@LochLomondMalts's Distillery site is a huge place, distilling around 3 million litres of whisky each year, they have in excess of 280,000 casks on site.
Somewhere along the line four got lost!
Their unique range of straight neck pot stills, swan neck pot stills, barley fed continuous stills and wheat fed continuous stills, using unpeated, medium peated and heavily peated barley, produces a wide range of spirits. I've reviewed the three core range 12yos here.
Other innovations include the use of wine yeasts in the malt spirit to facilitate a higher ester content. The wood policy is fairly simple with the malt spirit being matured in first-fill ex-bourbon allowing the spirit character to shine through. Casks are checked / repaired / rebuilt at the onsite cooperage and are re-charred between uses meaning a cask could be used for many years. Occasionally LL will also use non-bourbon casks, port, sherry and virgin oak have been used in the past.
Michael Henry, the Master Blender, uses his DRAMS stock control system to record each cask, the type of wood, location in the warehouses, the fill date spirit type and other information. There are 28 warehouses on site, numbered 1-31 (2, 3 & 6 have been dismantled) into which 700 newly filled casks a week are stored.
As I said somewhere along the line it went a bit funny as he sent four refill American Oak Hogsheads (Casks #58 to #61) to be bottled in January 2018 and they went astray at the company's Glen Catrine bottling plant. Someone found them in January 2021 and offered them for sale. Victor Porter @onekv from the Southport Whisky Club snapped them up and they were labelled using labels designed by John Watkinson @jwbassman_ as significant streets in Southport!
These all came from a batch of spirit distilled in February 2008 and March 2009 in straight necked pot stills using unpeated malt, collected in a narrow cut at a high strength of around 85% ABV giving a fruity spirit (Inchmurrin). This was matured in ex-bourbon casks before, in November 2016, being finished for 14 months in a parcel of 8 Manzanilla sherry casks. Although these are single casks releases, SWA rules on finishing mean they are now labelled Exclusive Casks. Each and every cask is different and each of these Manzanilla casks imparted different notes to the whisky.
Manzanilla is a dry white wine, similar to Fino sherry, made from palomino grapes and aged under a layer of yeast know as veil de flor. It's produced exclusively in the bodegas of Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Andalucia on the southern coast of Spain. The local climate adds a salty note to the sherry. Loch Lomond sourced their cask from the Juan Pino cooperage (Tonelería) in Montilla in southern Spain.
Let's see how the whiskies taste:
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| Photo: @jwbassman_ |
| Dram | Lord Street The main street in Southport, of historical importance and the home of Remedy | Botanic Road The home of The Mash and Remedy Churchtown | Marine Drive An iconic part of Southport's seafront | Oakwood Avenue A pretty residential road and not really of huge significance, but the whisky tie-in made it work!! |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Characteristics | 46% ABV 106 bottles | 46% ABV 129 bottles | 46% ABV 134 bottles | 46% ABV 186 bottles |
| Distillery notes | Opens with cinnamon baked apple, rich toffee and vanilla fudge. There is star anise and nutmeg spice before juicy raisins, orange marmalade and gentle oak tannins at the end. | Tangy orange marmalade, vanilla fudge and candied ginger are followed by sundried raisins and melted brown sugar sweetness. There is stewed apple before nutmeg and cinnamon spice. | Rich and sweet dried apricot and crisp green apples. Smooth butterscotch and a burst of citrus orange peel mellow to reveal delicate marzipan and walnut. | Layers of fresh and dried fruits, green apple, raisins and sultanas and candied orange peel. There is melted brown sugar with sea salt and crushed hazelnuts. |
| My thoughts: | ||||
| Appearance |  | |||
| Rich dark gold, swirls cling leaving a line which beads quickly and falls as slow thick legs. | Rich dark gold swirls cling leaving a line which beads quickly and falls as slow thick legs. | Rich gold swirls cling leaving a line which beads quickly and falls as slow thick legs. | Rich gold swirls cling leaving a line which beads quickly and falls as slow thick legs. | |
| Nose | Thick strawberry jam and sherry soaked dried fruit - raisins, sultanas, dates. There's some butterscotch and cinnamon spice notes. Orange zest comes through after a little air. | A little more subdued - the strawberry jam is there but the dried fruit is a little 'cheaper'. Some walnut, seaweed, orange peel and hints of tropical fruit. | Similar to the Botanic Road but with more orange zest, seaweed and nut notes - Brazil and walnuts. Tropical fruit hints. | Again not as rich as Lord Street but with more toffee and orange zest notes. Tropical fruit and salted walnuts come through after a little air. |
| Palate | Thick Christmas spice arrival - nutmeg and cinnamon immediately drying the mouth. The ABV seems higher than the stated 46%. Orange marmalade and dried fruit notes follow with some tropical fruit hints. A little peppery spice left in the mouth as the liquid disappears. Yummy! | Again thick spicy arrival but this time it's more oaky - woody than Christmas spices. This one isn't as dry as the Lord Street. The orange marmalade and dried fruit are there again. Tropical fruit bursts out as the liquid disappears. Nice! | Not as thick as the previous two, sweet honey and tropical fruit - pineapple, mango, banana. No spice to begin with but it builds over time. Loads of nut notes - roasted almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts. The spices crash in as the liquid disappears leaving a citrus fizz on the tongue. Nice! | Probably the 'thinnest' of the four, but with huge dried tropical fruit notes - pineapple, coconut, mango, apricot and icing sugar leave a very dry mouth. Hints of salted roasted nuts and citrus zest are immediately blanketed by a dry oaky spice as the liquid disappears. YUMMY! |
| Finish | Long peppery spice notes with a little sweet honey. | Dry lingering oak wood spice and tropical fruit - hints of orange zest. | Lingering peppery spice, dry tropical fruit and hints of sea spray. | Lingering tropical fruit notes and a gentle oaky spice. |
| Overall | I was expecting these four drams to be very similar, they are all Inchmurrin spirit matured for an extra 12 months in ex-Manzanilla sherry casks; but they aren't. Every cask is different and each of these casks has played it's part in maturing the spirit in slightly different ways. The nose on the Lord Street screams sherry cask, obviously the most active, it borders on dunnage warehouse notes but not quite - thick and mouth coating. The Oakwood Avenue is at the other end of the scale, a less active cask leaving more of the original Inchmurrin tropical fruit notes. The Botanic Road and Marine Drive are both somewhere in the middle - the sherry notes of strawberry jam and dried fruit mixing it up with the tropical fruit. As an order of preference I'd go Oakwood Avenue, Lord Street, Marine Drive and Botanic Road but any would put a smile on my face! The Oakwood Avenue is a "just throw the cork away" dram - you aren't going to need it again once you've opened the bottle - YUMMY! | |||
Marine Drive : An iconic part of Southport's seafront
Botanic Road : The home of The Mash
and Remedy Churchtown
Oakwood Avenue : A pretty residential road and not really
of huge significance, but the whisky tie-in made it work!
Lord Street : The main street in Southport,
of historical importance and the home of Remedy
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