High West A Midwinter Night's Dram in 3 Scenes

It's been long time since I've scrapped a week's worth of posts and then started over, but now here I am. Originally, this single post was going to be three separate posts with some bad Shakespeare jokes, but once I sat down to do this Triple Taste Off, I started noticing a difference in the underlying ryes. After doing some quick googling, I realized the rye recipes had changed, and I was reminded of my "Constellation Brands blows up High West Rendezvous Rye" post from 2019.

For those of you who have forgotten the High West tale, here's a recap. In 2016 Constellation Brands bought High West Distillery, a distillery who had to that point succeeded due to its blending of sourced whiskey rather than actual distillation, for $160 million. Between 2017 and 2018, High West ran out of its old sourced rye from Barton distillery, and swapped out the well-aged portion of their rye blends from that distillery for the very young rye from their own distillery, creating a sudden shift in the character of all their ryes.

My favorite post from the post-tasting snooping, Bourbon Culture's review of MWND Acts 5 through 10, dished out the above information, and more.

As Culture notes, the Midwinter Night's Dram Act 5 (aka 2017) batch recipe was:

"Website Description: A blend of older rye whiskeys ranging from 5 to 19 years 

95% rye, 5% barley malt from MGP 

53% rye, 37% corn, 10% barley malt from Barton Distillery 

80% rye, 10% corn, 10% barley malt from Barton Distillery"

The transition began with the Act 6 scenes/batches (from 2018):

"Website Description: A blend of older Straight Rye whiskeys ranging in age from 5 to 19 years 

95% rye, 5% barley malt from MGP 

80% rye, 20% malted rye from High West Distillery 

53% rye, 37% corn, 10% barley malt from Barton Distillery

80% rye, 10% corn, 10% barley malt from Barton Distillery"

And in 2019, the shift was complete with Act 7:

"Website Description: A blend of Straight Rye Whiskies including 95% rye, 5% barley malt from MGP and 80% rye, 20% malted rye from HWD. 

Website Description for 2019 Rendezvous Rye says that it contains 4 to 7 year old rye whiskey that is a mix of sourced and in-house distilled ryes."

As you weathered whisk(e)y fanatics can already guess, the price of the much younger rye did not go down, but rather increased. And, as Culture covers in another post, Constellation has aggressively increased the MWND outturn while raising the bottling's price.

I have no interest in tracking down a bottle of any of these Acts, but I have enjoyed the batches I've sipped (two from Act 2, and one from Act 6). So I was excited about this Midwinter taste-off in midsummer. Here are the results from the Taste Off that inspired my Google searches:

A Park City Trio

High West A Midwinter Night's Dram Act 5, Scene 8 (2017) 49.3%abv	High West A Midwinter Night's Dram Act 7, Scene 1 (2019) 49.3%abv	High West A Midwinter Night's Dram Act 8, Scene 2 (2020) 49.3%abv
Everything in the nose revolves around a middle ground between sticky sugary fortified wine and bold rye: grape jam, blueberry syrup, rye bread, fennel seed, black licorice, marzipan, and brine.	The nose is very winey (Moscatel!). Roses, cherry syrup, and grape lollipops keep the fennel seed in the background.	Raw rye in the nose, and it isn't MGP sauce. At least it's less winey. Mothballs, tar, and black licorice up front, with marzipan, grape juice, and ethanol in the back.
It's a good thing that there's a lot of high-rye rye as it keeps the port casks' sweetness from taking over the palate. Fennel seeds and honey on one level, strawberry candy and grape candy down below.	There's a strong orange note in the sweet palate. Then sawdust and ginger. Tart apples and dash of salt. Not much in the way of that fennel seed note.	Again the wine is mellow in the palate. It's very peppery and spicy, full of loud oak and youthful rye. Tangy orange marmalade soaks into the toasted oak. As with 7:1, the sweetness isn't necessarily from the port.
It finishes with rye and sugar. Fennel seeds, lemon candy, and grape candy.	Very sweet on this finish. Orange candy, lemon candy, ginger candy, tart apples, and tannins.	The finish is so very, very sweet. Fennel seed and tangy citrus try to break through.
Final thoughts: The port casks start to tip the scales in the finish, and it's quite sweet overall, but never too much for my grumpy palate. In fact, it's the least sweet of the three. The ABV works perfectly on this one.	Final thoughts: This is a very different whiskey, and I don't think the port casks are driving all the sweetness. It's as if the spirit itself has been dosed with refined sugar. The orange note is the only thing keeping this from dipping into the 70s.	Final thoughts: I like this more brutal take on The Dram, until the finish strikes. The spirit's volume is cranked up, while the port is toned down, something I do support. But this is soooooo sugary. I'm struggling to find any MGP in here.
Rating: 84	Rating: 80	Rating: 82

WORDS WORDS WORDS

By the end of this lineup, I had my phone out, trying to discern what's going on with the changing spirit. As noted in the intro, Act 5 was the last one with the original recipe, without High West's spirit. Act 7, was the first act with no old Barton rye ingredients, and theoretically Act 8 was the same. My Kravy senses tell me that Act 8 had the most High West rye in it. Though 8 feels like the youngest of the three, I know my way around young MGP rye better than any other American spirit, and there's not much to be found in 8:2.

