912
Bottle count: 268
Alcohol by Volume: 46%
(Thanks to Cobo for the sample!!!)

The color is a light amber, even after 26 years in the cask.  The nose starts grassy and ends grassy.  The next largest note is fruity, a combo of mango, nectarines, and lemons.  There's a floral burst, right between blossoms and floral soap.  Then secondary notes of pineapple, apple juice, and honey.  Occasionally there's a slight musty thing going on, as well as a hint of solvent.  After about 30 minutes, a solid lemongrass note develops.  The palate has some caramel poured over grilled pears.  The whole pot o' honey.  Cinnamon bark, vanilla frosting, almond skins, honeydew, and toasty grains.  The sweetness goes right to the edge, but never teeters into Too Much territory.  The sweet finish is full of honey, pear juice, vanilla frosting, and witbier.

For its age this is feels like a young and spritely thing.  The honey characteristic is reminiscent of yesterday's 1999 official bottling.  And similar to that whisky, there's quite a lot of spirit character in play in this one.  I think its age mostly shows up in the subtleties of the nose and palate.  Since Duncan Taylor chose to only bottle this cask at 46%abv, I don't know if it would have been bigger or better at full power, but it's still very nice at this strength.  But, with all things considered, it's only slightly better than the 12yo 1999.  Happily this wasn't terribly expensive back in the day.  Imagine, a 26 year old single malt selling for €86!

Availability - Happy Hunting!

Pricing - around €86 in 2007

Rating - 85

(For a very different opinion of this whisky, see Serge's review.  For a third review, see the one from 'bakerman' on Whiskybase.  His notes couldn't be more different than Serge's and mine.  Apparently this stuff is a Rorschach Test.)

Let's Knockando it! Knockando 12 year old 1999 (OB)

Let's start where I started, with this recent Knockando 12 year old.  Knockando's official bottlings aren't sold in the US and their independently bottled versions are scarce everywhere because the J&B needs its 'do.  Thus when Florin (a prince) offered up a good portion of his bottle of the 12, I was happy to receive it.  At first I found it to be an easy drinker, something to sip and generally ignore.  With successive pours, it began taking on more form and character.  I set two ounces aside for a future review, and now the future has arrived.

Distillery: Knockando

Owner: Diageo plc
Type: Single Malt Report
Region: Speyside (Central)

Age: 12 years (1999-2011)

Maturation: primarily ex-bourbon casks with a smaller amount of ex-sherry casks

Chill-filtration? Yes
Caramel colored? Yes

Alcohol by Volume: 43%

The color is DiageoGold™.  Large quantities of barley and yeast in the nose, and a hell of a lot of honey.  Some notes of apples, fresh pears, orange hard candies, vanilla, and marzipan.  Some nuts, cigar tobacco, and cocoa from the sherry casks (probably).  An occasional gritty note.  With time in the glass, the whisky develops notes of dried berries, dried grass, and tangerines.  At first the palate is lightly smoky, with some salty butter and something a little dirty (literally dirt).  There are smaller notes of oak spice, lemons, sweet wine, and pilsner.  After some time in the glass, the whisky gets a little creamier, the lemons becoming lemon bars.  Some sugary frosting, orange pulp, walnuts, honey, and burnt barley emerge as well.  A hint of the honey.  The dusty/toasty/burnt thing sticks around into the finish.  There are also some oranges, black peppercorns, honey, and vanilla.  In later sips, the citrus grows as does a jasmine-like note.  A moderate length finish overall.

As I hinted at in the intro, the whisky really grew on me.  It's very pleasant and barley-forward.  It's not actually complex, but I did two different tasting sessions, which is why there's a pile of tasting notes.  I also wrote down, "Would be great with a beer."  It would be even better at a $30-$35 price point -- as it is in much of Europe -- since it's a small step up from Glenfiddich 12 and probably comparable quality-wise to Tomatin 12.  Hell, if J&B included more of this in their bland blend, I'd buy that as well.  But that's not happening, so maybe someday Diageo can find it in its cold black heart to bring Knockando to the US.  Perhaps?

Availability - European retailers

Pricing - $30-$40 (w/VAT, w/o shipping)

Rating - 84

Knockando-wutchyalike

Good news everyone!  It is time for me to review the one distillery for which every single one of you have been waiting breathlessly.  The pride of J&B.  The little black hill.  Knockando.

Photo from scotchwhisky.net

For the next two weeks, I'm going to pile so much Knockando (nock-AN-doo) on you, you'll need a shovel to find sunshine.  Six reviews covering the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s.  Mostly the '60s though.

