Category Archives: Old Pulteney

Old Pulteney 16, 2002

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I forgot to say on Monday that this week’s theme is bourbon cask whisky. The week kicked off with a 9 yo Linkwood. Here now is a 16 yo Old Pulteney. I have not reviewed very many Pulteneys on the blog: a total of eight over the last eight and a half years and the last was more than two years ago. After my visit to the distiller in 2018—as I said, one of the very best distillery tours I’ve been on—I’d hoped to try more of the distillery’s whisky. But it’s not one that’s widely available from the indies and certainly not in the US. Like the 14 yo I reviewed in 2019, this is an official single cask release. This one was released in the Japanese market. Let’s see what it’s like.

Old Pulteney 16, 2002 (54.2%; cask 722; from a bottle split)

Nose: Very salty off the top with wet wool and vegetal notes below (boiled and mashed turnips). On the second sniff there’s some mineral oil. With time some fruitier notes emerge (lime peel, gooseberry and then much later some sweeter stone fruit). With a few drops of water the sweeter fruit is emphasized and the wet wool turns into a cereal note. Continue reading →

Old Pulteney 14, 2004

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Let’s stay in the northern highlands of Scotland and go a little further up, well all the way up the coast to Wick to Pulteney. This is, of course, the itinerary we covered in the June of 2018 on our way from Dornoch to Orkney. We stopped briefly at Clynelish and then longer at Pulteney where I took the surprisingly excellent tour. “Surprisingly excellent” not because I had any reason to think it wouldn’t be good but because Pulteney rarely seems to come up when people talk about distillery tours in Scotland. Anyway, I recommend a tour of Pulteney highly, though I’m not sure there’s much else to recommend Wick to someone on a short visit to Scotland.

This particular release was a single cask, filled in 2004 and bottled in 2018: cask 197, a bourbon barrel. Which, I guess, after Monday’s Clynelish 23, means both that we’re staying in the northern highlands and staying with bourbon casks. Continue reading →

Pulteney, Properly

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Our day began in Dornoch. We’d spent the night at the Dornoch Castle Hotel. In the morning I’d enjoyed a micro-tour of their micro-distillery (report coming soon) and after checking out we spent an enjoyable hour or so at the small but charming Dornoch Historylinks Museum located right behind the hotel (I recommend it highly if you visit Dornoch, especially with kids). We then headed north. Our final destination for the day was Orkney but our ferry wasn’t till the evening. We were taking the NorthLink ferry from Scrabster to Stromness. They sail three times a day and there was no way on earth we were ever going to make it to the 8.45 am departure. The next departure is at 1.15 pm, which would mean we’d need to check in by 12. That too would have meant a hurried departure from Dornoch plus rushed lunch along the way. So we decided to take the evening ferry at 7 pm. This meant we could have a leisurely day along the coast and it also allowed for some distillery stops. The first stop was at Clynelish and the second was at Pulteney in Wick.  Continue reading →

Old Pulteney Clipper Commemorative

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I’ve not reviewed very many Pulteneys. This is largely because there aren’t generally very many Pulteneys to be had from the independents (my last two reviews were of indie releases, however: here and here). The official lineup used to be small too but in recent years, like so many other distilleries, they’ve amped up the NAS engine and put out a number of high concept releases—though, to be fair, they’ve also done some (expensive) vintage releases. In the case of Pulteney the high concept often has to do with sailing. They’ve had a number of boat-themed releases in the last few years, though, thankfully, none of them involve maturation on boats (not yet anyway). I’ve previously reviewed one of these, the WK 217 Spectrum. This one is also boat-themed: it was released in 2014 to commemorate an around-the-world boat race. It’s put together from ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. Let’s see what it’s like.  Continue reading →

Old Pulteney 9, 2006 (Malts of Scotland)

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A few hours after this review gets posted I will be driving north from Glasgow into the Highlands. I will not be going as far as Wick (where Pulteney is located), only to the Drumnadrochit area. Still, it feels appropriate to post a review of a northern Highland malt while I’m in the general vicinity. And so here’s a young Old Pulteney. This is unusual in several respects. First, that it’s an independent bottling of Pulteney. Second, that despite being an independent bottling it bears the Old Pulteney name—the distillery’s name is Pulteney; “Old Pulteney” is more like a brand name. Third, it’s from a sherry cask. It’s not that no sherry casks are used in formulating the malts in Pulteney’s regular lineup but it’s not a distillery you think of when you think of sherry bombs. And this is very much a sherry bomb. It’s also very much an alcohol bomb, at almost 60% abv. And it’s a brash youngster too. I can also tell you right off the bat that it’s a lot better than the Cadenhead’s 11 yo I recently reviewed, which was also from 2006. Continue reading →

Pulteney 11, 2006 (Cadenhead’s)

