Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Malt Mission 2007 #22

Old
Old Pulteney 12yo
Single Malt Scotch Whisky
40% abv
£23
$60.95(CAD)
$35

The most northerly mainland distillery is Pulteney distillery in Wick(Pulteneytown). Originally a prosperous fishing village (the largest herring port in Europe), Wick had a community drinking problem and introduced prohibition of alcohol for 25 years from
1922-47.

Closed between 1921 and 1951, the distillery was bought by Hiram Walker in 1955 and sold to its current owners, Inver House Distillers, in 1995.

The wash still is of unusual shape and was originally used in a distillery in Campbelltown. It has a large bulge (that the bottle shape emulates) and a short truncated neck because the swan neck was too tall for its new home at Pulteney so they had to cut it off to get the still into the still house.


TASTING NOTES:

Lovely and light creaminess, freshly churned butter, shortbread, some exotic fruit. Black licorice,
toffee, vanilla roobios tea. Confident, firm, and very appetising.

Great weight in the mouth, like humid warm wind on a cold day. Sea air.
Creaminess in the taste, like Cool Whip, celery, peaches, flan, crumble crust. Finishes with drying oak and dehydrated dates, or some other dried fruit.

SUMMARY:

My Hero. So understated. So delicious. So far north. So cheap.
Great value for everyone and great entry malt for first time whisky drinkers. Very pleasant and warming. Complex and satisfying. I want more. This is a bottle that gets consumed and replaced often on our shelf becuase it goes down well in any mood. Won the "bang for buck" award at the Drammies.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

man i don't know if they sent a different batch to the US, but i get almost ZERO of the complexity that you mention. fresh and clean, yes, but also very one dimensional.

maybe i'm nuts, because everybody seems to love this stuff, but it just doesn't do anything for me.

Jason's Scotch Whisky Reviews said...

I agree with the previous poster. Old Pulteney is overated in my opinion. It reminds me of sea water left in the bottom of a boat that has been beached. I also do not detect any of the complexity that you note.

Not a fan of this one. As for value for money, I think not.

Nevertheless, just my opinion.

Dr. Whisky said...

Unlikely that the bottlings were different in US than in rest of world. But, I have actually never tried any in the US and based on your comments will do so ASAP.

Anonymous said...

Old Pultney 12 is great imho. Those who say it lacks complexity or whatever must have been tasting something else. Must say I completely agree with the review above...
Cheers