Some Terrific Taylors

Since we reviewed Duncan Taylor's Blackbull 40yo earlier this year, we've really started to take notice of just how many good bottlings the company are turning out - on a very regular basis too.

The last 3 are no exceptions either. The Rare Auld range represent the pinnacle of Duncan Taylor stocks, with many of the releases bottled at around 30 years, from across Speyside, the Highlands and Islay.

We recently got stuck into a Cardhu, a Bunnahabhain and an intriguingly titled 'Iconic Speyside'. Now what could that be, we wonder...

Duncan Taylor - Rare Auld Collection - Bunnahabhain - Distilled 1979 - 32 yo - 47.1% Cask No: 38408

Nose: Notes of dried coconut, some hints of aromatic dry vermouth, soft brown sugar, some bonfire toffee and a distinct nuttiness.

Palate: Very sweet on the first sip, but calms down after a few minutes in the glass. Again, notes of brown sugar, some slightly zesty grapefruit and soft toffee, almost reminiscent of an aged dessert wine. A true dessert whisky perhaps?

Finish: lingering notes of toffee, chopped hazelnuts and swathes of vanilla'y oak on the death.

Overall: Highly enjoyable - especially sweet, so not to everyone's tastes, but right up our street.

Next up: A rare auld Cardhu.

Duncan Taylor - Rare Auld Collection - Cardhu- Distilled 1984 - 26 yo - 54.4% Cask No: 2873

Nose: Classic oak ageing at its best. Vanilla notes, lots of spiced, cinnamon apple pie, lemon sherbet, cherries mascerated in cognac, furniture polish, Brazil nuts and icing sugar. Warm and inviting, not cold, hard and old.

Palate: Initially sweet, leading into a mouth coating chocolate/cocoa note (think really good quality dark chocolate, with a dusting of muscovado sugar) then, plump raisins, stepped in dark rum, some fresh lemon juice, more Brazil nuts, chocolate covered marzipan and perhaps even a slight barbecue note, although that might be from the Old El Paso taco kit we enjoyed an hour ago. Anyway, enormously open and flavoursome. Lovely stuff.

Finish: Lingering notes of dark chocolate covered nuts and those plump rum soaked raisins. Absolutely gorgeous.

Overall: This is a real find. Balanced, yet old. Open, refined, complex and super-easy to drink. Another very impressive bottling. If you're considering bottlings for your 30th birthday in a few years time, get this and open it on the big day, you'll love it. In fact, hang that idea- just buy it and open it immediately!

And finally.... the dram that dare not speaketh its name (although we suspect it begins with G) (great... big help there... eh)

Duncan Taylor - Rare Auld Collection - Iconic Speyside- Distilled 1984 - 27 yo - 54.8% Cask No: 2033

Nose: Big buttery biscuit base, (not again...) then into more of those Brazil nuts we mention above, some papier mache, notes of Copydex adhesive uncooked pork mince and the very centre of a rosebud!! Sounds absurd, but there you go... that's whisky for you. Given time, more of a digestive biscuit note develops, with a little dusting of dried ginger. It isn't a patch on the Cardhu, but certainly isn't a duffer- just weird.

Palate: A vaguely gingery note pops up first, followed by some savoury meat (honestly, this definitely isn't the Taco kit, we promise!) then into fresh double cream, some light toffee notes and a malty sweetness. Again not a patch on the Cardhu, but interesting nonetheless.

Finish: Quite a drying, lengthy finish, with hints of lavender and something quite bitter and hoppy.

Overall: A little off key if we're absolutely honest, but then compared to the Cardhu, a great many bottlings from anyone's collection would be under par.

If any of these take your fancy, check out the Duncan Taylor online store here:

Manager's Choice... Part Deux

In the 2008 / 2009 season, there were 9 managerial changes in the English Premier league. That's nearly 50% of the clubs choosing to replace the man at the helm, the man with whom the buck stops, the man whose stamp is on the team.

Diageo are certainly one of the major Premiership clubs when it comes to drinks, esp with regard to whisky. What a haul of distilleries they own, run and draw fantastic profit from. Yes, their starting line up includes international super-stars such as Arthur Guiness and Jose Cuervo all dressed up in their nice Red Stripe kit and marshalled brilliantly by Captain Morgan. But there is some home-grown Brit talent in there too. The English midfield of Archers and Pimms, backed up by Tanqueray and Gordons, but it is their Scottish talent which which really shines through. The back line of solid, dependable drams which are consistently good if not spectacular.

In the Manager's Choice we get to see these distilleries individually, on player-cam as it were, at their supposed very best. In this first release of the rare bottlings, we get to see the first-team regulars of Oban, Cardhu, Mortlach and Linkwood. And the lesser known bench-warmers of Teninich and Glen Elgin. Below we saw how the Oban, Linkwood and Glen Elgin got on up close, so lets see how the other three get on with their bid for first team glory.

Teaninich - Distilled 1996 / Bottled 2009 - Managers' Choice - cask 9802 - 246 bottles - 55.3%


Nose: Well, you'd know where this comes from, just by the nose. Is that a hint of Glenmorangie whipping up the nostrils! Plenty of light, floral notes, brandy-butter, vanilla, clear apple juice, almonds. Pleasant.

