Review by: The Muskox
After picking out the distillery on the previous blind, my man who picked the whiskies said something to the effect of “if you guess #4, I’ll eat my pants”. Challenge accepted!
Of course, I did not correctly guess what this was. It’s a blended malt – Billy Walker has set up this Lum Reek line of blended malts, based on his own stocks of Glenallachie.
As per my blind tasting policy, my tasting notes, score, thoughts, and guesses are all locked in before the reveal. For this dram, I had no idea what I was being poured, aside from that it was probably whisky of some kind.
Distillery/Style: Various/Blended malt.
Bottler: Glenallachie.
Region: Speyside and Islay.
ABV: 48%.
Age: 21 years.
Cask type: Matured in a combination of Oloroso sherry, red wine, and virgin oak casks.
Price: N/A, sample.
Color: Light amber. Natural Color. Non-chill-filtered.
Nose: Aha, here’s some sherry for the first time in this flight, and no peat. Very sweet and creamy sherry. Raisin challah, or rum-raisin ice cream?, clove-studded orange, and fig jam. Some honey, hot chocolate powder, toasted coconut, and soft caramels.
Palate: Proof is moderate. Medium texture. Arrives with jammy fruits and caramel. A fair bit of oak as it develops, with slight bitterness of burnt sugar, leather, and mixed citrus piths. Sort of a sweetened-condensed-milk sugariness.
Finish: Medium-short, very sweet and chocolatey. Chocolate babka, bananas, iced sugar cookies, ginger beer float with vanilla ice cream. Fragrant citrus and rosewater.
Possible SMWS bottling name: “Night shift at the kosher bakery”
Conclusion: Not bad, but not doing a whole lot for me. This is a bit on the sugar-sweet side for my taste, without enough of that richness and oak to back it up.
This seems to be a good-quality modern sherry cask, the kind you usually get from Adelphi or Gordon & MacPhail. I really want to guess that this is Macallan Rich Cacao, but I think the proof might be too high? With the sugariness, banana, and flowers, I think this could be an Auchentoshan? I have, again, almost no experience with old Auchentoshan. But this has that triple-distilled feel. I think.
Nah, screw it. Raisin challan and honey is Macallan.
Guess: Single malt, Speyside, unpeated, ~15 years old, ~46%, sherry casks.
Shot in the dark: Macallan Rich Cacao?
Final Score: 77.
Post-reveal thoughts: My immediate thought after the reveal was, “what the fuck, this was peated??”. I mean, I guess I got some burnt notes on the palate, but nothing like peat. I guess the combination of 1) older and subtler casks of Caol Ila (I assume), and 2) a majority of the blend being from Speyside (I also assume) will disguise the peat. That, or my palate sucks.
This has been available around me in Canada for quite a while now, and has never been priced quite well enough for me to want to buy it. Perfect for a blind group tasting.
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.
Malt Runners 