Located in the lovely town of Pitlochry, Blair Athol is, in my opinion, a distillery that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Even I have taken longer than I should to review one of their expressions, so I thought it about time to do so now. Thus I proudly present to you: Blair Athol 12 year old, a fine tipple indeed.
Delving straight into the aroma, it presents a very light and summery bouquet of citrus, flowers, honey, and tangy apple. By no means an outstanding nose, I wouldn’t put it in my top 10, but it does have something distinctively unique about it, and that is the very summery feeling that fills your entire chest as you take a long sniff of it. That said, the nose isn’t quite as forceful as I would like – it doesn’t approach you with quite enough confidence, but what is there is very pleasant. Had it been just a bit bolder, a bit deeper, it would have been much better.
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Most of you will already be familiar with the ‘movember’ concept; the basic idea is that during the month of November, men grow silly (for the most part) moustaches and get sponsored for doing so – a bit like a “fun run”, except for the fact that movember is actually fun. The money raised goes towards men’s health issues, with focus on prostate and other cancers.
In honour of this, Master of Malt and Glenfarclas teamed up to create a special Movember whisky, and they recruited a fellow Edinburgh-based whisky blogger – the highly knowledgeable Chris, from over at the Edinburgh Whisky Blog – to give them a hand. He was invited over to Glenfarclas to choose two 9-year old casks that he thought would marry well, and these then went on to become the Movember whisky. I really don’t do the story justice, but I figured there’s not much point in my retelling another blogger’s adventures! So if you want to read the story, head on over to the Edinburgh Whisky Blog.
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If you are on a budget, I’d turn and run right now, before you get so intrigued as to find yourself unable to do anything but buy a bottle – or at least a dram (if you can find a pub that stocks it, which I doubt). The bottle that I’m taking a look at today doesn’t come cheap, you see, as it is currently selling around the £300 mark. If you do have the money to spend, however, I would definitely read on.
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Having previously tried, and quite enjoyed, the 1997 expression of Balblair, I decided to treat myself to a miniature bottle of the 1989 when I saw it at the till the other day. It was the first time in quite a while that I purchased a miniature bottle, actually; I often find that I will drink them, enjoy them, and feel obliged to buy a full sized bottle – as you might imagine, it can easily turn into a costly affair!
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Glen Garioch‘s history is fairly typical for a Scottish whisky; first opened in 1797, it changed hands several times over its bumpy history, was mothballed at one stage and later reopened. Nothing spectacularly interesting so far as I could find. Far more exciting, at least in my opinion, is the design of the bottle and box of their 15 year old expression – a classic bottle Scotch bottle design, accompanied by a classy tartan patterned box, a combination that simply cannot disappoint. Unfortunately the whisky can, and did.
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It had been a while since I savoured a dram of Dalmore 12, so when I went to meet a friend of mine for a quick catch up in a pub I hadn’t been in before and saw it in the drinks list, priced at only £2.50 a dram, I couldn’t resist. My promise to myself not to drink anything that evening was thus broken within 5 minutes of entering the pub, aren’t I naughty! Quite frankly, though, I didn’t regret it for a second.
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