Palate: Humm, not what I expected at all. A huge explosion of moss and earth, dark chocolate moose, oak and toffee. With water the dark chocolate powder.

Finish: Medium, sweet and fruity like moist fruit cake.

Overall: A nice dram that really performs well with a drop of water in. Some lovely floral aspects which make this a great example of the distillery.

Mortlach - Distilled 1997 / Bottled 2009 - Managers' Choice - cask 6802 - 240 bottles - 57.1% Vol


Nose: So much character comes shooting out of the glass with the overriding sense of honey roast ham crisps by Branaggans backed up with spearmint.

Palate: It's an odd one this. With a 57.1% you'd think a drop of water is required, but I found it okay without, but it didn't really perform as well as I'd hoped. A little lackluster and with water even more so. Like mash potato with too much milk in it.

Finish: quite yeasty in a Real Ale sense, the finish is quite long and hot with a meaty quality like bovril or bisto.

Overall: 'Bulky' would be the word to describe this one. Complex if we were being kind.

Cardhu - Distilled 1997 / Bottled 2009 - Managers' Choice - cask 3362 - 252 bottles - 57.3% Vol


Nose: A lovely nose of coconut, vanilla, lemon drizzle cake / homemade lemonade. Really fresh and lovely. If my clothes came out of the washer smelling like this, I'd be happy! With water, a hint of white pepper.

Palate: Strong and robust, with zests of lemon and lime. With water: This really comes to life. Really yummy now the strength is knocked down and the flavours really come to life. All the citrus fruits: orange, kiwi, lemon and lime come flooding out. Super stuff.

Finish: A great length; not too short, not too long. The epitome of medium! This malt coats your mouth with a delicate waxiness and leaves you just dry enough to want to take another sip, like a good dry white wine.

Overall: Absolutely the best of the three in this section of the tasting. A stick-on first teamer and so far the first name on my team sheet.

Overall our favorite was the Cardhu by a county mile. We're yet to see the big guns of Talisker, Lagavulin and Caol Ila but on this evidence Diageo need to get those guys off the bench and on to the pitch, to really show their skills off. This ain't no pre-season friendly, this is real life. And Diageo need to play to their strengths. On this evidence, the only Glen they need is Glen Hoddle.

**Note: We have now freed up the "comments" section of the bog so anyone can now leave us a comment, not just registered users! Enjoy!**

Choice FM

Ok, here's a little scoop for you....some of you will have already heard about Diageo's plans to release a Manager's Choice single cask bottling from each of their operational distilleries (except for Roseisle, which is obviously not ready yet). We, like many of you received an excitable email recently about the release and immediately our appetites were whetted.

Here are the details of the first batch of distilleries, unveiled... a pretty attractive looking starting point:

Cardhu - distilled 1997- 252 bottles - £250

Glen Elgin - distilled 1998 - 534 bottles - £250

Linkwood - distilled 1996 - 480 bottles - £200

Mortlach- distilled 1997 - 240 bottles - £250

Oban- distilled 2000 - 534 bottles - £300

Teaninich - distilled 1996 - 246 bottles - £200

However, one thing keeps nagging away whilst I type this....the pricing.

Granted, some of these bottlings will become legendary- especially when we get into the Talisker/Lagavulin/Caol Ila territory (look at the 15 yo Caol Ila Manager's Dram of old - purportedly an astonishing sherried expression of Caol Ila & now retailing for around 500 quid).

But consider one thing:

At this years Feis Ile, the "Diageo-owned-operational-Islay-distilleries" both released single cask bottlings, of a similar age to the Managers Choice, hand selected by The Manager (or Iain McArthur in Lagavulin's case) which retailed for between 60 and 70 quid. That seems like pretty good value, in any financial climate. Okay, you had to get to Islay on a certain week at the end of May, but I can't help thinking that the new bottlings seem mightily expensive, especially when you can pick up one of these bottling on eBay (or equivalent site) for well under what the first batch of the Managers Choice's are being released at.

That said, these bottles are unique and individual. And to have a complete collection of Manager's Choice bottlings in one's cabinet would be pretty impressive, wouldn't it? This is mirrored in the press release where Classic Malts Selection spokesperson Nick Morgan says:

"We have occasionally issued single-cask bottlings of individual single malt whiskies before, for instance for visitors to the annual Islay Festival. And single-cask bottlings of our malts can sometimes be obtained from independent bottlers.

“But this is a much more ambitious venture - the most extensive collection we’ve ever released of single cask malt whisky bottlings, from 27 of our operational malt distilleries, involving both the well-known and those whose product isn’t widely available.

“Each individual distillery cask selected by the experts after an extensive examination has doubly earned its place in The Managers’ Choice, regardless of its age: because it faithfully illuminates that distillery's individual DNA, and also because it will offer the connoisseur a different, interesting and perhaps unexpected experience of that whisky.”

Hopefully at some point we'll be in a position to bring you a few notes on a couple of the Managers Choice whiskies but until then, you can re-enjoy the notes on the Caol Ila Feis Ile 2009 (Billy even put his signature on that bottle...) and the 2007, 2008 and 2009 single cask Lagavulins by clicking on the text.