Monkey Business

Monkey Shoulder is a blended malt (a mixture of malt whiskies from different distilleries, not containing grain whisky) that has been on the market for almost a decade (since 2005).  It sells for a very reasonable price - around $30.  Yet, somehow it had eluded me until recently.  Events aligned to make Monkey Shoulder a part of a number of evenings over this summer.  It all started a few months ago when I attended a Tasting Table barbecue with NYC food and whisky blogger Susannah Skiver Barton (@whattastesgood) of whattastesgood.net.  She blogged about the event at:
http://whattastesgood.net/2013/07/29/cueing-up-summer/

One of the featured cocktails at the event was made with Monkey Shoulder (the "Summmer Jam".  See Susannah's post for the recipe).  Attending the event was a voluble and fascinating young Englishman named Freddie May (@oloroso) who reps Monkey Shoulder (among other interesting whiskies and spirits) for William Grant & Sons.  We had a fascinating conversation about whisky: maturation, mashing, barrel management and the William Grant operations.  Stuff like that.  My whisky geek monkey bone was tweaked.

Susannah Skiver Barton toasts a Summer Jam with Freddie May

I subsequently sought out Freddy May to see him do a tasting of the Tuthill Hudson line at The Astoria Whiskey Society (the subject of a future post).  Also at the barbecue was a young man named Nicholas Rotondi, who works at PR firm Exposure.  Nicholas has been a part of a lot of fun evenings lately (which is another story entirely).  Nicholas' role in this story was to express some surprise that I hadn't tasted Monkey Shoulder straight.  He kindly sent over a bottle for review (thanks Nicholas).  As in the manner of the Zeitgeist, I found myself encountering Monkey Shoulder again and again in the weeks that followed.  As it happens it's in my glass right now - and it's a value for the money champion with a few interesting wrinkles to its tale.

Nicholas Rotondi of Exposure: party meister

Monkey Shoulder is a blended malt composed primarily of whisky made at a small distillery near Balvenie (and operated by the William Grant & Sons - the same parent company) called Kininvie.  Kininvie, built on July 4th 1990 is on of the newer distilleries in Scotland - and Monkey Shoulder is one of the few ways to taste it (there are only a handful of single malt editions).  Most of its output initially went into Clan MacGregor.  Kininvie is only a few hundred meters away from Balvenie, and it doesn't have its own mash tuns.  It gets its mash piped from Balvenie.  Kininvie was mothballed in 2011 but then re-opened in 2012.  Now Monkey Shoulder is primarily Kininvie, but it also has malt whiskies from Balvenie and Glenfiddich as well.  It's a NAS vatting - but the age of the whiskies is around 8-9 years of age.  The "Batch 27" on the label apparently refers to each batch being vatted of 27 individual casks of whisky.  The casks used are exclusively ex-bourbon - and it shows in the color and the flavors which are honeyed and malty - without any sherry influence.  At $30 to $35, Monkey Shoulder is priced comparably with mid-range luxury blends like Chival Regal and is a few bucks less than  Johnny Walker Black Label.

Monkey Shoulder Batch 27 43% abv.

Color:  Full Gold

Nose:  Honey, malt, heather, floral bloom, wax, apple, green melon, hint of anise.  There's also a bit of distant musky almost meaty animal smell behind those sweet fruits.  All of these elements are gentle and light - yet sweet and satisfying.  It's a very pretty nose.  For the price it's stunning.

The palate after a sufficient amount of airing (20 minutes) is malt sweet on entry, with vanilla pods and florals.  Honey and honeycomb wax big - with an attractive aspect of Speyside classic apple pear and melon fruits.  Warm and malty on the expansion with some white pepper.  43% isn't the norm at this price and it brings some richness and a bit of intensity that I greatly appreciate.  The finish is gentle and relatively short.  But this doesn't come off as too young.  The spirit heat is well integrated into the malty richness.  Sweetness and fruits with a relative absence of oak tannins or bite are the hallmarks of youth here.  The palate isn't huge, but the sins are of omission rather than commission.  This comes off as a quality highland malt with a classic Speyside profile.  You can taste the Glenfiddich and the Balvenie in it in the green fruits, honey, and sweet balance.  It's a fine malt to relax with, at a price that you can use heedlessly. I've had the opportunity to dram it in a variety of circumstances and its gentle sweetness is immediately appealing with people new to malt whisky.  Yet there is enough going on to satisfy experienced malt fans (as long as they don't have their peat freak or thinking caps on).  Gentle, sweet, fruity and appealing.  Easily recommended.

****

Glen Grant Five Decades: A Mature Beauty With a Baby's Face. A Deceptively Simple Malt With Hidden Depths.

Glen Grant Five Decades is a deceptive dram.  A visual twin for the entry expression it also shares a similar nose.  But that's not the full story.

A limited edition Glen Grant is about to be distributed in the USA (September, 2013).  It is a special vatting of selections from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s, by Master Distiller Dennis Malcolm.  This occasion of this special blend is the anniversary of  Malcolm's five decades with the distillery since he began as an apprentice cooper in the early 1960s.  It's meant to be a statement expression and is priced accordingly.  MSRP in the USA is $250 for 750ml.

I'm a big fan of Glen Grant.  The Major's Reserve is a solid low cost single malt.  Recently, I've been plumbing the depths with an amazing sherried 12 from the 80s, and more complex refill sherry 16 and 37 year old single cask expressions all from independent bottlers (reviews to follow).  Glen Grant achieves classic Speyside white pear and honey flavors that take brilliantly to sherry and to aging.  Hyper mature Glen Grants are floral fruit baskets that just hit my monkey bone.  I was very excited to try this interesting blend of mature and young whiskies.

Glen Grant Five Decades 46% abv.

Color:  Pale gold - straw.

Nose:  Gently floral magnolia, heather and honey with fresh breezes of linen.  Deeper nosing reveals a bit of musky waxy ambergris way underneath.  It's lovely but rather shy nose.

