Alright, after an unplanned three week hiatus—caused by my falling ill after coming back from Delhi earlier this month—let’s get the weekly booze reviews back on track. I’m still sticking to my plan of only reviewing my own bottles, which means no more than four reviews a month (as the goal of this plan is to drink down my collection and not to proliferate the number of open bottles on my shelf.
Most recently opened is this 13 yo from an undisclosed Orkney distillery, put together in 2020 from three sherry casks containing spirit distilled in 2007. Well, in reality everyone knows the distillery is Highland Park. The bottler is The Single Malts of Scotland, whose relationship to the Whisky Exchange is something I can never keep straight in my head. It’s possible that they’re now completely different entities. I purchased this bottle from Whiskybase in early 2021 for what was a reasonable price for a 13 yo sherry cask malt: €58. I’m sure anything similar would now cost quite a bit more. Ah well. I opened this bottle a week or so ago; time to finally take some notes.
Orkney Distillery 13, 2007 (48%; Single malts of Scotland; three sherry casks; from my own bottle)
Nose: Rich, nutty (but not salty) sherry off the top with toffee, brown sugar and cola concentrate mixed in as well. As it sits there’s a hint of apricot jam and some very dry tangerine peel. A few drops of water and the citrus peel expands (and becomes a bit sweeter).
Palate: Comes in sweeter on the palate and with more tannic grip. The oak makes the strength feel higher than it is; decent texture. The salt emerges here on the second sip along with some savoury notes (dried mushrooms, concentrated beef stock). With more time the oak eases and the savoury notes expand. Sweeter here too with water.
Finish: Medium-long. The salt expands here along with the dried tangerine peel. As on the palate with time and water.
Notes: When first opened this tasted more than a little sickly sweet and I wasn’t a huge fan. I’m very pleased to see that drier, more savoury notes have now come out on top. Interested to see if some more fruit emerges with more air and time in the open bottle.
Rating: 86 points.
Elixir Distillers, who bottle the SMoS whiskies, are now an entirely separate entity – their owner (our old bosses, the Singh brothers) sold The Whisky Exchange to Pernod Ricard a few years back, but kept the bottling side of the company. TWE is now just yet another stockist of their tasty whiskies…even if their warehouse is about 10 minutes walk down the road from our office.
I expect that by the time I end this blog I’ll finally get that straight. Oh, who am I kidding?
FYI, you are right. Sukinder Singh sold the Whisky Exchange to Pernod Ricard and kept the Single Malts of Scotland.
FYI, Signatory started putting out a range called 100 proof (imperial proof which equals 57.1 ABV) a couple years ago. Actually with this range a person can buy a 13 year old “Orkney” (and a lot of other good malts) for about that same price point.
Ha, when I said “you are right” I was replying to you, the author of the blog, not knowing Billy Abbott had already replied. Pretty sure Billy Abbott knows more about this subject than I do!
Not my fault that Billy commented at 4:35 am my time. Inconsiderate as usual.
Thanks—I’m very out of touch with the whisky industry and so am not up on new ranges from the indies etc.. Do you know if that Signatory line is available in the US as well?