Aultmore 18 year old

I had the chance to try Aultmore 12 year old last January and found it to be a refreshingly malty malt. In fact, it is part of the most grimly titled whisky series yet: The Last Great Malts. I'm rather pessimistic about scotch whisky's future, but "The Last Great Malts"? Bacardi, that is some cold shit.

The time has come to try the official Aultmore 18 year old. It has more cask work involved in its production, compared to its younger sibling. Will that mean it has succumbed to the scotch industry's modern oak love?

Distillery: Aultmore
Ownership: Bacardi Limited (via John Dewar & Sons)
Region: Speyside (Moray)
Age: minimum 18 years
Maturation: bourbon casks and refill sherry casks
Alcohol by Volume: 46%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No
(from a purchased sample)

NOTES
The nose begins with a bold burst of fermenting fruits (apples, plums and grapes), which is soon joined by roasted barley and fragrant cinnamon. Smaller notes of spearmint gum, orange pixy stix and white peach skins arise later on. The palate balances a sweet fruity note with an edgier mineral side. Salt and pepper. Hint of nutty sherry. A citrus juice note builds with time, but never takes over as its joined by an autumnal leafy note. No vanilla and no tough tannins in the finish. Sweet notes of nectarines and orange pix stix, meet with salt, nuts and butterscotch.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
I like this. A lot. Enough "like" for me to consider buying a bottle. It reminds me of AnCnoc 18, but with less heat and less sherry. It also beats both of this week's Ardmores. All of its elements feel aligned, though it has enough fight in it to keep it from being a simple crowd pleaser. These Last Great Malts are, in fact, pretty good so far.

Availability - USA and Europe
Pricing - $100-$140 USA, €80-€125 Europe
Rating - 88

Bottle Revisited: Ardmore 1991-2013 Malts of Scotland, Rum Barrel

It was time to put an end to this bottle after fifteen months. There are two reasons why an Ardmore would stay open in my home for fifteen months. Either A.) it was so glorious that I needed to stretch out the goodness as long possible or B.) everything else was more tempting to pour. For this bottle, the answer was not A.).

Hold on a moment, I need to address my expectations. Expectations, how could you be so influenced by other people's reviews? We've had many talks about this. Let's just assume that every Ardmore bottle going forward will be bad, like Cutty bad. You hear me? Stay small.

Sorry, I had to do that. I was led to believe this Ardmore's rum cask influence was very minor. I was misinformed. Rum can be great. Ardmore can be great. Now leave Ardmore the fuck alone already. The end. Here's my final pour.

Distillery: Ardmore
Region: Highlands (Eastern)

Independent Bottler: Malts of Scotland

Age: ~22 years old (March 1991 - March 2013)

Maturation: Rum barrel
Casks: 13018

Alcohol by Volume: 53.8%
(from the bottom of my bottle)

NEAT
Ashy peat, apples, limes and mint leaf start the nose. Then comes the sugary rum and olive juice. Then flowers and metals. The palate is very very ashy, with olive juice, lime juice and an ashy sweet rum. Something doughy is going on in the midground, and it's all getting increasingly tangy. It finishes with hot sauce heat and ash. Lemon sour candy. Kind of a light-style Hampden.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv, or 1⅔ tsp water per 30mL whisky
The ashy peat recedes slightly in the nose, leaving olives, limes, dijon mustard, saline and floral perfume. The palate's still ashy, though less sweet. Pickled ume, black pepper and limes. More pepper, less ash in the finish. More sour fruits and a little bit of sweetness.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
The rum cask is as subtle as a shavasana fart, without half the thrill. It took a lot of effort not to write notes like, "Rum nose. Rum palate. Rum finish." Also, I don't mind an ash note, though it's one of the least pleasing characteristics peating provides. But I blame the cask for highlighting it and kicking it forward. Dilution improves matters both rummy and ashy, and I wish I had explored that further, earlier. It's not a bad whisky, but it's not what I thought I was buying. Thus ends the complaint. The next review will be *SPOILER ALERT* happier.