Palate:  Sweet and lightly malty on opening.  There is vanilla, and florals, and treacle sugar and bit of honeycomb - but very light.  There is some white pear and melon too.  The expansion is gentle and brings an underlying structure of fresh malt, barley cakes, and white tea.  The finish is warming and gently malty, with some hints of oak and seed cake, but also of cardboard.  It's overwhelming light and feels more of immature malt than mature malt.

Adding two drops of water makes the nose even more shy - but amps up the sweetness and richness of the palate.  The entry fairly explodes with juicy treacle sugars.  The floral, vanilla, honey, and lightly waxy aspects are enriched and it becomes quite a tasty dram.  But it still feels quite a bit on the light and young end of the spectrum.

With some extended air things open even further.  I begin to get sherry notes: jammy fig cake, leather, olorosso woven into the honey and grass sugars.  This is delicious - but this extreme degree of evolution is, frankly, a little weird.  In my initial tasting the color and light balance on the palate and, in particular, the nose made me grab my bottle of Glen Grant The Major's Reserve (a whisky that goes for about 1/8th the price of Five Decades).  Initially I was finding a lot of similarities: youth, honey, treacle sugars.  But with two drops and water and more time to open the Five Decades, despite looking identical in the glass, achieved a dramatically richer, denser, and more complex palate.  The nose, however, remains strikingly similar.

****

My initial impression was 'this is way too light and young to be worth this price'.  However, time and water take Five Decades to someplace special.  It's not like the rich, mature, Glen Grants - and it's not like the young sprightly Glen Grants.  And it's not like what you'd expect a straight mixture would be either.  The result of Dennis Malcolm's efforts is a decepticon that comes off as young and simple when first poured - all the way from the light color to the gentle nose and the light creamy flavor balance.  But time, air, and a few drops of water unleash depths of richness and complexity that take their time to show up.  Then Olorosso sherry flavors and big sugars and honey floral aspects enliven the palate - but not the nose.  I found this coy fan dance delightful - like a color change gem.  But I won't be surprised if some folks are disappointed - particularly if they jump to conclusions.  Light and nimble isn't normally what people want from their expensive limited edition drams. It's confusing, but ultimately beguiling.

(2 oz sample provided by Nicholas from Exposure - Thanks!)

Miltonduff 15 G&M Exclusive for PAL: Speyside In All The Right Ways

Miltonduff, near Elgin on the Black Burn, is one of those classic storied Speyside distilleries that you don't run into that often because they don't have regular expressions.  Gordon & MacPhail, located less than 3 miles away in Elgin, produces regular 12 and 15 year single malt bottlings and are the closest thing to a house OB that Miltonduff has.  In the familiar tale, Miltonduff, an old traditional distiller, was purchased and expanded into a giant to secure malt for a major blend, in this case Ballentines.  Most of the output goes into Ballentines which is why you don't see it much.  Along the way, there have been some fascinating bits of trivia.  Miltonduff was built on the old site of the Pluscarden Priory in 1824 and supposedly a stone of the ancient structure is kept in the distillery.  Miltonduff formerly practiced triple distillation, but adopted double distillation in the early part of this century.  In 1964 two Lomond stills were added for production of “Mosstowie" (a separate label produced entirely inside Miltonduff). Mosstowie is now one of those lost distilleries in plain sight a la Malt Mill.  The idea of the Lomond stills is that they can be tuned by adjusting the plates and necks to alter the character of the spirit.  The benefit was for Ballantines which could produce more variations for a more complex blend by tuning the Lomonds at Miltonduff.  There were some individual cask bottlings, but Mosstowie is rare.  By all accounts it isn't particularly good.  Lomond stills are still used at Loch Lomond - which isn't considered particularly good either.  Scapa, apparently uses a Lomond as their wash still.  I'm not a huge fan of that one either.  But the most famous Lomond still around is the salvaged "Ugly Betty" which makes The Botanist gin over at Bruichladdich which, by all accounts, is excellent.  In any case, by the 1980s the Lomonds were removed and replaced with additional post stills.   Since 2005 Miltonduff has been owned by Pernod Richard via Chivas Brothers.

Some of the aforefmentioned facts came from
http://www.scotchwhisky.net/distilleries/miltonduff.htm
and
http://www.maltmadness.com/whisky/miltonduff.html


The bottle considered here is part of a special single cask bottling made by Gordon & MacPhail for Park Avenue Liquors as an exclusive.  It was one of the first custom bottling projects put together by the relatively new Gordon & MacPhail US National Brand Ambassador Chris Reisbeck.  It's quite a cask - first fill Bourbon barrel #9461 which produced only 198 bottles.  Distilled on June 24, 1996 and bottled in August 2011.  It is bottled non-chill-filtered (as will become abundantly clear in a moment) uncolored, and at full cask strength.  This is raw - straight from the cask goodness brought to you by an impressive chain of whisky geeks for whisky geeks.

Miltonduff 1996-2011 15yo 56.3% Gordon & MacPhail

A drop of water turns it cloudy like milk

This is bottle 181 of 198.

Color: rich old gold. Even the tiniest drop of water causes this to turn milky with condensed fats.

Nose: densely honeyed, floral, and fruity in the white melon & pear way so classic of the Northern Highlands and Spey. Unctuous and almost incense-like in the sweet filigree of the floral-fruit sweet honey on the nose. Turns to an aching apricot-like acidic almost tangerine citrus note with additional time and deeper nosing. Indeed, this one can be nosed for a long long time.

Palate:  The entry is powerfully sweet up front with pure wildflower honey. There's a lacy filigree of floral esters at the light tiny white end of the floral spectrum. Then paraffin and sweet butter show right before the big expansion. The midpalate bursts with spirit heat and a broader more fruit centered sweetness marked by soft honeyed boiled citrus and melon with honeysuckle and vanilla florals in attendance. The turn to the finish sees a bitter eucalyptus note and then a relatively short finish with a clean cherry malt glow and a hint of oak tannins.

The addition of a few drops of water turns the dram cloudy but amps up the sweetness, richness, and the viscosity of the mouth feel.  In other words, this is a classic "swimmer": it loves water.  All that is good and great about this lovely Speyside honeyed fruit basket gets more honeyed and more "fruit basketier" (tm - by the Coopered Tot) with some water. 

