New Chief(s) in Town! Ian Macleod's Chieftain's Bottling Run #9

March 1, 2016

New Chief(s) in Town! Ian Macleod's Chieftain's Bottling Run #9

Ian Macleod's Chieftain's independent bottlings of rare whiskies have put out some serious malts over the years.  We're talking about a thirty year Port Ellen, a 1969 Springbank, stuff like that. They've certainly set the bar pretty high with the declaration, "The Chieftain's collection's hallmark is that each bottling must be fit for a King, a Leader or in the Celtic world, a Chieftain." Guess today that's us! 

The Chieftain's Run #9, 2016

Looking at the selections we were intrigued. Mortlach has recently come on to our radar and we've been pleasantly surprised. There is a 100% bourbon cask Glen Grant, which we've never tasted before (they're famous for their "sherry bomb" casks). Not to mention all these bottlings are 15+ years, unfiltered, and mostly served up at higher proofs. We invited our frequent guest reviewer @jakecahill to sit down and taste the whole line. Here's what we came up with.

Mortlach 18-Year PX Cask 46% 

Steve's Tasting Notes

Nose: Pineapple Jelly Beans, jammy fruity syrup, stone fruits (apricots).

Palate: Jake says “stewy” just as I take a sip and yes, it’s like chewing on a nice fruity stew of prunes and plums and raisins.

Finish: Smooth and short, with punchy berry fruitiness, a little white chocolate and a touch of tannin from the oak. Overall a very nice dram. This is not a flavor bomb, but very subtle and well crafted. A great pick for someone in the Macallan / Speyside fanfare category.

Jake's Tasting Notes

Nose: Beautiful golden color (bourbon cask before PX?) opens up with a dried pruney fruit. Dried pineapple and mango. Some slight vegetation that I cant quite pinpoint. Almost like compost while all the materials are still fresh. Slight hint of petroleum.

Palate: More of the dried fruit. leaning more toward the prune and date here. That soft vegetation comes back with a little earth and spice toward the back end. 

Finish: It sounds like an awful combination of ingredients (dried fruit, vegetation and petroleum??), but like a great chef can pull a dish together with complimentary flavors from opposing ingredients, this Mortlach comes together as a wonderful whisky with an inviting nose and interesting flavor wheel that delivers a new component every time you revisit it. 

Glen Grant 20-Year Bourbon Finish 55.1%

Steve's Tasting Notes

Nose: Heavy, big vanilla extract. Maybe this is from the bourbon cask? But it's way more vanilla than you'd typically get from barrel influence. More vanilla than in many bourbons! There has to be some very sweet vanilla influence coming through from the distillate, can't just be the barrel. There's a little light oak and some green grapes and figs.  It's a very mellow nose for over 110 proof.

Palate: Interesting palate. I was expecting mild flavor based on the smoothness of the nose, but it opens up with some pretty bold spirit warmth, fresh cream, an “almond milk smoothie” comes to mind, getting a lot more of the barley and wood on the tongue.

Finish: Being a fan of big flavors like Islay smoke and American whiskey, it’s usually tough to impress me with a Speyside bourbon cask, but this one at cask strength has some

power that separates it from the pack. Really sweet but in a nice flavorful way without being cloying. Surprisingly this was my favorite of the bunch, and definitely the one I found myself thinking about the next day.

Jake's Tasting Notes

Nose: Strong bourbon influence on the nose. Soft and light but an array of inviting aromas. You can really dig your nose into this one and get quite personal with it for a 110.2 proof. For me I got a lot of Vanilla malt shake, Dark Cherries, Dried Figs, Toasted oak and slight burnt out campfire. "Soda!" I said. "What kind of soda??"   "CREAM SODA," says Steve, "Dr. Brown's Cream Soda!" "YEEESSSSS! That's it exactly!"

Palate: Boom! Theres the Proof! It wasn't in the Pudding! It was in this Glen Grant. Creamy and spicy come crashing together here. Crème brûlée and apple cobbler. with 

Finish: A long nice finish with subtle malty and earthy elements dominating as the fruit and spice slowly taper off. This was my personal favorite.

Braeval 19-Year "The Red Beaune"

Steve's Tasting Notes

Nose: Not blowing me away on the nose. Kind of a jammy sickly sweetness bumping into the spirit in not such a good way.

Palate: Maybe like red licorice. Again this one’s not doing it for me. The wine finish feels a bit ham-fisted into what was not a very flavorful malt.

