
May 21, 2016

Islay, a good cause, and a White Horse

Suffering from Islayitis here in Alsace. Not that I haven’t been to Islay qui a few times in recent months or years, but it’s the fifth or sixth time I’m missing Feis Ile. In a row, so to speak! So as a kind of compensation, we’ll have a good dram of an old White Horse, from the biggest bottle of White Horse I’ve ever seen.

What’s more, travellers and pilgrims who are lucky to be on Islay over this weekend will have the opportunity to try this very bottle as well and compare their own tasting notes, thanks to salmon fisherman extraordinaire and part-time hotelier Jon Beach aka Jonny Fiddler, who’ll be selling drams of it for charity (can’t quite recall which good cause it is, though, Jon, if you ever read this, please remind me!) As for where on the island you’ll have a chance to cross Jon’s path, I’m not too sure either, but I’d bet that won’t be too far from Port Ellen. Should I get more information, I’ll just post an update below these notes…

Look for this gentleman (cap is optional) >>>

White Horse (no a.b.v., OB, blend, no capacity but around 6 litres, +/-1960)

In Bordeaux, a 6l bottle is called an impériale, but I’m not sure you could use this rather Napoleonic moniker to characterise a product from Her Very Gracious Majesty’s own lands and terroirs. Now remember that with old wines, the larger the bottle, the higher the quality, which might be true as well with whisky – or not. What’s more, according to Jon, he’s got ‘an e-mail from Diageo’s Dr Nick Morgan where he says he's 99.9% sure it's 99.9% Malt Mill in the bottle. Honest.’ We have absolutely no reason to question that statement! Colour: full gold. Nose: it’s amazing how close we are to both an old chardonnay from Bourgogne and some bone-dry ale – but I’m no beer expert. What’s sure is that wine enthusiasts and beer freaks alike are going to like this. Maggi, old walnuts, old tools, soot, then a growing smoke (coal, peat, wood, all of them), ‘nosing the engine of an old Jag’, allspice, Jägermeister, tobacco, Russian black tea (loose leaves)… It’s all superlatively fantastic, if you enjoy your whisky dry and very complex. Pssst, it MUST be Malt Mill!

Mouth: my god it’s huge! Starts with marmalade and an acrid/pungent smoke, plus a lot of salt, before it bursts into myriads of phenolic, graphite-y, mineral and herbal elements. We’d need two hours to list them all (quite) but just to give you a few examples, there’s some thyme, tobacco, tangerines, chalk, lovage, soy sauce, beef stock, seawater, beeswax, rosemary, oregano, very black tea, liquorice, tar… And lots and lots of other molecules. One of the peatiest blends I’ve tried. Finish: absolutely endless, very herbal and tarry. Long-forgotten herbal liqueurs, Fernet-Branca, crème de menthe, salt, sooty smoke… … … Comments: we all know old White Horse used to be one of the best, if not the best blended Scotch ever. This is a particularly fat-tastic example. Try it if you’re on Islay! SGP:365 - 91 points.

UPDATE: Jon will be at Lagavulin all day and it'll be £5 a pour (a steal if you ask me) or £20 a 100ml bottle. He'll also have a couple of Port Ellens available. All the money will be going to the webpage set up by John McLellan's family to raise money for the Beatson Cancer Unit in Glasgow.

AND HAPPY 200th ANNIVERSARY, LAGAVULIN!