Wow, what a lovely fruit bomb!  I'm in love.  I've been sipping this compulsively so much that I haven't been able to make myself sit down and write this review!

Before water it's clear

Auchentoshan Valinch 2011 and The Accidental Vatting

Valinch - in the glass

A couple of posts ago I was reviewing a fascinating top ranked vatting of sherried and bourbon casks malts called Balvenie Tun 1401. I described my experience creating an analogous vatting myself by accident:

I became alive to the benefits of vatting these two types in a visceral and first hand way last week when I mistakenly poured a couple of glasses of unused whisky from a tasting event back into the wrong 4 oz transport bottle: I put Auchentoshan Valinch 2011 into Glenfarclas 25 at a 3 to 1 ratio. Initially horrified, I tucked it away. A few days later I took a dram and was delighted by a sweet and spirited result that was somehow more vibrant than either of its components on it's own. Lighter and more malty and floral than a sherried malt and more jammy and rich than the bourbon malt by itself. The whole in this fortuitous mix is greater than the sum of its parts.

What I don't make clear is the scene. Let me set it for you. Here's the table:

I'm doing a private tasting for a couple of VIPs. Note the big glasses and the full bottle of Auchentoshan Valinch and the 4 oz sample bottles at both ends. One of the 4 oz bottles has Glenfarclas 25 (reviewed previously in this blog). Another has Miltonduff 15 and the one of the left has Laphroaig 10. The 200cl bottle has Talisker 10. The tasting goes great, but only a small percentage of the pours are consumed. Ever frugal, I start to drink them. I quickly realize that this isn't realistic. I will pass out long before I finish. Plus the sheer folly of the attempt is blowing the good impression I just made. Thinking quickly I start pouring them back into the bottles - he head swimming slightly. Maybe it was bound to happen... Maybe it was just bad luck; or possibly good luck...

But I'm getting ahead of myself. There are a number of whiskies on that table that I've not formerly reviewed. I'm going to formally review one right here and now - because it plays a major role in what follows:

Auchentoshan Valinch 2011 57.5% abv

Auchentoshan is one of the last remaining lowland distilleries. As such it triple distills, as is traditional in the lowlands - for a pure spirit with a more gentle and simple profile. Auchentoshan has had success with wood finishes and mature bottlings and the basic no age statement "Classic" is quite popular - sweet, floral, heathery and lovely; if a bit uncomplicated. Whisky folks demanded a cask strength version. Valinch is that: young, sweet, and fierce at full uncut uncolored unchill filtered unmessed with - straight from the cask.

Color: pale gold

Nose: Vanilla, gentle floral perfume (white lilies and honeysuckle), pure medicinal alcohol, and a hint of citrus and savory.


Entry is intensely and pointedly sweet with pure refined sugar, oak vanillins, and a delicate floral perfume. The mid palate expansion is intense, spirity, and hot. There is lacy malt and some gentle pale oak notes in the finish. The body is light but the mouth feel has a nice silky quality.

This flavor profile is overwhelmingly about the sweet intensity of the opening. It reminds me a bit of Octomore 4.1's intense sugar opening - with none of the tar or ash of what comes next. This is clearly young whisky, but not raw or graceless. Sweet and intense - it possesses flavor density - if at the expense of spirit heat.

Valinch cries out for a drop of water. After a phenolic burst, it settles down to an increased floral aspect to the nose. The entry is a bit more honeyed, but still full of white sugar, vanilla, and blossoms on entry. The mid palate bloom is fierce, malty, and lacy. The turn marked by an herbal bitters like dilute Fee Brother's. The finish is brief, but gentle and lovely. One of the really remarkable things about Valinch is that it continues to get sweeter and more honeyed as it sits in the glass. One hour, two hours... while some of the florals dissipate, the sweet honeyed glory keeps becoming more and more exquisite. It's really quite seductive.

****


In the tasting, however, Valinch was too strong for new whisky drinkers. They hated it. It would have been far better if I had gone for Classic. So I had a lot of Valinch left over. I was pouring glasses back into the sample bottles when I noticed with horror that I had poured the Valinch back into the Glenfarclas 25 sample bottle. I was horrified. I had "ruined" the nice Glenfarclas 25. It was a real "you got chocolate in my peanut butter" moment. I put the bottles away, sick at heart. The next day however, I investigated. Hey - not bad. In fact... quite good indeed:

The accidental vatting of 2/3 ths Auchentoshan Valinch 2011 and 1/3th Glenfarclas 25

Color: full gold

Nose: dry malt, citrus and apricot jam, a hint of floral and grass - like a distant meadow, and wine gum candy flavors - but without much sweetness. Also some dust and talcum powder. In the distance is a clear sherry note.

The vatting

The entry is sweet and powerful with fresh malt sugars, but immediately there is a jammy fig and and grape flavor darkening of the bright sugars. There are bitter notes of oak and a big mid-palate expansion of spirit heat an what reads as oak tannins - but yet really shouldn't be. The Glenfarclas 25 isn't overtly tannic. The finish is long and lingering and herbal bitter-sweet.

A few drops of water bring out spicy heat and clear sherry notes with bits of leather, dark chocolate and tobacco on top of a rich malt sweet hot chassis. The vinous notes aren't separate. They modify the floral and citrus aspects of the note to yield enhanced fruit basket notes simply not present in either component whisky. Then white pepper heat graces the expansion after honeyed lightly spritely sherried vinous notes. This white pepper isn't in either of the source whiskies either.

This is the part that reminds me of Tun 1401: the floral fruity aspect in harmony with sherry notes and an ascendent emergent blast of pepper - as if born of the friction.

****

Where did that heat come from? It was certainly present in the Tun 1401 too. The bottom line here is that home made vattings can be delicious. I was lucky. Many (and perhaps even most) chance pairings might prove bad. However some are glorious. This has become the beginning of a bit of a diversion. Watch for more posts on this topic in the near future. Certainly mixing single malts isn't necessarily a disaster.

