
December 13, 2021

Young Ord and an ancestor on the table

Love Ord. It's one of the most important places in the Scotch whisky industry and the make's always either very good, or excellent.
Ord Maltings, 2006 (SV) ->

Glen Ord 9 yo (46%, James Eadie, Small Batch, first fill bourbon and refill hogsheads, three casks, 1118 bottles, 2021)

Colour: white wine. Nose: typical. Peanut oil, Meursault, touches of varnish and pineapple (amyl diacetate), rhubarb and vanilla. Mouth: very malty, with more rhubarb as well, beers, cake, walnuts and cashews, roasted peanuts, and this oily/earthy side that's always rather Ord in my book. Finish: medium, caky. Orange cake, marmalade, peanut butter. Comments: I think we'll do that old joke once again (bear with me), Ord is anything but Ord-inary. No, not too proud, but I loved the peanut butter in this one. Very very good.
SGP:451 - 86 points.

Ord 11 yo 2004/2016 (60.6%, Cadenhead, Authentic Collection, butt, 342 bottles)

Indeed we're late, once again. Colour: gold. Nose: a little uncertain when neat. Putty, nail polish, model glue, cut cactus, British strawberry yoghurt. No, that's a different one. With water: earth, peelings, mezcal, gentian. Sounds great but only the palate will tell. Mouth (neat): feels good, ueber-tart, almost spritzig. Lime and grass juice. With water: ultra-tight, very grassy, acidic and ascetic. Not for the faint-hearted; as they say in Disneyworld. Finish: lemon juice and granny smith juice, 50/50, plus a little lavender soap that, indeed, would bring it down a good ten points. So sad… Salt in the aftertaste. Comments: a rollercoaster of a young Ord. Loses you at times.
SGP:471 - 80 points.

Let's do another CAD…

Ord 11 yo 2008/2020 (54.1%, Cadenhead, Sherry Cask, 210 bottles)

Hold on, this was only a finishing, as it was transferred to an oloroso sherry hogshead in November 2016. Okay, say a double maturation. Colour: red coffee and Cherry Heering. Nose: and bingo, there, Cherry Heering. Clafoutis and battelman, PX, black pipe tobacco… With water: in truth I think this is awesome, you would almost believe you're visiting a bodega in Jerez. Blackcurrant jam and thick pinot noir all over the place. Mouth (neat): ueber-rich, fat, this is almost some spicy and earthed-up Christmas cake. Crystalised cherries, prunes, old pinot noir, Spanish ham, black pepper, cloves… Not a ballerina-malt for sure. With water: no, it's very good. Mars bar, coffee, pipe tobacco, prunes, cassis syrup, and just more pinot noir. Palomino fino, right… Finish: a sweet earthiness, some dates, some prunes, some cherry liqueur (guignolet) and a drop of gravy. Menthol in the aftertaste. Comments: some heavy treatment and not much distillery character left, but to be honest, it's a fine sherry monster.
SGP:651 - 84 points.

Ord 13 yo 2005/2018 (56.5%, Cadenhead, Small Batch)

Ord 13 yo 2005/2018 (56.5%, Cadenhead, Small Batch)
From one hogshead plus one butt. Colour: gold. Nose: this bready greasiness and really a lot of lager or pilsner. Kronenbourg and plaster. With water: more indefinite. A walk in the woods while drinking Glen Ord from your old hipflask. Indeed, not much sense. Mouth (neat): good tight malt, with a lot of grass and fruit peelings, including citrus zests. With water: somewhat between two worlds. Tough peppery stuff. Finish: long, ultra-tight, grassy, peppery, difficult. Loses many points now. A sour malty fruitiness in the aftertaste. Comments: feels a little 'random' and pretty un-Ord. Perhaps not one of the malts we'll remember forever… It was Glenrothes, was it not?
SGP:451 - 76 points.

Glen Ord 13 yo 2007/2021 (48.5%, WhiskySponge, refill hogshead, 337 bottles)

Colour: white wine. Nose: fresh gristy and brioche-y barleyish arrival, then linseed oil and hummus. Also white asparagus and oats. Sure this ain't Ardbeg 1975, but we do enjoy the gristiness in there. Bang, yet a new word. Mouth: much more happening, with petroly oranges, paraffin, oranges-and-cloves, sweet mustard, pink pepper, some turmeric, some ginger, horseradish… Now this baby would tend to bite you before you down it. Better down it fast then. Finish: rather long, spicy and gristy. Some kind of spicy and fruity oiliness, hard to describe. Hops, bitters… Comments: another good one that we won't remember forever. In short, this is neither Ardbeg Provenance, nor Glen Ord 30 yo OB (WF 93, no less), but there sure is a lot of goodness.
SGP:362 - 85 points.

