Dallas Dhu 1979 (G&M) Whisky Review!

An old Gordon & MacPhail bottling from 2013, from a distillery that closed in the Scotch whisky dark times of 1983. And it's my first taste of Dallas Dhu!

Unlike almost all closed distilleries in Scotland, Dallas Dhu (pronounced "Dellus-doo") can still be visited and toured, but only as a museum. The distillery was founded in 1898 in the town of Forres in Speyside, 40 minutes' drive east of Inverness. The site is only two miles from Benromach Distillery which was also founded in the same year by the same man, Alexander Edward, who was also responsible for Craigellachie and Aultmore distilleries, although he sold Dallas Dhu after less than a year before it had even produced spirit. Both Benromach and Dallas Dhu were closed in 1983 by then-owners DCL, which would became United Distillers, now Diageo, alongside other more legendary distilleries like Port Ellen and Brora. Thankfully Benromach was rescued and reopened by Gordon & MacPhail in 1993, while Dallas Dhu has served as a museum since 1988. The site is still owned by Diageo, but is under the control of Historic Environment Scotland. Interestingly there have been calls to re-open Dallas Dhu, and thanks to its historic status much of the original buildings and decommissioned equipment are still in place, but nothing seems to have been decided on just yet. As far as the distillery itself goes, the only really remarkable feature was the worm tub condensers, which are still in place as part of the museum along with the malting floors and kiln (both decommissioned in 1968), the single pair of pot stills and the dunnage warehouses which were actually in use until 1992 when the distillery's license was cancelled. Despite owning the site Diageo were apparently not part of these calls to recommission the distillery, but to be fair they're busy rebuilding and reopening Port Ellen and Brora, so despite it's solid reputation amongst whisky geeks the little-known are much rarer Dallas Dhu would have to be far further down on the company's list of investment options. 

While originally named Dallasmore, named after the nearby village of Dallas, the distillery was renamed as Dallas Dhu in 1899 under new owners, and the name roughly translates to 'black valley'. The distillery closed a number of times, from 1930-1936 and from 1939-1947 following a major fire and then World War Two, before meeting its end - so far - in 1983. There have been a couple of official bottlings from the owners, under their defunct 'Rare Malts Selection' brand which was the equivalent of Diageo's current Special Releases range, but most Dallas Dhu single malts are independent bottlings. Unsurprisingly given their location twenty minute's away in Elgin, most of these have come from Gordon & MacPhail, and the early examples were bottled under license of the distillery owners, along with the likes of Linkwood and Mortlach. Casks of Dallas Dhu are much rarer of course, although G&M actually bottled a 50-year old Dallas Dhu in 2019 as part of their 'Private Collection' range that was drawn from a single refill sherry butt and sold for around 6,500 GBP. G&M are actually in the process of building a new distillery near Grantown on Spey, one hour southwest of Elgin, named The Cairn Distillery, and Benromach has been and is very successful under their ownership. I wonder if they entered a bid on reopening Dallas Dhu? It would certainly be more cost effective than designing and constructing a new distillery from scratch, and they'd have the distillery's heritage to build on - although it's very possible that the owners wouldn't be willing to relinquish the brand name itself which would deter many possible investors. But I'm only speculating there!

This particular bottling of Dallas Dhu is from Gordon & MacPhail, and was distilled in 1979 and bottled in 2013 at 43%. But unfortunately that's about all we know, there is no mention of cask type or size, and I suspect it will have been chill filtered, but I'm unsure on colouring. If there has been E150a added it's certainly been minimal, there's no orange glow to this single malt. But there shouldn't be either, this is a 32-33 year old whisky after all! Being bottled around eight years ago this isn't a bottle you're likely to see on the shelves of your average retailer, but then that applies to basically all of the closed distilleries' whiskies these days. When it was more readily available it could be had for around $600 AUD, which is very reasonable considering the rarity of Dallas Dhu. The sample for this review came from a generous fellow whisky nerd who understandably couldn't resist a birth-year (yes, he's quite old) bottling from a closed distillery. Let's get into it! 

