Review #90: Miltonduff 30yrs 1982/2013, 49.5%, Maltbarn, sherry cask, 63 bottles

a lot of early 80's Miltonduff has popped up recently

and no one seems particularly excited about it. It's fairly priced and still for sale here and here and here, for example, so it can't be any good. Still, with this one, you never know.

nose: apples, burnt grass, honey, wet log, and then settles on white chocolate and spicy flowers. It's nice, but it's pretty mundane, except for a second there was an interesting note, somewhere between antiseptic and cardamom, that I can't find again. After 10 minutes or so, the fruit gets a little juicier, and the grass a little grassier, but that's about it. Eventually lots of smaller notes come out -- rocks and leaves and coconut and coffee -- maybe a raisin -- but these are really tiny. Mellow apples and grass if you aren't paying attention

palate: this is the hoppiest whisky I've ever had. Overall it's slightly sweet and very drying, but what really sticks out are the hops and tobacco leaves. Ricola, too.

finishes with faint sherry fruit and lots of eucalyptus


This one veers between very conventional and very curious. Interesting but also ponderous.

score: 86

Review #71: Clynelish 14 yr 1998/2012, 49.5%, Maltbarn, ex-bourbon, 123 bottles

I had a cold.

Haven't reviewed anything for a long time -- I had a cold, and even after I recovered, nothing smelled quite right. (And there might have been some other things I fell behind on.)

So now I'm eager to get back to new (to me) whiskies. I'll start off with a Clynelish distilled in 1998. There have been a lot of amazing Clynelish from 1997. Let's hope '98 was as good.

nose: powerful orchard fruits -- apples and nectarines, along with something underripe or sour -- like quince or sour plums. a lot of white chocolate in the background, plus dried hay and light smoke. a nice floral note, too -- like alyssum or something.

palate: surprisingly rich -- white chocolate, with some beehive notes. the fruit's there too, somewhere, but I'm really amazed at the mouthfeel -- velvety and rich.

some oak comes in on the very long finish, but otherwise more of the same.

I wouldn't mind seeing the more typical Clynelish flavors -- or at least the ones that I associate with Clynelish -- but it has a sharp and distinctive nose and an amazing palate, esp. for its age. It might have been better with a few more years in the cask, but I guess they were down to 123 bottles already.

score: 87