Receives thid press-release that I thought was worth sharing with you. I’ve yet to try the 21 year old expression (I suspect it might be hard to come by these days though), but I found the 12 y.o. very interesting.

Old Pulteney 21 Year Old scored a record-equalling 97.5/100 points and secured the World Whisky of the Year title in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2012, the 9th edition of the world famous annual whisky guide. This is the biggest accolade the Northern Highland distillery has received since it was established in 1826 in Wick. Whisky Bible is considered to be the single most important publication on the subject of whisky. Pulteney is only the second Scottish distillery to secure the title in the history of the award.

Explaining his decision Jim Murray said: “I was on the home straight after four months of continuous tasting. By that time I was pretty sure I knew what the winner was going to be. With what I still had to taste it needed something exceptional to knock the leader off its perch. But that’s exactly what happened. To be honest, I was amazed. I knew the Old Pulteney 17-year-old was likely to be exceptional, and it was. However, I had never come across a Pulteney 21-year-old like it. Talk about coming out of leftfield…”.

Old Pulteney were kind enough to send a sample of their new, soon to be released ‘Good Hope’ expression, which also goes under the catchy name of WK209. For those of you who like a bit of distillery background information with your reviews, I wrote a wee bit about Old Pulteney in my review of their 12 year old expression. Now, Good Hope is a bit different from Old Pulteney’s other offerings as it is – and I quote – matured entirely in Spanish oloroso sherry casks.

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The most northerly distillery on mainland Scotland, so it is, and a fisherman’s dram it be! Fisherman’s dram, I hear you question, I thought they only drank rum and cod liver oil? Well, my friend, not in Scotland! With the distillery being right on the coast, and roads being in short supply at the time, the distillery relied heavily on boats both for getting their barley in and whisky out. That, in conjunction with the regions tradition for fishing, is probably the reason behind the Old Pulteney logo (which is a boat).

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