Review #62: Bladnoch 21yr, 1991/2012, The Whiskyman and The Bonding Dram, 52.9%, 119 bottles

distilled by the previous owners

I'm still searching for the perfect Bladnoch, so let's see if this one is it.

nose: sharp and grassy, but also sweet and candied. not much in between. Wet clay, chamomile, lemons and pears, cotton linen. Maybe some pineapple and banana. The fruit bounces around between malic and citric and something tropical. A wisp of smoke.

palate: wow, all over the place. Very intense toasted oak juice and vanilla, linseed oil, waves of sweet fruit, zesty but really a lot of oak. Finish is more of the same. Oak is very drying.

Very good intensity and development. It seems vibrant and mature at the same time, but the oak at the end hurts it for me. I'm not sure it suits this profile well.

still available from The Bonding Dram.

score: 86

Review #14: Dalmore NAS, 49.1%, Asta Morris for The Bonding Dram, Cask #AM 005, 2013

a Dalmore in an attractive bottle -- it must cost a million dollars ...

or maybe EUR 45, VAT inclusive. I've never had an indy Dalmore before -- I think this must the benefits of the Kingfisher Air troubles. I might be totally wrong about this, but Suntory bought the old stocks for the Whyte & Mackay brands, and then Diageo came in and bought a controlling interest in the brands. But whatever -- as often with indy whisky, someone else's misfortune (in this case, Vijay Mallya's) is what makes things available to us. Or maybe this cask just fell off a truck, who knows.

I wish there were a little info on the cask, I guess. Oh well, it's probably young, and let's speculate it's a refill hoggie. (I saw "aged in an oak cask" on a bottle the other day -- thanks for that information, bottle.)

So, the drink:

Nice, unexpected nose. Young grassiness with apples, pears, and parsley mixed with creamy barrel richness (vanilla, toffee, white chocolate and the like). Not really sure how to sort it all out. Citrus, chamomile, and something sweet -- somewhere between Bit o'Honey and Werther's, too, but all with a peppery edge. Did I mention fruit? Is creamsicle a fruit?

Oily and tart on the palate -- underripe orchard fruit and burnt rocks until the sweet fruit and the barrel spices come back. It's a really interesting vanilla -- more like madagascar beans in a custard than like a generic flavoring. Finishes, eventually, with the grassiness and pears.

good stuff for (relatively) cheap! very enjoyable.

score: 86