Diageo $pecial Releases

One of the great things about being in a whiskey club is you can pool resources and taste things you would never be able to afford on your own. At the LA Whiskey Society, we benefit from that pooling (as well as some members' immense generosity) and are lucky enough to get to taste some great stuff. Recently, we tasted the latest line up of Diageo special releases. This is stupid expensive whisky from some of the most heralded distilleries in Scotland.

This is one of those reviews I debate about posting. On the one hand, these things are so expensive that it's sort of silly to review them, because no matter how good they are, I wouldn't recommend anyone buy them unless you just won the Powerball or something. On the other hand, I figure people might want to know how they taste (and to engage in therapeutic schadenfreude if they suck), so here they are, in order of my least favorite to my favorite of the bottles we tasted. (There are two bottles in the collection that we didn't get to, a 17 year old unpeated Caol Ila and a 12 year old Lagavulin). I've also included links to the LA Whiskey Society entry for each whisky so you can see how some of my colleagues rated them.

Dalwhinnie 25, distilled 1989, 48.8% abv ($400)

This one was pretty standard stuff with typical malt and vanilla notes and a slight touch of acid. It was good whisky, but it was very straight forward and not very interesting. Several people commented that it didn't taste much different from the 15 year old Dahlwinnie you can get at Trader Joe's for about an eighth of the price.

Dailuaine 34, distilled 1980, 50.9% ($650)

One of the more obscure distilleries that made it into the special releases, the Dailuaine 34 was light and fruity on the nose with a touch of peat. The palate opened with light peat and sweet notes. This was a nice, light, peaty malt but nothing particularly special.

Clynelish Select Reserve, 56.1% abv ($900)

This one has no age statement but is said to include whiskies at least 15 years old. It was very true to the Clynelish profile with creamy malt and sea water notes. An on-profile Clynelish is always good, but this one wasn't better than many much cheaper on-profile Clynelishes available from independent bottlers.

Pittyvaich 25, distilled 1989, 49.9% abv ($550)

The Pittyvaich Distillery operated for less than 20 years, and while I've had a few, I can't say I have a firm impression of the distillery. This one was probably the sleeper hit of the night. It had typical bourbon cask vanilla and malt notes but also a savory, mineral quality that gave it complexity and depth along with very slight floral notes. There's something great about the purity of a malt that is able to show complexity without peat or sherry, and this one definitely did it.

The Cally 40, distilled 1974, 53.3% abv ($1,350)

This is a 40 year old single grain whisky from the Caledonian Distillery in Edinburgh which closed in 1988. This was another sleeper hit as few people, myself included, ever seem to expect much from a Scotch single grain. On this one, a pure bourbon nose was matched at first sip with sweet bourbon caramel, turning spicy and then ending with a taste of honey (tasting much sweeter than wine). The late honey on the palate gave it an almost Canadian Whisky type of profile, but like the best Canadian Whisky ever. The finish was drier with spice and coconut. It was sweet and delicious and fun to drink.

Brora 37, distilled 1977, 50.4% abv ($2,300)

I'm a huge fan of the peated distillate that came out of the Brora Distillery in the late 1970s, and this one hits the mark. It's got that characteristic mixture of fuel like peat notes, grassy malt notes and ocean air, along with a touch of lemon rind late in the palate. It's perfectly balanced with no single element dominating. Back in the heady days of the late 2000s, this was really, really expensive, but not totally unreachable, especially with a group of friends going in together. Tasting a great Brora again brings a tear to my eye.

Port Ellen 32, distilled 1983, 53.9% ($4,000)

In the pantheon of closed distilleries, I usually prefer Brora to Port Ellen, but this 37 year old Port Ellen aged in a combination of European oak casks, including some sherry, is a near perfect specimen. The nose starts with a blast of peat followed by oak and a touch of sweet sherry which grows as you smell it. The palate also starts with peat, then reveals dry sherry which is remains present but never in an overwhelming way. There are dried pineapple notes and plenty of peat. The finish is an old fireplace, or maybe even the smell of just lit firecrackers after they explode (aka my neighborhood on the Fourth of July), along with an old, dry red wine. Everything about this is rich, thick and wonderful.


