04/04/2025 Caperdonich

For the geeks, we will have something from a distillery that can no longer be found. Two things from the same distillery, distilled a year apart, bottled twenty-nine years apart.

Caperdonich 11yo d.1968 (70° Proof, Gordon & MacPhail Connoisseur's Choice): nose: a wicker basket full of fragrant orchard fruits. Quince, pear, apple, peach and apricot (suggesting it is not strictly a Scottish orchard) veer towards caramelised apple, compotes and turnovers of various kinds. Closing one's eyes, one could easily picture that basket in a cellar lined with metal shelves, and a coal bucket made of galvanised steel -- devoid of coal, but rightly sooty. That metal grows bolder, flirts with lichen at times, yet never eclipses the glorious orchard fruits. It has a little whiff of a dusty warehouse, in the long run. The second nose seems dustier yet, with Golden Delicious apples that have sat on the worktop for days, if not weeks. Suddenly, that is elevated by a timid explosion of chilled pinecone sap. Ha! Swiftly, we go back to apples, now coated in nail varnish. Much later on, we spot a hint of Virginia tobacco as well. Mouth: less fruity upon entrance, it has an unsuspected lively character, with cassia bark and ginger shavings throwing a (not-too-rowdy) party on one's tongue. Soon, the orchard fruits return, sit down and have a chat: apples, quinces, nectarines, a mere pinch of crushed dry mint. Chewing unearths polished oak, which adds a slight bitterness. All in all, it is elegant, composed, and one would struggle to find a current eleven-year-old that presents this sort of profile. The second sip welcomes hot metal as the endoskeleton of a wood girder. Bitterness controlled. Finish: to the orchard fruits, which, by the way, are now clearly presented as a compote whose surface is golden from the caramelisation process, the finish adds a teaspoon of chocolate. The reduction is clearer here, and probably helps the fruits shine brighter than the wood spices (ginger powder, cassia bark, ground sumac), yet one would have to be grumpy (or French) to complain about the ABV. Repeated quaffing makes one forget the reduction entirely anyway. That is helped by the awakening of hot metal -- old cast-iron radiators covered in dust and fruit juice. 9/10 (Thanks for the dram, JS)

Caperdonich 39yo 1969/2008 (42.2%, Lonach, Oak Casks): nose: this is more fragrant, more powerful, more precise, and also woodier. Oh! it is no woody oldie; it has some spices is all. Ginger powder, ground mace, a few grains of asafoetida. But behind that, it is just as fruity as its sibling, with Mirabelle plums and berries of the straw- and rasp- varieties. It turns a corner to deliver shaving foam and a pine-flavoured paste (softer than Gocce Pino, mind). A bit of time and breathing gives pineapple bark and, perhaps, a type of watercolour. It has citrus peels too, dried then crushed, before coming back to a fragrant paste that somehow makes me think of chewing gum. And, believe it or not, that gum impression grows and grows, leaving no doubt whatsoever: it is, indeed, strawberry chewing gum with just a touch of cinnamon. The second nose brings oily white wood (acacia?) to gently counter the chewing gum, which has the effect of turning the strawberry into the filling of an-otherwise somewhat-uninspiring pastry -- one that has been kept at room temperature for too long and has become soft, if not flabby. The sort that no-one wants at the end of a breakfast shift in a hotel not primarily reputed for its in-house baking. Mouth: milky in texture, it soon adds wood spices -- namely cinnamon, ground mace, perhaps mango powder, with a lot of imagination. The most-modest chewing unleashes a torrent of smashed strawberries, not on toast, but on fresh bread that has been subsequently roasted lightly, with the fruits already in place. It feels fresh (some may detect mint) and considerably more powerful than the younger expression, despite the marginal difference in ABV. Natural 40% really is not the same as reduced 40%, eh? The second sip delivers warm fruit jam, strawberry, most likely. Some has leaked onto the oilcloth tablecloth in the sunlit conservatory. This also has rustic wooden chairs and a warm mug of an infusion or another. Very breakfast-y. Finish: here, fruits mostly take a back seat to let wood spices do the talking. We see stem ginger, mace (whole, this time) and a cinnamon cream dance energetically, while Mirabelle plums and nectarines catch up in the back, not completely out of sight. Long finish, balanced and, honestly, rather moreish, it leaves the mouth stimulated, wanting for a drop of fruit juice -- preferably strawberry (or more Caperdonich, please and thank you). The second gulp pushes oilcloth and wooden (birch) furniture forward for a second, then we go back to wood spices and orchard fruits. The latter slowly but surely reclaims the upper hand; apricot, white peach, Mirabelle plum and Golden Delicious apple, with just a slice of quince. 9/10 (Thanks for the dram, JS)

Capital-donich whiskies!