Five years ago, I'd already noticed how much sweeter Act 6 was than Act 2, and that was the Act that introduced the High West spirit to the recipe. The trend appears to have increased in Act 7 and 8, which leaves me uninterested in Acts 9, 10, and 11.

In fact, you won't find me supporting High West in general, now that David Perkins is no longer at the till, and yet another corporation is charging more for less. The market offers plenty of options for me to obtain a bottle of Indiana's rye if needed. You may want to explore those as well.

Ardnamurchan 5 year old Golden Promise barley (2024)

Though my take on this whisky differs from that of Dramface (the only other write-up I've found about this, or a similar, Ardnamurchan), I highly recommend reading through his quotes about the Golden Promise barley strain. Golden Promise was once beloved for the texture and flavor it produced through brewing and distillation, but corporations were not fond of it due to the strain's low alcohol yield and susceptibility to mildew. Legend has it that Golden Promise was behind the high quality of specific single malts in decades past (picture Macallan's golden years). Whether Golden Promise was the secret or not, I always appreciate when whisky distilleries play with barley and/or yeast strains.

Brought back from the Scottish holy land by Doctors Springbank (thank you, folks!), is this sample of a sherry-octave-aged Ardnamurchan 5 year old that used only Golden Promise in its production.

Distillery: Ardnamurchan
Owner: Adelphi

Region: Way Out West Highlands

Age: minimum 5 years old (2018 or 2019 - 2024)

Maturation: Oloroso octave

Outturn: ???
Alcohol by Volume: 57.4%
Chillfiltration? No
Colorant? No

NEAT

Big nose here. Butterscotch, toffee, toasted oak, and massive amount of vanilla shout the loudest. Root beer barrel candies and cardamom fill the middle, while perfume floats in the background. The palate begins like liquid oak spice. Then there's some toffee, golden syrup, and hints of savoriness and peppery smoke. Some Signet-esque chocolate malt materializes later on. But it's mostly small cask insanity. The drying finish is mostly golden syrup with baking spices and a hint of that chocolate malt.

DILUTED to ~40%abv, or >2½tsp of water per 30mL whisky

I added more water than usual to this pour in an attempt to break through the oak. Indeed the oak is quieter on the nose, and a barley note arises. There's less vanilla, more maple syrup. Butterscotch and toasted almonds, with those root beer barrel candies in the back. The sweet, silky palate starts with vanilla and almond extracts, as well as a malty touch. Bitterness and florals float around the edges. It finishes floral, tart, and peppery with a dash of vanilla.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Diluted is the way to go on this one, for me. Even then, none of it is really in balance, but it's not bad. I don't understand why they put such a unique spirit into a tiny, heavily sherried cask, but Adelphi does love its extra sherried bottlings. Despite the oak mostly overwhelming the barley, the drink is always entertaining. Sadly the octave outturn was tiny, so the release likely sold out quickly, but it is a 2024 bottling so I think I get points for that.

Availability - Nope.
Pricing - 70GBP, maybe?

Rating - 82 (diluted only)

Ardnamurchan Sherry Cask 2023

As theorized in my review of Ardnamurchan AD 2018, it's possible that the "outsized premium" on each of Adelphi's bottlings from the past decade has gone towards subsidizing the construction and upkeep of this Western Highlands distillery. That's nobler and less exploitative than the general "let's wring every last dollar from every apparently-expendable member of our customer base" approach of many other independent and official bottlers. Did I just call Adelphi "noble"? I probably should have written this review while sober.

Anyhoo, here's something about Ardnamuchan's 2023 Sherry Cask release.

Distillery: Ardnamurchan
Owner: Adelphi

Region: Way Out West Highlands

Age: NAS

Maturation: Oloroso and PX sherry casks

Bottling Date: 2023

Outturn: 13,998 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 50%
Chillfiltration? No
Colorant? No
(thank you to Doctors Springbank for the sample!)

NOTES

Something sulphuric and cheesy shows up in the nose for the first few moments. It fades away, revealing dried apricots, toasted almond, and toasted coconut. A little bit of moss and maple syrup join dried cherries and currant juice.

The palate is earthy, savory, sweet, grassy, and vegetal for the first 15 minutes. It gets sweeter as it picks up orange candy and dates.