Well, I would love to have been able to tell you that these whiskies sucked, but that just wasn't the case. The Pittyvaich is definitely the best bang for your buck, but it's still a really big buck and more than I would ever pay. Sadly, except for that Pittyvaich, the "cheaper" whiskies were the more disappointing ones.

Prices aside, Diageo has always done a pretty good job with these special releases. They know they have some great whisky on their hands, and they are going to make sure anyone who wants it pays dearly for the privilege.

Whiskey Wednesday: The Big Guns - Brora & Port Ellen

Brora and Port Ellen, Port Ellen and Brora. The names are spoken with reverence in Scotch circles. Distilleries that made great whisky but for some seemingly unbelievable reason were shuttered long ago. The remaining bottles sell for exorbitant prices and the whisky experts sing their praises. But are they worth it? How much of the reputation is hype? Are the high prices merited or simply a product of speculative collectors banking on a scarce product? Are they really that good?

I've tried whiskies from these distilleries from time to time, but within the last few months, I've had the opportunity to do some rather intensive tastings of both Port Ellen and Brora and thought I would share my thoughts. All together, I tasted seven Broras and twelve Port Ellens. These included a few official bottlings (Diageo inherited the stock of both distilleries and annually releases "official" bottlings), many indies and a few specialty bottlings that are not available to the general public. I won't list them all here, but you can find all of them on the LA Whiskey Society website.

So what did I learn from these intensive tastings? Here are my impressions.


Port Ellen

The twelve Port Ellens I tasted ranged from 26 to 30 years old and were all distilled between 1979 and 1983; all but one were independent bottlings. That's a fairly narrow range, but a fairly representative sampling of what is currently available on the retail market.

All of the Port Ellens were very good and the best were excellent. They ranged from mid-level peating to quite heavily peated, but the flavor profile was fairly narrow (which may of course be accounted for by the narrow range of distillation years I was trying). While these are very good, they aren't particularly unique. There are lots of great peated whiskies out there today, and the profile is similar enough to other peated Islays that it's hard to imagine a Port Ellen cult would exist if the distillery were still open today; rather, it would more likely be considered just another smoky Islay whisky like, say, Caol Ila. That being said, the best of these, particularly the Diageo 7th release and the bottlings by Old Bothwell, rivaled the best of other peated whiskies and were indeed quite special. And while Port Ellens are expensive, the prices on the indie bottlings don't seem that far outside of what you might pay for other similarly aged Islays.

A brief check of some of the major retailers shows that there is still a fair amount of Port Ellen out there. In fact, it may be the most plentiful of all the closed distillery whiskies, so while it won't last forever, my guess is there will still be plenty available for the next few years.


Brora

I tasted seven Broras in two separate tastings. They ranged from 22 to 30 years old and all were distilled between 1972 and 1982; three of them were Diageo's official releases. As a bonus, I also tasted a Clynelish made at the Brora distillery when it was the old Clynelish distillery.

The Broras varied much more than the Port Ellens and had a much wider flavor profile. While Port Ellen was always fairly peated, the Brora distillery varied its peat levels and reduced them quite substantially in the early '80s. In addition, both the peated and unpeated Broras have a quite unique flavor profile that is hard to compare to other whiskies on the market today, particularly the rich and densely flavored late '70s peated malts.

Overall, the quality of the Broras varied more than the Port Ellens, but the best Broras were absolutely phenomenal. My two favorites were the heavily sherried Brorageddon, a 1972 Brora bottled by Douglas Laing Old Malt Cask for the Plowed Society and my old favorite, the 2007 Diageo release, which is a 30 year old. The Brorageddon is long gone, but it is still be possible to snag a 2007. Yes, it goes for $350-$375, but this is one of those fairly rare cases when I do think a whisky is truly worth a price like that.


