Sheep Dip 1990 Old Hebridean Whisky Review!

A legendary old blend, or rather blended / vatted malt, bottled over a decade ago. And it's quite the special whisky!

Sheep Dip is a brand of blended Scotch whisky that was formerly owned and produced by the Spencerfield Spirits Company, a whisky blender & gin producer that was based in Inverkeithing, Fife. The company purchased both the Sheep Dip blended malt whisky brand and the Pig's Nose blended whisky brand from Jura & Dalmore owners Whyte & Mackay circa 2005, but the Spencerfield company itself was purchased by Ian McLeod Distillers, owners of Glengoyne, Tamdhu and the resurrection-in-progress Rosebank, in 2016. Despite the ownership changes by all reports the whisky itself continues to be overseen by Whyte & Mackay's larger than life Master Distiller, the venerable Richard Paterson, a.k.a. 'The Nose'. How this activity blends (see what I did there?) with his work with the company's other brands and his infamous antics - most famously throwing whisky on the floor during a tasting - I can't say, but I'd assume that he is only responsible for selecting the blend's original recipe. In the agricultural world, sheep sip is the liquid containing concentrated pesticide and fungicide that sheep are regularly dunked in to protect them from fungal infections and pest infestations - I can't imagine that liquid smells or tastes particularly pleasant, and it doesn't invoke the most romantic image of a flavoursome Scotch whisky! Apparently the naming choice harks back to the illicit distilling / bootlegging days in England when distillers & bottlers would label their casks as sheep dip for transport - all to avoid closer inspection by the exciseman, naturally! 

Sheep Dip blended malt is still around today, and is a lower-priced NAS whisky that sits roughly at the level as Monkey Shoulder or Naked Grouse, albeit with far less popularity & presence. And by all reports there is a reason for that lack of popularity & presence! But there have been a couple of different iterations of Sheep Dip over the years, with the shining star being the blended malt that we're looking at today: 1990 Old Hebridean. This bottling actually pre-dates the term blended malt, and also didn't carry the previous term 'vatted malt'; it was simply labelled as a "Vatting of Aged Highland & Island Single Malt Whiskies". Both 'blended malt' and 'vatted malt' signify the same thing: a blended whisky made from different malt whiskies, with no grain whisky involved. For a hypothetic example, if you were to blend a Lagavulin single malt with a Bruichladdich single malt, you'd be creating a blended malt. Most blended malts contain more than two component whiskies of course, but the same term applies regardless of how many distilleries have contributed to the blend. It is however quite rare for these blended malts to name the regions that their component whiskies came from, and even rarer for them to name the distilleries themselves - particularly where one or some of those distilleries is not owned by the producer of said blended malt whisky. Which is where Sheep Dip 1990 Old Hebridean becomes very interesting - this is a blend of three different single malt whiskies, sourced from Fettercairn Distillery, located south of Aberdeen in the Highlands, and Dalmore Distillery, located north of Inverness across the Moray and Cromarty Firths. Now both of those distilleries make sense, because they are owned by Whyte & Mackay. But the third component malt whisky in this blend is quite the surprise - it's none other than one of Islay's most famous peaty powerhouses, Ardbeg! Didn't see that coming, did you? Particularly in a blend with two widely unloved - for good reason - Highland distilleries. 

While we don't know the ages of each whisky, the Ardbeg inclusion makes more sense if we assume it was distilled in 1990, since Ardbeg was owned by Allied Distillers at the time who were very keen to sell off casks of Ardbeg to both independent bottlers and blenders for cash flow reasons, so it would make sense that the Ardbeg component of this blend was distilled in 1990 (see here and here for more information on that era in Ardbeg's history). That 1990 vintage obviously refers to the youngest component of this blend, and it was bottled circa 2009, so this is effectively an 18-year old whisky. As for the name 'Old Hebridean', we'll have to allow the producers some artistic license there - obviously the Ardbeg component is the only Hebridean whisky in the blend! Another interesting point here, the label also states that these three component single malts were allowed to 'marry' in first-fill casks for "at least ten years" prior to bottling. Marrying refers to letting whiskies sit in casks or vats for a period of time to allow the flavours to marry together, and in general this practice does seem to give a cohesive and balanced whisky. So, a blended malt whisky consisting of well-aged malt whiskies from Ardbeg, Dalmore and Fettercairn, with the youngest component distilled in 1990, and bottled in 2009. Only 12,000 bottles were produced, and it was bottled at 40% ABV. Yes, that's the minimum alcoholic strength for a Scotch whisky, but this is a blended whisky that also consists of substantially aged malts, and it was bottled back in 2009 when such things weren't as unpopular as they - thankfully - are now. so we'll have to forgive them! As for chill filtration and added artificial colouring, I can't say definitively since neither are mentioned on the packaging or labelling, but again this is a blended whisky from over a decade ago, and both practices are mainstays of the Whyte & Mackay portfolio, so I would assume that both have taken place here. The sample for this review came from a very generous fellow-whisky nerd who recently pulled this whisky from the depths of his personal archive and cracked it open. Personally I was extremely excited to see it, because this whisky just happened to feature in the first Ralfy whisky review that I ever watched, quite a few years ago now. Let's see how it goes!

Sheep Dip 1990 Old Hebridean, Blended Malt, NAS. 40%, Highlands & Islay, Scotland.

A blend of single malts from Ardbeg, Dalmore and Fettercairn, with the youngest component distilled in 1990. All were married together "for at least ten years" in first-fill casks prior to bottling. Bottled 2009. Unknown chill filtration or artificial colouring but most likely both. 

Colour: Amber. I would say it's E150 boosted, but that's only a guess. 

Nose: A little muted, with toffee, leather and fresh stone fruit. Opens up with a little lemon juice and a touch of rubber. Soft earthy, chunky peat and a little cigar ash & warm smoke. Caramel, a hint of tar, dark chocolate and orange peel with more time, but it still feels (or smells) a little flat. 

Texture: Light weight, but well-balanced and quite "clean" in feel. No heat whatsoever. 

Taste: Very gentle, and verging on thin. But the earthy peat & ashy warm smoke come to the fore and save the day. Leather and dried stone fruit follow behind. Slight drying saltiness and tarriness with some black pepper and more orange. 

Finish: Short length. Peat to the fore again, but it's a little more assertive here. Once the peat and coastal influences fade the whole show does fall over a bit and becomes a little flat again, with some caramel, leather and dried stone fruit. 

Score: 3 out of 5. 

Notes: It's an interesting old blend, no question, and the sherry influence is quite overt - that would be those first-fill "marrying" casks showing themselves. But it's the Ardbeg component of this blend that saves the day and makes this dram much, much more than it would have been otherwise. The subtle coastal influence, tar and ashy smoke all point towards the legendary Islay distillery, and while there probably wasn't a large amount of Ardbeg in the mix, whatever amount there was certainly carries the entire dram on its shoulders. In fact I'd say that the reputation that this Sheep Dip Old Hebridean has rests entirely with the Hebridean part of the recipe. They did well naming it "Old Hebridean" as well, since neither Dalmore nor Fettercairn are particularly appealing, or eye-catching, or Hebridean! 

This is certainly an "old school" whisky, and it's extremely easy-drinking. I don't doubt that the malts involved were quite well aged. Naturally it would have been all the more enjoyable at a higher ABV and without the chill filtration and added colouring, but that's not really how things were done back then. Especially with blended whiskies. At the original pricing it was an absolute bargain, of course, and it's a great time capsule of a whisky which harkens back to a very different time in the whisky world. 

Cheers!