Priginrovenienza: Mull Island (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 53.2%ABV
Ageing cask: Ex-Sherry refill
Chillfiltered: No
Added colouring: No
Owner: The Whisky Agency
Average price: € 190.00
Official website: –
Vote: 88/100
We add a new indie bottler to those already on the blog: The Whisky Agency.
The most curious aspect is that we know so little about it that we have to leave the word to Whisky right away (which is still the best solution).
Here we’ll simply say that The Whisky Agency was founded in Germany in 2008 by Carsten Ehrlich. To most this name will mean nothing, to experts in the field it will: Ehrlich is in fact one of the organisers, since its first edition in 2002, of The Whisky Fair in Limburg. It’s one of the most important gatherings, if not the most important, for whisky enthusiasts and, with a little care and luck, you can find genuine gems from the past there, as some friends have told us.
Ehrlich, in short, prefers to renounce any programmatic declarations and let his selections, refined right down to the graphics on the labels, do the talking.
Today we pour into the glass a Ledaig, Tobermory’s peated whisky, distilled in 2011 and bottled in 2022 at 53.2% ABV after a good 10 years spent in a former sherry butt that was not a first-fill. Natural colour and no cold filtration, for a total of 361 bottles.
Tasting notes
The colour is a light gold.
On the nose, the first impact is with a brackish hint of seaweed, followed shortly afterwards, in terms of intensity, by an unmistakable note of pickled olives. A dusting of black pepper is matched by grated lemon peel, along with impressions of tobacco and burnt grass. Only later does the contribution of the former sherry cask reveal itself with increasing clarity: a touch of pastry, a mirage of dark chocolate and the certainty of lemon candied fruit.
The mouthfeel is very peppery with an acrid cigarette smoke that seems to predominate, before notes of yellow orange, citron peel, pickled olives and, most original of all, saltine crackers envelop the palate in a truly intriguing ensemble of aromas.
The finish is moderately persistent, less smoky and peppery than expected, with a hint of pastry.
This whisky, which also requires the drinker to pay extra attention when tasting, is a striking demonstration of how the right cask can make all the difference. The (peaty) nature of the distillate remains intact, and the wood merely smoothes out some of the edges, enriching the aromatic range with quite distinctive nuances.