Dallas Dhu 1979-2013, Gordon & MacPhail, 43%. Speyside, Scotland.

Distilled 1979, bottled 2013, so 32 years of age. Unknown cask type, suspected chill filtered, unknown colouring. 

Colour: Amber gold. 

Nose: Fresh & surprisingly lively for a 32-year old whisky. And quite sour! Lots of sour green apples with a couple of sweeter red apples thrown in, all doused in fresh lime juice. Quite grassy and herbal with a touch of honey in the background. With more time some lime sherbet lollies, savoury gravy powder, caramel syrup and white pepper. 

Texture: Light-medium weight. Slightly oily, savoury and peppery. No alcohol heat at all. 

Taste: Oily & earthy entry, with some sharp black pepper and dunnage warehouse notes - dank old wood and damp earth. Could even be a touch of peat in there for good measure! Gentle wood spices coming out with warm cinnamon and drying sandalwood, maybe a touch of ginger powder. Leathery and a little dusty, like old books. Gravy powder and more white pepper.   

Finish: Short length. Old pencil shavings, a little dried lime. Nutty caramel syrup but not overly sweet. Browned apples and white pepper. Turns a little sour and lightly astringent towards the end. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. 

Notes: What an interesting dram! Unexpected flavours, but more unexpected aromas! The nose is totally, completely different to the palate and finish. It's fresh, sour, fruity and almost fizzy / effervescent, while the palate is more savoury, oily & peppery, and there's a lovely earthy, dank dunnage warehouse note in there - not to the extent of something like a Brora or a Springbank, and it doesn't hang around, but it's in there. This whisky does fall a little short on the finish - pun intended - and the oak seems to show itself most here. Some oak influence is to be expected after 32 years in casks, but the oak does seem quite fresh on the finish. A higher bottling strength could possibly have helped lengthen the finish, but that wasn't G&M's way back then - and still isn't in many cases, although that does seem to be changing lately. Albeit very, very slowly! 

It's always a very special thing when you get the chance to try a closed distillery's whisky, especially for the first time! These old bottlings are a great way to travel back in time to when the whisky world was a quite a different place - and I'm talking about both 1979 and 2013! It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of the proposed repurposing / resurrection of the Dallas Dhu site. There's no time like the present, and it's certainly a shame to see it live out it's days as a museum. Although that's also helped keep it in good order, and should make it easier to bring it back to life, so it might turn out to be a good thing in the end!

Cheers!

Glendronach 12yo Single Cask (Plus a Bonus) Whisky Review!

Yes, this is a two-for-one deal. A young single cask Glendronach from the latest batch, and an old single cask Glendronach from two batches prior. Two ends of the Glendronach spectrum. You're welcome!

"Sherry bomb". It's an interesting term! Some interpret a 'sherry bomb' to simply mean a whisky that is matured in a first-fill sherry cask, while others take it to mean a whisky that has been dominated or even overwhelmed by sherry casks. Either interpretation can then be a positive or a negative, depending on the drinker's tastes. But the term has also come to mean high-strength, sherry-forward whiskies where the spirit and distillery character has been dampened or completely overwhelmed by active sherry casks. Some distilleries and independent bottlers manage these casks very well and still produce a relatively balanced & characterful whisky, while others let the casks run wild and cash in on the dark colour that usually results. In the past, many whiskies of this style had spent some time in sherry casks that had been treated with paxarette - a mix of grape must and sweet fortified wines that was used to rejuvenate / re-season sherry casks, in some cases by being blasted / injected into tired or under-performing casks using compressed air. The use of paxarette was banned by the Scotch Whisky Association in 1990, but that only applies to Scotland remember - it's use is allowed and is certainly practised in many of the "new world" whisky-producing countries around the world. These days, the closest we get to that sort of effect is the modern "sherry seasoned" cask, where casks are tailor-made for the whisky industry, rather than being used for traditional sherry maturation, and they're generally made from new / virgin oak and only hold wine for anywhere from 3-24 months. In many cases the wine is low quality enough to only become cooking sherry or vinegar, or is even dumped and disposed of. Often made from new (virgin) oak, many of these sherry seasoned casks are also filled "wet", where the freshly emptied casks are quickly filled with new make spirit, rather than being re-charred or toasted beforehand. As you might expect, that results in a high level of influence from the wine itself as it leeches out of the oak and into the spirit. This is also far more prevalent with smaller cask sizes thanks to the increased surface area that is in contact with the spirit - yes, I'm looking at you, Australia! 

