Brora 30 Year Old, 5th Release, 2006 55.7%

My first Brora (and I do have another one to try), a sample bought from a new (to me) Dutch operation, whiskysample.nl, who sell samples of old and rare whiskies from their own collection. Good stuff.
This was from a 20ml bottle, but most of their gear is bottled in 60ml bottles, which is a great size for sample tasting, I reckon.

Brora 30 Year Old, 5th Release, 2006 55.7%

Nose: Whoah. Big, fresh nose. It's all smoke, peat and hay at first. Later, sweet malt develops and takes control, wrapped around walnuts, apples and a hint of citrus. Much more too, I'd have thought, if I had some left to savour. It's so complex - 20ml is nowhere near enough to fully appreciate this malt.

Palate: A luscious, oily feel. For a split-second, in fact, it's as if it may be a gradual lubrication, before suddenly it explodes on the palate. Peat, ash and smoke dominate. Later, salt, spice and honeyed citrus develop. Wood plays such a minor role here. Amazing.

Finish: Long. So long. Huge smoky finish. It just winds on and on, the salty, spicy tail continues to prickle and excite long after the liquid has gone.

Wow.
I was almost hoping that I wouldn't really like this (well, you know what I mean, that I'd think it overrated or something), due to both the scarcity of the spirit nowadays, and the increasingly stratospheric pricing that accompanies those rare sightings that do pop up.

No chance there I'm afraid. This was a stunning malt, everything that a peated Highlander can be, and more.

Clynelish 1995, 16 Year Old, Kintra Whisky 53.7%

Another of the samples I recently purchased from Whiskybase.

These reviews are somewhat brief and shorn of detail due to the 20ml sample from which they arise. I still enjoy tasting these sample bottles though, despite their rather fleeting nature. They offer an opportunity to further my whisky education (which, being in Australia, is nearly always of the long-distance variety) without breaking the bank. (They also, by virtue of their smaller size, arrive packaged together at our house in a far less threateningly-sized box than full-sized bottles otherwise would, thus pre-emptively appeasing the ever-watchful eyes of my better half, who becomes - in my opinion unreasonably - increasingly agitated by the seemingly (in her words) incessant waves of whisky deliveries).

Clynelish 1995, 16 Year Old, Kintra Whisky 53.7%

Nose: Initially it's quite big and fumy, all soy sauce and booze. After settling down a little, it eases back into a salty, malty, slightly nutty affair.

Palate: Similar to the nose, it starts out quite big. Thick and rich. There's a mouth-coating saltiness that clings to the mouth. A touch cloying and claggy as the sherried sweetness develops.

Finish: It becomes quite spicy and peppery as it tails off into a long-ish finish. And yes, there is a little wax here. There's a herbal, perfume-y quality present too, that becomes increasingly off-putting.

Not a bad Clynelish, but it lacks definition on the palate, while the nose remains a little too malty for my tastes.

Johnnie Walker Green Label 15 Year Old 43%

As best as I can remember I have never tried this before now. Strange really, considering the ubiquitous nature of the brand and its rather healthy reputation among some malt drinkers. Regardless, I recently found a bottle at a reasonable price and thought I may as well grab a piece of history to help warm me up during the cold months that are now well and truly settling in.


Johnnie Walker Green Label 15 Year Old 43%

Colour: Coloured.

Nose: Quite a rich nose of honey, smoke and tropical fruit.

Palate: A nice slippery mouthfeel is let down somewhat by a near total absence of a mid-palate. Bizarre. This does, however, fill out a little with time in the glass. Stone fruit, honey, a light maltiness, and smoke predominate.

Finish: It becomes more complex through the finish, coupled with some decent length and body. Much like the mid-palate, after some time in the glass it gains some weight. There's some spiciness, with echoes of smoke and peat, tailing away to a dry, slightly woody finish.