The peat appears in the finish. There's smoked peanuts, earthy residue, and a hint of lapsang souchong, while minty candy and dates offer brightness.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Though this whisky is supposed to be only 5-ish years old, it's the most complete Ardnamurchan single malt I've tried so far. Much that has to do with the casks, but this isn't a one-dimensional sherried blast. It has edges, curves, and straight lines. (I just wrote that.) Hell, it's an actual whisky at 5-ish years old. Not many distilleries offer that.

Availability - Europe
Pricing - $70-$110

Rating - 84

Ardnamurchan AD/03.21:02

The first time Ardnamurchan appeared on this site, its product wasn't even a legal whisky, rather a wild, weird 1-year-old spirit. Adelphi's distillery now makes actual single malts, more than 80 of them as per Whiskybase, one of which has hit the 10-year-old mark this year. Scotland's most westerly distillery produces peated and unpeated spirit with a variety of fermentation times (72-120 hours), usually using Concerto barley.

Today's drink is an actual whisky, a single malt, that mixes the peated and unpeated spirits, as well as bourbon and sherry casks. The numbers stand for the bottling date (03.21 = March 2021) and the batch number (02) for the year.

Distillery: Ardnamurchan
Owner: Adelphi

Region: Way Out West Highlands

Age: NAS

Maturation: 65% bourbon casks, 35% sherry (oloroso and PX) casks

Bottling Date: March 2021
Alcohol by Volume: 46.8%
Chillfiltration? No
Colorant? No
(thank you to Doctors Springbank for the sample!)

NOTES

"Young" isn't a great tasting note, so I'll try to provide specifics. The nose is yeasty and floral, with bubblegum and Play-Doh notes. Cinnamon sticks and sour apple candy fill out the middleground, and a pretty white peach note awaits in the back. It gets more perfumed with time.

The palate is very sweet, with lumber, vanilla, yeast, and almond extract. Most of those notes fall away after 30+ minutes, leaving behind a raw, floral eau de vie.

It finishes like a flower blossom and cinnamon stick infused simple syrup.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

While this is a considerable improvement over the 2018 AD spirit, it still has a Craft whisky palate. The delightful nose, though, shows lots of promise. I'm not sure of its age, but if it's 3-4 years old at this point, then it should be quite a thing at 10+ years. Then again, that's just a guess, because no two spirits act the same, and every Master Distiller/Blender/Executive has a mind of their own. Good luck, Adelphi.

Two more Ardnamurchans to follow...

Availability - It's still around, 3 years later
Pricing - $65-$75

Rating - 77

Lagavulin 12 year old Cask Strength (2022 edition)

Lagavulin 12 year old Cask Strength was never broken, but in 2022 Diageo decided to "fix" it anyway, adding virgin oak casks to the always reliable refill casks. Were they running short on refills? Otherwise.....??????

The venn diagram of Lagavulin Geeks (A) and People Who Love New Oak Scotch (B) looks something like this:

pic source

If you couldn't tell before, much of the current Scotch whisky business baffles me. For instance, I did not spring for the 2023 edition of this whisky, as it was finished in Don Julio tequila casks. 😐

Anyway, like this week's other two Lagavulins, today's bottle was part of a Columbus Scotch Night event.

Distillery: Lagavulin

Owner: Diageo
Region: Southern Islay
Maturation: a mix of refill bourbon casks and virgin oak casks

Age: minimum 12 years

Bottling year: 2022
Alcohol by Volume: 57.3%

Chillfiltered? probably not
e150a? probably not

(from the bottom half of my bottle)

NEAT

The nose arrives nice and lean, with oats, yeast, dirty hay, and fish market. Dark chocolate and charred beef fill the background, while barley and metal run through the edges. No new oak, nor mezcal appear in the palate, hurray! Instead it's made of kelp, charred veg, minerals, candied lemon peel, wood smoke, and extra salty dashi. The smoke rolls in heaviest in the finish, surrounding salty kelp and lemons.

DILUTED to ~48%abv, or >1 tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose reads louder, but simpler. Lots of cereal grains, brinier smoke, and a bouquet of citrus blossoms. The palate gets sweeter, but still massively salty. Smoky residue mingles with cinnamon and sugar toast. Sweet and simple in the finish too: peat smoke, salt, and simple syrup.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

This was my favorite of the 3 during the group event, but in the head-to-head-to-head tasting at home, this was a near draw with the standard 16. The 12's nose is as stellar as ever, and the salty neat palate is great, so there's very little sign of the new oak when the whisky is at full strength. Lagavulin is a tough beast to tame. But things get very sugary once water is added, more so than any of the other 8(?) editions I've tried. I'm currently enjoying another pour right now, so it's clearly not a tragic whisky, but I'm going to wait to see what happens with future editions before I buy anymore Laga 12s. Hopefully the recipe returns to its old form, and Lagavulin steers away from a Laphroaig-like descent into cask fuckery,