Availability - sold out
Pricing - €99 in 2013
Rating - 81 (diluted)

Bottle Review: Ardmore 20 year old 1996

My aim has been to open up one Ardmore bottle each year, and that has been somewhat successful:

• In early 2016, it was a 13 year old 1990 from G&M which was lean, youthful and good.
• Early 2017, I opened a 14 year old 2002 sherry cask release from G&M. It was louder and more cask-driven than the 13yo, which was fine.
• I chose to dig back a little further and open up a 1991 rum cask from Malts of Scotland in late 2018, a whisky beloved by reviewers more famous than yours truly. It was not beloved by me. In fact it was a lot of work to get through. More on this in my next post.
• Soon after that (still in 2018), I freed my bottle of the official 12 year old Port Wood and found that one more pleasurable than the 1991 from MoS.
• I did not open an Ardmore in 2019, until the very last week of the year.

I've whined plenty about the lack of age-stated official Ardmores. The 12 year old Port Wood, released in 2015, was a good start, but the 20 year old 1996 was a more impressive step. Also its price was oddly reasonable and was often on sale (!) at various European online retailers.

Yet, the producers couldn't leave well enough alone. Rather than just making it a bourbon cask release, they chose to introduce ex-Islay casks to the mix. Or from what I glean from the online descriptions, the whisky was first aged in 1st fill bourbon barrels, then finished in ex-Islay casks. This practice has also recently started showing up in numerous indie (specifically Signatory) single cask Ardmore releases. Can't say I'm crazy about that idea, but it could be worse. Yes?

Don't you wish someone looked at you the way Anna looks at this whisky?

Sigh.

Distillery: Ardmore

Ownership: Beam Suntory
Region: Highlands (Eastern)
Age: minimum 20 years (1996-2017)
Maturation: 1st fill bourbon barrels, then finished in ex-Islay casks
Alcohol by Volume: 49.3%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No
(upper third of my bottle)

CASUAL DRINKIN'
The ex-Islay cask influence is very minimal. A good thing. Not that the whisky flaunts much in the way of other character, but I didn't buy the bottle to taste Laphroaig residue.

NEAT
The nose begins with a mix of plaster, barley, cinnamon and "polyester peat" (no relation to Polythene Pam). After 20+ minutes, there's a mix of wood smoke, machine shop grease and candy shop sugar. Minor notes of honey mustard and ground cumin remain in the background. The palate starts off hotter than one would expect from the ABV, but it does cool down by the third sip. That's followed by a balance of tart citrus, sour candies, cigarette ash and hints of seaweed and brine. There's plastic, ash, citric acid, wood smoke and mint leaf in the hot finish.

DILUTED TO ~43%abv, or ¾ tsp of water per 30mL whisky
Barley, dark chocolate, smoked vanilla bean and aromatic wood (almost sandalwood) smoke make up most of the nose, along with mild notes of lemon zest and Frosted Flakes. Less ash in the palate, more band-aid-tinged smoke and burnt plastic. A decent bitter liqueur note floats up as well. The smoke gets woodier in the finish, while the plastic note vanishes. Also some gentle bitterness and sweetness.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
While the palate is a bit austere, the Islay casks don't intrude, which is great! The nose can get wild when neat; dilution tames and focuses it. On the other hand, I prefer the neat flavors because I haven't yet been able to warm up to the burnt plastic note. Despite the 20 years and seemingly aggressive cask work, the whisky remains youthful and edgy. It leans closer to the 13yo 1990 G&M than any of the other Ardmores I've opened, which is also a good thing. Due to its reserved nature and limited character, I don't think it's going to wow even we Ardmore geeks, but it's a full step better than the cask I'm going to revisit next...

Availability - still easy to find at European retailers 2+ years after its release

Pricing - €80-€120 w/VAT
Rating - 86

Bottle Review: Amrut Naarangi, batch 05

Yes, this is my bottle. Ta da!

This batch of Amrut Naraangi was on the table at five recent local events, and it proved to be a hit every time. Drinkers seem to like the whisky as much as its story.

Amrut deposits a few pounds of small local oranges into each of a number of sherry-filled casks, then lets them macerate, integrate, infiltrate, disseminate, inculcate, annunciate, inseminate and disintegrate in the Bangalore heat for three years before the casks are emptied. Amrut's unpeated spirit is then added to the casks to mature for an unknown amount of time (my guess is 3-6 years).