Distilleries like Glenfarclas, Aberlour, Macallan, and Glengoyne are known for their sherry cask whiskies, although the quality of those whiskies varies massively between expressions. But there is one distillery that, in my opinion, consistently produces enjoyable sherry cask whiskies that retain their character and some semblance of spirit & distillery character - Glendronach. From the core range 12-, 15-, and particularly the 18- and 21-year old bottlings to the non-age statement Cask Strength batches, while the level of sherry influence and overall quality still varies by batch, the general level of quality is consistently good between these bottlings, and has been for quite some time. But there's a next level of Glendronach appreciation: their single cask program. Unfortunately the prices have increased drastically in the most recent batches, particularly with the older bottlings, while on the other hand the younger bottlings in each batch of releases have remained relatively stable, or have even decreased in price. These younger single cask releases tend to be quite a different experience to the older bottlings, for a number of reasons. While the main difference is obviously going to be the level of sherry cask influence and the maturation, there are also some fundamental differences in the spirit itself. Glendronach Distillery was mothballed in 1996, and didn't re-open again until 2002. Much has been written about their tumultuous history and subsequent rescue by Billy Walker & Co. in 2008, and the pressure that the closure put on their maturing stocks, but two things happened before that rescue that fundamentally changed Glendronach. Firstly, prior to 1996 a small portion of their barley requirements were floor-malted at the distillery, which also included a small amount of peat being added to the kiln during the drying process. And secondly, prior to 2005 the distillery's four pot stills were all direct-fired using coal (not gas), meaning they were heated by flame from underneath. In 2005 they were converted to the common method of indirect-heating using steam. So in reference to the single cask bottlings, anything distilled in 1995 or earlier includes some floor-malted barley, and anything distilled in 2004 or earlier came through the direct-fired stills. So these two single cask bottlings, one from 1993 and one from 2008, are from opposite ends of the changes to, and closure of, the distillery.

Whisky number one is from Batch 18 (2020) of the single cask releases, distilled in 2008 and was fully-matured in a PX sherry puncheon (600-litre cask), cask #8558, for 12 years prior to bottling at a cask strength of 59.4%. And it is not a cask-heavy "sherry bomb". Instead it's a sweet, fruity whisky that has a great balance between cask influence and spirit / distillery character. Whisky number two is from Batch 16 (2018) of the single cask releases, distilled in 1993 and fully-matured in an unspecified sherry butt (500-litre cask), cask #55, for 24 years prior to bottling at a cask strength of 56.7%. But it also is not a cask-heavy "sherry bomb"! It's also a sweet, fruity whisky that has a great balance between cask influence and distillery character. But there are obviously distinct differences here. Cask #55 distilled in 1993 is the sort of whisky that made Glendronach famous, while cask #8558 distilled in 2008 is from the "new breed", distilled in the Billy Walker era on indirectly-steam-heated stills and matured in a modern sherry-seasoned cask - and a substantially larger cask to boot. Neither of these bottlings are chill filtered or artificially coloured, and I'm not going to weigh-in on the recent news that Glendronach is removing the "non-chill filtered" statement from the packaging on their core range whiskies. Glendronach should certainly be weighing-in on the issue though, rather than just ignoring it until it goes away - that's not the best strategy when it comes to us whisky geeks! On to pricing, then. The 2008 12-year old, bottled in 2020, sold for the relative bargain price (for a single cask, cask strength sherry cask Glendronach) of $220-240 AUD when it was released in Australia earlier this year. The 1993 24-year old, bottled in 2018, sold for $550-580 AUD when it was released in 2019, which is an expensive whisky of course, but not unreasonable for the age. Unfortunately the pre-closure casks in Batch 18 have incurred a substantial price increase, but this bottling pre-dates that so we can ignore that for this review. It's tasting time!

