Review #134: Glen Keith 21yr 1992/2014, Archives, 51.5%, C# 120599, 218 bottles

back from the dead

So, I guess Glen Keith is back distilling and bigger than ever. I doubt that any of the original equipment is in use, but whatever. This whisky is from a previous incarnation.

It's hard to believe that I haven't written up Glen Keith yet, either. It's in Speyside, right by Strathisla, consistently good stuff but never found a big audience. Lots of indy bottlings, though.

nose: tart apples, slightly creamy, fresh laundry, wildflower honey, and white chocolate. very clean, straightforward flavors.

palate: soft and then oily and then prickly-oaky, with depths and depths of toffee sweetness. again, this is the least neurotic whisky ever -- it just is what it is.

finish: more of the same -- mixture of soft/oaky/sweet. pleasant.

This is just very good in every respect, without being complicated or difficult or surprising or demanding. Typical and very enjoyable.


score: 87

Review #120: Glen Spey 25 yr 1988/2014, Archives, 47.3% abv, bourbon hogshead, C#356079, 163 bottles

found another one!

I happened to have another Glen Spey sample lying around (just like #119), so let's get to it. It's from the Fish of Samoa series from Whiskybase. Very cheap for 25yr whisky these days.

Nose: wow, really minimal barrel effect, unlike the last one. Very, very pale and straightforward: malt, pear, vanilla cream, hay. After a while it opens up to some very soft fruit: peaches, currants, lemon, maybe even some blueberries. Marzipan. There's some charred oak in there, too. It's all very mellow.

Palate: Soft and creamy. The fruit comes out more, and there's a nice herbal sting that's not quite bitter and not quite minty.

Finish: well, pretty short.


This is very subtle stuff, but develops nicely and shows maturity without relying on any big barrel effects. It requires some attention, but I like this a lot.

score: 87

Review #109: Strathmill 37yrs 1974/2011, 44.5%, Archives, ex-bourbon, Cask #1231, 180 bottles

the mostly anonymous Strathmill

Saw today the new Supernova is going fast for US $180. I can't justify spending that much -- that's an Auriverdes plus an Oogie, or better yet, something with some real age. Like this Strathmill (admittedly, sold out a long time ago). Strathmill produces a lot of juice for Diageo; I don't know where it all goes. (J&B?) I have trouble keeping track of which distillery it is, but whiskyfun reviewed a couple recently.

nose: a little quiet, with lots of dried grass, but then also: apricots, lychee, peonies, pineapple, white chocolate. Some ginger tonic and wood spices. Lovely, gentle old ex-bourbon nose.

palate: like some fruit-infused old wood. yellow fruits and tonic reappear, but most of the flavor and the structure are woody -- dry tannins, cinnamon stick, a little vanilla.

finish: honeyed, short but spicy, still very oaky.


I like all the oak! The rest of the whisky doesn't hold up to its elegant, beautiful nose, but it's still a great whisky, and the days of 37yr olds are probably winding down.

score: 89

Review #82: Glen Ord 15yrs 1997/2012, 54.2%, Archives, ex-hogshead, C#800083, 64 bottles

what is a Glen Ord? 

It's a monster big distillery way up north, sort of by itself. It's the "Singleton" for Japan, and otherwise I guess it must mostly contribute to Johnnie Walker. They have their own in-house monster big maltings. (There's a lot of barley around there.) Otherwise, they are unremarkable.

Archives/Whiskybase is remarkable, though. I just wish they had a payment processor that didn't trip off every credit card company's security warnings. Oh well, the whisky ...

extremely pale! it was a quiet cask.

nose: pleasant and straightforward. fresh-cut hay, gristly malt, and cling peaches in syrup. lots of lesser notes in the background: cherimoya, bee balm, white chocolate, and an old oak stave. a whiff of honeysuckle.

palate is surprising: sweet and oily at first, then some saltiness develops. (I wasn't expecting such a smooth experience at this strength.) more malty cling peaches, but this time with vanilla and a little oaky bitterness.

finish persists nicely, and fruit almost takes on a creamy roundness, but not quite.


Nothing extraordinary is going on here, but it's a nice naked malt with well-defined flavors. Good quality for the price.

score: 85

Review #55: Bunnahabhain Moine 5yr 2006/2012, C#800041, 61.1% abv, 261 bottles

resuming from technical difficulties

So, it turns out that Caol Ila is bad for laptops. (Fucking Diageo.) Obstacles have been surmounted, however, and now I'm back to posting here at the TastingDome. I have a bunch of things I managed to write on scraps of paper, so I'll just type all of them out, I guess, if I can read my own handwriting. First up is a very young Bunna.

nose: starts off dry and smoky, with hints of cardboard, but then switches to bacon. Rich, fatty bacon, and then coastal notes -- seaweed, sea salt. Maybe a little ashy, as if the bacon got overcooked. I'll give it a few minutes to see if anything else turns up ... Smoked pears, some vanilla and lanolin.

palate: like a lawn mower that caught on fire. creamy, too.

finish: oily and sweet.

This isn't what I expected. I expected mouth-burning phenols, weird beery notes, and angry pears. This is actually pretty pleasant, especially if you like bacon. I had heard this was newmake-y, and if that's so then I like newmake. It was aggressive on the palate, but the sweetness bails it out.

score: 83

Review #25: Tormore 1984/2013, Archives, 51.0%, Cask #3669

Fishes of Samoa!

I really don't have any associations with Tormore. I guess it's in Speyside (roughly in the middle), I guess it mostly goes into blends. It's a big, fairly modern distillery, but not known for a particularly distinctive spirit. Some age and a nice label should help, though.

Very nice nose -- at first it seems indistinctly fruit plus grass, but it opens up in a more particular way -- I get salty canned peaches, lilac, a tiny bit of smoke and charred wood, lychee, apricots, honey, and some sweet herbs. Maybe a little apple mixed in there. Some white chocolate, too. Has that nice old nose where fruit and flowers and creaminess sort of merge. I could smell this all day. [time passes, sun sets]

If I drink it, I won't have it any more, and yet ... sharper and oakier than I expected, but it's nice to have some weight after that ethereal nose. Same flavors, but the creamy/chocolate/vanilla ones come to the front on the finish.

That nose is worth a million, and I'm a sucker for anything old that doesn't taste like a mouthful of wood.

score: 90

Somehow still available at whiskybase.

Review #8: Glen Garioch 1990/2012, Archives, 54.0%, ex-hogshead (#252), 267 bottles

so how is this pronounced?

The general consensus is GEERY, I think. But in this Tim Morrison interview, he says it like it's spelled, and since he owned the place, you'd think he'd know. Maybe it's an Oldmeldrum thing.

Anyway, my impression of GG is that it's hard to say why it's good when it's good, but that that's usually besides the point anyway. Still, it holds out hope ...

The nose is interesting: it's orchard fruit, but in a curiously dry way, with lots of wet stones, malty/beeriness, hay, and even some pencil shavings and I'd swear even a fair amount of smoke. Grassiness takes over, but then the fruit comes back -- underripe peaches and apples. And faintly something else more tropical -- like cheremoya.

I get a lot of dark peatsmoke on the palate. I thought they stopped using peated malt before 1990, but I guess I'm wrong. (This page says 1994 they stopped.) It has a nice oily texture, maybe a little too minty/menthol, but I have to wait for the peat to clear before tasting anything else.

Finish is peaty, peppery, grassy, and then it becomes salty at the end. There's a little vanilla and apple sweetness, and some herbs, but to me it's very salty.

good whisky, but it never quite comes together for me.

score: 85