We go back to the same room and it is a full house again. Sukhinder says a few words of introduction and passes the microphone to our host, today, Andrew Symington (AS), whom I have not seen in fourteen years. Not that we are best buddies or anything. He simply does not appear at theses events very often any longer. "The Hermit from Pittlochry, they call me," he says.
Two minutes in, I am thankful he does not do this often, as he is exhausting, peppering his talk with side-splitting anecdotes and comments that have the room in stitches every ten seconds. DW says he is looking forward to my notes and hopes I am capturing all that, but I simply cannot keep up. Sometimes I also do not want to, to avoid fueling potential feuds. Selected pieces intertwined with the drams.
Mosstowie 45yo 1973/2018 (51.6%, Signatory Vintage 30th Anniversary, Refill Amontillado Sherry Butt, C#7622, 410b, b#409): Symington explains he bought those casks from Pernod Ricard along with the Edradour distillery in 2002. He was always on the lookout for weird names on casks when inventorying stock, much to the disbelief of others, who did not see what to make of things such as Glencraig, Craigduff, Glenisla and in this case, Mosstowie. Nose: lemon drizzle, custard and omnipresent lemon curd. Rarely have I smelled something as lemon-y. Mouth: very acidic, it has more lemon, lime juice, lemonade (RG) and lemon curd. Finish: softer and sweeter, still acidic, but more mellow than the nose and palate suggested, it has custard and curd. Not the most complex, really -- you can tell from the notes it plays mainly one note. However, that note, it plays extremely well. 9/10
AS: "'We carefully hand-selected the most outstanding cask from the best warehouse to give you...' The idea that distillers would give a pair of nuggets unrestricted access to their warehouses... That hasn't happened for at least twenty years! I hope no-one in this room writes that kind of stuff. It is a nice story, but it just doesn't happen that way." [
paraphrasing parts, which I failed to write down in full]
AS: "The older you get, the less you hold back. I hope you are free until midnight, because I have a lot of things to get off my chest."
AS: "There is obviously no sulphur in this, unless you're Jim Murray. Who sadly just texted me that he couldn't be here today."
Glenlossie 33yo 1984/2018 (56.7%, Signatory Vintage 30th Anniversary, Refill Oloroso Sherry Butt, C#2533, 530b, b#529): nose: rancio and lovely, old, musty warehouse, old, musty cork, blood oranges. Mouth: fantastic dunnage-warehouse feel across the palate and rancio. It is simply a perfectly-balanced, sherry-matured whisky on the palate, with a bit of galangal heat. Finish: dark fruit, very noble, with damp staves, dunnage warehouse. Cracking dram. I find it quite close in style and quality to the Sherry Cask from 1957 that Cadenhead bottled in 1979. 9/10
AS: "It is not cheap. We leave that to the others. Such as the ones downstairs, who are 'carefully hand-selecting their casks'."
AS (about the times he was looking to buy a distillery): "Glencadam distillery, in Brechin. Brechin wasn't on the tourist route. In fact, they built a bypass around Brechin. And when I went, I understood why they did."
Symington spills the beans and tells us this next one is the last cask of Craigduff he had. He also confirms he bottled
his last cask of Glenisla in 2017, for the wedding of a friend's daughter, who was born in 1977; the only 1977 cask he had was that Glenisla, and he was persuaded to bottle it for the occasion. On the other hand,
the last cask of Glenisla went to Llammerlaw, in New Zealand, which Pernod owned -- they also own Chivas Brothers, who own Glen Keith, where Glenisla was made. We are told once and for all that
both Craigduff and Glenisla were made at Glen Keith,
not Strathisla, despite earlier claims, based on incorrect paperwork. For the forgetful reader, both are experimental, peated malts made for a very, very short time, possibly just a year or less each. Only Signatory has ever bottled Craigduff 1973 and Glenisla 1977. Craigduff malt was 30ppm, while Glenisla was 15ppm. Andrew also tells us neither was cut with peated water, despite earlier claims. Both were distilled out of peated malt. Anyway, the whisky.
Craigduff 45yo 1973/2018 (45.4%, Signatory Vintage 30th Anniversary, Refill Sherry Butt, C#2518, 575b, b#574): nose: deep chocolate, toasted bread, toasted barley and lichen on stave. Mouth: chocolate and cherry liqueur. The fruit is really beautiful. Finish: big and chocolate-y, with much dark-cherry coulis on top of Black Forest gâteau (not yesterday's subterfuge from the Brasserie). I absolutely love this. 9/10
AS (about his co-worker on the SV stall): "Des worked for Diageo, closing distilleries. He was responsible for closing Rosebank... There are guns by the door, if you want to track him down and have a word with him."