Personal notes on an evening of tasting

Glen Spey 21 - 2010 edition OB cask strength - potent wood spice &
highland fruit basket

Clynelish 29 Caledonia Selection 1972-2002 59.3% Incredible roses,
paraffin, complex fruits & sea air and salty pickle. The highlight of
the night - but there were many others

Bruichladdich 1970 OB 44.2% CS - Fruity & maritime, almost a twin to
the Clynelish - but slightly less floral & without the acid pickle
note.

Ben Nevis 34 1966 Black Adder Raw Cask 49.7% Unbelievable Chocolate
coffee & violets flavor signature with odd exotic incense perfume
notes. Another highlight

Bowmore 12 OB 43% bottled in 1960s or 70s w/ tax stamp for US. -
Unbelievably complex. Clams, hemp, honey, earth, old bottle mineral
notes, huge wet vinyl iodine sweet rich.. Wow! A highlight

Port Ellen 22 1982-2004 single Cask for PLOWED Douglas Liang 61.6%
Sweet dense lemons, and lemon drop candy,sea iodine, honey, road tar
turning to ash. Huge. Another highlight

Glen Grant 31 1971-2003 Black Adder Raw Cask 55.7% sherried. Black
walnuts, dark chocolate, bubble gum floral fruity sweetness, big
orchid dark floral. A stunning highlight!

Ended with a Balmonach 1961-1980 46% Cadenhead dumpy. Intense floral
incense fruit bomb. Palate was already blitzed. Should have had this
before the peat bombs.

Balvenie Tun 1401 Marries Bourbon & Sherry Casks. Batch 2 vs 5 Head ToHead

Tun 1401 Batch 5's cask list

Note: Tim Read of http://www.scotchandicecream.com/ and I are simultaneously reviewing Balvenie Tun 1401 Batch 5: our first coordinated reviewing effort. His review is at:
http://www.scotchandicecream.com/2012/07/27/a-repeat-performance-balvenie-tun-1401-batch-5

Balvenie Tun 1401 is a brilliant conception: a vatting of a number of rare old bourbon casks and sherry butts together, from different vintages for complexity. A month ago I debated the merits of bourbon versus sherry cask maturation in a post about two expressions of Springbank CS. There exists a real divide between sherried malts - which are delicious concoctions that taste of sherry with fig, prune, and dark chocolate notes - and malts aged in refill or bourbon casks which are truer to the taste of the distillate with floral and fruity esters in the fore. I became alive to the benefits of vatting these two types in a visceral and first hand way last week when I mistakenly poured a couple of glasses of unused whisky from a tasting event back into the wrong 4 oz transport bottle: I put Auchentoshan Valinch 2011 into Glenfarclas 25 at a 3 to 1 ratio. Initially horrified, I tucked it away. A few days later I took a dram and was delighted by a sweet and spirited result that was somehow more vibrant than either of its components on it's own. Lighter and more malty and floral than a sherried malt and more jammy and rich than the bourbon malt by itself. The whole in this fortuitous mix is greater than the sum of its parts. In Tun 1401, beloved Balvenie Master Distiller David Stewart is doing this with superb rare old casks of Balvenie, and decades of experience, of course. And the flavor signatures of extremely mature Balvenie in both sherry bomb and fruit bomb manifestations melded is the big story here.

I'm fascinated by this conception. I'm aware of other whiskies that age in bourbon cask and finish in sherry cask - but not whiskies that specifically vat these two dominant styles to achieve... what? A happy medium? A new flavor profile? Balvenie's web site doesn't address this question. They say the inspiration was the "magical atmosphere" of a particular warehouse where the greatest casks lay for ages:

"Tun 1401 is a very special vatting from the Balvenie’s Warehouse 24, one of the oldest areas of the distillery grounds and home to some of the most special casks in Speyside. It was conceived by the Balvenie’s malt master David Stewart, who was so inspired by the magical atmosphere inside Warehouse 24, that he created Tun 1401 to capture the essence of it in a bottle."
http://www.thebalvenie.com/en-us/roadshow/2011/11/tun-1401-a-taste-of-warehouse-24-3/


Because Tun 1401 holds less than 3000 bottles worth, Stewart has made a number of batches. I first began to pine for a taste of Tun 1401 back in April when Allison Patel blogged about her visit to Balvenie with Chip Tate and how David Stewart himself gave them a tour and then poured them special drams. Tun 1401 isn't explicitly named in the text but is depicted in the dead center front of the ultimate picture. (It's Batch 2- I checked the cask listing):
http://thewhiskywoman.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/distillery-visit-balvenie-in-speyside-scotland/

Among the many reviews of Tun 1401 I subsequently read, Tim Read's tale of a skeptic won over by Batch 3 (and won over utterly completely) was the most affecting: "This is one of those rare whiskies that I can’t see how I’d change or improve."
http://www.scotchandicecream.com/2012/06/12/a-small-batch-worth-the-price/

Frankly, given that, I began to believe. But would the next batch be as good as the one Tim had?

Balvenie's web site:
"The first batch was made for distillery visitors only, and was created from 6 casks – a 1973 Sherry Butt, a 1972 Sherry Hogshead and American casks from 1966, 1974, 1978 and 1988.
Batch 2 was released only in Europe, Asia, and South Africa and is made up of 10 casks, mostly from the 1970s with one from the 1960s and one from the 1980s.
Batch 3 is a similar to batch 2, but was made for US distribution only.
Batch 4 was made for travel retail..."


"When asked how he expects the batches to differ, Mr Stewart said, “…the batches do have some similarity but if one were to line the four batches up for sampling, which I haven’t done yet, we might be surprised by the differences that there are. I think that each has this citrus orangey flavour which seems consistent…”'
http://www.thebalvenie.com/en-us/roadshow/2011/11/tun-1401-a-taste-of-warehouse-24-3/

As for Batch 5, Balvenie states:
"Crafted from nine of the rarest and most precious casks from the distillery – 4 sherry butts distilled in 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975 and 5 American oak casks from 1966, 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1991– this drop is the culmination of years of work. Our Malt Master David Stewart says:
'Working with whiskies of this age is both a delight and a challenge as their individual characteristics are so rich and complex. Five very rare crafts and a long wait have gone into making these vintage whiskies.'"

