Tag: auchroisk

Hope Is Important.

Taste Review #145 – Auchroisk 9 y.o (Murray McDavid)

Have you ever tasted a whisky, then realised that you’ll never get it again? I have, quite a few times, although the wise amongst us will know that while whiskies are pretty much unique, the chances of getting something very similar is quite high. Well, I had that moment last year when I was stuck in London for 10 days in September last year. I took the opportunity to meet a fellow whisky enthusiast in Milroys of Soho, and I had a great time, as any whisky enthusiast would in a specialist whisky bar. Of course I wrote a blog about it, but the great regret was one of the whiskies I had was one I’d likely never get again. A search of the internet the morning after made it clear that I’d be more likely to find a mouthful of hens teeth in a pile of unicorn turds than find this whisky. Therefore I’d have to find an alternative.

They say that time stands still for no man, and that’s precisely what happened. Before long we were into March 2022, and I had all but given up hope of finding this whisky unless I was fortunate at auction. In desolation I paid a visit to the Speyside Whisky Shop, where I was invited to smell a sample of a whisky and to guess what it was. And to my surprise, I smelt all the key notes of the whisky I was mourning. When I was informed that this was to be their bottling for the Spirit Of Speyside Festival in May, I immediately intimated that I would love to buy at least a bottle.

Auchroisk 9 y.o.

Fast forward to the end of May when I was finally able to purchase it, unusually for me I was straight into the bottle. Was it the same as the whisky I yearned for? No. But it was darned close. Having a wee bit more abv, a decade less maturation and a different sherry cask finish meant it would never be the same but it was enough to cheer me up enough to realise that I could probably now relax and end my search for the whisky I was never likely to find.

I’m quite comfortable in admitting that I probably don’t have the best of palates, especially due to sinus problems brought on by having my nose broken (also known as talking when I should have been listening), though I can taste enough and still I’m able to learn and educate my palate by tasting many whiskies like everybody else. It’s easy to observe that many people in the whisky orientated social media drink quite a spread of whisky, which will develop their palates too, but how well will it develop their memory?

As you can see, this bottle has been raced through, but there has been a few samples shared.

Due to my employment patterns interrupting my enjoyment of whisky, coupled with the fact that once home I don’t want to spend every evening with alcohol when I do have time to drink results in the fact I may lack the practical tasting experience of others. However there are a handful of whiskies that I do remember the profiles pretty well, despite some of them only being sample size. I just can’t picture me remembering every single whisky I have ever tasted. While I might recall the general distillery profile, the exact taste I won’t. Hardly surprising, for I am the person who walks into a room then wonders why they went there in the first place. I joke that it’s not so much Alzheimer’s but more ‘auld timers’ that caused it. However, in spite of the variety of whiskies as I have managed over the years (mostly pre-fatherhood), I have to admit that I’m starting to see many as pretty much of a muchness, where only the truly standout whiskies for me stand a chance of being remembered. Am I alone in this?

Plenty of others are able to consume at will and search for the whisky-de-jour, but will they remember much more than the approximate profiles of those gone by in the past, other than an obvious distillery style? The restless cynic in me means that I personally doubt it. While the mind is a wonderful thing, I prefer to think unless it’s a dram they really identify with, in all honesty most people will only remember general profiles, unless they work in the industry and this have a vested interest in having such recall. That’s just my opinion, and of course everybody has a different whisky journey behind and before them. We can refer back to tasting notes, but I am of a mind that we can’t really always rely on them unless it’s a dram you have spent a lot of time with. Tasting notes can often represent that snapshot in time you had that bottle, which if you only got one or two, may not be a long time depending on how quickly you drank it. Our taste buds change over time too, so that whisky you tasted once then coveted could well be a disappointment if you have it again.

Food for thought? I’ll have probably forgotten this by time I publish this anyway, so don’t be afraid to remind me.

Anyway, this Auchroisk that was bottled for the Speyside Whisky Shop is my little aide-memoir to that early autumn evening in Soho.

