Longmorn 1967 Old Master’s James MacArthur 57.1% vs Longmorn 30 yo 1969 / 1999 #4249 Adelphi 56.7%
Longmorn 1967 Old Master’s James MacArthur 57.1%
Note that the mini does not give the bottling year nor the cask number, but the equivalent full bottle states 2002 and cask 579, so 35 years old.
Magnificent old Longmorn, seething with rich olive oil, mineral oils, and camphor-medicinal oils, thoroughly flecked with graphite and even a stray burnt matchhead or two. Thickly sooty and earthy in a way that evokes a tractor with an open hood, caked black earth from yesterday still on the tyres. This kind of phenolic is not borne of the imposition of peat and smoke the normal way but undefinably subtle and intrinsic to the spirit. It’s also rich with marzipan sprinkled with nutmeg and aniseed. The fruit is poached and yellow and covered in a honey and lemon glaze that remains hesperidic to the finish. Only the pleasure outlasts the finish.
Longmorn 30 yo 1969 / 1999 #4249 Adelphi 56.7%
It’s a 1969 so expectations are high, but this proves to be an odd one. You can sense the fruity aromatics sans richness which makes it very one dimensional, and it’s evidently a clean style and yet there seems to be an overlay of musty florals, very strange. On the palate, it becomes a more bitter camphorated kind of musty but the stale floral off notes stick out and swamp everything else. Now given the pedigree and the nature of the bottle I received (10cl cask sample) I am inclined to believe there might have been some meddling with its contents so take this score with all the salt in the dead sea.
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