Batch 5 is limited to 2862 bottles.

However, I'm not content simply to try Batch 5. I want to try them head to head, as Stewart speculates. So I obtained a sample of the now very out of stock Batch 2 from Master of Malt (now sold out):

Balvenie Tun 1401 batch 2 50.6%

Color: golden light amber

Nose: roses, cantaloup, honeydew, honey, bee's wax, musk, spermaceti, lanolin, chalk and gypsum mineral. Drifts of fruit like citrus and fig off in the distance... A bewitching, complex, and seductive nose that hits squarely in the middle of the Highland-Speyside profile but snakes out like an octopus into distant quadrants of the aroma gamut.

Entry, sweet and green/white fruited on the tip of the tongue and then rapidly darker with sandalwood incense, oak spice, and a sudden rapid expansion of spicy heat that lingers. The heat brings a bitter and tannic note. It also brings an august sherry flavor array into the mid-palate with rancio, figs, dates, and black raisins. This august old sherry note lingers into the looonnng finish with oak tannins, incense, fruity malt

A few drops of water adds more citrus to the nose and amps up the melon sugars in the palate, which pushes the bitterness back a notch. The palate comes close to matching the glory of the nose - only misses by the margin the bitterness.


*****

This is a clear five star product. The twin natures of richly mature sherry bomb and superb extremely mature floral waxy Speyside fruit bomb are each distinct in various ways and yet are superbly married into a bold new flavor profile that is familiar and yet totally new in my experience. It is distinguished, rich, delicious, and richly dense in flavor, sweetness, heat, tannins, spice, and bitterness. It hits on all whisky cylinders.

Balvenie Tun 1401 Batch 5 50.1% abv

Tun 1401 Batch 5

Sourced from The Whisky Exchange.


Color: medium amber with gold glints

Nose: Beeswax, honey, floral honeysuckle and roses, Paraffin, warm roasted citrus, musk, some prune and fig and a complex backdrop of faint sandalwood incense

Entry: Sweet, floral, and richly honeyed but immediately complex and filigreed with oak tannins and fragrance. There is a wallop of peppery heat and cracked black pepper flavor in the midpalate expansion that rides shotgun with an emerging complex of sherry nutty vinous old Olorosso flavors of rancio, prune, fig, and dark chocolate. The sugars of the opening extend into this mid-palate pepper and sherry and give warmth and depth to the fruit and chocolate notes. At the turn to the finish the sugar fades and bitter chocolate meets rising oak tannins to produce a leather and tobacco sensation. Yet the finish isn't dominated by bitter. It is owned by sherry oak with a rich old scotch dark leather and black oak furniture vibe - like the House of Lords. I'll delight my wife, the English Professor and call it a "luxury oak" finish. The echoes in your mouth are formal and plush as if you are in the overstuffed antechamber of a rich and powerful old lawyer or politician.

This is a big big whisky, loaded with the rich mature fruit bomb and wax of Bourbon cask Speys and the big tannins and dark fruit and leather of mature sherry bombs. Of course this is exactly what this is. The genius was to marry them.

A dash of water lightens and accentuates the citrus and musk and honeysuckle melon notes and lightens and sweetens the palate. The entry becomes more honeyed and more effusively if less intensely floral. The malabar black pepper flavor and heat is unaffected while the other notes lighten. With water the flavor amplitude of this magnificent dram becomes wider and bigger. I think I prefer it with a bit of water.

Needless to say this big whisky needs s lot of time to open up. Plan on half an hour to 45 minutes before really sipping.

*****

Another winner. Another monster. I think Batch 5 has a slight edge over Batch 2 because the bitter notes in the finish are less prominent. It's a bit smoother at the back end, but a bit more aggressive with the heat in the mid-palate expansion, which I prefer. What's striking to me having them side by side is how incredibly similar they are. These are clearly the result of the same intent on the part of the blender. They are obvious kin.

I'm very excited to read Tim Read's review on http://www.scotchandicecream.com/ particularly because he said that there was a clear winner in the matchup between Batch 3 and Batch 5.  I wonder which it is?  Check out Tim's review at:

http://www.scotchandicecream.com/2012/07/27/a-repeat-performance-balvenie-tun-1401-batch-5


Update:  on repeated tasting I'm reversing my position.  Batch 2 has a more luscious nose.  Batch 5's nose is less effusive.  Batch 2 opens up and loses the bitter edge over time.  Whether Batch 5 opens more fully over time remains to be seen - but it hasn't happened yet.  Still very close.  I drank these two with a friend who has also tried Tun 1401 Batch 3 and he confirms Tim's assessment that Batch 3 is possessed of Balvenie's honeyed house style much more than either Batch 2 or Batch 5.  That's two votes for Batch 3.

Mortlach 22 yo Gordon & MacPhail for Sestante: time traveling to 1971 or before.

Mortlach is one of the oldest distilleries in Speyside, founded in 1823 (the same year as Glenlivet) in Dufftown.  It has a fascinating history (which I recommend you read on the excellent Malt Madness site here).  Mortlach is yet another of those distilleries that you mainly find in independent bottler editions. It rarely appears in its own label.  Most of its output ends up in Johnny Walker Black Label (yes, another whole distillery poured into the vast sea of square black bottles).  Have I mentioned that I really like Johnny Walker Black Label?  The essential feature for me in this history is that floor maltings continued through 1968 and direct fired stills were in operation through 1971.  This means that distillates prior to 1969 should be made in the old traditional Speyside manner - before mechanization and the homogenization that Oliver Klimek describes so elegantly in his though provoking article "Has Whisky Become Better, Worse or Just Different"  That 1971-1968 period feels so close - so in reach.

