Port Charlotte Valinch MAC01 Whisky Review!

A distillery-exclusive, hand-filled Port Charlotte at cask strength. But what is an MAC, you may ask? Well that would be a Madeira cask, and a full maturation single cask no less!

Thanks to the continuing global pandemic, many of the special bottlings that were previously exclusive to distillery visitors have been made available to a wider audience. Bruichladdich were one of the first to do this when they began selling some of their hand-filled Valinch bottlings on their website - but only by ballot, which is really the only fair way to do it when these are often less than 300-400 bottle releases. Larger distilleries have started doing the same with their Feis Ile bottlings - Lagavulin and Caol Ila, for example - but they're open to everyone to purchase, provided you or at least your shipping address is located in Great Britain. I noticed too that Bowmore Distillery's Feis Ile bottle being sold online in 2021 is still labelled as a 2020 bottling, which is fair, and just goes to show how unpredictable the world has been over the last 18 months or so. But I also hope that once things are closer to normal the distilleries and their owners will also return to keeping these special bottlings as distillery exclusives. Having these Feis Ile and distillery exclusive bottlings more widely accessible only makes it easier for the dreaded & inevitable flippers and scalpers that were already trying to hunt them into extinction. It's only fair that visitors to these often remote and sometimes rugged places are rewarded for their efforts in making the pilgrimage, particularly when they've come from further afield - like, say, Australia, for a completely random example - and normally have an almost zero chance of accessing bottles like these. They're often the icing on the cake, the cherry on top of the sundae, when you've made the pilgrimage to your favourite distillery/distilleries and can buy yourself a souvenir to take home. 

The Valinch bottling that I'm looking at here pre-dates these issues. It's from a time when travel was unrestricted, and holidays, vacations and whisky pilgrimages were still being planned, anticipated and enjoyed. Although that's difficult to imagine at the moment! As with all of Bruichladdich's Valinch bottlings, both in unpeated Bruichladdich form and heavily peated (40 ppm) Port Charlotte form, these are 500ml bottles of cask strength, hand-filled single cask whisky that are specifically selected to be sold from the distillery shop. There are plenty of people who baulk at the idea of a 500ml bottle of whisky, particularly here in Australia where it's a very common thing, but they're often missing the point - 500ml bottles mean the price is generally a little lower than it would be at 700ml, and more importantly it means that there is an extra 30-40% more bottles available than would have been otherwise. So it helps to "share the love" a little more - helping to lower the likelihood of experiencing the crushing disappointment that comes from visiting your favourite distillery and finding that they've sold out of their distillery exclusive or limited release bottling. For that reason alone I wish more distilleries would move to 500ml bottles with single cask bottlings, although I suppose that's the advantage Bruichladdich enjoy by having their own bottling line, they have more flexibility than the larger distilleries who need to ship their whisky to the Scottish mainland for bottling. There are only two bottling lines on Islay, remember, one at Bruichladdich and one at Kilchoman, while almost everyone else sends the vast majority of their whisky to their parent company's bottling plant/s on the mainland. 

This hand-filled Port Charlotte Valinch has been fully-matured in a single Madeira cask, cask #3836, yielding 411 x 500ml bottles - so that cask was probably a 225-250 litre hogshead. MAC:01 was distilled in December 2008 and bottled in mid-late 2019 at a hefty cask strength of 62.6%. Naturally it's non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. There have only been a handful of Madeira cask-matured Bruichladdich/Port Charlotte/Octomore whiskies to date, and most were single cask releases or independent bottlings that are few & far between - but with one exception. The legendary, brilliant cask strength PC6, bottled way back in 2007, was partly-matured in Madeira casks, with bourbon casks making up the rest of the vatting. I reviewed PC6 here along with the equally-legendary PC5, but in summary PC6 is still my favourite Port Charlotte to date. So this fully-matured single cask, despite being bottled 12 years later when the distillery's styles have evolved, and when it has a different Head Distiller and a different owner under Remy Cointreau, was impossible to resist. Madeira is a fortified wine produced on the island of Madeira off the coast of Portugal, although it's actually closer to Morocco. Traditionally the wine was matured in oak casks that were cooked or baked by the heat of the sun, known as the Canteiro method, which is still in use today, albeit only for the higher quality wines. Cheaper wines are heated in stainless steel or concrete tanks to mimic the process and generally don't spend any time in wooden casks. The heating of the wine causes it to oxidise, and also stabilise, giving it a different flavour profile and also a longer shelf life than most other fortified wines. Much like sherry there is a wide variety of different styles of Madeira, from dry to sweet with a few stops in between, although the acidity that is found in all Madeira wines prevents the sweeter varieties from becoming overly sweet or cloying. We don't know which type of Madeira this cask held previously, but I would assume it was headed towards the richer & sweeter variety - known as Malmsey. Whatever it was, it's certainly worked! 