You may be asking your screen, "He's talking about AnCnoc, right?"  Nope, that's Knockdhu, another Speyside distillery, which changed its single malt's name to AnCnoc to prevent brand confusion with Knockando, only to create new confusion about how to pronounce AnCnoc.  AnCnoc is owned by Inver House.  Knockando is owned by a wee independent company called Diageo.  I'll be ignoring AnCnoc going forward and lavishing attention on the Diageo distillery.

Knockando Distillery broke ground in the late 1890s by entrepreneurs who wanted to take advantage of what was being hailed as a whisky boom.  By the time the distillery was complete, the boom was revealed to be bupkis and the whisky industry had tanked.  The distillery then closed soon after.  I'm sure there's no lesson to be learned there.

In 1904, W. & A. Gilbey, a London-based wine and spirits producer, bought the distillery and fired up the stills again.  Fifty-eight years later, W. & A. Gilbey merged with United Wine Traders to create International Distillers and Vintners (IDV).  One of the branches of IDV was Justerini & Brooks, or J&B.  Knockando became an ingredient of J&B's blended scotch, later becoming its main malt.  Justerini & Brooks was also responsible for releasing Knockando's first single malt, a decade later.  The distillery did their own floor maltings until 1968.  In 1969 they began purchasing malt (as of 2010 they were doing so from Burghead) and doubled their capacity by increasing their still count from two to four.  In 1972, IDV was bought by Watney Mann who was taken over by Grand Metropolitan who merged with Guinness to create Diageo in 1997.

Today, J&B is one of the world's top five best selling blended scotch brands, and was as high as #3 as recently as 2009.  So, it's popular stuff.  Thus most of Knockando's malt whisky is directed into that vat.  But quite a bit (650,000 bottles worth) still makes its way into a single malt each year, making it (as of 2012) Diageo's 7th best selling single malt.  We don't see those official bottlings here in the US since the sales are focused in Western Europe.  When Knockando was owned by IDV, its single malts always listed a vintage year (and not always an age statement).  Diageo took the unique (for Diageo) step by keeping that practice.  Currently the Knockando single malts list both the vintage and an age statement.

I'm going to begin the reviews with a recent release, then work my way back through the years.  This week's three single malts (two officials and one indie) will be from the time period after the floor maltings had closed.  Next week's three will all be from the floor maltings.  I write this intro having not yet tried the old stuff, but I'm excited to do so!  Stay tuned.

A Friendly Reminder to Kill Your Whisky Gods (figuratively)

Jackson, Valentin, Murray, Roskrow, Cowdery, Smith, Bryson, Mitchell, de Kergommeaux, MacLean, Broom, Gillespie, van den Heuvel.  These people (amongst many more names) brought us to whisky.  All of these people motivated us to explore beyond Johnnie Walker, Macallan, Grant's, Jameson's, Ballantine's, Crown Royal, and Chivas.  They inspired us to record and classify our sensory experiences.  Sometimes they were the catalysts for us to publish our reactions in digital or printed formats.  For those of us who do air our hubris publicly, our writing styles were influenced by the writers that came before us.  Our very reactions to whiskies, even those we've never tried, were on some level formed by their opinions.

And that's okay.  We all have to start somewhere.  A lot of these gentlemen have an expansive acquaintance with whiskies that the rest of us will likely never accrue.  They set us off on our way, provided guidance, and helped set a foundation (how many metaphors would you like?).

But we don't have to drink like them or write like them.  And we don't have to endeavor to drink like them or write like them.  We are not them.  I know that sounds simple, but it's not.  Acknowledging our influences is easy, breaking free from them to fully discover our own preferences is the challenge.  Why only buy what other people like?  Why spend our time chasing other people's pleasures?

We can like wine cask finished whiskies.
We can like young whiskies,
NAS whiskies,
Whiskies aged in rejuvenated casks,
Whiskies with caramel colorant,
Those that have been filtered,
Those bottled at 40%abv,
Those distilled at Loch Lomond.

Even if our mentors smell mirabelles and quince, it's okay if we smell maple syrup and pancakes.
Even if our mentors smell boat hulls and the Islay shore, it's okay if we smell cow shit.

We don't have to like Brora.
We don't have to like Port Ellen.
We don't have to like Stitzel-Weller.
We don't have to like Karuizawa.
We don't have to like Kavalan.
We don't have to like Clynelish, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, or Glendronach.
We don't have to force ourselves to enjoy these.

We don't have to drink from a Glencairn glass.
We don't have to add teaspoons of water to our whisky.
We don't have to drink it neatly.
We don't have to read whisky blogs.

