Review by: The Muskox

This is the first of a whole bunch of reviews of Cooper’s Choice bottlings.

Old Rhosdhu isn’t the name of a distillery, but rather one of the many distillates produced at the Loch Lomond distillery. With their unique variety of traditional pot stills, column stills, and straight-necked “Lomond” pot stills, combined with changing cut points, spirit collection strengths, yeasts, and using different peat levels, Loch Lomond produces a wide array of different spirits with different characters. Inchmurrin, Inchmoan, Inchfad, Croftangea (peated and unpeated versions!), Craiglodge, Rhosdhu, Glen Douglas, Glengarry… it’s difficult to keep them all straight and even harder to find out what the actual recipe for each one is.

Old Rhosdhu was produced between the 60s and mid-90s, and like Inchmurrin is unpeated and seems to have a large component of their high-strength Lomond-still distillate, giving a very light tropical character. Be sure not to confuse this discontinued “Old Rhosdhu” whisky with Loch Lomond’s heavily-peated malted-barley-only single-grain whisky, called just “Rhosdhu”!

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Distillery: Loch Lomond.

Bottler: Cooper’s Choice.

Region: Highlands.

ABV: 47%

Age: 27 years. Distilled in February 1994. Bottled in 2021.

Cask type: Cask #222, a bourbon cask.

Price: $325 CAD.

Color: Light gold. Natural Color. Non-chill-filtered.

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Nose: Old, floral, and creamy-sweet. Old dusty boiled sweets, banana Runts, and a bit of that sappy green flavour you get in banana peels. Honeyed notes of nougat and homemade marshmallow. Tropical too – coconut milk ice cream and pineapple, with some yellow plum. More floral notes of orange flowers, cardamom, and lemongrass. A hint of cashew and sesame nuttiness. Varnished walnut wood and old parchment. Wood spice with water.

Palate: Thick texture. Richly tropical and creamy up front, but not too sweet at first. Sugar cane, toffee, and slivered almonds. Develops more sugary – banana, more tropical fruit, and… milk! A whole lot of milk. With some cereal as well, possibly Raisin Bran. Lightly grassy and floral. Sweetened condensed milk. On the back end comes cinnamon dusted cappuccino and white chocolate.

Finish: Medium-length. Milky and sherberty. Those hard yogurt candies, what are those called again? Beeswax and hint of black pepper. Froot Loops in milk. Wild blueberries.

With water, it’s all white chocolate and banana cream pie.

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Possible SMWS bottling name: “Toucan Sam’s weekend bender”

Conclusion: Not too spectacular, but a solid and tasty whisky. That milkiness is rather different and really interesting. Great tropical fruit and a few old-whisky flavours as well, both of which are always welcome in my glass. It does lean on the sweet side of things – I’d love a bit more balance.

Final Score: 84.

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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.