That Boutique-y Whisky often run invite only tastings to showcase their latest batch releases. Often led by their brand ambassador Dave Worthington @BoutiqueyDave you are taken through some amazing whiskies and, this time, some poetry!
For Burn's Night 2021 a selection of 4 drams were showcased, accompanied by some unique poetry!
For those that don't know That Boutique-y Whisky Company (TBWC) @BoutiqueyWhisky is an indie bottler owned by Atom Brands - owners of Master Of Malt, Drinks by the Dram and other well know whisky companies. They specialising in small batch whiskies from around the world, each is cask strength, non chill filtered and non-coloured. - including from some distilleries you might not of heard of yet!
Each 50cl bottle has it's own unique graphic-novel-style label and associated postcard by Emily Chappell. You can read an amusing account of how she came to create whisky labels here!
For Burn's Night 2021 TBWC had selected 4 Scottish drams to try and we all joined in a zoom session.
Tobermory Batch 15 12yo Sherry Butt @ 50.3% (408 bottles at £60)
"The Tobermory distillery sits on the Isle of Mull, and has done since the late 1700s. Well, sort of. The Tobermory distillery sat there until 1972, until it became the Ledaig distillery. From then on, the Ledaig distillery sat in that same spot until it became the Tobermory distillery. Essentially, what we’re saying is that the name changed and then changed back. Speaking of changes, here’s our Tobermory label, which now features more references to Alan Partridge than you can shake a stick at. Why? Because Tobermory is unpeated - there’s no peat/Pete allowed."
Appearance: Dark gold in the glass, swirls cling and fall as slow thin legs.
Nose: Orchard fruit with some herbal notes and brown sugar.
Palate: Smooth fruity arrival, herbal notes from the nose are back along with some berry hints , citrus peel, a little salt, brown sugar dryness and a kick of cinnamon spice. Nice!
"Ledaig is the name used for peated expressions coming from the Tobermory distillery on the Isle of Mull. In fact, Tobermory was called Ledaig for a while during the latter half of the 1900s, but soon switched back to Tobermory. The label of our Ledaig has a very angry man on it who seems to have had quite enough of Islay thinking they’re the last word in peated whisky and he’s going to set the record straight. How is he going about doing that? Well, he’s taught himself to fly and he’s got himself a massive sledgehammer, for starters..."
My thoughts:
Appearance: Mid gold in the glass, swirls cling and fall as slow thin legs.
Nose: Smoke, tar, berries, seaweed and a hint of orchard fruit.
Palate: Initially sweet - honey and brown sugar then the tar and peat smoke hit. Smoked Applewood cheese with a fruit relish. Peppery spice bite - yummy!
"We’ve all done it. We’ve all impressed our friends by saying “I'm going to climb Ben Nevis!” and then actually just gone and had a look at the Ben Nevis distillery, which sits right beside the mountain. Interesting to note that back in the 1800s, Ben Nevis was actually two distilleries which eventually merged into one in the early twentieth century. Now, if you take a look at the label of our Ben Nevis, you’ll see a chap atop Ben Nevis (mountain), looking at Ben Nevis (distillery), drinking Ben Nevis (whisky) and holding Ben Nevis (bottle), which features the scene again on its label. It’s like one of those eternal loop thought experiments, or like that picture that could be a duck or a rabbit. Kind of. "
My thoughts:
Appearance: Pale gold in the glass, swirls cling and fall as slow thick legs.
Nose: Orange peel and toasted hazelnuts to start with berries with cream. There's a little tropical fruit and some seaweed hints.
Palate: Smooth fruity arrival, honey and nuts, a little maritime salinity, orchard fruit, citrus peel and a bite of peppery spice. Yummy!
"How times have changed. Glentauchers like to keep things very traditional, not using computers to make their whisky. However, back in the day, the Glentauchers distillery was interested in experimenting in new ways to distil malt whiskies, which led to their foray into ‘silent malt’ (the process of making malt whisky in column stills). This trend happily didn't catch on and pot stills are used to this day by Scotch whisky distilleries to make their malt whisky. As you can see from our label, showing the exact moment Glentauchers decided to try out ‘silent malt’ production, obscene amounts of facial hair was popular back then too. Some things never change."
My thoughts:
Appearance: Mid gold in the glass, swirls cling and fall as slow thick legs.
Nose: Fruit, germolene, bandages, plasters, orchard fruit and honey, some hints of aniseed.
Palate: Oily arrival, initially sweet and then the germolene notes come in again. A little stewed pear, aniseed and woody vanilla.
Overall:
For me the Ledaig was probably the best of the 4, who doesn't like a dirty, smoky, tar filled dram with e the sherry cask adding some sweet berry notes. Ben Nevis came in a close second with the Tobermory third.
It was really difficult to place the Glentauchers - a real unicorn - probably the oldest Glentauchers that's ever been bottled - and from a distillery mainly used to create young cheap malt for blending. I'm not sure it enjoyed it's long slumber in the cask - not overly woody but not a stand out whisky for me.
Many thanks to Ros at @AtomBrands from the samples and Dave for his poetry!
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