I get a whole lot of Linkwood when I sniff and drink this, probably because I've been drinking a fair amount of (average) Linkwood recently, a Hart Brothers bottling that I picked up cheaply a little while ago (and that I've been ploughing through late at night some nights so as to try to move the bottle on a little quicker). There's a distinct honeyed-fruit sweetness that is just so noticeable - albeit in the Hart Bros. version it becomes waaaay too cloyingly so, whereas here it is cleverly blended back with the smokiness of the Caol Ila and Talisker to knock it back into submission somewhat.

I do enjoy drinking this Green Label though, it's just that it lacks a little - a lot, to be honest - interest and excitement.

Springbank 12 Year Old Cask Strength 52.3% (Batch 7)

For some reason Whiskybase, from where I bought this bottle, call this particular bottling Batch 8, whereas everyone else (ie other retailers) classify it as Batch 7. There is no doubt a very good reason for this, but I haven't yet investigated. Someone might even be able to tell me. I've gone with the majority here though, primarily because it is this numbering system upon which I have based my own previous experiences of this label. Batch 5, for example, is my personal favourite.

 Springbank 12 Year Old Cask Strength 52.3% (Batch 7)

Colour: Copper

Nose: Sherry, spices, chocolate. Not entirely what I was expecting. Smoke and a little leather. Caramelised sugar and strong citrus (orange) notes develop later.

Palate: Straight away I get loads of sherry - spices and dried fruit, both. A little later, bbq sauce arrives. A spiciness lends some tension to the palate.

Finish: Develops well, pushing back and expanding on the palate, those sherried spices and fruit rounding out and coating the tongue. It's both dry and sweet. And long, very long. Salty, tingly and grippy. Licorice and clove emerge, enhancing and bolstering some light touches of red fruit. If you wait long enough, those typical Springbank savoury notes do emerge.

To be honest, I was a little shocked by this whisky at first. It was unlike any other Springbank 12 YO Cask Strength I had tasted, thus smashing my expectations and leaving me feeling a little cheated. But that's what expectations are there for, I suppose. 

There has clearly been a much stronger sherry influence in this batch than in any of those preceding it, so much so that that savoury, leathery, saltiness that I so readily associate with this whisky is at first nearly invisible. These elements do develop, it's just that they're not so obviously in your face as they are perhaps normally.

However, the change in cask make up has indeed produced a delicious whisky. It took me a couple of drams to really appreciate it though, primarily because of those aforementioned expectations and my subsequent need to re-calibrate. But such clean, strong and well-integrated flavours make this batch another worthy addition to the line, I reckon.

Strathmill 1974, 37 YO, Archives (Whiskybase) 44.5%

My first Strathmill, I think.
From a bunch of samples bought with a recent Whiskybase order, although I should note that I neither ordered nor paid for this particular one - it was just thrown in with the others. The whisky is long gone, though, I believe.

Strathmill 1974, 37 Year Old, Archives (Whiskybase) 44.5%

Colour: Full gold.

Nose: Lots of plush tropical fruit. Cream and honey. Vanilla develops after a while. A hint of citrus after a little while longer. It's pretty amazing actually.

Palate: Quite a divergence from the nose here. Lots of wood up front, with bitter notes - green tea at first, then grapefruit - coming to the fore. A suggestion of fruit emerges later. A delicate, supple, mouthfeel.

Finish: There's more spice to the oak now, as the whole quickly fades to a gentle, still slightly bitter finish.

Such a beautiful nose, you could really spend a lot of time sniffing this whisky. And while the finish didn't do a great deal for me, I felt that there was still enough on the palate to hold one's interest.

SMWS 93.58 A Manly Adventure

We had our first SMWS tasting for the year (and my first since joining) here in Melbourne a few weeks ago where we had ten different malts from the recent Outturn on tasting. The format was a stand up affair where you'd wander over to one of the five different stations - each with two different whiskies - hand over your 'passport' for a stamp, and in turn receive a 15ml pour to taste.