Glendronach 2008 12yo, #8558 59.4%. Highlands, Scotland.

Distilled 2008, matured in a single PX sherry puncheon, bottled 2020. Batch 18 of the single cask releases. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 710 bottles. 

Colour: Amber. 

Nose: Sweet date syrup with walnuts, almonds and furniture polish. Light floral sweetness too, I'd say vanilla icing sugar. Oranges - both sweet & bitter, touch of ginger, plus fresh plum and nectarine in syrup. Touch of spicy fresh oak shavings and green chilli pepper - with most of the seeds removed. 

Texture: Medium weight. Rich & syrupy, wood-forward & sweet. A touch of heat but that's to be expected at nearly 60% ABV and 12-years of age. 

Taste: More plum & nectarine in syrup, followed by orange again. Dates & black pepper building before spicy fresh oak and a touch of new leather. Brown sugar in the background. 

Finish: Medium length. Melted butter makes an appearance, then the spicy fresh oak and black pepper. Walnuts and almonds again, touch of that green chilli pepper before the orange & leather poke back through. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. 

Notes: Tasty, sweet, flavoursome whisky but with plenty of fresh wood & spice to balance that out. Yes, it's young and relatively fresh, but there's good balance between cask & spirit, and at times it shows an interesting "green-ness" that is almost refreshing! This bottling is more in-line with the NAS Cask Strength Glendronachs in that way, where there's distillery & spirit character on show along with plenty of sherry influence, rather than being entirely cask-led "sherry bombs". And there's a time & place for both!

Glendronach 1993 24yo, #55. 56.7%. Highlands, Scotland.

Distilled 1993, matured in an unspecified sherry butt, bottled 2018. Batch 16 of the single cask releases. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 567 bottles. 

Colour: Very dark bronze with tinges of red. 

Nose: Richer, sweeter, deeper and more condensed. Orange zest and furniture polish, cola syrup and dark chocolate. Lovely dry sherry (nutty, spicy, almost meaty) with a little good quality balsamic vinegar. Dark tea leaves and blackberry jam. 

Texture: Medium weight, richer & deeper as expected, and no heat whatsoever. 

Taste: Rich, more tea leaves, cola syrup and blackberry jam. Hint of sour cherry and raisin in the background. Dark chocolate and a touch of leather. Furniture polish and a couple of black jellybeans thrown in for good measure. 

Finish: Long length. Balsamic vinegar again, with more cola syrup and blackberry jam. Sour cherry and raisin showing themselves again too. Touch of coffee grounds and drying tannins to round things out. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Delicious. Much softer, more integrated and more developed of course, and the depth of flavour is there without it being completely overwhelmed by the sherry cask as some younger examples from other distilleries - and different countries - often are. This whisky is precisely why these Glendronach single casks earned the reputation that they now enjoy, and with the "master vintage" and "Grandeur" bottlings and all the rest, there can't be much stock from this era left lying around. 

Overall notes: Which brings me to my next point. Yes, the latest batch has seen a massive jump in price on the older releases. But we whisky geeks, a.k.a. "the market", only have ourselves to blame. The secondary prices on these older single cask releases have exploded over the last few years, and with the older stock dwindling and the entire whisky industry enjoying a huge boom in sales over the last year or so, it was only a matter of time until the distillery owners asked for their fair share rather than just sit back and watch the private & licensed resellers reap the rewards. A few years ago these older single cask Glendronachs were great value for money - I won't say they were cheap, but they were fairly priced and offered great value for money. But they're now beyond the budgets of a good chunk of their previous audience. They now attract a different type of buyer, and that situation won't change as the stock levels get lower & lower with each year that rolls by. The older casks in this latest batch certainly seem to be hanging around for much longer than they ever used to, which is telling at the moment when almost nothing sits on the shelves for very long. Time will tell!