31/03/2025 Longrow

Longrow 16yo 2001/2018 (56%, Cadenhead Warehouse Tasting, Chardonnay Cask Finish): souvenir from a couple of months ago. Nose: at once sweet and smoky, it brings one back to a 1980s arcade, with a mix of lingering tobacco smoke and cotton candy. If I remember well, some of those arcade machines had an ashtray built into the control panel. It seems like a wildly-mad idea, in hindsight. Anyway, that morphs into breezy margaritas and smoked jelly beans, candy necklaces and scorched earth, crusted mud and sherbet. It has something of a seaside kitchen too, if that makes sense: I am made to think of uncut sponges, fluffy and soft, then ink and crayon shavings. Lastly, dried strawberry slices rise, gently smoked, and introduce ancient smoke-dried pine cones. The second nose feels softer and fruitier, ripe with Fruit-tella or Tubblegum, with the smoke clearly taking a back seat, now. Yes, the sweets become chewier (not quite Gummibärchen) and closer to plasticine, yet they are not too-obviously chemical. In fact, we spot a nice clafoutis, a some stage -- a clafoutis with a caramelised crusty top. Mouth: big, fruity and smoky, the palate has a hodge-podge of sea water, dried banana slices, smashed plantain, smoky custard, cassia bark, limestone, and eucalyptus or laurel leaves. It is a tad bitter indeed, with a mineral side that competes with the smoke. At the same time, it remains fruity and, actually, gains in fruitiness upon chewing: green grapes, calamansi. The second sip is surprisingly sweet, full-on caramel and smoked-apple compote. It is chewy in a caramelised-pastry way. Smoked blueberries emerge, as does weathered chicken wire mesh. Finish: without surprise, it is a bold finish too, with some cinnamon, lemon bark, preserved lemons cut on a limestone plate, and a generous whiff of smoke via retro-nasal olfaction. It is a scorched-earth type of smoke. The whole mouth if left as if one had just swallowed smoke-dried grapefruit peels coated in quarry dust. Without turning chalky, it certainly is bitter and gritty. The second gulp welcomes orange juice spilled on scorched earth, and it is only careful analysis of the retro-nasal olfaction that reveals quarry chippings and smoke from an industrial fire, acrid -- so acrid, in fact, that it may be a burning heap of citrus peels that creates that smoke. At the same time, it manages to hold a creamy mouthfeel. This is good. 8/10 (Thanks for the sample, BA)

28/03/2025 Mystery sample #7

Last in the series, although one more is coming soon.

Nose: this must be a wine cask! It smells of red wine, cork, and a wooden winepress. It is fairly elegant, a lightish Bordelais Claret, but wine all the same. Deeper nosing brings forth some manner of vegetable -- steam-baked red onions and stewed red kidney beans, -- before fleeting crayons and empty saffron capsules enter the scene. A little later on, dried, crackled oilcloth comes under the spotlight to introduce earthier notes of potting soil and tagetes or gerania in a planter. The second nose welcomes citrus, orange in colour (oranges, clementines, tangerines), many of them soaked in red wine. Some pastry is also at play, here, hard to identify. Blueberry muffins dipped in red wine? Let us go with that. Mouth: very wine-y in texture, this is a tannic number, fruity, but drying. Chewing unleashes a bucket of plums intertwined with dark earth. One could call it rancio, probably, and marvel at the dunnage-warehouse quality of it. Tannic and spicy, it is, though, with sumac, ground cloves, and just a pinch of ground cinnamon. The second sip is juicier, more focussed on (blush-)orange segments, Shaddock pomelo, and hardly-ripe mandarines, bitter and acidic in equal measures. When chewing, one notices the wine influence again, almost minty, so woody and tannic it is. Finish: big and wine-y in the finish too, it has plenty of fruits in various forms (lingonberry compote leads the dance, dark grapes in its wake), counteracted by at least as much tannin. It is as if someone had rolled all the fruits in ground sumac. Fortunately, the lingering note is one of bitter-blush-orange marmalade augmented with a more-approachable pinch of ground cloves. Towards the death, we perceive a kick of wine-cured cantaloupe skin. Unusual. The wine influence is a bit much for me, in this one.

Old Perth 12yo (46%, Morrison Scotch Whisky Distillers Aged Collection, Sherry Casks, b. ca. 2025) 6/10 (Thanks for the sample, Whisky-Online)