That's why I stopped when I saw this listing in the Whisky Samples web site:

Mortlach 22yo (40%, Gordon&MacPhail, 75cl, Sestante Import, bottled before 1993)

This should have been bottled pré 1993 as the 75cl bottle is sealed by an Italian tax label in red/orange with 2 stars. 

http://whiskysamples.flyingcart.com/index.php?p=detail&pid=802&cat_id=

"Well," I thought, "that's distilled in 1971 at the latest - the era of direct fired stills.  If it's even a few years older than that, it might be the real deal."  Plus it had the allure of the "Sestante" name.  Allure?  Yes, I'm fascinated by the defunct independent bottler Sestante.  It might be silly to be enamored of obscure Italian independent bottlers, but this one isn't around any more, so it's yet another layer of unobtanium.  I couldn't resist.  What was I hoping for?  A taste of a vanished world, with complexity, sweetness & oak and whiff of smoke and maybe even a distant taste of peat, like the Dylan Thomas poem "A Child's Christmas in Wales" takes you back to a vanished world.  I was looking to time travel with this dram.  But it wasn't a sure thing.

Mortlach 22 yo Gordon & MacPhail Sestante bottled prior to 1993. 40% abv

Color: very dark amber w/coppery tints - like old bourbon.

Nose: A rapid evolution from sweet cherry bubble gum at first pour to, as it opens up, big intense dried figs, honey, dark old rum, cherry preserves, ripe persimmons, old oak drawers, dust, and old parchment. A huge august mature sherry bomb aroma.

The entry is robust sherry, a firm oloroso note with jammy raisin, plum, and maraschino notes giving way to sharp tannic bite.  With extra air time citrus flavors and sharp citric acids emerge through the dark chocolate dank prune. The mid palate is spicy with sandalwood incense resiny oak essence and a hint of distant smoke. There is a big tannic pucker at the finish and some dank oak bitterness to go with it. This is a hyper mature sherry bomb with a dense old time feel - like antique whisky - which in a sense it might really be.  The current dilution to 40% renders mouth feel light & silky, sadly, not honey thick like it should be. I didn't dare add water.

Ultimately it's a big and luscious dram but a tad unbalanced in the direction of dark and tannic.  Yet that somehow suited my fantasy.  The flavor signature reminded me, yet again (as many of these old Spey and Highland drams do) of a formative experience with a whole bottle of 1980s Balvenie coat of arms flagon no age statement back in my early days with Scotch.  It had an over-oaked intensity and a complex and almost noble rot quality that feels like "antique".  Indeed it smells a bit like an antique furniture shop or a visit to an old European palace.  Bottom line, this one took me there and I was reveling in the wild progression of a rainbow of old oak flavors and scents melded to big old sherry.  Not the last word is deliciousness, perhaps, but a fine choice to transport you to another time.

FYI - in looking over where I had been I came across Ruben's notes for an old Sestante labelled bottle of Mortlach 20 from the 1980s that would certainly have been made in the floor malting days.  His tasting notes are an eerie twin to mine.  This helps confirm my impression that this was similar stuff:

"Nose: old-style sherry with a thick liqueur-like character. Lots of old polished oak and leather. Old books and incense. A very soft smokiness too. Raisins, a hint of caramel maybe. Also a sweet beefy note and burnt fruit cake. Mouth: dry, pretty oaky (a tad too much for my taste). There’s still an underlying dark sweetness of sultanas, but it grows resinous and herbal as well, with a slight sourness. Again some smoke in the distance. Feels nicely old but maybe a bit past its prime. Finish: long, dry, still some herbal notes, oak and smoke.
A nice experience but you’ll have to stand some old oak and herbs. It’s closer to a Mortlach 1936 for example than to recent expressions."
http://www.whiskynotes.be/2012/mortlach/mortlach-20-years-sestante/

Glen Grant Major's Reserve - a light fruity, floral, summer dalliance.

Glen Grant is a great old name in Scotch - dating back in the early half of the 19th century (1840 says the label).  It bears the family name of John and James Grant, also the guys who started Caperdonich. Glen Grant is located in Rothes in the heart of Speyside. It has bounced around a lot over the years. It was part of Chivas, then Glenlivet, Pernod Ricard... Since 2005 it has been owned by Campari. There has been some talk of increased use of caramel coloring, but there are many distinguished bottlings from this distillery that is famed for its high stills, pale coloring, floral and fruity Speyside aroma, and excellent ability to age in cask for long periods and continue to get better and better. Glen Grant is, according to materials I received from Danielle at Exposure (a company doing some marketing for Campari who also provided the bottle for my party today - thanks Danielle!) the 5th largest selling single malt whisky in the world, and the leader in Italy. This latter fact is presumably important to Campari.

Aging is a big issue for the Scotch distillers of today - because demand is up and production of new make doesn't help expand stocks at great age for age statement expressions. A common strategy - one that has engendered a lot of discussion and hand wringing - is the release of No Age Statement (NAS) expressions. Glen Grant's NAS expression is called The Major's Reserve. It has been out for a couple of years in Europe, but is new in the US and this Sunday the first big marketing push began. In fact, Glen Grant Major's Reserve, is only currently available in limited markets in the US: CA, NY, NJ, CO, FL, AZ, TX, IL, MD & MI. Its suggested retail price is a remarkable $29.95 - which makes it among the lowest priced single malts in America - and is priced lower than many popular blends. This is fantastic if it's good to drink.

The story here is that Glen Grant's The Major's Reserve (GGMR henceforth) is a light, mixable, floral sweet and easy drinking summer dram with an affinity for ice and for mixing into cocktails and punches. It is being, apparently, marketed to women. There was an event today in The Drink, a bar in Brooklyn, NY today where a couple of signature drinks designed to show off GGMR's attributes were served. For your convenience, I've listed the recipes below:

Recipes courtesy of The Drink, Brooklyn. The first is a punch, second a cocktail:

The Groundswell
10 oz. Glen Grant Major's Reserve
7.5 oz. Japanese sencha green tea
5 oz. lemon juice
5 oz. simple syrup
4 oz. Combier peach liqueur
1 teaspoon blood orange bitters (Brooklyn Hemispherical brand)

Stir ingredients. Pour over ice into punch bowl. Contains approximately 10 servings.