Port Charlotte Valinch MAC01, 10-year old, 62.6%. Islay, Scotland.

Distillery exclusive hand-filled single cask. Distilled 12/2008, fully matured in a single madeira cask, bottled mid-late 2019. 411 x 500ml bottles, cask #3836. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 

Colour: Bright copper. 

Nose: Sweet, fruity, smoky, and lightly acidic. touch of 'laddie lactic "funk" - think creamy & sour natural yoghurt. Port Charlotte's trademark BBQ smoke and sweetness. In other words, brilliant. Char-grilled & caramelised stone fruit, buttery date sauce, salty burnt bacon with a lemon wedge, and a tin of old boot polish. Touch of balsamic vinegar and dry, spicy wood smoke. Roasted salted nuts and chunky, earthy peat further on. What a nose!

Texture: Medium-heavy weight, rich, syrupy and lightly acidic. Touch of heat but it fades very quickly - and this is a 10-year old whisky at 62.6%, remember!

Taste: Powerful & gentle at the same time. Very well balanced and layered between floral & fruity sweetness, warming peat smoke, and light acidity. Touch of under-ripe strawberry, fresh lemon wedges, and more caramelised stone fruit. Date syrup and a touch of warm ginger. 

Finish: Long length. Dry, ashy smoke and a touch of astringency to start with, then that grilled sweet stone fruit & fresh lemon, and a flash of the balsamic vinegar and burnt salty bacon again. Chunky, earthy, muddy peat with warm spicy BBQ smoke, lactic & citrus-y acidity and bright sweet fruitiness. 

Score: 4.5 out of 5. 

Notes: What a whisky! And in particular, what a nose! There's so much depth, so many layers, and it's constantly shifting and changing with each pass. Certainly one of those whiskies that I'd be happy to nose for hours on end before tasting. On the palate it's beautifully rich & balanced, with sweetness, smokiness and acidity all getting along beautifully. It's not as peaty or dirty or farmyard-y, nor as overtly coastal as the earlier Port Charlottes, but they were all younger as well, and this 10-year old isn't as aggressive as they tended to be - despite being higher in strength. It's also from a different era of Bruichladdich distillation, of course. I'd argue there's more consistency these days, although the 'laddie character is still here in spades. That beautiful sweet, smoky Port Charlotte spirit is still showing itself, and the balance between the fresh, bright youthfulness and carefully monitored cask influence is spot on. The peat & smoke influence itself does seem slightly more subdued - only slightly, though - in comparison to most of the younger cask strength bottlings of Port Charlotte, but after ten years of maturation in a first-fill madeira cask this Valinch MAC01 is on a different playing field. And it's winning!

Each & every one of these Bruichladdich & Port Charlotte Valinch bottlings is very special, since they're single casks that are hand-picked as a special souvenir for distillery visitors - and they're a great reward to those who have made the pilgrimage. But as with all single cask whiskies, some are more special than others. If the stars aligned and you got yourself an MAC01, you're well ahead of the curve. In fact, I hope you bought two!!

Cheers!

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!

Black Gate Apera Vatting Whisky Review!

A recent bottling from one of mainland Australia's smallest distilleries, Black Gate. Don't let their small stature fool you though, this tiny operation is a force to be reckoned with. 

Black Gate Apera Vatting. Not the most romantic name for a whisky release, perhaps, although it still tells us everything we need to know! This is a vatting of three different 100-litre Apera (Australian sherry-style fortified wine) casks. This single malt whisky is not to be confused with the defunct term 'vatted malt', now known as a blended malt, or a blend of malt whiskies from multiple distilleries. The three casks in this vatting were all distilled at Black Gate Distillery, so this is a single malt, as is proudly stated on the label. The casks were sourced from South Australia's McWilliams Winery, and were then re-coopered down to 100-litres capacity, which is becoming a more common cask size in Australia - thankfully many distilleries are moving away from the tiny 20-litre casks that have been a fixture in our nation's whisky for many years. Those tiny casks tend to give too much wood and cask influence in a very short period of time, and that generally happens before the whisky is actually mature. To give some perspective they're smaller than what the Scotch whisky industry calls a "blood tub", which are 30-40 litres, that are hardly ever used for that exact reason - and that's without the added aggression of Australia's more temperate and wildly variable climate. Another factor is the Australian whisky industry's propensity for first-fill fortified wine casks, typically Tawny (Australian port-style wine), meaning that a small cask that is thoroughly soaked with wine and is then filled "wet" without re-charring can easily result in a 'whisky' that is really just a mix of fortified wine and immature malted barley spirit. That's not always the case of course, there are exceptions, but it can and does happen on a regular basis. So a 100-litre cask is a much more balanced proposition that lets the spirit age for longer than the two-year minimum age for Australian whisky without becoming too wood-heavy, so it can actually mature while still receiving a large dose of cask influence compared to a full-size barrel (200L) or hogshead (225-250L) for example. 