Availability - Wherever fanciest people buy single malts
Pricing - Europe: $120-$170 w/o tax; Japan: $120-$150; and USA: $140-$200(!) w/o tax

Rating - 88 (when neat)

Lagavulin Distillers Edition (2023, USA)

Though it's my least favorite of the Lagavulin Power Trio (16, 12 CS, and DE) each year, I'm always up for trying the Distillers Edition. To my palate, its PX casks smother almost all of the Lagavulin goodness. But it's never a bad whisky.

And though it's never had an official age statement, the DE always had a vintage listed, as well as the release year, on its label. It was 16-18 years old, until 2020 it dropped to a 14-15yo. That lasted only one more year, and then in 2022 Diageo removed the vintage, the bottling year, and the batch number from the packaging. Now it's an NAS thing.

That certainly doesn't inspire confidence in someone who's struggled with the whisky in the past. But I did pick up a bottle as part of a Lagavulin event at Columbus Scotch Night this year. Luckily I was able to spot a bottle code. Of course I didn't take a picture of it, and just wrote down "2023". Useful!

Distillery: Lagavulin

Owner: Diageo
Region: Southern Islay
Maturation: bourbon casks first, then Pedro Ximenez casks

Age: NAS, so 3 years minimum

Bottling year: 2023
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

Chillfiltered? Yes
e150a? Yes

(from the bottom third of my bottle)

NOTES

Notes of coal smoke, metal, and wet sheep mix with almond butter, dried cherries, and mint candy in the nose. After 30ish minutes, orange peels and dried oregano join in.

The palate is sweeter than the nose leads one to anticipate, but it's not as sweet as some earlier bottlings. Loads of sea salt and mild peat balance out the dried currants and dried pineapple. A little bit of grape jam and limes appear later, but the salt never backs off.

It finishes with smoky dark chocolate, tart limes, dried pineapple, and all that salt.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

"My favorite Laga DE?" is at the bottom of my handwritten notes. Perhaps it's just me. I finally gave up expecting a whisky similar to its Lagavulin siblings, and just accepted it on its own terms. The salt and fruit work together, and the PX doesn't separate from the malt. I would absolutely drink this again, though I'd still take the 16 (which is cheaper) and the 12 CS (which is not) first, but the enthusiasm gap isn't as wide as before. That's a win.

Availability - Wherever fancier people buy single malts
Pricing - Europe: $85-$160 w/o tax; Japan: $100-$130; and USA: $120-$160 w/o tax

Rating - 86

Lagavulin 16 year old (2023)

You're asking yourself, "Didn't he just do a Lagavulin 16yo Triple Taste Off?" And the answer is yes, "just" 2½ years ago. The thing is, I have (or rather, had) a 700mL of Lagavulin 16 that was bottled 11 months ago, so it's almost relevant! That bottle was part of a Lagavulin trio I brought to a Columbus Scotch Night event a couple months ago. The other two Lag reviews will also post this week. First, lemme see if this whisky is any good.....

Distillery: Lagavulin

Owner: Diageo
Region: Southern Islay
Maturation: ???

Age: minimum 16 years

Bottle code: L3237CM002 00009917
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

Chillfiltered? Yes
e150a? Yes

(from the bottom third of my bottle)

NOTES

The nose begins with a familiar mix of moss, brine, and coal smoke. Notes of baked peaches, brown sugar, and ham drift beneath. After 30+ minutes, seaweed, soot, and a whiff of manure appear.

This has one of the loudest L16 palates I've ever experienced, with savory, salt, and kiln leading the way. Then picture Talisker's pepper, quadruple it and smoke it. Milder notes of mint, lemon, almond cookies, and sugar cookies barely sneak around the dark wall.

The finish, quite long for a chillfiltered 43%abv whisky, is made of seaweed, brine, kiln, almond cookies, lemon, and salted licorice.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

In 2022's Lagavulin 16 year old Triple Taste Off, I expressed concern about the thinness and sweetness in a 2018 bottling. I do not have that concern with today's bottle from batch L3237CM002. While not as complex as many older bottlings, it's a surprising powerhouse that slugs above its weight, swatting away current batches of Ardbeg and Laphroaig 10s with ease. Reassured that some classics still kick ass, I would be happy to get another bottle, though I prefer Europe's price over Ohio's ($105).

Availability - Wherever fancy people buy single malts
Pricing - Europe: $65-$100 w/o tax; Japan: $60-$90; and USA: $85-$125 w/o tax

Rating - 88