Ardmore 2009 TWA 1985 Whiskyland

Ardmore 2009 Whisky Agency / 40yo Whiskyland

Today, I’m looking at two independently bottled Ardmores from very different points in the distillery’s history. The first is a 2009 vintage bottled by The Whisky Agency in 2026 after 16 years in a Port cask, while the second is a 40-year-old 1985 Ardmore from Whiskyland / Decadent Drinks, drawn from a marriage of two refill hogsheads and bottled in 2025. On paper, it looks like an uneven contest: a relatively young, wine-cask-driven Ardmore against a much older whisky shaped by comparatively gentle refill wood. Age alone, however, rarely decides the outcome. The question is whether the younger bottling’s energy and cask influence can match the depth and maturity of the 40-year-old.

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5 Loch Lomond Glenshiel Inchmurrin Decadent Drinks

5 Loch Lomond: Glenshiel / Inchmurrin / Decadent Drinks

Loch Lomond is one of those wonderfully odd distilleries whose output resists neat boxes and tidy categories, and this line‑up leans straight into that eccentricity. On the table we have an old Glenshiel ‘pure malt’ from the days when blended malt labelling was still happily opaque, alongside four Inchmurrin bottlings: two official expressions and two from Decadent Drinks, with the latter, in fact, being a deliberate vatting of Loch Lomond and Inchmurrin rather than a single‑stream malt.

This tasting is less about ticking off labels and more about mapping the distillery’s multiple personalities – how the lighter, fruit‑forward Inchmurrin style plays against the denser, more heterodox Loch Lomond profile, and how an older, nameless‑by‑design Glenshiel fits into that picture. By placing official bottlings next to independent vattings, we can get a clearer sense of what is ‘house character’ and what is the blender’s choice, and perhaps also understand why Loch Lomond remains both underappreciated and quietly fascinating for those willing to chase down its more obscure releases.

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Three BenRiach

Three BenRiach: 1996 Single Cask / Whiskyland / Authenticus

Back in October 2025, we looked at several BenRiachs bottled in the 2010s, and today we’re returning to that period with two further releases, plus a much more recent independent bottling. The lineup consists of a BenRiach 1996 Single Cask bottled for the German market, the 25-year-old Authenticus peated expression, and a 33-year-old BenRiach released by Decadent Drinks under their Whiskyland range.

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