So where does the Glendronach lover turn, when these older single casks are now beyond the limits of their justifiable spending? They turn to the distillery's core range, the 18-year old Allardice, and the NAS Cask Strength bottlings (except batch 7). Or they turn to the younger single cask releases. The 2008 12-year old that I've reviewed above still offers great value for money, and comparing it to a 24-year old from a different time in the distillery's past was never going to be worthwhile when it came time to discuss pricing or value. These younger single casks are going to be the way forward if you ask me, thanks to that pesky distillery closure where the large gap in stock is going to mean an even larger gap in pricing. Some of the younger releases have been excellent in the past, and I'm sure they will be in the future. 

Cheers!

Teeling Revival 12 Year Old Whiskey Review!

It's been a while since I reviewed anything from Ireland. Or almost anything with the extra "e"! But this example is a great gateway into something different. And it's finished in cognac and brandy casks!

I don't often reach for an Irish whiskey. In fact off the top of my head you'll only find two bottles of Irish whiskey in my house, one of which being Connemara Turf Mor, the heavily peated double-distilled whiskey that is about as far away from a typical Irish whiskey as you can get without leaving Ireland. And the second bottle was a gift! That's not to say that some Irish whiskeys aren't great quality, they just don't generally do it for me - particularly those that are triple distilled, which tends to strip character and flavour while resulting in a lighter and more refined spirit. Even among triple-distilled Scotch whiskies, I only really go for those that have significant distillery character, Springbank's triple-distilled Hazelburn spirit and also Benromach's triple-distilled limited release, for example, release some excellent triple distilled single malts. But I find most examples of Irish whiskey to be too light and/or too sweet for my tastes, with one main exception that comes straight to mind: Teeling. While the majority of easily-accessible Irish whiskeys are bottled at 40% ABV and are chill filtered and artificially coloured, Teeling was one of the first to go against the grain (pun intended) across the board with their full range. From their entry-level 'Small Batch' blend through to the age statement limited releases, all are bottled at 46% and above without chill filtration or added E150a. Which is just the way it should be! Teeling are also a little more adventurous than most Irish producers when it comes to cask finishing, with the likes of rum, madeira, red wine, port, sauternes, PX sherry & stout cask finishes being on offer at various price points across their extensive range of different bottlings. Not to mention cognac and brandy casks, which is where the example that we're looking at today comes in. 

Before we get into that though, let's look at Teeling itself. The Teeling Distillery opened in 2015 in Newmarket in the centre of Dublin, with three copper pot stills and an annual capacity of around 500,000 litres of spirit. At the time it was the first new whiskey distillery to open in Dublin in 125 years, while Ireland has gone from having just two whiskey distilleries in the early 1980s to now having over forty, with many more in the planning stages. But the majority of Teeling's whiskeys were not distilled at Teeling Distillery. This family-owned company was actually founded in 2012 by brothers Jack & Stephen Teeling, whose father John had founded Cooley Distillery in 1987. A formerly government-owned potato alcohol plant, Cooley is located an hour's drive north of Dublin, and John Teeling converted it into a whiskey distillery before selling to Jim Beam (now Beam Suntory) in 2011. The sale price included 16,000 casks of maturing whiskey staying with the Teeling family, which they used to found the Teeling Whiskey Company - so the majority of Teeling products, so far, are actually independent bottlings, mostly distilled at Cooley. Cooley's main point of difference is the use of double distillation rather than the triple distillation which is more common in Irish whiskey, and the use of both column stills and pot stills. The single malt whiskeys are produced in the latter, while the blends are generally produced in the former. Brands such as Kilbeggan, Tyrconnel and the aforementioned Connemara are all made at Cooley, as well as a large number of other Irish whiskey brands that are (often undisclosed) independent bottlings. So far there has only been one product released that was actually distilled at the Teeling Distillery in Dublin, a 'Single Pot Still Whiskey', which is a 50/50 mix of malted and unmalted barley that is triple-distilled in pot stills and matured in a combination of virgin oak, ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. Why they've chosen to use triple-distillation I can't say, and I'm yet to try that particular bottling, but it's safe to say that it'll be very different to the double-distilled single malts that the brand has been built on and that have been very successful. I'm sure there'll be single malt whiskeys from Teeling Distillery coming in future, but I'm yet to see or hear anything about their release. Maybe they're already blending some of their own spirit in to the NAS releases? Either way, let's hope that at least some of them are only double distilled!

