If You Like A Lot Of Chocolate On Your Biscuit, Join Our Club: Talisker and Royal Lochnagar Friends of the Classic Malts 2014 Single Malt Whisky Editions

Before you start asking us even more questions, the answer is: yes. The question: did we get to try the 2013 batch of Diageo’s Special Release whiskies. And very good they were to. As usual, there was the regular releases from Lagavulin (the always grand 12 Years Old), Caol Ila, Port Ellen (now on to number 13) and Brora.

Unusually, however there were some extra old offerings from Talisker (1985 vintage), along with a 37 Years Old Lagavulin, a 21 Years Old Oban and, the pick of the bunch for us, a 36 Years Old Convalmore. Not something you see a lot of these days.  

Now, there is no denying that this lot are excellent whiskies... but anyone who has tried to buy a bottle of the most sought-after of the collection will know quite how quickly they disappear. Trying to bag one is about as easy as finding rocking horse poop.

Couple this with the new pricing structure where a bottle of Port Ellen, previously sold for ‘just’ three figures, will now set you back £1500, and you'll see how many of these top end offerings are out of reach for a lot of consumers. 

(As an aside, unlike a lot of other people, I don’t see an issue with these prices. Diageo are just following the residual market in what it feels these bottles are worth; I wouldn’t sell you my house for 50% of its market value, so why should Diageo sell you their whisky for half the price the residual market deems it is worth?)    

However, these limited edition high value bottles do create an air of exclusivity, which is where Diageo have balanced out, to some degree, their portfolio of interesting single malts with a series of new expressions for their Friends of the Classic Malts club.

  

On offer, initially, are two highly interesting, triple matured single malts: one from Talisker and one from Royal Lochnagar which will be available in the UK, Germany and Switzerland. In total, across five expressions, there will be 24,000 bottles released.  

Talisker – Friends of the Class Malts 2014 Release – NAS - Triple Matured – 9,000 bottles only – 48% abv

Triple matured in: “refill casks, charred American oak hogsheads, European oak refill casks”

Nose: Big and strong, with some smoke, salt and a hint of toffee. It takes a while to open up, but once fully in bloom, the Talisker sea-salt notes are clearly there, with the triple wood maturation giving more body, with some light honey and heather notes coming through at the death.

Palate: Lemon and lime mix with peat smoke and salted caramel toffee. White pepper and some coal dust appear to give a full flavoured dram which just seems a little out of sorts. It’s like smoked lime pickle in a glass.  

Finish: Sour cherries, unripe kiwi fruit and a hint of peat smoke.

Overall: Well, we love Talisker 10, Talisker 18, Talisker Storm and Darkest Storm. This, however, goes into the same file as Talisker Port Ruighe... lots of flavour but, like a child whose family has moved around a lot, this seems to be a bit unsettled, a bit misdirected. NB: it did settle with time (and we mean a few hours here) in the glass, but was still running around the palate with a little too much enthusiasm...)

Royal Lochnagar - Talisker – Friends of the Class Malts 2014 Release – NAS - Triple Matured - 3,000 bottles – 48% abv

Triple matured in: “refill casks, charred American oak hogsheads, European oak refill casks”

Nose: A vibrant nose of granola drizzled with honey, milk chocolate and honeycomb. Some linseed oil, blackcurrant bush leaves and malted milk biscuits.

Plate: Rich and rounded, this whisky has taken well to its three different homes, picking up something interesting in each environment. There is honey, spices (cinnamon and cardamom), toffee again and a hint of red apples.

Finish: A really lovely dram whose spirit has been enhanced by the triple maturation and given a rounded balance of sweet and spicy.

Overall: A great example of how triple maturation can really enhance a tipple.

Friends of the Classic Malts can purchase these offerings for £80 per bottle at a friendly local retailer in the aforementioned countries, or you can pick up a bottle at Alexander and James, here.

Continuing in their theme of unusual bottlings for the FotCM club, which has seen an excellent Talisker 12 Years Old and an utterly brilliant Lagavulin 12 Years Old too, this Royal Lochnagar is one to add to your collection. Let’s hope the other three releases live up to this one and, at £80, it is a very fair price for an unusual limited edition. A very fair price indeed.

