It’s no secret I’m not much of a Tullibardine fan. I think they’re just a so-so malt that often lands in the “bleh” and “meh” category because they seem to be a background malt for blenders. I’ve never been captivated by a Tullibardine and so when head Malt Nut Barry said “let’s do a 20+ year-old Tulli tasting” I said “sure, can’t get any worse – let’s do it!”
That seems like a lot of excitement for something I don’t really care much for, but those are the standard Tullibardine releases (mostly NAS) and the Malt Nuts we never do just the standard releases. We’re also hitting a higher mark with the 20+ year requirement so if there was ever going to be a Tulli I liked it would have to be in this tasting… at least that was my theory going into it.
Malt Nuts: Tullibardine 20+ Years Tasting Rounds
- Standard Release Tullibardine
- Cask Strength and Independently Bottled Tullibardine
As usual it was all blinded and we didn’t know anything more than the distillery before the rounds and then the reveals happened after… so on to the tasting!
Malt Nuts: Tullibardine 20+ Years Tasting: Standard Releases
1A: Silverseal 16 years: 40%
- Nose: Toffee, lemon oil, spice, bananas, malt, dried fruit
- Palate: Malt, herbal, lemon, spice, bananas, malt, dried fruit
- Finish: Med -> Toffee, malt, herbal, spice
- Overall: B- (80-82) Malty and slightly herbal and earthy with a “musty” character.
1B: Tulliardine 20 years: 43%
- Nose: Orchard, caramel, honey, graham, lemon peel, malt
- Palate: Malt, orchard, caramel, honey, lemon spice and mint oil
- Finish: Med -> Toffee, honey, spice, malt and mint
- Overall: B (83-86) Touch earthy on the palate and finish with a bunch of mint. Something blandish about it, not overly interesting and but not bad and opens to banana bread.
Malt Nuts: Tullibardine 20+ Years Tasting: Cask Strength and Independently Bottled
2A: Claxton’s Tullibardine 24 years (93-17): 52% – Bourbon Hogshead
- Nose: Malt, vanilla, tropical fruit, coca, tootsie rolls, dried fruit, banana
- Palate: Banana taffy, malt, vanilla, graham, cocoa
- Finish: Med -> Banana taffy, malt, vanilla, cocoa
- Overall: C+ (77-79)
2B: Highland Laird Tullibardine 22 years (93-15): 51.1% – Bourbon Hogshead
- Nose: Malt, vanilla Necco, graham, cocoa, orange candy, spice.
- Palate: Malt, lemon, vanilla Necco, graham, spice
- Finish: Med -> Banana, malt, lemon, vanilla, graham
- Overall: B- (80-82) Meh, a bit unremarkable… add some water and it gets a bit chalky.
2C: Highland Laird Tullibardine 24 years (89-14): 53.3% – Bourbon Hogshead
- Nose: Honey, apples, pears, malt, banana oil, cinnamon
- Palate: Malt, honey, apples, pears, malt, banana, cinnamon
- Finish: Med -> honey, apples, malt, cinnamon
- Overall: C+ (77-79) Weak and understated with an underlying sweet herbal character that just doesn’t do it for me
2D: Cadenhead’s Tullibardine 21 years: 46.9%
- Nose: Honey, fruit, banana, oats, vanilla, spice
- Palate: Honey, fruit, banana, oats, marshmallow, spice
- Finish: Med -> Honey, fruit, malt
- Overall: B (83-86) Super light nose and muddled palate. Water brings out some Honeycomb Cereal notes and a bit of dried peaches.
2E: Tullibardine Single cask 19 years (86-05): 54.9% – Sherry Hogshead
- Nose: Sherry, nuts, cola, raisins, cocoa, malt, spice
- Palate: Sherry, cola, nuts, raisins, spice, cocoa
- Finish: Long -> Sherry, nuts, cocoa, dried dark fruit
- Overall: B+ (87-89) A decent sherried malt. Almost coppery in the delivery and the only Tullibardine worth tasting in the lot, but that said it barely grabbed the B+. Would have liked to taste it outside of the tasting to see how it was on its own.
Mystery: Auchentoshan Valinch 2012: 57.2% – ex-Bourbon
- Nose: Deep buttery fruit, malt, spice, dried fruit and powdered sugar.
- Palate: Buttery fruit, powdered sugar, malt, spice, cinnamon
- Finish: Long -> Butter, fruit, cinnamon, nutmeg
- Overall: B (83-86) Big spice as it opens with a fruity backbone. Liked it quite a bit, but for some reason just couldn’t quite give it a B+… maybe on its own and not at the end of a tasting it would have done better.
Another great tasting in the history books, err blog… blogosphere? Whatever, another great tasting down and I’m already looking forward to the next one. Cheers!