Auchroisk 9y.o

Region – Speyside Age – 9 y.o Strength – 55.3% Colour – Russet Muscat (1.3) Cask Type – Oloroso Hogsheads Colouring – No Chill Filtered – No Nose – Dark fruit. Dates, figs, toffee, dark chocolate, strawberry, vanilla. Palate – creamy mouthfeel, with a prominent toffee and coffee note. Develops into a sticky toffee pudding taste with sultana and dates. The spirit starts to make an appearance with peppery heat appearing. Finish – The peppery heat dissolves back into a spiced fruit loaf with a hint of nutmeg. Medium long finish.

Perfect tone for the colour slave that I am.

Conclusions

A cracker of a whisky. Extremely enjoyable but unfortunately after a few glasses I have to concede that it just wasn’t the same as my memory remembered from last year. Close, but not close enough. The purchase price of £62-ish was good enough value for this dram.

Unfortunately you are unlikely to be able to buy this one, unless you are lucky to get one at auction, though I think I’m safe to assume that everybody that bought this bought it to consume. I managed to get two bottles and while I told myself one would be stored, I think I’ll be opening that one too. After all, the main takeaways from this article will be:-

1/Chasing whisky is part madness – there will always be another whisky which is close to what you seek.

2/ Does rare really matter? While there are some genuinely rare whiskies based on availability of stock, it seems that some whiskies are artificially made rare through the choices of the bottler to limit releases by only partially bottling a cask. If for example an IB releases a 12 year old “Glenbollox” finished in an Octave, then while it may only yield around 70 bottles, then there is still the rest of the Hogshead somewhere in the trade to be released with another finish. And unless it’s a unique cask and a rare vintage; it’s not really genuinely rare to the drinker – there will be other whiskies that taste similar that won’t have the same premiums, be they genuine or manufactured attached to them.

You’ll just have to find it.

And lastly, being totally contrary to my points above, did I really give up the search for that mythical whisky? No, not really. While I believe it is better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all, my OCD decided not to let go. After all, sometimes you never find something, but it finds you.

To be continued…

Yours In Spirits

Scotty

Index of tastings here

Index of articles here

Photo Credits

All Photos – Authors Own

The Name That Couldn’t Be Spoken

Taste Review #91 – Auchroisk 10 Old vs New

The next pair of drams come from a relatively modern distillery and is the youngest distillery on my quest to find out whether or not older generation whisky is any better than its contemporaries in today’s market. The Auchroisk distillery was built in 1972 by International Distillers and Vinters to produce whisky for their J&B blends, and joined their Speyside portfolio of Knockando, Glen Spey and Strathmill. Production started in 1974, but wasn’t until 1986 that it was released as a single malt. Unfortunately it hit one main issue; how do you pronounce the name? Would the target market be able to ask for this whisky correctly? For me as a native Scots Doric speaker of the Scottish North East, I can tell you that there are many ways to pronounce many of our locations, and they’re all wrong. For a quick example, the Aberdeenshire village of Strachan is pronounced ‘Straan’; Finzean is pronounced ’Fing-inn’ and Aberchirder is known as ‘Foggie’. Fraserburgh is called the ‘Broch’. Just don’t ask why. Obviously the head honchos at IDV (that’s heidy-bummers in Scots Doric) decided that they didn’t want to engage an any geographical name nonsense so decided to release the whisky under the brand ‘Singleton’.

The Little and Large of tonight’s tasting

Well, that worked for a wee while, but this was retired in 2001 when the distillery became part of the Flora and Fauna range. And now we have to learn how to say Auchroisk; it’s aw-thrusk. Don’t believe any of the non-Doric speakers telling you it’s Orth-rusk. That might be how it sounds to you if you have a silver spoon up your bottom, but it’s wrong. To be honest, even if you get the the pronunciation wrong, you’ll easily be understood should you be lucky enough to see this in a bar.

The Singleton range wasn’t fully retired. By 2006 it was used again for three distilleries – Glen Ord (marketed heavily in Asia), Glendullan (marketed in US and Canada) and Dufftown (marketed in Europe). These are termed ‘recruitment’ malts which get people lured into buying Diageo’s more premium produce such as Mortlach. To be honest, it can’t be used for linguistic simplicity as if you can’t pronounce these three distilleries then perhaps you are either not old enough to drink or maybe whisky isn’t for you. Certainly don’t try ordering a Bunnahabhain; only on grounds of the tongue twisting challenge you’d face. Stick to Bells, it will be directly on your level.

