Category Archives: Mortlach

Mortlach 15, 1995 (Chieftain’s)

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Chieftain's Mortlach

Mortlach has been in the news a lot this year with the launch of their hyper-expensive new line. Prices of indie casks from the distillery seem to also have gone up a little as a result. It will be interesting to see if things remain that way in the long run. Diageo may want to protect the new profile of their brand by making fewer casks available to the indies but if production is also going up (a big if) then more casks will become available anyway.

At any rate, this is not a recent release. It was released in 2011 by Ian Macleod’s Chieftain’s Choice label. This label used to be quite ubiquitous in the United States once upon a time, but I haven’t noticed too many new releases—not that that means very much given my general level of obliviousness and my disinterest in reading press releases and marketing materials. This was a bottle I thought hard about when it was first released but after tasting it at a Minneapolis store decided against it. I did love an older Mortlach bottled by Chieftain’s for K&L and so always wondered if I’d given unfair short shrift to this one. And so I’m very glad to be able to review it again from a large’ish sample.

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Mortlach 18, 1991 (Signatory)

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MortlachMonths go by without a single Mortlach review and then three come at once. I mentioned this Signatory bottling in my post/comments on the Chieftain’s K&L exclusive Mortlach and then remembered that I had saved a 6 oz reference sample. The bottle it was taken from was opened almost three years ago, but the sample was from early in the life of the bottle and today was the first time I poured from it. This was a Binny’s exclusive some years ago.

Binny’s also put out annual exclusive releases; usually from Signatory and Gordon & Macphail, and usually with a lot less fanfare than K&L–though to be fair, Binny’s are far more established and perhaps don’t need to make as much noise. Still, whatever the reason, I can’t say I don’t appreciate their more laid back manner. I will say though that of late K&L’s selections are far more interesting than Binny’s.

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Mortlach 22, 1990 (Chieftain’s)

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Mortlach
This Mortlach is a K&L exclusive selection via Chieftain’s. With characteristic understatement they inform that this is the best Mortlach they’ve ever found or ever will find again (every exclusive sold at K&L seems to be in that range); alas, with similarly characteristic lack of attention to detail they also say that the majority of Mortlach sold in the US by independent bottlers is from bourbon casks. Well, while there do seem to be a few recent releases from bourbon hogsheads and barrels of late, I can think of three sherried selections from Signatory and G&M for Binny’s alone in the last few years, and the somewhat dangerous 15 yo from G&M that’s the most ubiquitous Mortlach in the US is also sherried. In other words, sherried Mortlachs are not such unknowns in the US. Once again, accuracy loses to enthusiasm in K&L’s marketing.

But is this Mortlach better than all of those? Let’s see. Continue reading →

Mortlach 16, “Flora & Fauna”

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MortlachI am looking forward to reviewing a K&L exclusive 22 yo Mortlach from Chieftain’s tomorrow (well, later tonight, but it will be posted tomorrow) and thought that to calibrate I’d pour myself some of the only other Mortlach I have open, the beloved 16 yo from the “Flora & Fauna” series.

Mortlach, a Speyside distillery, produces a lot of malt for Diageo’s blends. This is the only official bottling available regularly as a single malt. Their spirit is partially triple-distilled (as at Springbank, though Mortlach apparently has a particularly odd configuration of stills) and they are also one of not very many distilleries left in Scotland that uses wooden worm tubs to condense the distilled spirit. The reduced copper contact results in less removal of sulphur compounds than at most distilleries and this in turn results in a meatier, more savoury spirit. I’ve had a number of intense single cask releases of Mortlach from the independents but there’s something about this gentler, simpler 16 yo that I really like.
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