Distillery: Amrut
Region: Bangalore, India
Expression: Naarangi
Age: ???
Maturation: see notes above
Batch: 05, August 2018
Alcohol by Volume: 50%
Chillfiltered? probably not
Color added? ???
(approximately the midway point on my bottle)

NOTES
Citrus does feature in the nose, but it's much milder than a liqueur. It's also zippier than navel orange zest, smelling of kabosu, yuzu and citron. This blends with notes of chocolate, toffee, rosemary, fruity cinnamon, malt and brown rice. It even picks up a musty old sherry cask note after 30 minutes. The palate has more classic sherry cask notes of nuts and dried fruit. The midground citrons and limes mix with subtler notes of sweet paprika, serrano pepper and pineapple. A happy lack of sweetness in the finish makes way for tangy citrus and chiles, some paprika and a salty pickled bite.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
I'm going to pour myself another glass of this very satisfying batch of Naarangi right now. There isn't much complexity in the palate, instead one finds the fireworks in the nose. But the palate is not syrupy sweet, it is spicy and tangy and — exotic is too loaded of a word — enthusiastically not scotch.

I wish Amrut could find a way to price this in the $60-$70 range. Its current price keeps me from running after a second bottle. $$$ aside, this is a fun whisky experience, and I look forward to other international producers giving an experiment like Amrut Naraangi a try.

Availability - Specialty retailers in the US and Europe
Pricing - $120-$160 in the US, €90-€140 in Europe
Rating - 86

Glenisla 37 year old 1977 Signatory cask 19604

It is my pleasure to begin 2020 with a review of the only Glenisla I'll likely ever try.

A very short-lived experimental single malt distilled at Glen Keith distillery in the mid- to late-1970s, Glenisla. Allegedly, the distillers added peated water to the wash charge rather than just peating the malt. (I use italics because of that genuinely odd idea.) Not much peat character made it into the spirit itself as a result, then the whisky sat around to be used in blends, including Chivas Bros' Century of Malts vatting where the teenage Glenisla vanished under 99 other malts.

The only time the single malt saw the light of day was via nine single casks released by Signatory, all distilled on 7/7/77. The cask I'm reviewing today made to the USA thanks to Stoller Imports.

Whisky still in the sample bottle! And data included! Amazing!

NOTES
The nose's main note puzzles me. I have no idea what it is. It's sort of oily and waxy, yet organic. Luckily there are more familiar notes to be found. Ocean, hemp, seared pear. Peach skins, peach candy, peach-colored roses in the sun (per my notebook). It gets mustier with time, while also gaining a mango yogurt note.

The palate has fruits: apricots, kiwi, and some sort of mango cream or puree. Some florals and fruity tobacco. Tapioca pudding and a hint of the nose's mystery note. After 45 minutes the whisky picks up a simple lime-like tartness along with hints of dried cheese and floral tea.

It finishes with apricots, mangoes, roses and tapioca pudding, with a tanginess holding on the longest.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
This was so delicate I didn't dare dilute (sorry). Judging by the outturn and ABV (240 bottles, 43.5%), the angels had elected to steal the alcohol rather than the water over the 37 years. Though the nose may have some phenolic-ish notes, there's no peat in the palate. The cask itself has also, thankfully, remained very quiet. Old barley spirit remains. This Glenisla isn't just interesting for historical purposes, it's also good unique whisky. It's a little quirky and very pretty with its fruits and flowers. May everyone open and/or share their bottles!

Thank you to Signatory for salvaging these casks from Seagram's claws. And THANK YOU to LV33 for this sample!

Availability - maybe Binny's?
Pricing - $350
Rating - 88

Westland Garryana 3|1

In 2016, Westland began releasing annual small batches of single malt partially aged in Quercus garryana garryana, an oak native to the Pacific Northwest. Because it's a new avenue for whisk(e)y, and the trees are in limited supply, the amount of Garryana casks used vary from batch to batch. The company offers a lot of detail about this process, including nicely-shot pleasantly-scored videos, here, here and here. The releases have been in high demand, even with their substantial price tags, so I'm curious to see how (or if) these batches will scale up.

Batch 3|1 (2018's release) is a bit more of a blending feat than its predecessors. Five cask types and a bundle of barley varietals were involved in its production. Though it may not be all PNW, I'm still thankful to have the opportunity to experience this new whiskey frontier.

