Maclean’s Nose

Review by: The Muskox

I’ve recently moved down to the US, and as such, my whisky tasting opportunities have improved considerably. After all, why else would I give up all the comforts of Canada if not for want of better scotch?

This past week I attended my first tasting at the legendary Jack Rose Dining Saloon in Washington, DC. What a time it was! I was completely overwhelmed by the massive wall of bottles – I’ve seen pictures of course, but seeing the scale of it in person made my jaw drop to the floor. I didn’t just visit on any other day either. Waiting next to the bar was a table of 8 excellent whiskies from the lovely people at Adelphi and Ardnamurchan.

Maclean’s Nose is a brand-new blended scotch whisky from Adelphi, designed to show the world that blended scotch doesn’t have to be thin and flavourless. It’s made with a startlingly-high malt content of 70%, sourced from a distillery in the west Highlands (hmmm, I wonder which?) and a distillery in Campbeltown (presumably not one owned by Springbank). As a small and independent company, Adelphi is free to break industry traditions and tell us exactly what’s in this blend. The name of the whisky is an homage both to industry legend Charles Maclean and to a rocky knob on a mountainside near Ardnamurchan.

Distillery: Blended scotch (Ardnamurchan, Glen Scotia, North British).

Bottler: Adelphi.

Region: N/A.

ABV: 46%.

Age: No age statement, but scanning the QR code on the label indicates that the components of the blend are between 4 and 6 years old.

Cask type: ~80% bourbon casks, ~20% sherry casks.

Price: $35 locally (D.C.), my pour at the tasting was free.

Color: Natural Color. Non-chill-filtered.

Nose: Rich and savoury-sweet. Lots of thick caramel, toasty malt, and browned butter. Rounded sweet and spiced fruit notes of orange and dark stonefruit. There’s some peat too, with a real meaty character to it. Sauteed mushrooms.

Palate: Medium-thick texture. Arrives with charred marshmallow, stonefruit, citrus, and immediate rich smoke. The smoke develops and intensifies to rich meatiness, strong charred oak, and salty seaweed. The sherry starts to come through here as well, with burnt sugar, cherries, and dark chocolate.

Finish: Medium-length and smoky. Lots of campfire peat, plus orange zest, saltwater taffy, dark chocolate, and sherry spice.

Possible SMWS bottling name: “French stew drive-through”

Conclusion: What a great whisky. Amazing rich flavour and texture, especially for a blend but even for a malt. Hell, the malt content is so high that this is practically a malt. The peat is surprisingly strong and shockingly savoury. No lean barely-aged ashy smoke here. The sherry cask components are only complementary but seem completely vital.

I never consider value in my ratings, and I’ll continue to not consider it here, but I have to say, whisky this tasty, this complex, and this interesting being available at $35 is, in my opinion, paradigm-shifting and category-destroying. The flavours present here are the same that you find in today’s old-school-style, big-flavour malts like Springbank, Benromach, and Ben Nevis, which have become so trendy/expensive lately. Maybe I’m just a recovering Ontarian – I try a whisky with this number attached to it and I freak out when it’s amazing. Maybe the rather small taste I had of this, and the fact that it was the first pour of the night, also skews things a bit in this whisky’s favour. However, going through the list of some of my favourite comparable official bottlings – Glen Garioch 12, Bunnahabhain 12, Benromach 10, even Kilkerran 12… MacLean’s Nose just short-circuits the whole system.

I haven’t been one of those people convinced that Ardnamurchan is the next coming of Jesus Springbank. But this blend… wow.

Final Score: 85.

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.

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