Salty Walnut
1.5 oz. Glen Grant Major's Reserve
.75 oz. Lustau East India Solera Sherry
.5 oz. lemon juice
.25 oz. sugar

Shake, strain into a collins glass over ice. Top with club soda and a sprinkle of salt.
I wasn't able to make it to The Drink, today, however - but I put GGMR to a strict test: a pool party with 30 people including a good mix of non-whisky drinkers and women. We had GGMR straight, with ice, mixed into highballs with soda & orange bitters, and with ice and water in Japanese-style mizuwaris.

GGMR in the glass - neat.

Glen Grant The Major's Reserve 40% abv.

Color: pale gold

Nose: spirity, heathery sweet, with hints of Spey fruit basket notes and a touch of hazelnut and cream. Mostly a light and simple nose

Palate: light and gently sweet on entry. There's plenty of spirit heat and a low density of flavor so it comes off as young, but the flavors that are present are very nice: honeysuckle florals, white and green fruit (pear, honeydew melon), some grassy meadow flavors and a hint of mineral. I suspect there are some nice more matured malts in the vat here to bring more distinguished Spey/Highland flavor notes to the party. The turn to the finish sees the spirit heat tingle eclipse the sweetness and a malty herbal bitter wash fills in behind. Very little oak on the palate - more testament to youth.

A splash of water sweetens the nose but loosens the already too-light palate until another 15 minutes or so enriches it again - a bit. Amazingly the sweet and floral nose remains prominent - clearly apparent and enjoyable even in the watery environs of a mizuwari - while the palate washes into a light slightly sweet wash. GGMR was a hit at the party. Everyone enjoyed their whisky and no one complained at all. It held up quite well in the summery party setting.

Never one to be complacent, I looked around in my cabinet for other entry level NAS single malts and popular blended Scotches to compare head to head. I alighted on the following: Glenrothes Select Reserve (GSR), Great King St. Artist's Blend (GKSAB), and my habitual touchstone: Johnny Walker Black Label (JWBL). All are better than I remember - taken on their own terms (i.e. don't look for huge density of flavor). All are strikingly different from each other. GGMR is a Glenfiddich-like Spey sweet and fruity thing. JWBL is almost peated by comparison - with a much darker cast, more oak, richness, malt foundation, and greater weight as well as a clear peat note. GSR is the least sweet, and had a slight sulfur off note at first that burns off after 15-20 minutes in the glass. Then GSR becomes almost apricot & old oak like an old 80s Balvenie. Sadly a trace of the off note remains. GKSAB is lemon curds and creamy custard - fresh and light. I went back and forth, my opinion shifting, until my head started to spin a bit. Final ranking 1) JWBL - wins by virtue of best balance and greatest flavor density 2) GKSAB - by its high malt content, fresh flavors, and nice balance 3) GGMR docked for spirit heat rawness in the mid-palate, but stands very well because of its superior nose 4) GSR - trails because of the slight off note but distinguishes itself by having an usual tartness and mature wood quality. On the whole it was much closer than these rankings suggest. Each had their charms and each was quite distinct. GGMR almost won on the floral perfume angle. It had the freshest and most perfumed nose and didn't embarrass itself by any means.

If you're interested in a light floral Speyside dram with a hint of the mature Speyside fruit basket aroma and flavors and don't mind a bit of spirit heat and a very light touch on the mid-palate - GGMR's a very cost effective option. It's not a rich or stunning malt from an epicurean perspective, but this gentle mixable malt sins primarily by omission rather than commission. It is better than expected and I have no compunction recommend it to people looking for an inexpensive introductory malt which mixes well and plays with ice nicely for a refreshing summer tot.

***

Linkwood 1975/2002 Rare Malts shows me the way of Spey with roses, honey, and tangerine majesty

Linkwood, in Elgin - Speyside, is one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland and was a significant producer in the latter half of the 19the century. Since 1971, much (and during certain periods all) of it's output is produced in a modern industrial facility with the same name as the original old distillery (but with the added designation "B"). There is no standard bottling (although for a time there was a Flora & Fauna 12 which was effectively so - but not currently). The gigantic output of Linkwood is sucked into the maw of blends: particularly Johnnie Walker Black Label - as Linkwood is a Diageo shop.

Full gold in the glass

But the old distillery "A" was in full operation until 1985 (when the whole operation was shut down for half a decade). It potentially matters because "A" uses smaller old fashioned wash backs and a cast iron worm coil. The stills have been steam heated since 1962.

That early 60s retro-fit was overseen by one Roderick Mackenzie who oversaw Linkwood until 1963. There's a lovely tale about him:

Roderick Mackenzie, distillery manager at one time, forbade the removal of even spider webs in case the quality of the whisky was adversely affected!.

http://www.scotchwhisky.net/distilleries/linkwood.htm

Linkwood 26 1975/2002 56.1% Rare Malts

This current offering, long gone in full bottles, is still around as 3cl drams from http://whiskysamples.flyingcart.com/ - the sample wing of Belgium's excellent Bonding Dram. The time of distillation dates from back when distillery "A" was in full operation and "B" was a recent innovation.

Color: Full Gold

Nose: honeyed beeswax, rich vanilla cream w/a whiff of sherry, and a glory of bubble gum, white roses, oleander and a hint of orgeat. A paradise of floral and fruity esters. This is one you could gladly nose for hours.

picture credit: http://forum.whisky.ee/

Palate: The entry delivers on the expectations borne of the nose with a sweet and floral effusion with vanilla and roses leading the way with white fruits and a complex filigree of muted oak flavors filling in behind. The mid-palate expansion arrives with a gentle citrus tangerine tang which shimmers and grows spicy as it migrates from mid to hind tongue and the sweet roses and oak incense morph into gentle tannic bite and squeak. At the turn to the finish heat, tang, and sweet fade to a cherry malt glow with gentle spent oak lightly herbal & berry bitterness that acts as a soothing curb to the sweet front. This tastes like older refill cask - but in all the right ways.

The palate is in no way a disappointment here, but the nose is so meltingly, achingly beautiful that I almost cannot bear to actually sip it away or dream of adding any water. This is my first Linkwood. It's a stunner squarely in the Highland/Spey fruit basket flavor profile. What a luscious monster.  This experience really helps me understand the Spey region's special place in the Scotch constellation.

