I'm a fan of Clynelish's standard 14-year old bottling (reviewed here), and of the distillery's waxy & fruity character. It's not often seen in sherry casks though, so this independent bottling from Signatory Vintage promises to be very interesting. Signatory is based in Pitlochry, around 90 minutes' drive north of Edinburgh, on the same site as Edradour Distillery. Both are owned by Andrew Symington and his brother Brian, who started Signatory in 1988, and purchased Edradour from Pernod Ricard in 2002 before consolidating everything on the one site. Signatory celebrated their 30th anniversary last year with the release of a number of very old single cask bottlings, such as a 35-year old Port Ellen and a 50-year old Bunnahabhain, which although extremely expensive are beautifully presented and highly desirable.
Highland distillery Clynelish isn't often seen in official bottlings, like many of Diageo's large workhorse distilleries there are only two regularly available expressions, a 14-year old (reviewed here) and the Oloroso sherry-finished and surprisingly scarce Distiller's Edition. Both are bottled at 46% ABV, which Diageo should be commended for, but if you're chasing a higher strength version you'll either need to find one of the bottlings from Diageo's annual Special Releases, which in Clynelish's case tend to be non-age statement bottlings at substantial prices, or you'll need to look to the independent bottlers. Companies such as Gordon & MacPhail, Cadenheads and of course Signatory Vintage will often have cask strength Clynelish bottlings available, since the goal of any independent bottler should be to either showcase distilleries that don't often get the chance to shine on their own, or to showcase more common distilleries in different styles, whether by age, cask type or more natural presentation, or ideally a combination of the three. There are quite a few (relatively) new independent bottlers coming onto the market as well, but for various reasons some of their prices can border on the ridiculous, while the long-established companies mentioned above, among a few others, tend to keep things at a more reasonable level.
This bottling of Clynelish is a 21-year old single cask, exclusive to London's The Whisky Exchange, one of the largest physical and online specialist whisky stores in the world. Between their two locations in central London and their huge website they have a huge range of whisky, including a huge number of old & rare bottlings, and often a large range of exclusive bottlings, often of the single cask and cask strength variety. They tend to be of very good quality and generally sell at reasonable prices as well, but of course it's luck of the draw as to what will be available from the stores at any given time, and some bottlings sell out very quickly, although stock does tend to last longer in the physical stores than it does on the website. This Signatory bottling of Clynelish was hand-picked to mark the 2018 10th anniversary of The Whisky Show, an annual London whisky expo put on by The Whisky Exchange and parent company Speciality Drinks, who are also behind the Elements of Islay, Port Askaig and Single Malts of Scotland independent bottling labels. It was distilled in December 1996, matured in a single refill (presumably Oloroso) sherry cask, number #11390, and bottled in August 2018 at a cask strength of 52% ABV. Naturally (pun intended) it's non-chill filtered and naturally coloured, and 517 bottles were released, now completely sold out. The sample for this review came from a private swap with a generous fellow whisky geek. Tasting time!
Bottled for The Whisky Exchange / 10th Anniversary of The Whisky Show. Distilled 12/1996, bottled 8/2018, matured in refill sherry butt, cask #11390. 517 bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.
Colour: Amber.
Nose: It does have that Clynelish waxy and floral fruit note, but there's also quite a lot of dry Eastern spices, a lot of orange peel and some woody cologne (aftershave). There's also some dried apricot and nectarine, plus a bit of peach, a little salt, and an interesting meaty fatty-ness, like some cold grease on last night's roast, or even lard. Very interesting!
Texture: Medium weight, oily, warming and spicy but not hot or harsh.
Taste: Spicy and quite mineral to start, warm wood spices with dark chocolate syrup / dessert sauce, more orange peel, and more dried apricot & peach. That waxy note that we all expect from Clynelish is there but it's surprisingly subtle, it's only in the background here. Some white pepper too behind that dried fruit & citrus.
Finish: Medium length. The white pepper continues, as does the stone fruit, and that greasy fatty-ness from the nose comes out in force here. That turns into a clean vegetable oil, plus some marzipan (sweetened almond paste) and a mouth-watering mineral salinity.
Score: 3.5 out of 5.
Notes: A very interesting, maybe even challenging, dram here! It's not what I expected really, there's more wood spice, more orange and certainly more fatty-ness, but it definitely works. There's quite a lot going on in this whisky, especially on the palate & finish, and it does take extra concentration to decipher. That greasy fatty note is particularly interesting, although it could well be an evolution of the Clynelish waxy character, since this is the oldest Clynelish that I've tasted to date. So, a tasty and interesting whisky as we can expect from The Whisky Exchange, and also Signatory Vintage, of course!
I still think Clynelish is one of the best examples of a Northern Highland malt, particularly when sampled at cask strength like this bottling, although I can't help but wonder if an ex-bourbon cask at this age and strength may have shown off that character a little better. Which means I now need to hunt down one of those! Although comparing a single cask whisky to another doesn't always work, they're totally unique, which is all part of the fun.
Cheers!
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