As you may all know by now, I’ve got a wee bit of a fondness for the Flora and Fauna whiskies, but will the older one be better? I’ve not got a full size Auchroisk open at the moment, so will have to use a mini from Drinks By The Dram, along with a miniature which obtained in a multiple bottle auction lot. The older whisky was distilled in 1983 and bottled in 1993, making it 10 years old. It’s time to see how they compare.

Singleton of Auchroisk 1983

Region – Speyside Age – Vintage but believed to be 10 y.o Strength – 40% Colour – Amontillado Sherry (0.9) Cask Type – States Sherry on label Colouring – Not known but likely Chill Filtered – Yes Nose – Honey, raisin, green apples, smells quite creamy and oily, vanilla, pipe tobacco Palate -A good balanced oak spice, peppery, ginger, nutmeg, honey, green orchard fruit, a note of hay. There is a cardboard note that I am assuming is the seal but does not linger if the spirit is held on the tongue. Finish – medium long. Oak spices slowly dissipate leaving honey and pepper to linger on the tongue. Custard and wet brown paper with a slight hint of sulphur. 2ml of water increases the fruitiness on the palate and almost killed the cardboard note. Got a taste that reminded me of coconut on my second dram.

Singleton of Auchroisk 1983

Auchroisk 10 year old Flora And Fauna

Region – Speyside Age – 10 y.o Strength – 43% Colour – Jonquripe Corn (0.4) Cask Type – Colouring – Yes Chill Filtered – Yes Nose – Subtle honey, vanilla, pears in custard, hint of barley and lemon. Palate – Quite citrusy arrival with a bitter taste, leading into peppery oak and green apple peel. Caramel sweets – Werther’s Originals Finish Short. Burst of peppery spices with a bitter lemon chaser. Herbal. 2ml of water definitely smoothed this whisky out. Strangely it lengthens the finish but didn’t really alter much of the taste profile. Perhaps a bit more caramel in the palate.

Auchroisk 10 Flora and Fauna

Conclusions

It became quickly apparent that these whiskies had only 2 things in common – the place of their birth and their age. The earlier whisky has been finished in Sherry casks, though I have a doubt that it was a full maturation. The 10 year old seems to have a bourbon only profile. I have a source that has told me that Singleton is possibly ony

These whiskies were the only official bottling from this distillery. Its 2001 appearance along with three other Speysiders (Glen Elgin, Glen Spey and Strathmill, in the Flora and Fauna series seems to be a way of adding to the range as other distilleries were closed (Pittyvaich and Rosebank) or sold (Aberfeldy, Aultmore, Balmenach, Bladnoch, Craigellachie, Royal Brackla, Speyburn). The standard Flora and Fauna range is bottled at 43% so this is a positive move to step up from the Singletons basic 40%.

The other noticeable difference was the colour of the spirit. Both drams I suspect are not natural colour, the older one being darker but this had come from a Sherry cask, so it may be expected to have a different shade. Can’t help but think it has a bit of assistance in its colour like Trump. This sample was coincidentally drunk on the day Trump lost his day job to an older man. Fancy that.

Older dram on the left. Flora and Fauna on right.

Despite only a 3% increase in abv, the dram did seem a lot brighter, sharper. There was a similar warmth in both drams nose but the sherry notes didn’t come out in the older bottle until I was on the second dram. The older bottle also seemed to have been suffering a bit from old bottle effect, as the cardboard note reminded me of the seal. However this seal was tight and in good condition, so I don’t know.

Here is where it gets hard. I prefer sherried whisky to bourbon only maturation, so to pick a winner between these two is not easy. I preferred the nose and palate on the older dram, yet the newer dram was more punchier, had a bit more bite, and responded to water a bit better.

Going to have to put this one down to being an inconclusive result. If you get either dram, both will give you the same levels of enjoyment, it just depends on your tastes.

Yours In Spirits

Scotty

Index of tastings here

Index of articles here

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Photo Credits

All Photos – Authors Own