Origin: Speyside (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 46.7%ABV
Ageing casks: Ex-Bourbon first fill
Chillfiltered: No
Added colouring: No
Owner: Chapter 7 Whisky
Average price: € 250.00
Official website: chapter7whisky.com
Vote: 85/100
I conclude my overview of some of this Swiss bottler’s recent releases with a distillery that you don’t see around much.
Established in 1960 in Grantown-on-Spey, Tormore holds the record as the first distillery founded in Scotland in the 20th century by Long John International, which expanded production twelve years later. Characterized by a peculiar architecture, fruit of Sir Albert Richardson’s inspiration, it features a clock on the top that plays a different Scottish song every quarter of an hour.
With the ownership recently passed from Pernod Ricard to Elixir Distillers, it offers only two bottlings in its portfolio, the fourteen and the sixteen years old.
Distilled in February 1990, poured into 239 bottles in April 2021, at thirty-one years old it represents the most mature bottling to date from Chapter 7, as well as the third from Tormore.
Tasting notes
An impression of old wood caresses the nose, embracing notes of rennet apple, plums, cloves, vanilla, propolis. Undertones of maple syrup and nuts. Not particularly complex but intense.
In the mouth it reveals some liveliness, hints of pepper and ginger on a consistent mineral vein that characterizes a full and fresh body despite its age, with plenty of nuts accompanied by cooked apple, grapefruit, rhubarb, licorice root and more old wood, in the background. Pronounced cereal on the length.
Fairly long finish, very dry and mineral, bitter, nutty, fresh almonds, cucumber, licorice.
A whisky which doesn’t go unnoticed, showing a certain personality even though it doesn’t shine, intriguing for certain youthful notes even with its age. It doesn’t leave indifferent, this is for sure.