Cragganmore 12 Year Old Special Release (Peated) Whisky Review!

A peated Cragganmore? Yes! And it's served up at cask strength, non-chill filtered and with no added colouring! Could this be the hidden gem from the 2019 batch of Diageo's Special Releases? 

I've only tasted a few examples of Cragganmore in my time; the standard 12-year old, the port cask-finished Distiller's Edition and an SMWS cask strength single cask. That list isn't too far from the norm for many of these less-common Speyside single malts, where most of the distillery's production goes into their parent companies' blended whiskies. In Cragganmore's case, that would of course be Johnnie Walker, with particular emphasis on the Green Label, although the distillery is also one of the six that make up Diageo's 'Classic Malts'. Cragganmore was founded in 1869 in Ballindalloch, Speyside, roughly a 30-minute drive west of Dufftown. The location was strategically chosen for it's proximity to both a natural spring, the Spey river and the Strathspey railway line that would run very close to the distillery. Cragganmore's setup is a very interesting one to us whisky geeks - wooden washbacks and four unusually-shaped pot stills - the two large wash stills have sharply downward-angled lyne arms, while the two smaller spirit stills have flat tops, with their more gently-curved downward-angled lyne arms making their exit from just below the tops in the neck of the still. Oh, and all four stills feed in to our old friends: worm tub condensers! Those stills are also intentionally run relatively quickly, so there's less reflux and less copper contact, which coupled with the downward-angled lyne arms and worm tub condensers gives Cragganmore a heavier, spicy, oily and almost-meaty (sulphurous) character. That sulphurous character is not on the level of a meaty Mortlach or vegetal Craigellachie for example, but it's adding an extra depth and richness that is very enjoyable. 

There is often one or two hidden gems in each batch of the annual Diageo Special Releases. Whether it's something we haven't seen before or just haven't seen for a long time, or it's from a distillery that doesn't often get the attention that it's due, or it's a new release at a more approachable price point to previous iterations. In 2017 I'd say that gem was the Lagavulin 12-year old - not exactly hidden of course, but these cask strength Lagavulins tend to be stuck in the shadows of the older and more expensive releases in each batch. And while the recipe doesn't change much with each year's release, the 2017 stood out to me as one of the best versions in recent years. In 2018, that hidden gem was of course the outstanding Talisker 8-year old, although that one didn't stay hidden for very long at all and swiftly gained a well-deserved cult following! And in 2019, with some stiff competition from the 15-year old Talisker, I'd wager that this Cragganmore holds the title. The 2020 releases haven't arrived in Australia yet - we typically have to wait for at least a year after Britain & Europe get theirs, but with the worldwide crisis & chaos this time around that delay could be even further extended. 

Credit must be given to Diageo for keeping the pricing on the younger Special Releases quite stable over the years - while the older and rarer bottlings are going for very serious money, the likes of the aforementioned Lagavulins and Taliskers have stayed very reasonable over time - consider that way back in 2014 the Lagavulin 12-year old could be found for around $160-170 AUD, and six years later the 2019 could be found for around $200. That's a very fair increase over that length of time for a limited release cask strength single malt, and there are many other companies and distilleries who's pricing has climbed far more steeply over the same period. Forgive the digression, but the recently released second batch of Ardbeg Traigh Bhan comes straight to mind here. The first batch of this 19-year old Ardbeg was priced at $290 AUD in mid-2019, while in January 2021 the second batch is priced at $400. For a whisky of the same age, same bottling strength - and that's only 46.2% remember, and we can assume a very similar mix of cask types, that's a ridiculous leap in pricing over a short period of time, and it's pushed this whisky out of the reach of many whisky fans. I had to laugh when I spotted an unfortunate and possibly foreshadowing phrase written on their packaging, which said "The Turn of the Tide" - that's a very apt statement - I couldn't have said better myself! And let's not mention the pending release of a 25-year old core range Ardbeg, bottled at 46%, which is expected to be priced at over $1,200 AUD - almost double that of the 25-year old Laphroaig which is bottled at cask strength and released in sporadic batches. Between those two, I know exactly where my money would be going... But back to the subject at hand! 

