Let gives Islay a couple of days to recover from Feis Ile 2014 so we’ll put our sights on another region and distillery which have been a lot in the headlines this year – Mortlach. 

Unless you lived under a rock in the last year or just didn’t followed whisky news, you’ve missed a lot of action here when Diageo expanded the distillery (doubled the capacity) and are releasing a set of 4 official bottlings with a new and very expensive price tags.

Since Mortlach are back in focus and due to the fact not many official bottlings exists (except the F&F Mortlach 16), we do get to taste indie bottlings, just like this one – a 1995 vintage, distilled on July 5th, aged for 17 years in two hogsheads and bottled on April 2013 for Signatory.

Signatory Mortlach 17 YO (The Un-Chillfiltered Collection) (46%, 723 bottles)

Nose: Dusty, vanilla, sweet with hints of heather honey, and bit of sweet lemon marmalade, some meaty/chewy feeling, creamy and malty

Palate: Spicy with lots of ginger, thin mouth-feel yet clean (not dusty as felt on nose), then the lemon and vanilla shows on stage again with mint.

Finish: Oak wood spices, lingering spiciness, malt/cereal with sugary sprinkles

Conclusion: Very lemony and malty – not what I expected out of a Mortlach but that’s the beauty of single casks ah? I must admit this one lacks some balance and some of the notes are not meshed well together and instead are showing one after the other. But for the price it was selling (34 gbp) it was a very good deal and it’s always a pleasure to taste signatory bottlings. A sister signatory bottling of 2 other casks from the same (or around) time (casks 4090/4091) is still available in NL for 45.5 euro. I’d take a punter if I were you (get it here)

(Thanks Shai for the sample!)