The Teeling whiskey that we're looking at today is a single malt, double-distilled at Cooley - although you won't find that written or acknowledged anywhere. This bottling is part of the company's Revival series, referring to the revival of Irish whiskey and the Teeling Distillery, and this 12-year old single malt was the fifth and final 'volume' in the series, and also the youngest. All five whiskeys in the series were single malts, all bottled at 46%, with the first being a 15-year old finished in rum casks, the second being a 13-year old finished in Calvados (apple brandy) casks, the third a 14-year old finished in French fortified wine casks, the fourth being a 15-year old finished in sweet Muscat barrels, and finally a cognac & brandy cask finish in this 12-year old fifth 'volume' that was initially released in 2018. Both cognac and brandy are usually distilled from grapes, with the main difference being geographical - cognac can only be made in the Cognac region of France, but it also must be distilled from white wine grapes and aged in French oak for a minimum of two years, while brandy is the general term that applies to any fruit-derived spirit and can be produced anywhere. There were 15,000 bottles released at a reasonable price of around $160 AUD, with the vast majority of the Australian allocation going to one large retailer which still has a small amount of stock in some stores. As mentioned above all Teeling whiskeys are non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. I also have to add that Teeling really know how to package a whiskey - the bottles and outer boxes in this series were all very well done. The sample for this review came from a generous fellow whiskey nerd, who keeps this bottle in his office, although it's lasted him quite a while! Let's get to it. 

Teeling Revival Vol. 5, 12-year old Single Malt, 46%. Ireland. 

Single malt, double-distilled at Cooley Distillery, initially matured in ex-bourbon casks, finished in Cognac & Brandy casks. Fifth and final 'volume' in the Revival series. 15,000 bottles released 2018. 

Colour: Yellow gold. 

Nose: Fresh, malty & floral sweet. Loads of dusty malted barley, bright & sweet lemon and toasted oak with some dried coconut & buttery, nutty caramel. Fresh sweet apple, aniseed and vanilla syrup with a touch of sweet fruit - dried pear and green banana. 

Texture: Lovely. Medium weight, quite oily. Sweet & creamy. No heat at all. 

Taste: Toasted nutty oak, vanilla, buttery caramel and burnt orange. Touch of dried pear and banana in the background, along with some sweet red apple and dry grassy barley. More caramel & sharp aniseed, black pepper and lemon. 

Finish: Medium length. Touch of raw spirit, but not hot or harsh. Quite floral. Then more gristy, dusty barley and more nutty toasted oak. Dried coconut again too. Touch of bitter aniseed, burnt orange and more buttery caramel. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. 

Notes: There's plenty of flavour, and plenty of grassy, dry barley on show, but the cask influence is certainly there - the toasted oak, caramel and burnt orange is all very cognac in my book. The cask finish hasn't overwhelmed the grain, spirit and distillery characters though, but each seems to show itself at different times rather than being cohesive. This is a sweet whiskey overall, but with plenty of that oak, grassy barley and citrus helping to calm it down a little. And it's also helped massively by the 46% ABV and double-distillation, if you ask me. This is a young whiskey of course, and I'm guessing it needed a cask finish to give it a little character boost, but it's also more mature than I usually find the Teeling core range which can be a little undercooked. Then again, this 12-year old Revival was almost twice the price of the core range Single Malt expression, so you'd hope that was the case! 

Plenty of character and flavour, and a clear but not overwhelming influence from the exotic cask finishing. Not bad at all. Unfortunately it's going to be hard to find at a reasonable price, and personally I wouldn't go hunting for it at secondary prices. But if you're looking for a flavourful Irish whiskey with a little more character than some, Teeling is certainly worth a closer look. 

Cheers!