Black Gate Distillery is a tiny husband & wife operation, owned & run by Brian & Genise Hollingworth, two of the nicest and most modest people in the Australian whisky industry. Founded in 2009, the distillery is located in the regional town of Mendooran, roughly four hour's drive north-west of Newcastle in central New South Wales. We're talking about massive temperature variances here, both between seasons - from over 40 degrees C in summer to below zero in winter, and also from day to night. Now you may have noticed that I've used the word "tiny" a couple of times here - and this really is a tiny operation. Black Gate has a capacity of around 4,000 litres of spirit per year, and that includes a 75/25 split of both malt whisky and aged rum. To put that capacity into perspective, if they were to use full-size 200-litre ex-bourbon casks, that would mean they were filling just 20 casks per year. For some more perspective, let's look at Islay's largest distillery, Diageo's Caol Ila - which is not actually all that large in comparison with some mainland distilleries - that has a capacity of around 6,000,000 litres of spirit per year. If we average that capacity out that's around 16,500 litres per day - meaning they could produce Black Gate's annual production in less than six hours! Even the smallest distillery in Scotland, Strathearn in Perthshire, produces around 10,000 litres per year. And that operation is often referred to as a micro-distillery. So at less than half of that amount, Black Gate definitely qualifies as one of those! I realise that I'm harping on about this one point, but there's one more fact to consider: the bottling that I'm reviewing today is the largest release that Black Gate have ever bottled. How large? A total of 634 bottles, and they're 500ml bottles to boot. I think you've gotten the point by now, so let's move on!

Another point about Black Gate that doesn't get enough attention is the fact that they use direct-fired stills. There are now two copper pot stills at the distillery, although the second is a more recent addition and its product hasn't hit the market yet, and both are heated by gas flame from directly underneath. To my knowledge there are only two Australian whisky brands available today that were distilled in direct-fired stills, being Black Gate and Tasmania's Belgrove Distillery. There are only a handful of direct-fired whisky distilleries in the world, and even in Scotland there are now only four distilleries left using direct-fire stills; Glenfarclas, Glenfiddich, Macallan and Springbank. Although in the latter two cases only the wash stills are direct-fired, with the spirit stills being heated by internal steam coils. Direct-firing necessitates a thicker base of the still to withstand the flame and also the much higher temperatures that can reach over 600 degrees Celsius. The belief is that direct heating produces a more flavoursome new make spirit, and the theory is that this is due to those higher temperatures and direct flame heating toasting or even lightly burning particles in the wash, giving a different flavour. If you ask me it's great to see some Australian distillers doing things differently to the norm (which is still the same basic distillery plan as set out by Bill & Lyn Lark decades ago), and major production differences like this need to be encouraged and embraced!

So, as mentioned, Black Gate Apera Vatting is a vatting or mix of three 100-litre apera casks, that were distilled between December 2015 and April 2016, cask numbers BG040, BG048 and BG049 which were then vatted together and allowed to marry before being bottled in August 2020. That puts it at a minimum age of four years, which is practically teenaged in Australian whisky terms. The three casks yielded a total of 634 x 500ml bottles, which is a little odd - 3 x 100-litre casks should yield a maximum of 600 x 500ml bottles without even a drop of evaporation or angel's share, so there must have been a serious amount of water added to bring it down to bottling strength from the cask strength. It was reduced to a bottling strength of 47% ABV and is non-chill filtered without any added colouring. The sample for this review came from Brisbane bottle shop Malt Traders, who featured this whisky in a recent Australian whisky tasting hosted by yours truly, so I couldn't resist asking for a take-home sample to review myself. This single malt is still available in Australia at the time of writing, both from Malt Traders and from Black Gate's own website, and it's quite reasonably priced to boot, even with the 500ml bottle taken into account. Let's see how it goes, shall we?

Black Gate Distillery Apera Vatting, 4-years old, 47% ABV. Mendooran, NSW, Australia.

Vatting of 3 x 100-litre Apera (Australian sherry) casks, filled between 12/2015 and 4/2016, bottled 8/2020. 634 x 500ml bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 

Colour: Copper. 

