Origin: Speyside (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 59.8%ABV
Ageing cask: Ex-Bourbon refill
Chillfiltered: No
Additional colouring: No
Property: Speymalt Whisky Distributors Ltd.
Average price: € 150.00
Official Website: www.gordonandmacphail.com
Vote: 88/100
324 bottles from this single hogshead cask ex bourbon refill, part of Gordon & Macphail’s Connoiseurs Choice and released in the first half of 2024.
Allt-A-Bhainne is one of the many distilleries operating only for blends, thus closed to the public and with no bottling of its own, which as it has proven so far it would deserve quite a different fate.
But fortunately there are the independent bottlers!
Tasting Notes
Green apple, pineapple, unripe melon and lemon peel open the nose, flooding it with a crisp freshness also driven by a mineral and sulphurous note, almost tending to mildew. It soon reveals a warmer, softer heart of custard, honey, almond candy with a slight spiciness of cinnamon and nutmeg. Hay base with floral inflections. Spring-y.
On the palate, white, slightly acidic fruit, gooseberry also emerges along with grapefruit and pear, cloaked in a more incisive spicy blanket of ginger and nutmeg. It re-proposes all the freshness of the nose with an extra charge, accentuating the vegetal contribution (cucumber and celery crop up at times) that bullies the pastry side (butter, honey, vanilla cream, icing) with the support of almonds and the mineral vein already present on the nose.
The finish is quite long in which the vegetal and pastry notes find a balance with the spices acting as peacemaker.
Eighteen years and not feeling it, all the fresh elegance of the distillate manages to shine through thanks to a cask that knows how to be gentle but not submissive, with excellent drinkability despite the not exactly negligible alcohol content. Beautiful.