‘Old Highland Cream’ Special Reserve 24 yo ‘Xmas 1950’ vs Ardmore 20 yo 1968/1988 Dun Eideann #5490+5491
I love Wednesdays… that are also National Days…
‘Old Highland Cream’ Special Reserve 24 yo, dated Xmas 1950, for the Directors of Teachers
The suspicion is that this is a single malt Ardmore (because Teachers…) but we cannot be sure, in any case, the dates puts this whisky as distilled sometime just after the Great War.
(Photo – The Auld Alliance, where this bottle may still be available)
Nose: What! Can I tell you that there’s no OBE with 60 odd years in the glass. Fascinating. Warm ash and wafts of black smoke, deep leather and clean metal. It’s really quite a pungent smoke, earthy and sooty. For Christmas 1950? Mind boggling! There’s a timelessness to this sort of deep peat – which is distinct from the peat of the 90s onwards. A burnt offering of fragrant resin, cedarwood and incense. Soaked with woody dessert spices. Old oak and phenols layer a round and creamy core.
Palate: Stills holds up marvellously, big oak and black pepper is apparent and a bucket of those wood spices again. Wet-leather and a deep but subtle phenolic sizzle. This style of peat cannot be beat. (Whisky makes you a poet.) Then there is that earthy-resinous side, plus dank warehouse floors. It does get tannic and drying rather quickly though. Too bad I guess.
Finish: Not quite long enough, tends to collapse a bit with some weak tea, musty books and stale cigarette ash, but great while it lasted.
Ardmore 20 yo 1968/1988 Dun Eideann #5490+5491 58.4%
Nose: Immense. A lot going on here. Farmyard, a cart of dirty flints, muddy earth. Deeply phenolic peat, more cutting than rich this time. Yes this one is quite a brute. Crystalized peel, rusty metal and a soot layer cake. In other words, amazing Ardmore.
Palate: Again immense, flinty sting, cutting but dirty at the same time. More than a bit of the stable has gone into this. Waves of phenols again, with soot and black grease. Thick peaty oils, cold machinery and coal. X rated stuff, hard to describe, but you have to try it.
Finish: Long, lingering, phenols are thick and clinging, wet earth, cold herb tea, acrid black smoke. Some other Ardmores of the 70s were not so awe inspiring but this one is no holds barred.
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