Finish: Honestly this was my least favorite of the bunch. Like I said I'm generally not a Speymalt guy, and I'm almost always underwhelmed by fancy wine finishes. Jake is much more knowledgeable about wine than I so I asked him what "Red Beaune" meant. "Probably Côte de Beaune" says Jake, which Google reveals is usually a combination of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes - neither of which being my favorite wine. So maybe this just isn't my cup of tea.

Jake's Tasting Notes

Nose: Kind of 'fumbly' and really out of whack. Overly fruity and medicinal in an unpleasant way.

Palate: I imagine the first experimental batches of Robitussin and Dimetapp tasted something like this. I just really don't have anything nice to say about this malt other than its... Interesting and unique I guess.

Finish: Thank goodness its finished. NEXT!

(Even though we were drinking together, Jake and I wrote our notes separately so I guess we were pretty much on the same page!)


Linkwood 17 Year Oloroso Finish 55%

Steve's Tasting Notes

Nose: Hard apple cider for me on the nose.

Palate: Still in super green apple territory here. Sort of over the top sweet green Granny Smith apples. Was hoping for a little smoke on this one but apart from maybe a little barrel char there’s hardly any smoke here.

Finish: Comes together nicely between the fruit, sweetness, and a good amount of wood. This one’s
nice, would be very good standing up next to a stinky cheese! Taleggio anyone? Mmmm talegio!

Jake's Tasting Notes

Nose: Very fresh and lively. A good hit of vanilla bean and apple skin. Honeycomb.

Palate: That honey comes back but my apple has now turned mealy/slightly oxidized. Nutty almost. A bit of damp earth. A little bit of red fruit here like strawberry or cherry too. 

Finish: This has a little bit of heat to it. Which is interesting seeing as its lower proof. It isn't enough to distract it from its character and flavors though. A really lovely and enjoyable whisky.

Fettercairn 19-Year Oloroso 57.4%

Steve's Tasting Notes

Nose: Immediately digging this one. Medicinal nose. Not peaty but very herbal. The sweetness from the sherry is coalescing nicely with all this crazy menthol stuff. tart cherries, lemon meringue.

Palate: Holy black pepper. This is a punchy ballsy malt. Still mixing together nicely between the dry herbal stuff and the sweet grapes. Definitely the most interesting of the bunch so far. Really didn’t know what to expect from this one but really like it.

Finish: Wow it’s really strong but super drinkable for 114.8 proof! Not reaching for water. Really lovely strong mix of bitter, sweet, and warm wood.

Jake's Tasting Notes

Nose: This one wins most interesting in my mind. Really fun and exciting. Pronounced herbal and medicinal nose with a wonderful background of dried fruits, rosemary, and cornbread.

Palate: Super spicy with a waft of cough syrup (the good tasting cherry kind). A fresh sprinkle of dried herbs de provance into the pot and just a tad grapey.

Finish: Great playfulness between sweetness and Earth. Really fun to keep going back to again and again. 

Overall

This was a really fun line. The Grant and the Fettercairn were truly surprising and memorable, vanilla-bomb and pepper-bomb respectively. The Grant is a little pricey, coming in around $140-$160, but I find myself definitely contemplating picking up a bottle. Same with the Fettercairn which is on the shelves around $120-$130. but would be such a strong conversation starter. Particularly for real malt whisky fans, either of these would be a total stumper tasted blind, and a really interesting addition to any tasting. 

Cheers/SB

Creative Whisky Company 2014 Exclusive Malts - A Cask Strength Tasting

May 15, 2014

Creative Whisky Company 2014 Exclusive Malts - A Cask Strength Tasting

Creative Whisky Company is an interesting outfit.  It's headed up by David Stirk, who spend two decades covering malts for Whisky Magazine and writing his own whisky guidebooks.  In 2005 David decided to open his own bottling company and began selecting casks for aging and retail.

The Exclusive Malts are hand selected by David, aged in a single cask, and bottled at cask strength, with no artificial color.  So far, so good.  We're listening.  It also helps that several bottles in the lineup are over twenty years old!  Ok on to the whiskies, let's see what Dave's serving up this year...

Exclusive Malts Bladnoch 1992 21 Year (96.2 proof)

Nose: Perfumy nose of rich florals: lilies and lilacs - and ripe stone fruits: over-sweet apricots & nectarines.  It all combines for a fancy spray-bottle of Chanel #5.

Palate:  A lot of white wine characteristics in this malt - green grapes and honey, some little notes of rock salt / sea salt, wedding cake, and peanuts.

Finish:  Very balanced.  Absolutely no alcohol burn.  Not a ton of balls on this one, but that seems to be the idea.  This would be a perfect introductory scotch for a white wine drinker.  It's incredibly smooth without being too sweet and still retaining a nice flavor profile.  It would go fantastically with a light seafood dinner, or some light fruity desserts.  Very nice dram.

