Review by: The Muskox

This is a 21-year-old blended malt from Gordon & MacPhail bottled in 1978, meaning that the components must date from 1957 or earlier! That’s exciting enough for me, but even more enticing is the fact that this bottling is said to contain significant proportions of 1950s Macallan.

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Distillery: Various, likely including Macallan, Glenfarclas, Strathisla…

Bottler: Gordon & MacPhail.

Region/Style: Various/Blended malt.

ABV: 40%.

Age: 21 years. Bottled in 1978.

Cask type: Various, presumably mostly sherry casks.

Price: N/A, sample.

Color: Colour added. Chill-filtered.

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Nose: Rich old sherry without any sulfur. There’s black fruit notes of cassis, date bread, and ripe mulberries, but also greener and lighter fruits like grapefruit and pear. Butterscotch, chocolate truffles. Old papers and dusty bookshelves. Medium-roasted coffee beans. Good maraschino cherries. Hints of English Breakfast.

Palate: Medium texture. Arrives with very rich and sweet with orange peel, vanilla, and clove. Just a hint of that cassis, but the fruit here is tarter and firmer, more on the grapefruit side. Soft and fragrant peat smoke, with heather and burning rosemary. The sweetness continues to disappear into the development, in favour of cooler, almost industrial notes of iodine, graphite, crushed rock, prominent old-bottle-effect, and old charred wood. Lots of dark chocolate here, along with roasted walnuts and Angostura bitters. Cherry cordial chocolates.

Finish: Long with lingering earth, chocolate, and dark fruit. Very-overbrewed tea, weathered wood, basalt quarry, clove-studded orange. Unsweetened chocolate. The very tail brings more fruits: dates, blackberries, peach cobbler.

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Possible SMWS bottling name: “Hidden alleyway chocolatier”

Conclusion: I can see how Macallan established its reputation if it was putting out whisky like this. The sherry is rich but so balanced, and the distillate character underneath is still crystal-clear. The nose is layered and gorgeous, and the smoke+chocolate combination on the palate is a chef’s kiss sort of moment. Just as the cherry on top, this is another example that low proof can still be excellent. Well, at least it can be if your whisky was distilled 60 years ago. In comparison to that House of Peers 25, another sherry-cask malt from the 1950s, this is much more straightforward and gentle, and lacks the medicinal edge I found in that dram. Both good, this one is slightly less compelling.

Final Score: 88.

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Scoring Legend:

• 95-100: As good as it gets. Jaw-dropping, eye-widening, unforgettable whisky.
• 90-94: Sublime, a personal favorite in its category.
• 85-89: Excellent, a standout dram.
• 80-84: Quite good. Quality stuff.
• 75-79: Decent whisky worth tasting.
• 70-74: Meh. It’s definitely drinkable, but it can do better.
• 60-69: Not so good. I might not turn down a glass if I needed a drink.
• 50-59: Save it for mixing.
• 0-49: Blech.