The Singleton of Glen Ord 39 yo (46.2%, OB, 1,695 bottles, 2021)

A brand new bottling. It is a curious custom to add descriptors to the front of such a posh bottle, in this case: 'succulent blackberries with muscovado crumble'. It's like if on the back bumper of a Porsche, the makers would have added 'fast and reliable but careful in curves to the left'. This Ord has been multi-finished (claret, sherry) but we'll just forget about all that and try it as if it was just, well, an old Glen Ord. Colour: dark red amber. Nose: Mrs Robinson's done it again. Old Cuban cigars, very old Morgon (gamay ages very well when from a good house), shoe polish and many embrocations, resins, oils, Barbour grease, then lighter notes of pink bananas, cherry stem tea, dog rose tea, then rosewood and just strawberry cake. Ouahouh, would we say in French. Mouth: I'm not too sure about the combo that's in motion here, resins and red berries, perhaps? But it remains malty and rather spicy, while you do indeed feel that the old whisky has been revived in a way, or even reactivated. I'm wondering, would this work on humans too? Imagine you're 60+ and you go to Blackgrange, and they do a few tricks on you with woods and wines, and presto, et voilà, you're 40 when you come out! Finish: medium, with hints of copper polish, otherwise chestnut purée, walnut wine and thyme tea. Bitter chocolate in the aftertaste. Comments: there sure was some fragility to these old casks, but the refurbishment works went very well. This is Notre-Dame-of-Scotland.
SGP:651 - 89 points.

They were also having these in the very, and I mean very smart press pack (to whomever did it, bravo!) so why not try them?

The Singleton 12 yo 'Cask Sample' (55.5%, OB, press pack, 2021) Not even sure this is Glen Ord. Colour: white wine. Nose: pure barley. I mean, barley as in barley. And malt as in malt. Mouth: high-focus orangey malt and cassata. Green coffee, celeriac eau-de-vie, asparagus eau-de-vie, and beets. Finish: extremely long, extremely malty. Comments: wow, what a stunning ueber-malt, what's striking here is that just as you would expect any fruity eau-de-vie to express the very essence of said fruits, this is plain and pure eau-de-vie de barley. But let's not forget that Ord's also an essential malting plant.

Pedro Ximenez & Oloroso 'Bespoke Blend' (15.4%, OB, 2021)

So the kind of 'blend' they're using to do some of the seasonings of the finishing casks they would then use on malts. It's a whole process, you understand. So very happy to be able to try this, while keeping in mind that this is probably the 'higher solution' they have. We're a great audience anyway. Colour: coffee brown. Nose: pretty sour and rather on vegetables, asparagus, weissbeer, salsify, strawberries, cabbage, and indeed rancio wine. Certainly not as sweet and comfy as I would have thought. Mouth: yeah great. I sure wouldn't start to question anything here, but it is a lovely softer sherry and frankly, I'd bottle and sell this rather than use it to season any lousy two-penny oak casks, in Jerez or in Clackmannanshire. Finish: yep, good. Strawberries, red berries, banana skins. Comments: some kind of drier cream sherry. We all hate cream sherry, but I'd say that's because we haven't tried this kind.

In Jerez, a long time ago.

Lacoste

Château Lacoste-Borie 2018 (14.5%, OB, Pauillac) Lacoste-Borie is Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste's second wine, it is not actually a 'château'. This fine little Bordeaux has been used in the old Glen Ord 39, in some way. First time I'm trying a pretty fine red Bordeaux as a sample sent by a drinks multinational, but I suppose that is the way of the world. Colour: red purple. Nose: blackcurrant and bell peppers, vanilla and sawdust, tomato sauce, this is classic middle-bodied Pauillac. Mouth: pretty good, a tad grassy and thin, perhaps. Tomato sauce and cassis. Finish: a little short. Comments: a light, grassy little Pauillac, certainly not a Pichon or any of the first, but this little Bordeaux sure ain't bad at all. At all, at all, at all……

Check the index of all Glen Ord we've tasted so far