Clynelish 21 yo 1995 / 2017 Single Malts of Scotland #10203 55.9% vs Highland Park 1981 / 2011 Scott’s Selection 48.5%
or Bottles I Finished Way Too Quickly, which tend to have a personally favoured style, and by that I mean various things …
Clynelish 21 yo 1995 / 2017 Single Malts of Scotland #10203 55.9%
What some might call a austere and harsh Clynelish, I call love. This one needs air and time, but when it blooms – concrete dust, chalk powder, hot paraffin mixed with blazing minerals. Not lemon zest but the full lemon rind, with bitter and pithy lemony overtones. Hints of neroli, and pureed old ginger which leans more hot than warm if that makes sense. That’s it. Objectively simple, narrow and cutting, austere but wonderful. 90 pts
Highland Park 1981 / 2011 Scott’s Selection 48.5%
These 80s Highland Parks can be reticent but, like this one, given time and air they unfurl in the glass to reward the patient seeker. Find here wispy heathery smoke, trace of ash in frigid seawater, old lamp oil, damp leaves on grimy clay, bundled earthy roots. On the tongue it takes a medicinal turn, with menthol lozenges, bitter orange, a resinous and gummy mastic, perhaps an anisic sourness and a distinct thin fruitiness so typical of these years at this Orcadian. 90 pts
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- Millburn 36 yo 1969 / 2005 Douglas Laing #DL2152 50% vs Glenburgie 40 yo 1963 / 2003 Signatory #4751 56.4%
- Ben Nevis 23 yo 1996 / 2019 Single Malts of Scotland for the Nectar #536 51.3% vs A Speyside Distillery 32 yo 1989 / 2022 Thompson Bros 51.4%
- Brora 22 yo 1972 / 1995 Rare Malts 61.1% vs Brora 22 yo 1972 / 1995 Rare Malts 58.7%
- Talimburg 19 yo 1986 / 2005 The Whisky Fair #1485 45.9% vs Talisker 20 yo 1981 / 2002 62%
- Caol Ila 12 yo Bulloch Lade for Zenith 43% vs Caol Ila 30 yo 1979 / 2010 Berry Bros #4604/5 55.6%
- Clynelish 29 yo 1965 Whyte & Whyte 52.1%
- Brora 21 yo 1982 / 2003 Signatory #416 58.4% vs Clynelish 27 yo 1982 / 2009 Synch Eli Daily Dram 46%
- Dornoch 5 yo 2017 / 2023 #46 ‘Jasper Broers’ 57.9% vs Shizuoka ‘private cask’ 2017 / 2022 #2017-108 61%
- Clynelish 26 yo 1993 / 2020 Carn Mor #11215 52.7% vs Bowmore 17 yo 2004 /2021 SMWS 3.327 ‘Siren’s Song’ 57.1%
- Talisker 25 yo ‘Bottle TA25 3987’ 45.8% ~ bottle code L0296CM004 bottled 2020 vs Ledaig 11 yo 2008 / 2019 The Swan Song & 1BRD #700104 58.7%
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