
August 17, 2016

Little duets, Mortlach 44 years apart

Some Mortlachs are very meaty and fat (shan’t we call them beef-bouillony?), while others are brighter and fruitier, and kind of mimicking their neighbours up there. We won’t try any of the premiumised officials today, rather some indies…

Mortlach 18 yo 1998/2016 (55.8%, Signatory Vintage for The Whisky Exchange, sherry finished hogshead, cask #5, 681 bottles)

TWE’s latest bottlings have all been excellent, kudos. Now, no one never fails (sardonic laughter…) Colour: amber. Nose: has there ever been a Flora and Fauna at cask strength? I don’t seem to remember any, but this is how they would have ‘nosed’, I imagine. Good sulphur, good roasted nuts, good polished wood (and new upholstery), quite a lot of menthol and eucalyptus, and then some kind of earthy fruitiness. Fallen cherries on the ground (under the cherry tree, obviously). With water: more polished oak. Visiting a carpenter (who’s drinking oloroso). Big pencil shavings. Mouth (neat): feels a little ‘doped’, perhaps, with quite a lot of sweet and spicy wood extracts (black toffee, tobacco, black tea) but this huge arrival just works. Goes on with more beefy notes, beef jerky, marrow, Grisons meat… This is very Mortlach, to say the least! With water: bitter oranges and more pencil shavings. Finish: as long as a Fidel speech, with some tobacco (cigars, obviously) and bitter chocolate. Comments: huge whisky, perhaps a little tiring, but a perfect example of the make, as they used to say in 1980’s marketing brochures. As subtle as a sledgehammer at times, but quite great imho. SGP:562 - 85 points.

And so, forty-four years earlier…

Mortlach 1954/2012 (43%, Gordon & MacPhail, Rare Vintage, first fill sherry butt, cask #494, 347 bottles)

With the traditional ‘eagle label’. That is right, this baby’s almost sixty years old. An earlier bottling (in 2008) had been quite balsamic (WF 86). Colour: coffee with a greenish tinge. Nose: you would think you’re nosing an old oloroso, somewhere in Andalucia. Old walnuts, barbecue smoke, mutton suet, old camphor cream, a box of Cuban puros, and roasted chestnuts. The words ‘medicinal tobacco’ springs to mind, but that would be an oxymoron, wouldn’t it. Mouth: hurray! Seriously, I was afraid it would have gotten too dry and cardboardy, but no so, not at all. Eating some tobacco from your untipped Gauloise (you know, adolescence memories), eating chocolate fudge (we used to have a thing called Carambar in France), drinking some old-style very black tea, and crunching ultra-roasted pecan nuts. And coffee beans while we’re at it. Woody yet not dryingly tannic, you cannot expect much more from a 60yo ex-sherry malt whisky, can you. Finish: quite long, and all on coffee, tobacco, and bitter chocolate. Marmalade in the aftertaste, always great in this context. Perhaps Corinth raisins as well. Comments: some miracle in a bottle. And psssst, the price is very fair given the age. SGP:462 - 90 points.

Check the index of all Mortlach I've tasted so far