Exclusive Malts Glencadam 1991 22 Year (100.2 proof)

Nose:  This one's a really nice heavy white oak on the nose.  Then we get a little silly putty / aloe flavor, a hint of leather polish, and it winds up on a hefty dose of high test apple cider.

Palate:  The tongue moves in a direction more towards spice with some cloves, nutmeg, and pink peppercorns.  The palate honestly does not have the tenacity of the nose, but on the other hand it's a very very drinkable scotch at a hundred proof.

Finish:  The finish is very creamy with maybe some little hints of strawberries or other seedy fruits.  Again there's absolutely no burn here, which is very nice at over a hundred proof.  This is definitely a dangerous dram, much smoother than any blend, but deceivingly higher test.  Another light, floral, dessert-y dram that would go perfectly with chocolate moose or strawberries and cream.

Exclusive Malts Linkwood 1999 14 Year (111.6 proof)

Nose: We're back in the highly perfumy, apple cider, eau de cologne neighborhood here with some grassy / farmy elements as well.

Palate:  Mmm, but in this case (opposite from the Glencadam) the tongue comes out with a lot more punch than the nose.  There's a hint of smoke, some rich roasted nuts, some sea air, a little more chewiness/body, and some definite spice with a little prick of habanero or cayenne.

Finish:  A nice long finish here with a little welcome spirit warmth.  Smoke comes to the front (not peaty but a smoldering oceanside fire).  There's some melting sugar about to turn into caramel, and maybe some burned butter, like those mexican charred corn on the cobs you get at street fairs.  Very very nice finish long in the sweet balanced delicately with smoke and wood.

This is our favorite so far.  A nice rich malt with a little smoke, nice body, not shying away from the taste of the spirit, but still wickedly smooth up at over 110 proof!  Pick this one up if you see it for sure!

Exclusive Malts "North Highland" 1996 17 Year (112.2 proof)

Nose:  The first dose of sherry so far, with the color to back it up.  However this nose is sharp and has a little of that magic marker / white out quality to it.  Not our favorite so far in terms of the smell.

Adding water:  This one begs for water, and takes it well.  The nose opens up and turns into a very nutty, nougat, goodness - chocolate covered cherries!

Palate:  It's rich, it's got some red grapes, and some whipped cream, and some little pangs of spice.

Finish:  Medium finish with more red fruits, sweet grapes, and sherried oak.  It's just not our favorite.  We love sherry against peat, but without the peat it just seems to magnify the tang of the alcohol instead of balancing it out.  Probably should have tasted this one before the Linkwood, because once we got a taste of smoke it was tough.  There's nothing technically wrong with this.  It's a nice big cask strength highland malt, and if that's your cup of tea, you're not going to find a lot of seventeen year old cask strength malts these days, so go for it.

Exclusive Malts Bowmore 2001 12 Year (116.8 proof)

Nose:  Ok, our first Islay and coming in at a whopping 116.8 proof!  We're excited.  The nose comes in peaty, but not blow-your-mind peaty.  It's a Bowmore after all and is still reserved next to it's neighbors from the south: Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Laphroaig.  It's got the peat, and some sherry in the nose.  There's a little rubberiness, we're sort of ambivalent on the nose here.  Let's take a sip.

Palate:  Ok now we're sold.  It's a solid peat and sherry balance, with some nice sea brine, healthy salt, a very nice smoke, and good spirit flavor.  Awesome smoothness and balance at this monster proof.  It merits only a drop of water and with this infusion turns into a gem, very drinkable without losing flavor.  Peat floating on top of grapes, wood, and leather.

Finish:  A proper long finish typical of an Islay, and a cask strength one at that.  This one is like Lagavulin 12-year, but with a lot more finesse, less smoke, and more drinkability.  Both are killer, and we will always love the Lag, but many may find this bottle preferable.  A beast that can be enjoyed by all, not just die-hard smoke hunters.

Conclusions

This is a really nice line and will generally be a happy pickup as well as a pretty good collectors' item given the small production run.  The Bladnoch and Glencadam are very refined ladies that will be well-loved by folks who tend towards Tullibardine, Scapa, and Balblair.  For us, the Linkwood and the Bowmore were the winners.  Lovely smoke, cask strength goodness, great balance, wonderful cask selection, and a good pure non-colored malt.  Good job by David and Creative Whiskey.  A fun tasting.  Keep putting out these nice selections of cask strength whisky!

Cheers/SB