Summary

Comparing the two based on this admittedly limited sampling, Port Ellens seem more consistent then Broras, but while Brora may be a bit more of a crap shoot, the best Broras are among the best whiskies I've had. In both cases, I would say that these whiskies do deserve some amount of the hype. They won't be around forever, and Broras, in particular, seem to be fading rather quickly, so if you want to try them, start saving up now.

Whiskey Wednesday: Three Old Broras

Wow! Today I review Broras, and not just one Brora, but three Broras. I feel like Serge over at Whiskyfun. Maybe I should start including concert reviews.

Why Brora and why now? Well, it's depressing economic times, so I decided to reach back into my closet for some of the most expensive stuff I own. Consider it a sort of goodbye to the luxuries we may not be able to enjoy for a while.

To the uninitiated and unobsessed, Brora is one of the fabled shuttered distilleries of Scotland. Opened by the Clynelish distillery in order to produce a more peated malt, Brora operated only from 1969 to 1983, and the peating level became lower in the '80s. Now, Brora is an obsession with malt-heads and collectors. Among the shuttered distilleries, only Port Ellen rivals its popularity, which is pretty impressive for a distillery that was around for less than fifteen years.

Most Brora on the market is from indie bottlers. Diageo, which owns Clynelish, inherited the old stock of Brora and annually releases some as part of what it used to call its Rare Malts series; they usually make it to the US just in time for Christmas. Today, I'll be trying two indie bottlings (both by Douglas Laing and one of the Diageo releases.

Since the distillery closed 25 years ago, all Brora is old Brora. And, as a corollary, all Brora is expensive. The cheapest one I've seen was about $165 and the Diageo bottlings go for $375 to $400.

Could Brora possibly be worth the hype? I tried a Signatory Brora years ago and found it fairly unexciting. When a whiskey makes it big on the collector's market, it's hard to tell how much of its popularity has to do with flavor and how much has to do with scarcity. On the other hand, I love Clynelish, so I'm excited to see what these three are like.

None of these bottlings uses artificial color or chill filtering.

Tasting

1. Douglas Laing's Premier Barrel Brora, 23 years old, single cask, sherry cask matured, 46% alcohol ($214.95).

I'm not sure if the kitschy look of the Premier Barrel series of Douglas , with its ceramic bottle, is intended to be tongue in cheek or not, but it certainly is interesting. (The series also includes bottlings of Port Ellen, Springbank and Macallan). The bottle text is full of playful alliteration. To wit, the Brora is described as:

Prodigiously provisioned to purveyors and proprietors of probity, for an absolute appreciation in abundance. It is ablaze with abiding acceptability within this dazzlingly delicious delectation of the delightful distillate!

Okay, I suppose it is tongue in cheek, but how does it taste? Good. Rich, malty, woody, with that Northern Highlands ruggedness and a bit of sweetness and vanilla as well. The smoke comes out late in the palate and a bit on the finish. Very similar to a Clynelish, but much more expensive, so I can't say that it is worth the price tag.

2. Douglas Laing's Old Malt Cask Brora, 23 years old, distilled 1982/bottled 2005, single cask, 50% alcohol ($193.95).

Douglas Laing's Old Malt Cask is a reliable independent bottling series. They are all non-chill filtered with no artificial coloring and all are bottled at 50% abv.

This one is pure and powerful. Syrupy sweet at first with fruit, then smoky. The flavor is more pronounced than the Premier Barrel version, both in the sweetness and the smoke.

3. Brora Official Release, 30 years old, bottled in 2007, cask strength, 55.7% alcohol ($374.99).

This is both the only Diageo bottling of Brora I've tasted and the only Brora from the 1970s I've tasted. Seventies Broras have the reputation as being peatier than those bottled in the '80s and are much sought after.

Wow! Huge flavor. Dense with smoke, this is far peatier than its brethren. It is more akin to a southern Islay...in a blind tasting, I'd probably guess Lagavulin. Water produces a beautiful nose, hearkening back to Clynelish again, and additional flavors of evergreen and other woodsy things.

This is a truly wonderful whiskey. The good news is that now I get what all the fuss is about. The bad news is, it will cost you.

Next Wednesday: Islay Lite