We can love Edradour and still thrill to Glenlivet 12.
We can hate Johnnie Walker Green and love its replacement, Johnnie Walker Gold Reserve.
We can hate shopping at retailers beloved by anoraks and instead frequent BevMo.

We don't have to write down tasting notes.
We don't have to think about our every dram.
We don't have to call it a "dram".
We can call it a "dram" without shame.
We can spell flavor like flavour, no matter where we're from.
We can load our tumblers full of ice on a summer's day.  Or a winter's night, for that matter.
We can nose our whisky with one nostril while we keep both eyes closed.
We don't have to smell our whisky.

We may even discover one day we don't even enjoy whisky, we just got caught up in the excitement, and we would rather drink beer or martinis or a flavored spirit or pinot noir or grapefruit juice with Clamato.  Without the burden of conforming to those who came before us, we might enjoy more fully what we're drinking.

Thank you for your time.  This has been a friendly reminder to kill your whisky gods (figuratively), brought to you by Fireball Cinnamon Whisky: Tastes Like Heaven, Burns Like Hell.

Single Malt Report: Laphroaig 21 year old Cask Strength (2008)

Until the day before Mathilda's first birthday, I'd decided to select the two Ledaig 1973s as the celebratory samples and to end it there.  But then I realized that my celebratory sample stash was much bigger than it used to be, and how many occasions would be bigger than this?  There needed to be a third sample, and I knew exactly what it would be.

Two-and-a-half years ago, I attended a Laphroaig event with the LA Scotch Club.  There were this many Laphroaigs:

Best club event, ever.  And that gent in the gray label -- sometimes called the Heathrow Laphroaig because 750 bottles were sold exclusively at Terminal 5 -- was the best Laphroaig I'd had, easily one of the best whiskies I'd ever experienced up until that point.  Though everyone I had spoken to at the event had chosen it as their favorite of the bunch, there was inexplicably a quarter of the bottle remaining at the end of the night.  So I made off with my own sample.  And that sample is this sample:

Here's to Mathilda.  Here's to Kristen and I, we two noobs, keeping her alive for an entire year.  Slàinte mhath!

Distillery: Laphroaig

Owner: Beam Suntory
Type: Single Malt
Region: Islay

Age: minimum 21 years
Release Year: 2008
Distillation Year: 1987 or earlier
Maturation: unknown, but 9 casks were utilized

Chill-filtration? No
Caramel colored? No

Alcohol by Volume: 53.4%
Limited Release: 750 in UK, 1427 in US

Color - Light gold

Nose (neat) - Many smoked things: salmon, ham, mesquite wood, orange peels, and probably peat.  Mango-infused lapsang souchong followed by the plastic siding of my childhood home.  There's lemon marmalade, orange oil, peated cream puffs, and a whole street of Scottish chimneys.  It's also very floral; blossoms, not soap.  Cognac, ocean, and a hint of caramel sauce.

Nose (with water) - Peels the peat back, turning this into a politer whisky.  Malty, creamy, some vanilla, peaches, and oranges.  A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.

Palate (neat) - Somehow both massively fruity and massively smoky.  Deep dark char meets tropical fruit punch.  There are also peaches, plums, cherries, oranges, honey, and key lime pie.  Mint and basil and whipped cream.

Palate (with water) - Even more floral and fruity esters.  Lots of citrus peel, cherries, and rose petals.  Small nibbles of peats and a subtle bitterness.  More sugars and vanilla gradually emerge.  Very graceful from start to finish.

Finish (neat) - Enormous.  And it's the peat that rules the night.  There's everything peat-related: moss, roots, dirt, char, ash, and smoldering coals.  Then brine, seaweed, menthol, and chili oil.

Finish (with water) - Fruitier and more aromatic.  Sweeter as well, with just a peep of good bitterness.

This whisky somehow brings together both categories of official Laphroaigs: the graceful fruiters like the 18 & 30 and the peat behemoths like the old 10CS & 25CS.  When neat it leans more towards the latter, then with water added it tilts towards the former.  But, man, what a finish.  It's that finish that'll make me recommend drinking this one neatly.  Though, it's a stunner no matter how one chooses to drink it.

I'm not going to ruin the glow in the report by talking about its four figure price.  I won't pick nits, it's a pretty close competition between the 25yo CS (2011 edition), the 40yo, and this 21yo CS for my favorite all time Laphroaig.  If you have a bottle of this in your collection, know that it's a treasure, a special occasion whisky, an experience you won't soon forget.

I have no idea how I'm going to celebrate the completion of Mathilda Year Two.

Availability - A few retailers, the occasional auction

Pricing - in 2012 it was $400-$600, today it's $1000-$1500

Rating - 93