Coldorak's whisky blog.
We take a look at five Glenrothes today: two official bottlings and three independent releases from That Boutique-y Whisky Company, Cadenhead and Signatory. Building on last year’s enjoyable duo, I’ve dug out a few samples of older Glenrothes and opened a bottle acquired at auction some time ago. With that lineup ready, let’s get started.
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Two unusual whiskies, one very singular house: this review brings together Michel Couvreur’s Overaged and Blossoming Auld Sherried as an excuse to revisit the work of one of whisky’s most idiosyncratic ‘éleveurs.’ Both bottles are rooted in the same philosophy – that the cask, its history, and the way it is handled in the cellar account for most of a whisky’s character – yet they express that philosophy in contrasting registers: Overaged as a richly old school, multi‑vintage malt, Blossoming Auld Sherried as an almost baroque hymn to first‑fill sherry.
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Glenburgie remains one of those Speyside names most whisky drinkers ‘know’ without actually knowing, quietly toiling away as a backbone malt for Ballantine’s rather than as a headline single malt in its own right. Official bottlings are still thin on the ground, so when you want to explore Glenburgie’s character in any depth, you inevitably end up rifling through the shelves of independent bottlers instead.
This line‑up is a neat illustration of that reality: at the younger end, an 8‑year‑old Gordon & MacPhail licence bottling that was about as close to ‘official’ as Glenburgie got for many years, thanks to G&M’s long‑standing agreement to bottle the distillery’s spirit under its own name. Opposite it, two mature Glenburgie 1995s from Signatory Vintage, both 30‑year‑old single casks from that famous mid‑ 90s parcel, promise a far more opulent, sherry‑accented take on the same DNA. Once again, then, we are relying on the independents to sketch out a portrait of a distillery that, despite its importance in blends, still barely speaks for itself on the official shelf.
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Glen Elgin is one of Speyside’s quieter distilleries (and another proof is we haven’t reviewed many yet), but it has a style that rewards a closer look. In this article, we’re tasting four Glen Elgin whiskies, three of them independently bottled (by That Boutique-y Whisky Company, Chorlton and Lady of the Glen), and using them as a way into a distillery that deserves more attention than it usually gets.
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We’re flying at high altitude today with two very high-level secret Speyside whiskies bottled in 2017 by Antique Lions of Spirits (ALOS). Antique Lions of Spirits is an independent bottling collaboration based in Italy, but we’ll learn more about it below. In our glasses today are two very old Speyside single malts, distilled in 1973 and 1975, and both bottled in 2017.
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I hesitated for a moment to call this review “Threeninich”, but, in the end, these three Teaninichs deserved something a little more dignified. This set brings together a Teaninich 10-year-old Flora & Fauna, an 11-year-old bottled by Chorlton, and a 1983 Signatory Vintage bottling from 2011, three very different snapshots of a distillery that has spent most of its life working quietly in the background.
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Tobermory is one of those distilleries that rewards a closer look, especially when you bring together a modern core bottling and a pair of older independent releases. The 12-year-old gives a useful snapshot of the distillery’s style today, while the 1995 Hidden Spirits and the 1994 unpeated Ledaig bottled by Spirit Stock offer two very different windows into its older character, one leaning toward Tobermory’s gentler, fruitier side and the other toward the more farmy, smoky identity associated with Ledaig… even though it will be an unpeated one here. Will it be as good as the one we reviewed last year?
Taken together, these three drams make for an especially interesting flight because they show how much personality can shift with age, cask selection, and whether the spirit was made in the peated or unpeated style. Rather than reading like a simple vertical, this tasting becomes a small study in distillery character, independent bottling influence, and the subtle split between Tobermory and Ledaig.
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We’ve already tried a few of the releases from the running Signatory Vintage 100 Proof series, but since they continue releasing many of those, let’s review seven out of the eight latest expressions in these series, with all the editions #70 to #77, with the exception of the #74 I couldn’t source. In our glasses today are whiskies from Caol Ila, Highland Park, Linkwood, Mortlach, Ben Nevis, Ledaig and Clynelish. We’ll go in release numbers ascending, so I guess I’ll need a pause in between some drams when going from potentially peated to unpeated!
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We explore three venerable Caledonian single grains, aged between 29 and 48 years. The youngest, if we can call it that way, hails from That Boutique-y Whisky Company, while the two venerable elders – a 46- and 48-year-old – come from Scott’s Selection. This long-closed distillery, known for its grain whiskies, deserves a closer look.
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It’s already time for another Clynelish session, this time with five independent Clynelish bottlings, even though we reviewed three back in January. Then again, Clynelish is one of those distilleries we never seem to tire of – right up there with Ben Nevis and Springbank… and a few others.
Since my recent move, I’ve also taken the opportunity to reorganise my samples, even adding a four-drawer cabinet to give myself more room and increase storage capacity by 50%. Yet, as with bottles, I seem to acquire more samples than I can realistically drink. And because I still have a habit of wanting to write about every new whisky or spirit I try, while also tasting several at once for comparison, some drams inevitably end up waiting far too long for their turn.
Perhaps I should admit that not every bottle or sample needs a full review. That would certainly help keep the stock under control – and might even leave me with more time to simply enjoy whisky. In any case, today we’re turning to independent Clynelish from Cadenhead, Signatory, Silver Seal, Whisky Sponge and Masam, drawn from Silviano Samaroli stock. Let’s move the vintages up, shall we?
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