Review #98: Tullibardine 23 yr 1989/2012, C&S Dram Collection, 54.4%, Hogshead, C#1957, 268 bottles

not this not that

Tullibardine is a distillery that is not in Speyside and is not owned by a giant conglomerate. There seems to be some very young barrels of it lying around, and also some very old ones, but not much in the middle. They produce a fair amount of distillate, and I can't imagine where it all goes -- maybe Highland Queen? In any case, this wasn't made by the current owners.

Nose starts out sour and gristly, but then brightens up with spicy cider apples and vanilla, toffee and grass, and a little smoke. An antique rose and some oak. It's a pretty classic, unfinished profile, with a nice balance between smooth and sharp.

Very spicy on the palate -- pepper and cinnamon -- and the smoke comes through more, too. Otherwise a nice battle between apple juice and dry old oak. A bubblegum note, too.

The finish is a little odd. It becomes overpoweringly oily before the sweet fruit reasserts itself. Oak again, too.


Bottled at a good moment, I think. Very nice, well-aged whisky that takes on a simple profile beautifully. A nice surprise.

score: 87

Review #74: Linkwood 16yr 1997/2013, C&S Dram Collection, 59.0%, C# 7186, ex-hogshead, 288 bottles

expecting to be pleasantly surprised ...

even though I'm expecting it. In my limited experience, Linkwood surprises on the upside, so I hope the streak continues, even as it becomes more difficult to do so.

This is from the C&S Dram collection, which I think is a German indy that uses other bottlers (in this case the Scottish Liqueur Center (or 'Centre', actually)) to do their bottling. I'm not sure who C or S is.

nose: very herbaceous. starts on dry hay but turns to green herbs and wildflowers -- yarrow, mullein -- and eventually turns sweet -- apples cooked in sweet cream butter.

palate: a little too much burn -- time to stand up a find a couple drops of water. The nose seems to become sharper and grassier with water. The palate becomes smoother, even if still aggressive -- apples and oak. It's a nice, rich, spicy apple, but not much else going on.

finish: long but somewhat drying.


I think there was good spirit here, but it never quite came into balance for me.

score: 81

Review #3: Tomatin 1991/2013, C&S Dram Collection, 55.7%

hoping for 1976-lite

I think that one tries Tomatin hoping for some approximation of the fruitiness of the older ones, and usually ends up disappointed, finding something without even a family resemblance. But maybe this time ...

nose: briny and winey, with some green fruit peelings and wood. I think this is Manzanilla I'm nosing.
[checks: "Sherry Butt", cask #12488. I didn't realize that. It's pretty light colored, and I guess I was expecting a bourbon cask. Anyway, it could be from a manzanilla cask. Why don't they say that? I'd find that desirable, but not if I were expecting a PX cask ... "Sherry butt" really isn't that informative ...] After a few minutes, still briny, and aggressively grassy, but with some faint floral notes (meadow flowers) and just a bit of candied fruit. A tiny bit of maltiness. And is that smoke? Barrel char?

palate: soft for a split second, but then the sharp grassiness takes over. very green fruit.

finish: very long and strange. it starts off oily, becomes weirdly vegetal at some point (like a strange mix of herbs and peppery greens -- might be a tiny bit of meaty sulphur there, too), finds some vanilla along the way, and ends up salty. the faintest hint of fruit after all that has faded.


this is not at all what I expected. I expected either fruity or boring, but got weird instead. it's an interesting weird, and I'm happy to find a flor-sherry cask, if that's what this is, but it's not quite what I was looking for.


score: 82