North Port 36yo 1981/2018 (57.2%, Signatory Vintage 30th Anniversary, Refill Sherry Butt, C#1708, 537b, b#536): nose: very dry leather, hay, straw, horse gear, dried moss and hay-based sludge. Mouth: dry, bone dry, almost ashy, immensely lichen-y and not easy at all. My kind of whisky; one needs to tame it. Finish: heat and dryness, it has hay, dust, warm hearths and a touch of soft fruit in the distance. Beautiful. 9/10
AS: "These deals are not done yearly. Last time we did a deal with Diageo was two years ago. They don't need any money, now. But I've
got some! Take it!"
AMcR: "See if they'll take [dream-dram] tokens!"
AS: "Glenlivet. We have eighteen more butts of the stuff. They have made it clear they would like it back. We made it clear we don't need the money. They thought we were some kind of charity and would give the casks away for free."
Highland Park 27yo 1991/2018 (52%, Signatory Vintage 30th Anniversary, Oloroso Sherry Butt, C#15086, 545b, b#544): Signatory bought this cask from Nikka. Nose: thick nose, with heavy leather, horse saddles, belts, shoe polish and coffee beans. Mouth: again, very thick, coating, full of shoe polish and leather. It is a little drying, with coffee grounds. Finish: huge, it has cola, leather, coffee, cocoa beans, scorched earth. This is nice in a way (provided one likes heavy sherry maturation), but it does not allow much distillery character to come out. 7/10
AS: "Very few people have ever seen my office, because there's stuff everywhere and you can't get in."
AS: "Jim [Murray] and I go back a long way. We decided twenty years ago not to like each other."
Port Ellen 35yo 1982/2018 (55.1%, Signatory Vintage 30th Anniversary, Refill Sherry Butt, C#2040, 567b, b#567): nose: much less sweet than the other two we had today, this one is very ashy, with also roasted barley, burnt hay, scorched earth, engine rooms and diesel fumes. Mouth: milky, hay-like, with heat, embers, scorched earth and diesel fumes. Finish: hot, it has embers and burnt hay again. It lacks the 1983s' sweetness for me, and there is not much of the coastal character. It remains a good whisky, simply not my favourite. I quote the Swissky, even: "jape." Just another Port Ellen. 8/10
AMcR: "There's a lot of Port Ellen from those years that are still at a high strength. Has anyone thought of keeping it to forty or fifty? I imagine it could be highly valuable."
AS: "Angus, that's a great idea, thank you."
AMcR: "You bottled the first thirty-year-old Port Ellen. You had three 1974 casks. Where did those casks come from? Because they were actually quite special."
People at my table are starting to be annoyed by AMcR's questions. So am I.
I ask AS my questions in private: he has no more Dunglass and he has a few favourite, iconic whiskies from his career as a bottler, but he never really pinpoints them. Ah, well. Great fun, this masterclass. And top whiskies too.
Balvenie-Glenlivet 12yo 1979/1992 (59.5%, Cadenhead Authentic Collection 150th Anniversary Bottling): nose: an odd combination of burning alcohol and gentle flowers. It has turpentine, ashes and embers, fierce vinegar, yet also dandelions and forsythia. Breathing for the past year or so has done it a lot of good, and it is now more explosive, in terms of aromas. Putty and plasticine, disgorged white-wine casks, oilskins, and even a hospital smell -- not disinfectant, rather a cleaning agent used to clean hospital floors. It also has new rubber, warm bakelite, walnut stain and flesh and bung cloth. Letting is sit in the glass for a while allows more solvents to come through (mostly turpentine), and also diesel fumes. Even thirty minutes in, the alcohol remains very bold. Burnt paper, butter, slowly melting in its paper wrapping on the warm kitchen top. With water, the white-wine-cask impression becomes even more prominent, then it is the floral side that emerges and shines. Later yet, the nose gives ink-gorged blotting paper. Mouth: biting, acidic, it soon settles and becomes very flowery; buttercups, daisies, dandelions, pollen, ozone, maybe a drop of honey, gorse, thistles... quintessentially Scottish, eh? :-) Ginger (also Scottish). With water, it is destroyed. Sunk. Drowned. It is now merely watery and has lost all its charm. Finish: well, the heat is there, but is comforting, rather than aggressive, with flowers again (buttercups and daisies) and a certain sweetness (sugar-powdered doughnuts and white chocolate). It still has that odd note of dandelion-stem sap, which I am not too fond of, but the whole is pleasant indeed. The ginger has pretty much disappeared, replaced with ivy leaves (do not try them at home, kids! Poisonous!) The finish leaves the mouth anaesthetised. With water, the heat is but a memory, now. The flowers are there, more discreet, the mouth is less numb, but the flavours are toned down beyond recognition. Not a good swimmer, this one! 7/10
