Speyside Tasting Part II

 scotchwhisky.com's Speyside Tasting  | Part 2

T o book for the Inneshouse Dinner and Tasting 4th May 2001 click here 

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The first Murray McDavid bottling we tried was from the Dufftown distillery - a dark and unusually sherried whisky which had bags of nose and promise. The whisky was fun and had quite a bite to it which was surprising for an 18 Year Old. Our second speaker, Frank Clarke (who used to run a whisky shop in nearby Aviemore) raised the point that the style of the Dufftown was pretty well masked by the richness of the sherrywood effect, and this is certainly a regular area of discussion from aficionados - the difficulty of getting the right balance between the original style of the distillate and the effects of the maturation.

Lochside 18 Year Old from Murray McDavid We finshed our mid-meal study of Murray McDavid bottlings by moving onto another 18 Year Old malt from the Lochside distillery. It was interesting to see the Murray McDavid description of this now closed distillery as 'The Springbank of the East' - and indeed everybody noticed a more pronounced coastal style with a good balance between peat and wood in this whisky. For many it was their discovery of the evening

At this point, amidst much chatter about the whiskies and personal favourites, we returned to our final course with that well known Scots pudding Cranachan - traditionally (and quite appropriately for late September) part of the communal celebration at the end of harvest, with the separate ingredients placed on the table for everyone to make their own mix.  We got ours pre-mixed but certainly there is an idea for another day if you want to mix your own heather honey, whisky, oatmeal, cream and raspberries!

Frank Clarke had agreed to help us on this evening and it was fortunate that he spent the early part of the day on the Spey with the owners of our last two whiskies - Knockdhu and Speyburn which are owned by Inver House distillers. Frank didn't confirm how many fish he had caught but there is a well known rule of the river in Scotland - if there is no fish there is always plenty of whisky!

Before Frank let loose on two very fine 21 Year Old Inver House bottlings, he had first to explore the little known product of the closed Glen Albyn distillery - a Hart Brothers bottling aged for 22 years.

As Donald Hart had mentioned to scotchwhisky.com earlier, this is one of the features of Independant Bottlers (ie those not tied to bottling only the distilleries they control) as often a rare lot like this Glen Albyn becomes available and provides yet more diversity for those of us out to explore the world of single malts. The Glen Albyn was duly consumed and because none of us knew what to expect from such a rare bottling, by this stage of the evening our nosing and tasting abilities where truly challenged.