Nose: Buttery dark caramel, demerara sugar & rich, ripe stone fruit. Apricot, peach, plum and rum-soaked raisins. Verging on fruit jam in fact but it's not overly sweet or cloying. Some soft wood spice and a touch of unflavoured / natural bubble gum. 

Texture: Medium-heavy weight, oily & buttery. Balanced sweetness. No heat at all. 

Taste: Buttered burnt toast, with stone fruit jam and black pepper. Warm stewed stone fruit with a touch of burnt oats - probably the direct-fired still showing itself - and demerara sugar. Slight burnt coffee ground bitterness with a touch of black pepper. 

Finish: Medium length. More dark caramel and stewed stone fruit, melted butter and black pepper. Slightly astringent with rum-soaked raisins, roasted nuts and buttered burnt (lightly bitter) toast. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. 

Notes: Very nice! This is a little lighter in character than most of the other Black Gate single malts that I've tasted, and that works in this whisky's favour without sacrificing any flavour. This Apera Vatting is almost middle-aged for an Australian whisky - although thankfully that situation is slowly changing - and the extra maturity shows in comparison with most of the competition. The combination of relatively large (for an Australian whisky) 100-litre casks, plus the longer ageing and a lower bottling strength than some - and it's perfectly chosen in this case - combined with Black Gate's assertive maturation thanks to the local climate have given us an excellent, flavoursome but easy drinking single malt. And unlike many hotter-climate whiskies this does not need water or extended breathing time to relax and show itself. But this Black Gate also doesn't suffer from the lack of texture & weight and/or lesser volume of flavour that often applies to most of the lighter Australian whiskies - i.e. those bottled at young ages and at 40-43% ABV. That burnt grain & buttered toast note from the direct-firing, plus the subtle rum-like influence (which could be suggestive, I suppose!) certainly add to that weight, and also give extra complexity by keeping the sweetness and wood influence in check. 

It's also good to see Apera casks getting a workout rather than the more commonly used Tawny (Port) casks that tend to be more dry and tannic, and also more aggressive and hard to manage. It had been a while since I last tasted a current release from Black Gate, and this whisky only shows that I need to do so more often. Well done to Brian & Genise, you guys are kicking plenty of goals and it's great to see!

Cheers!

Dailuaine 22 Year Old Rare Malts Selection Whisky Review!

Rare is definitely the right name for this one! This is a cask strength Dailuaine that was distilled in 1973 and bottled way back in 1996 at 22 years of age - when I was in the early years of high school!

No, Rare Malts Selection isn't some new independent bottler - this is an official bottling from what is now Diageo, and it was bottled before Diageo existed! The Rare Malts Selection series of bottlings was essentially United Distillers' precursor to what is now the Diageo Special Releases. The former began in 1995, with Diageo forming in 1997 and starting their annual Special Releases program in 2001, while the Rare Malts Selection releases continued until 2005. All had stated distillation years and age statements and were at least 18-years of age, most were matured in refill casks, and all were bottled at cask strength. Many of these bottlings are now legendary, and of course command ridiculous prices at auction where they've become a commodity that is traded for profit rather than bottles of whisky - particularly those from closed distilleries like Brora, Rosebank and St. Magdalene. For example one of the most valuable is the 1972 Brora 22-year old, which goes for around 6,000 GBP in the British auctions, or close to $11,000 AUD. Which would be enough to get three-to-four bottles of the recent crop of 35-ish year old Brora official bottlings, with change. And that $11K is not including the auction buyer's premium and insurance, which make quite the difference when we're talking about this amount of money. And let's not forget about customs charges if you're shopping from overseas - I'd hate to see the bill from Australian customs for something like that! It would likely be cheaper to fly to Scotland, pick up the bottle yourself and fly back again. Provided you were still under our 2.25L duty free limit! Other bottlings are more reasonably valued of course, but as expected for bottlings of this age you'd hardly call any of them cheap. 