*****

This classic Speyside (and, often, Highland) flavor profile of honeyed intensely floral sweet w/ white fruit notes and citrus is, when the citrus combines, often referred to as "tropical fruits" - or even as "passion fruit" (as I've seen this issue noted).  I get that - but as the roses and honey show up slightly before the tangerine citrus on the palate for me they register as two distinct flavor notes.

Glenrothes 1995

This very lovely bottle of Glenrothes 1995 (15 or 16 years old depending on you choose to interpret the label) was a gift from Danielle of Exposure (thanks, Danielle). I wasn't able to make the Cocktail World event where she was pouring the new Glenrothes expressions (it was on Mother's Day for heaven's sake). Very kindly she sent me this bottle and the Suntory samples for review.  In the context of my tastings of the Select Reserve, 1998, and 1985 expressions last week, the 1995 has emerged as something of a tie breaker for me.   While the Select Reserve had aspects of the august and elegant presentation that typifies the Glenrothes flavor profile as well as some terrific youthful fruit basket notes, it was marred by a young rough aspect and some off flavors.  The 1985 was glorious with dried fruits and old books.  The 1998 had some lovely aspects of both but had an acidity and some admittedly extremely subtle sulfur notes that affected my enjoyment.  I'm not normally particularly sensitive to sulfur notes, but in this case the combination with the acidity took the 1998 from apricot/citrus into balsamic which didn't ruin the show but took things down a notch for me.  The 1979 expression I drank in the 90s was quite good, but not an overwhelming success like the 1985 is.  Thus, if the 1995 was a lovely dram I would actively seek out I would come away with the impression that Glenrothes was a brand to pursue.  If it was a disappointment then the glory of the 1985 might appear as more of a fluke and I might be tempted to look elsewhere in the future. 

As it turns out, I had an extremely hard time with this review, perhaps as a result of the pressure latent in this context.  I ended up drinking about 1/3rd of the bottle over the course of the entire week (yes, I know, whisky blogging is a brutal business).  My impressions seemed to veer wildly.  In some tasting sessions the 1995 the flavor profile bothered me.  In others it delighted me. 

Is Glenrothes Vintage 1995 a 16 year old or a 15 year old?  I don't know.  The big green square says "Distilled in 1995 Bottled in 2011" which sounds like 16 years.  The handwritten dates say "checked" October 26, 1995 and "approved" September 6, 2010 which sounds like just under 15 years.  It's not clear from the label.  Doesn't particularly matter to me - but it's an interesting question for a bar tender or brand ambassador.

Glenrothes 1995 43% abv

Color: very light amber with abundant gold tones.  With a splash of water it becomes rich old gold.

Nose: vanilla, apricot, malted milk, touch of iodine, goji berries. There's also a distinctive sweet-sour acidic note that runs like a common thread through all of the vintage Glenrothes expressions. In the 1998 it had a balsamic aspect. Here and in the 1985 it turns up like dried apricots (more convincingly in the '85. In the '95 this note is little bit like wine.)  A bit of water smooths and sweetens the nose a bit, emphasizing honey and grain.

Entry is off-dry, yet with clear flavors of honeyed grain with a nice creaminess: a filigree of barleycorn, honeycomb, and apricot Danish pastry. There's some nice woody heat at mid-palate, with a waft of vanilla perfume, some red fruits, and old citrus glow. At the turn to the finish there is a relative decline in flavor density that almost escapes notice. The finish is medium-long with plenty of oak influence sandalwood spice and drying tannins. The slightly lean aspect of the middle comes off as elegant restraint, with a burst of spices balancing the sweet lacy opening and the robust wooded finish. I get the feeling that the creaminess would be enhanced and the mid-palate improved if they skipped the chill-filtering (like Glen Garioch). But this is a quibble, the flavor signature is quite enjoyable and remarkably similar to the 1979 16 year old version I enjoyed a decade and a half ago.

Adding several drops of water to another dram and allowing half an hour for full air and time for integration works a beguiling transformation. Sprightly flavor notes of Speyside fruit basket appear on the entry.  The apricot note takes on a lovely light lemon flavor  on the palate. Sweetness and creaminess is enhanced along with floral vanilla and caramel notes, producing a citrus and butterscotch effect. There are still red fruits in the mid-palate, and plenty of oak on the finish, coming off as a slightly bitter note after the sweeter opening before devolving into a lightly fruity and post-tannin squeaky afterglow. The bit of water fills in the flavor presentation, paradoxically making the whole thing a bit richer and fuller. This has become my preferred way of taking Glenrothes 1995.  Indeed, I'd go so far as saying that Glenrothes 1995 is a convincing delight when taken this way.


****

Self portrait in reflection from bottle shot at right

Creamy, sweet with beehive and grain flavors, with a mid-palate that tends towards and elegantly lean and dry profile and plenty of oak on the finish; this constellation of flavor elements is quite consistent across the line, making for a clear family resemblance. The vinous acid note shows as quince in the Select, Balsalmic vinegar in the 1998, apricot Danish in the 1995 and dried apricots in the 1985. The honeyed barley, fruits, elegant off-dry presentation, lean middle, and rich oak in the finish are all across the line. Water ups the vanilla and sweet. In a number of conversations I have found this Glenrothes flavor profile has a polarizing effect. Some folks don't like; others like it a great deal. I'm used to polarization like this in powerful flavor profiles, like peat monsters and sherry bombs, but not in fairly lightly sherried fruity Speyside dram. Yet it is so. For example Tim Read of Scotch And Ice Cream reported on Twitter that he hadn't found a Glenrothes expression he really loved, even after a fairly extensive exploration of the line. Gal Granov of Whisky Israel, by contrast, liked this expression a good deal, and the 1985 as well.  I suspect its the peculiar arrangement of the flavor signature with the acids that can read as sourness or as lovely fruits depending on how they are aligning.  In the end I'm coming down on the side of Gal here.  Glenrothes is nice stuff - particularly when it's mature and when it has aired for a good long period in the glass.  It takes aging very well in the wood and the older expressions have a noble quality.