Origin: Speyside (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 56.4%ABV
Ageing cask: Ex-Bourbon Hogshead
Chillfiltered: No
Additional Coloring: No
Owner: J & A Mitchell & Co Ltd.
Average price: € 60.00
Official website: www.cadenhead.scot
Vote: 84/100
Cadenhead’s Authentic Collection offers cask strength bottles with an impressive variety of distilleries and ageings.
The prolificness of this bottler is extraordinary, especially bearing in mind that these are mostly single casks, with prices that are often affordable despite being limited editions by their very nature.
Here I find myself with a 2006 Aultmore (still bearing the area label, Glenlivet), distributed in 282 bottles in July 2019, cask strength from a single ex-Bourbon hogshead. Of the same vintage there’s a version at 56.6%ABV as part of the same series, as well as a small batch at 57.4%,ABV just to create some confusion!
Tasting notes
Straw yellow in the glass.
Fresh and pungent on the nose, with a rather youthful and floral profile of cereals and freshly cut grass, it shows green apple, pineapple, lychees, grapefruit, almonds and sugar paste. Slightly metallic and mineral background note.
Pepper and ginger on the opening, it glides with good oiliness into the mouth, taking up the theme of fruit (apple, kiwi, unripe banana) with sour grapefruit veins. The warmth of the alcohol content is offset by this underlying freshness, with hints of shortcrust pastry and lemon cream that smooth out the roughness.
The finish is not very long and mineral, with saline accents, lemon, apple and almond.
Not very layered but anything but simple, with a distinct personality that you don’t expect this much from the distillery as from its age, alternating sour and fresh tones that make it a candidate for an excellent summer dram, unruffled and straightforward.