Carn Mor Vintage Collection: Macduff 1991 (Scottish Speyside Single Malt Whisky: 21 year: 46% ABV)
Visual: Honeyed gold.
Viscosity: Fast thick streaks.
Nose: Heather fields. Brick dust. Water emphasises the heather.
Body: Vanilla. Smooth. Brick dust. Orange crème notes. Notable alcohol despite the smooth feel. Water adds honey, more sweet orange and sour berries.
Finish: Sour cranberries. Honey. Brick dust. Alcohol numbing. Water emphasize honey and smoothens.
Conclusion: Well, this is whisky. That is a statement that however should not be mistaken for the similar “This is Whisky!” – I am not indicating an exemplar, merely that there is not much I can say about this beyond its base whiskyness. Just thought I should clear up that potential confusion.
It has the base heather, honey and such that you can imagine as a default whisky kind of thing, but not much else. Actually, I tell a lie, it does have something else.
Brick dust.
The whole thing, despite being smooth of texture, tastes slightly gritty, like breathing in around the dust of a broken up brick. This is a twenty plus year aged single malt, yet for the gritty base character I could probably mistake it for a relatively cheap blend. Ok, that was overly harsh, it doesn’t have that cheap alcohol kick, and the texture is very much telling of the age but flavor wise it doesn’t bring much to the table.
This teams up with Tamdhu for aged expressions that fail to beat the standard expression of another distillery.
It is a bit of a duff one.
I am so sorry, so very sorry for that pun. But not sorry enough that I didn’t type it out. And post it.
Sorry.
Background: Bottled 2012. Macduff is also called the Glen Deveron for official bottling, which this is not. Glen Deveron is the better name in my opinion. Anyway this was picked up from Independent Spirit, I grabbed it as I have not tried anything from this distillery yet. Drunk while listening to more of Iron Maiden’s new album, it is definitely growing on me, but seems to work more as a album that any particular single.