Talisker, Royal Lochnagar... you guess the rest, but I’m just hoping that Lagavulin features, especially at this price point! Sadly, we’ll have to wait to find out...

Let's Spey Together.... Part One

Enough is enough. In our 2 year existence and after so many good Speyside drams, it was time to brace the wallets and hit Northern Scotland. Yes, we’re back on tour! Joel and Neil hit Speyside (...and one Highland distillery ;-) )

Our journey starts at Aberdeen Airport...

Well...it’s an Airport in Aberdeen. That’s about all we can say about Aberdeen Airport (no Bruce Grobbelaar this time, sadly)



One hour later, driving through windy back roads of the Scottish Highlands, we spied our first Distillery of the tour: Royal Lochnagar!

Royal Lochnagar is a beautiful distillery with only 2 stills, knocking out around 450,000 litres of alcohol a year. To put that in to scale, that’s just under half the 1,000,000 litres Ardbeg pumps out, but much more than Edradour’s 90,000!* The tiny distillery sits on the edge of the Balmoral Estate, which is where it gained its Royal Warrant, although it no longer holds this.

There are stories dating back from Victorian times of various members of the Royal household popping in for a wee dram and a chat. Unfortunately for the staff, all they got today was two slightly over excited English bloggers.

(*figures courtesy of the Malt Whisky Year Book)




We set about a tour of the distillery with manager Donald Renwick, who has an incredible wealth of experience in distillation, including a recent stint as manager of Lagavulin. There are many unusual quirks to Lochnagar- Check out the open mash tun below, which turns the stillroom into a Turkish Bath!




As well as some superb cask samples, Donald treated us to a vertical tasting of the Royal Lochnagar range, including the 12yo, Select Reserve and the wonderful Distillers Edition, extra matured in ex- Muscat casks, which gave the whisky a wonderful nutmeg/rice pudding aroma.

Royal Lochnagar - Distillers Edition - 40%

Nose: Immediate fruitiness, with mandarin oranges, stewed fruits and some sharp citrus elements giving a very fresh and summery feel. With water, some dried grass notes come to the fore, with a floral lavender and over time, a wonderful warming nutmeg covered rice pudding. (Oh I could so easily eat a bowl full right now... better have another dram!)

Palate: Pine nuts, more nutmeg, into a sweet, but slightly aromatic licorice flavour, reminiscent of Bassett's Allsorts (the ones covered in little blue bobbles)

Finish: Drying wood spices, but the floral and licorice notes linger for a very pleasing conclusion.

Overall: Not as well known as the other Distillers Editions, like Lagavulin, Caol Ila or Clynelish, but certainly up there in terms of enjoyment. The effect of the final maturation in the Muscat cask has done little to dent the distillery character but has enhanced the overall flavour and aroma profile. Highly recommended.

The effect of cask type was high on our agenda for this trip and we were very keen to experience as many good and bad examples of maturation (including a cask sample drawn from an old and rather overly woody Cardhu which had almost certainly seen better days)

In our next post, we visit Speyside Cooperage and take our mild obsession with wood to flaming extremes!

Our time in Lochnagar was woefully short but many thanks to Donald and his colleague Stuart for their time, experience and most of all, excellent whiskies. The shop at Lochnagar is a real treat in particular, with a huge collection of the Rare Malts range, which had us both slavering.

The drive to Dufftown is supposedly around an hour if you take the most direct route, but who wants to be efficient, when you're surrounded with scenery like this....!




So we kicked back and literally took the high road, passing by one of Scotland's better known ski resorts- Lecht. Having never been skiing, it is pretty terrifying to see just how steep the runs actually are as we pass by them in the car. I think a winter Caskstrength field trip should be on the cards for later this year when the season opens again- we'll certainly be needing a few drams of something decent though to steady our nerves!

In our next post, Joel eats a record number of Findus Crispy Pancakes, we catch up with Glenfiddich's Ian Millar and we watch a very cool man set fire to some wood, all in the name of great whisky....