Review by: The Muskox

There were a bunch of closed distilleries that I really hoped to have tried at least one bottling from before hitting 1000 reviews. Thanks to another New.Whiskyorder tasting, I got to tick off a few of them in a row. Ladyburn was located in the enormous Girvan distillery complex, where it operated for only a decade between its construction in 1966 and demolition in 1976. Several of these official single cask bottlings have been put out, all of them to rave reviews as far as I can tell. Let’s see…

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Distillery: Ladyburn.

Bottler: Official bottling.

Region: Lowlands.

ABV: 50.4%. Cask strength.

Age: 27 years. Distilled in 1973. Bottled in 2000.

Cask type: Cask #3210, a bourbon cask.

Price: N/A, sample.

Color: 1.1, Burnished. Natural Color. Non-chill-filtered.

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Nose: Richly sweet and fragrant. Extremely ripe fruit: Mango, tangerine, Asian pear, strawberries, sweetened passionfruit. Stroopwaffel, caramel, buttered rum, and Toblerone bars. Strong fresh flowers. A little bit of menthol and eucalyptus, coconut water, dripping bromeliads, and some petrichor. Fresh laundry, cedar shavings, even a distant hint of smoke. After a while, everything turned to ripe strawberries.

Palate: Medium texture. Arrives with mango, strawberry shortcake, milk chocolate, and caramel. Develops herbal and sweet, with light oak, cool spices (nutmeg, cardamom), fresh flowers, then the fatty-rich white chocolate, toasted coconut, and browned butter. There’s a hint of dirtiness here, with a bit of a wet hay note.

Finish: Sweet and effervescent. Light oak and nutmeg. Crusty raisin challah. Orange, lime, strawberry, honeycomb. A little grassy again. Lingering fattiness. Cedar and a hint of licorice.

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Possible SMWS bottling name: “Morning sunshine at the farmer’s market”

Conclusion: My high expectations for this dram were comfortably exceeded. This is a gorgeously rich and sweet whisky, brimming with depth and age and character. The power of the fruit here is second to none. My comparison points were the Linlithgow 1975 I tried last summer, and the SMWS Ardmore I had the other week (completely different style of course, but on the same level of quality). I think this one can’t quite hit with those whiskies, but it was a whisky-of-the-year-level dram regardless.

Final Score: 92.

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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.