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I purchased this Pulteney from Cadenhead’s in Marylebone on my visit a couple of weeks ago. They sell a range of minis of their various bottlings, and as they don’t seem to be set up to let customers taste bottles they’re interested in it’s the only way to try before you buy. In theory, at least: in practice, right now they only have a mini of one bottle that is actually still in stock and this Pulteney is not it (it’s a 12 yo Balmenach, if you want to know). Still, the price was less than that of a pour in most bars and so I decided to buy it (and a few others) anyway. There aren’t that many opportunities to taste indie Pulteney out there and I did like an even younger one Cadenhead’s bottled a long while ago (this 8 yo, distilled in 1990). And as I also have a review lined up of another young indie Pulteney (from a sherry cask), I thought I’d put this review of a bourbon cask up first and make it seem like I had a master plan.  Continue reading →

Old Pulteney 17

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Old Pulteney 17
I’ve barely reviewed any Pulteney on the blog, and none from the core age-stated, official range—though I did include the 12 yo in my “well-rounded single malt bar“. Here now is the 17 yo. I believe this is from a bottling from 2012 or so and is a vatting of both bourbon and sherry casks.

Pulteney is in the Northern Highlands—way up in the north of Scotland. Its closest neighbour on the mainland is Clynelish, I believe, and the two Orkney distilleries may be even closer. In terms of profile I usually find it to be close to Balblair (also in the Northern Highlands) and Clynelish—which may say something after all for the notion of regional profiles, which I’m usually suspicious of. Pulteney is the name of the distillery, by the way—Old Pulteney is the name of the whisky produced by the distillery. I believe it used to be the case that independents couldn’t use the “Old Pulteney” name—certainly the case for the older Scott’s Selection and Cadenhead’s bottles I’ve reviewed—but of late I’ve been seeing it on indie labels as well.  Continue reading →

Pulteney 8, 1990 (Cadenhead’s)

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Pulteney 8, 1990, Cadenheads
I think this review has been long promised/threatened. It’s a good thing I didn’t get around to it when I first said I would because this is one of those whiskies that went from being blah when first opened to being quite pleasant after it had sat with some in the air in the bottle for a few weeks/months. The very high strength doubtless had something to do with that. Anyway, this is somewhat unusual because it’s an independent Old Pulteney: you don’t see too many of those around (I believe the distillery requires that the indies drop the “Old” from their labels). And this bottle itself is not a recent release. It’s from a Cadenhead’s series from before they left the US market (only to come back again a couple of years ago). A number of the whiskies released in this series in the mid-late 1990s can still be found here and there: the prices and quality are variable but, as I said, you don’t see too many indie Pulteneys around.   Continue reading →

Pulteney 1977-2005 (Scott’s Selection)

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Pulteney, 1977This is the third in my recent consortial purchase of Scott’s Selection bottles, and at 27-28 years old is, by far, the oldest Pulteney I’ve ever had. I’m excited. These notes will also be published simultaneously with Michael Kravitz’s at Diving for Pearls. I’m curious to see how much variance or intersection there will be in our notes. [And here is the link to Michael’s review.]

Pulteney 1977-2005 (56.9%; Scott’s Selection; from a bottle split with friends)

Nose: Pine and rye and some other sweet herbal, rooty notes. Some wood below that and also the brine I associate with the distillery. The wood gets stronger with time, but not offensively so. A few minutes later though the wood recedes and the herbal/rooty notes are gone; in their place is a very rich fruitiness: plums, hints of lime, brandied raisins. Wholly unexpected but very nice. The wood comes back but it’s toasted now and smeared with honey; some vanilla accompanies it. With a few drops of water the toasted wood and vanilla expand, and there might be some butterscotch too now; after a minute the lime and honey get much more pronounced as well. Continue reading →

Old Pulteney WK 217, Spectrum

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Old Pulteney WK 217This was the third in Old Pulteney’s WK series, each named for fishing boats associated with the port town of Wick that is home to the distillery. I have previously finished a bottle of the cask strength WK 499, Isabella Fortuna, which I rather liked (I think I may have a reference sample saved). Later editions of the WK 499 and also the second release, the Wk 209, Good Hope were not at cask strength and nor is this edition, the WK 217 Spectrum. As per the tin this is entirely from sherry butts, but from a combination of Spanish and American oak. (As I noted here, I’ve only recently learned that butts used for maturing sherry in Spain are typically made from American oak while European oak casks are used primarily for shipping; I have to quit my knee-jerk equation of American oak casks with ex-bourbon casks.) This makes it quite different from the Old Pulteney 12, which is the most ubiquitous of the distillery’s releases in the US, and which I rather like and also from the WK 499, which I recall as being quintessentially ex-bourbon in character.  Continue reading →