Distillery: Westland
Region: Seattle, Washington
Age: minimum 51 months
Mashbill: the five-malt mix, Washington Select Pale Malt and Heavily Peated Malt
Yeast: Belgian Saison Brewer’s Yeast
Fermentation: 144 hours
Maturation: Garryana Oak casks, New American (non-Garryana) Oak casks, 1st Fill Bourbon casks, 1st Fill Port casks, refill Ex-Westland casks
Release: September 2018
Outturn: 1638 bottles
Alcohol by volume: 56%
(from a bottle split)

NEAT
The nose begins with freshly hewn lumber and old rye, then hints of mossy smoke and Play-Doh. Toffee, melted dark chocolate and saline. Vinyl siding in the summer heat. It has a very thick mouthfeel. Sweet malt and honey-roasted nuts ride up front in the palate. Tart lemons and a brisk herbal bite in the midground. Plasticky smoke and a little bit of mocha in the background. Thankfully the finish is mostly tannin free. Larger notes of toasted almonds, ginger and mocha are met with quieter moments of pepper and herbal bitterness.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv, or 1¼ tsp of water per 30mL whiskey
Cinnamon rolls, toasted almonds and wood smoke make up most of the gentler nose. Milk chocolate and coastal notes linger in the background. The palate becomes less sweet, more savory. Pan-heated dried herbs, sea salt and coastal peat. A hint of mocha. The finish matches the palate with maybe a little more nuttiness.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
A very enjoyable single malt with a great mouthfeel, Garryana 3|1 feels well-assembled throughout. It seems like one piece with the port casks nowhere to be found and the peat serving as a gentle seasoning. This batch does read a little different than the regular releases and single casks I've tried, but I'm not sure if that's the Garryana or blending at work. And while I understand the reasoning behind the premium pricing, the Garrayana batches are a bit dear for my wallet.

Whether or not this is the future of single malts, I can't say. Whisky's destiny will be determined by producer-swallowing corporations and tariff-spewing governments. While the consumer will foot the bill for both elements, hopefully something good emerges for quality distillers like Westland.

Availability - probably sold out
Pricing - $140-$180, it's cheaper in Washington though the state liquor tax makes up for the difference
Rating - 87

Westland single malt, cask 4358

The last pair of Westlands I tried had multi-maturations, and that's all they had in common. Today's whiskey is a single cask. Monday's whiskey will be......its own thing.

Released this year for distillery visitors, cask 4358 came from just the Washington Pale Malt, was first matured in a former rye cask and then finished in an Oloroso hogshead. That rye and Oloroso combo sounded intriguing, if done well. And I've had little reason to doubt Westland's single cask skills thus far.

Distillery: Westland
Region: Seattle, Washington
Age: 57 months
Mashbill: Washington Pale Malt
Yeast: Belgian Saison Brewer’s Yeast
Fermentation: 144 hours
Maturation: ex-rye cask, then an oloroso hogshead
Cask #: 4358
Release: March 2019
Outturn: 200 bottles
Alcohol by volume: 59.4%
(from a bottle split)

NEAT
Sure enough, the nose first reads like a rye aged in an Oloroso cask. There are nuts, raisins, peppercorns and brine. Despite the lack of peated malt, the whisky has a definite smoke note. Notes of VOC fumes and envelope glue mix with lemon candy in the background. The rye recedes with time (and never returns), as prunes take over. Sherry buries everything in the palate, like a baby Kavalan, wit both a PX sweetness and an Oloroso nuttiness. Prunes, black raisins, a hint of soy sauce. Bits of citrus, smoke and ginger ale. Some bitter oak. And it's hotter than expected. The savory and sweet finish carries black raisins, black pepper and drying tannins.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv, or 1¾ tsp of water per 30mL whisky
Mostly sherry in the nose. Prunes, black raisins, milk chocolate, maple and plenty of ethyl. The palate is sweeter, and gains the familiar mocha note. Some maple syrup too. Otherwise it's all grape jam and chocolate-covered raisins. The finish remains mostly the same, but picks up metallic and salt notes.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
Per the official page: "The whiskey, prior to finishing, was remarkably developed considering the time spent in cask."

Then why suffocate it with this sherry cask finish? The spirit's character is absent 95% of the time, and the rye cask makes itself known for maybe 15 minutes in the nose. This results in a generic aggressively sherry-finished single malt, something the scotch market is already flooded with. As I'd mentioned previously, the world's whisky market is sadly short on rye cask single malts. It would have been fun to try this particular whiskey before it was finished off.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - ???
Rating - 79