This particular bottling is from one of Diageo's unsung workhorses, Dailuaine - pronounced "Dell-u-in" and Gaelic for "Green Vale (valley)" - which is located in the middle of Speyside, a few miles south of Aberlour. The distillery was originally founded in 1852, but was completely rebuilt and expanded just over thirty years later, and in 1889 it was the first distillery to receive a Charles Doig Ventilator, more commonly incorrectly referred to as a 'pagoda'. The distillery was purchased by Dewars and John Walker & Sons in 1917 and subsequently DCL in 1925, and has stayed within the DCL/United Distillers/Diageo empire ever since. These days Dailuaine has an annual capacity of over 3.5-million litres of spirit through ten washbacks (eight wooden & two stainless) and six squat-shaped pot stills, and like many of it's workhorse brethren that are quietly pumping out millions of litres of whisky for their parent company's blended whiskies, it is not open to visitors and official bottlings are few & far between. The only interesting part of Dailuaine's production is the contrast between a long fermentation and quick distillation, coupled with stainless steel shell & tube condensers rather than the usual copper - meaning a meatier, heavier spirit thanks to less copper interaction. The distillery site is also home to one of Diageo's two 'dark grain' plants, which process hundreds of thousands of tonnes of draff (spent grain) and millions of litres of pot ale (leftover liquid from distillation) collected from many of the company's distilleries, and processes it into cattle feed, and the by-product of this process is then sold as fertiliser. It may not be the most glossy & glamorous side of distillation, but effluent & waste (which is basically only water & spent grain with some dead yeast) handling & disposal is an important part of the process and can also be a decent source of income for the distillery owner/s, offsetting some of their production costs. 

Cask strength bottlings of Dailuaine are hard to come by, since as usual the only regularly available official bottling is the Flora & Fauna bottling - in this case a 16-year old that is not particularly inspiring and is bottled at the usual 43% ABV. There has only been one cask strength bottling as part of the Special Releases program in recent years, a 34-year old that was bottled back in 2015. Also as usual, independent bottlings of Dailuaine are far easier to find from the usual suspects such as Cadenheads, Gordon & MacPhail & Signatory Vintage. This Rare Malts Selection bottling is an official bottling, though, albeit from a different era - it was distilled in 1973 and bottled in 1996. Interestingly, the distillery's malting floor was discontinued in the early 1960s, but used mechanical Saladin box malting on-site until 1983, before switching to external sources from commercial maltings. Which means that this single malt, distilled in 1973, was made from barley malted in the distillery's own Saladin box! As with all Rare Malts Selection bottlings this Dailuaine is non-chill filtered and natural colour, was bottled at a cask strength of 60.92% ABV after its 22-years of maturation - cask type/s are not specified, but can safely be assumed to be refill hogsheads of some description. I'm lucky enough to be reviewing a sample of this Rare Malts bottling thanks to a generous fellow whisky nerd - I've only ever seen these Rare Malts bottlings through the glass at The Whisky Exchange in London, and didn't think I'd ever actually taste any of them. Obviously I wasn't going to miss the chance to review it! 

Rare Malts Dailuaine 22-year old, 60.92%. Speyside, Scotland.

Distilled 1973, bottled 1996. Presumably matured in refill hogsheads. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Pale gold. 

Nose: Floral, peppery & grassy. Dry grassy malt with a little runny honey, a good pinch of white pepper and a light chalky minerality that grows with more breathing time. Touch of liquorice straps (unsweetened). Lemon drops, butter toffee and a touch of pencil shavings. Pear juice around the edges as well. 

Texture: Medium weight, but syrupy texture and quite peppery. There's definitely heat here, (61% ABV), but it fades quickly. 

Taste: Runny honey, grassy malt and a big pinch of white pepper. More lemon drops and a touch of waxy sweet fruit - white melon, apricot & pear. Definitely sweeter than the nose led on but not overly so, still verging on the drier side. More liquorice straps and that drying chalky minerality again. 

Finish: Long length. Starts off rich with that butter toffee and waxy sweet fruit, then a pinch of dried leafy herbs before the white pepper and grassy malt returns. Burnt orange peel and drying wood spices, plus a touch of pencil shavings winding things up. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Very interesting! Having only tried a couple of Dailuaines so far I don't have much of a frame of reference for this one, but compared to the 16-year old Flora & Fauna you'd struggle to pick the two whiskies as being even remotely related, let alone from the same distillery. This Rare Malts Selection is a big, feisty, malty dram with plenty of power and a good amount of complexity that sticks to the drier, grassier side of Speyside without straying too much further afield. That chalky minerality is a surpsie, plus a good balance of spice vs. malt vs. oak. The cask influence is quite subtle, with almost no sign of the cask's previous contents, and only the oak itself asserting itself as pencil shavings. This dram has quite an "old school" feel to it as a result - no surprise since being bottled a quarter of a century ago definitely makes this is an old school whisky!

I imagine some water would calm things down a tad with this Dailuaine - to weigh in at 60.92% after 22 years of maturation means there probably hasn't been much angel's share, or at least not in the way of ethanol - but that's not how I do things in these reviews, mainly for consistency's sake so every whisky has an even playing field. And this dram certainly doesn't feel uptight or closed at all after the usual breathing time in the glass, despite being bottled roughly 25 years ago. What a great 'blast from the past'!

Cheers!