You'll notice that I haven't yet talked about something that really makes this 12-year old Cragganmore stand out - the peat! The story goes that back in 2006 with a severe drought impacting the west coast of Scotland, production at Talisker on the Isle of Skye was under threat. So for a short experimental period of only a couple of months some of the medium-peated malted barley that would normally end up at Talisker was also sent over to Cragganmore! This scenario might sound similar to what happened at a fabled distillery called Brora in the 1970s, which produced a now-legendary heavily-peated spirit to be substituted for Islay's Caol Ila while the latter distillery was being rebuilt. There was a bit of confusion around this Cragganmore when it started doing the rounds on the internet, with a number of reviews and resellers stating that it was only matured in casks that had previously held peated whisky, rather than the whisky itself being distilled from peated barley. That didn't seem right to me, since ex-peated cask maturation tends to be very subtle - or just plain ineffective in some cases - and details like that are very important to a unique malt like this. So I reached out via Instagram to none-other than Ewan Gunn, Diageo's Senior Global Brand Ambassador for Scotch Whisky, to clarify. Ewan kindly confirmed that the malted barley itself was peated, to a level similar to Talisker (so around 20 ppm), and also that it was malted on the mainland of Scotland - most likely at Glen Ord Maltings which is north of Inverness. That very interesting change to the norm means that this Cragganmore is one of the few contemporary examples of a properly-peated single malt that has been fed through only worm tub condensers - in fact until Islay's Ardnahoe releases it's first whisky when it comes of age, the aforementioned Talisker and Edradour's Ballechin range are the only other examples of such a beast (pun intended), with even the mighty Springbank and it's even-mightier Longrow spirit only having a worm tub on one of their stills. So this Cragganmore is a very exciting proposition! This 12-year old has been matured in refill American oak casks, most likely 250-litre hogsheads, and was bottled in 2019 at a cask strength of 58.4% ABV - and it's non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. This cask strength, peated special release sells for around $160 AUD, which is very reasonable. Lovely packaging too. It's still available in Australia at the time of writing, but don't expect it to last much longer! Let's get to it. 

Cragganmore 12-year old Cask Strength, 58.4%. Ballindalloch, Speyside. 

Distilled from medium-peated malted barley, around 20 ppm. Matured in refill American oak casks. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 

Colour: Pale gold. Beautiful! 

Nose: Oily, malty, earthy with touches of sweetness. Clean machine oils, dry wood spices, barley husks. Tangy brine, soft & gentle earthy peat and hints of baked red apple. Salted lemon and clean, oily dark mud. A touch of orange rind and subtle fruit syrup around the edges. 

Texture: Medium weight, but very oily. Spicy, earthy and lightly dry. Slight touch of heat, but pleasant. 

Taste: More clean machine oils, barley husks and dry wood spices. More salted lemon, but with extra salt this time - baked salt in fact. Black pepper and earthy, dry, spicy peat, and that orange rind again. 

Finish: Medium-long length. A touch of heat but fades quickly, then a drying astringency that the oiliness carries beautifully. Then the dry wood spices, muddy peat and touches of icing sugar around the edges. Sweet fruity syrup and malty barley husks to finish. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Delicious. I'm really loving this dry / semi-dry, earthy, oily style of whisky lately, and this Cragganmore is right in that wheelhouse. With extra oil! There are definitely shades of Kilkerran Heavily Peated in here, which I love - so I love this one too! The Cragganmore is a little cleaner and a little sweeter than the Campbeltown though, and doesn't have the smoked meat either, perhaps a more subtle style. But it's lovely. This peated cask strength doesn't have the overt sweetness of the flagship Cragganmore 12 year old, and there's very little overt cask influence - which is certainly no bad thing! In fact I think you'd find it hard to pick that the two came from the same distillery. But that's not surprising when you consider that this is the first peated Cragganmore released, and it's also the point of the Special Releases. These aren't just cask strength versions of the respective distillery's standard single malts, they're different takes, like twists on the formula. And that makes them great fun. 

The peat level here is somewhere between Talisker and Benromach, and that very oily texture, carrying flavour with it, is a testament to the magic of worm tubs - without being overtly meaty or vegetal like some. It may be a mainland peated whisky, but that saltiness and muddy-ness is verging on coastal, with the whole shebang meeting somewhere in the middle. Highly recommended!

Cheers!