Glenborrodale Castle in Argyll, home of Adelphi Distillery Ltd.

On Thursday evening I went to a whiskey tasting put on by The Adelphi Distillery together with online retailer Whisky Galore, and hosted by Glengarry Wines.

The Adelphi Distillery is no longer a distillery as such, having become an independent bottler with a focus on single cask whiskeys. That is, Adelphi seeks out interesting and high quality casks of single malt whiskey and bottles selected casks individually. The whiskey is not chill filtered (a process that removes flavors), and no water is added. A single cask yields no more than a few hundred bottles of whiskey, making each whiskey they release unique. Single cask whiskeys are distinct from standard single malts, which the distilleries blend from multiple casks to produce large volumes of consistently flavored product. These standard products are also often diluted with water and/or chill filtered.

Recently I have started getting interested in independent bottlers and single cask whiskeys. The catalyst for this was visiting the recently opened Whisky Shop in Auckland and buying an amazing bottle of Laphroaig released by a small independent bottler called Jack and Jack. Laphroaig is my favorite whiskey and this bottle was easily the best Laphroaig I had ever had. I had tried distillery bottlings of cask strength Laphroaig before, but this independent bottling was in a different league. The usual eccentric Laphroaig character was there, but more intense than usual. Oddly, despite its intensity, the whiskey was more effortlessly likeable than most Laphroaig, with a honeyed finish that made for extreme drinkability despite its 53.4% alcohol by volume. Following that Laphroaig experience, I was keen to taste more products from independent bottlers.

The remains of an excellent independent bottling of Laphroaig

Alex Bruce of Adelphi led the tasting. He began by going over some of the background history of Adelphi, but pretty soon we were getting down to the business of tasting whiskey.

We started with a ‘Breath of the Highlands’, a 20 year old whiskey from an unnamed Highland distillery. In cases where the distillery that produced the cask prefers that their name not appear on an independent bottling Adelphi uses the Breath of the Region moniker, with the region from which the whiskey comes giving a clue as to its origin and character. In this ‘Breath of XXX’ range of whiskeys Adelphi aims to select casks whose style represents the relevant region, giving drinkers some idea of what to expect. Getting back to the whiskey, it was matured in a bourbon cask, bottled at 63.5%, and produced by a distillery whose products are generally used only in blends. All but the most famous distillers of single malts typically get paid more to sell their product to blenders than they can earn selling it as single malt themselves. The whiskey was light, sweet and complex. It had an unusual floral character, reminiscent of pollen or some hard-to-place herb. Alex accurately described it as having a beeswax character. The beeswax even affected the mouth feel, which included an odd impression of a film on your tongue. The taste did not grab me exactly but no denying it was an interesting whiskey.

Whiskey number two was a 17 year old from Glen Garioch on the east coast of Scotland. It was bottled at 55.8% after maturation in a bourbon cask. This one had a resiny nose, and was sweet and full with some light vanilla tastes. Apparently it was lightly peated, which I am ashamed to say I just couldn’t pick. I think I have drunk too much heavily peated Islay whiskey and not enough non-peated whiskey, making me desensitized to peat. After adding water this one became a little too light, even to the point of becoming uninteresting.

Number three was a Linkwood 16 year old, from Speyside. The whiskey was matured in a bourbon cask (despite being uncharacteristically dark for a bourbon matured whiskey), and bottled at 49.3%. As in the case of the first whiskey, the products of this distillery are primarily used in blends and only rarely seen as single malts. I really liked this one. It was toasty and malty, with a little vanilla and caramel, plus some bitter undercurrents making everything interesting. There was some fruitiness too, with something like apple peels going on. Obviously it tasted of whiskey, but at the same time I could not help being reminded of calvados. This was very nice stuff.

Whiskey number four was the piece de resistance, “The Whiskey that cannot be named”, a 50 year old whiskey distilled in 1953 and bottled in 2003. It was matured in a sherry cask. The aroma was resiny again, with some perfumed wood, a hint of peaches, and heavy Christmas cake. The taste was sweet and lightly winey, with a dried fruit and citrus finish. It was extremely rich. Again there was some light vanilla. While this was delicious stuff, for me at any rate it was not the be all and end all of whiskey. Although it is a nonsensical apples and oranges comparison, I think I’d rather drink a nice Laphroaig. That said, simply tasting such old whiskey was extremely interesting.

The fifth whiskey was a “Breath of the Isles”, and was 13 years old, matured in a bourbon cask on the island, and bottled at 52.6%. This one was fruity, sweet, and fiery, with plenty of peat taste. I really enjoyed this one, finding it a refreshing contrast to what had gone before. I think my jaded palette was latching onto the familiar peat taste. The guy sitting beside me reckoned that this was from Talisker. If he was right then Talisker would be a whiskey to seek out in future.

The sixth and final dram was a “Breath of Islay”, and was 14 years old and bottled at 56.8%. I found it did not have much peat in the aroma, which seemed to be more of caramel, resin and a little mint (not unlike Orval – a Trappist beer). On actually tasting it was lightly fruity with a delicate peaty taste. While I enjoyed this one, the previous one made a bigger impression.

I have been quite critical in my notes of a couple of these, but make no mistake they were all excellent quality whiskeys. The problem is just that when you taste so many really nice whiskeys together you can easily lose perspective and become quite picky. It would have been nice to have spent more time on the 50 year old. Maybe that one could could have been better appreciated in isolation from all the others. Overall though I found the Linkwood and the Breath of the Isles to be the most enjoyable.

Alex passed on an interesting piece of information. I realized that climate differences between Kentucky and Scotland have major implications for the maturation process. However, I was surprised to hear him say that the process of alcohol versus water evaporation from the cask tends to be reversed between these two places. In the cool climate of Scotland alcohol tends to evaporate from the cask before water does, causing the strength of whiskey to reduce as it matures. Meanwhile, in Kentucky the opposite tends to apply, meaning whiskeys tend to increase in alcohol as they mature. This water evaporation phenomena is especially prevalent in Islay, and so many Islay whiskeys are matured on the mainland.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 3:11 am and is filed under Scotch (single malt), Tastings and comparisons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.