Now, this format, in my opinion, isn't particularly conducive to a decent tasting environment, particularly when the room is rather full of people and there are constraints on time, space, etc. It becomes more of a social/drinking session as opposed to a tasting one - which doesn't necessarily bother me, mind you, but left the whisky geek in me longing for more.

Some of the whiskies I had hoped to taste weren't on offer, unfortunately, but there were plenty of other interesting ones to try - a fantastic Karuizawa (132.5), and a huge, awesome Aultmore (73.62) being the picks for me.

In the end, I ended up coming home with this bottle which wasn't even on tasting (I don't know why, exactly - I had heard good things about it and was very keen to try it, I guess).

Scotch Malt Whisky Society 93.58 A Manly Adventure (Glen Scotia) 
14 Years Old (Distilled 1999), 60.4%

Colour: Sauternes

Nose: A fairly intense hit of peat, but with some really interesting pangs of bbq sauce, Lee & Perrins, and leather lurking around the edges. Some sweet notes wrap around lashes of iodine.

Palate: As with the nose, the peat is readily apparent, and comes coiled in some really quite nice honeyed sweetness. Mint rushes to the fore.

Finish: Spicy, tingly menthol fumes rise up from the lower palate, coating the tongue and roof of the mouth. While I wouldn't call it super long, this sweetly numbing freshness leaves a great impression.

I've had a number of goes at this bottle with a couple of mates and it hasn't yet failed to please. It appeals to a number of different palates, I think.
It's also just so damn drinkable.

Old Pulteney 17 Year Old

I first tasted Old Pulteney 17 a few years ago, back when I was first starting out on my whisky trip. I think I'd been experimenting with heavily sherried malts at the time, before turning to a bottle of this (perhaps being drawn in by the somewhat strange bottle shape and striking gold colour of the spirit) and it's fair to say that I really enjoyed it, the bottle lasting an obscenely short amount of time.

Would I still enjoy it now?, I found myself wondering the other day whilst ordering some other booze.

[Incidentally, my most recent encounter with Pulteney (after a couple of other versions since that first bottle, including a fantastic G&M Cask Strength bottling) was in the form of the OP 12 Year Old. I was at Heathrow with my partner and our son, at the beginning of our looooong journey back home after visiting her family in the UK, and thought I'd better get some whisky to get me through our stopover in Singapore (Our stowed luggage was of course already heavily laden - within the strict parameters of Australian customs, naturally - with Scotch that I was taking home to Australia. The UK, to an antipodean whisky drinker, is a dangerous place - such amazingly cheap booze, and so much variety. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we here in Oz probably only see about 5-10% of the whisky that is seen in UK and Europe. And what we do see is very, very heavily taxed). A very handsome little half-bottle of the OP 12 immediately stood out as being attractively priced, packaged and sized. (This begs the question, of course, as to exactly how much whisky is enough when travelling with an 18 month old child. The correct answer is probably 'none' or 'not enough', but on this occasion I settled on 350ml for our 3 days (of sleepless hell) in our luxurious suite). It was pleasant enough as a drink (and to be honest my partner and I have sworn to never talk of or think about those 3 long, long days ever again so I can't pass fair comment here), but as a relaxant it was also more than adequate.]

Old Pulteney 17 Year Old 46%

Colour: Gold.

Nose: Tropical fruits mingle with clean vanilla aromas. Later, green jelly babies develop, along with the faintest hint of salinity.

Palate:  It slips into the mouth softly, all sweet, juicy fruit, before the salty elements begin to take hold.

Finish: An expansive finish. It really fans out and envelops the mouth, gripping the palate with it's salty spiciness. There's a sense of power here. The finish is essentially dry, but those fruity vanilla notes echo throughout, leaving you with a sense of sweetness.

 A delicious whisky really. At once powerful, refreshing and dangerously moreish. A great OB OP, and one of the better "standard bottlings" available in Australia.