Wednesday, 2 April 2014

Mortlach Draft Review

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Subject: Mortlach Tasting and Review
Hi guys  - I noticed some other bloggers have posted reviews of the new Mortlachs?! I emailed and tweeted you about the invite to the tasting but didn't get a heads up - suggest someone in admin gets their arse kicked! Anyway, didn’t want to miss out on being one of the first reviews so I’ve pieced together a review from what seen from other blogs. Hopefully the seams won’t show…

Mortlach is the oldest distillery in Dufftown  <note - copy and paste details from whiskyportal.com ideally 2 or 3 paras>.
Mortlach is well loved amongst the whisky fraternity (or geeks if I may be so bold! LOL!!).  However the much loved and now much discontinued Flora and Fauna bottling was produced in such tiny quantities that prior to being discontinued it could only be found by visiting the obscure websites, like Master of Malt and Whisky Exchange, that might only have stock in the low hundreds of bottles at any one time.
Anyway nobody ever drank the old Mortlach but we're all agreed it deserved wider recognition so now, thankfully, Diageo is breathing new life into this much loved whisky. They are now making this more available to the mass market by launching the entry level “Old and Rare” bottling. The name might seem confusing at first but that’s fine though - things can actually become more rare the more widely available they become. <citation needed>. And I’m pretty sure it’s really Old too I think maybe there wasn’t enough room for the age statement on the bottle <check this>.
By the way the bottles look great don’t they? It’s like a proper glass decanter – and you were probably thinking of buying one of those anyway right? Well here’s one for you. And it has Mortlach written across the front. So there’s that. And after the whisky is finished you might use it for everyday things like putting 2/3rds of a bottle of wine in or 5/7ths of another bottle of whisky.

What I like about it also is that 50cl feels just the right size doesn’t it? I don’t know about you but I’ve always felt 70cl a bit unwieldy for a bottle size – it’s just too much! Besides, by reducing the bottle size more people can get their hands on this very rare and commercially available drop.

Anyway enough about all that. Let get onto the whisky itself, that’s what really matters. As a whisky aficionado I only really care about taste, price just shouldn’t be factor. After all if something tastes good enough it is worth literally any amount someone wants to charge, regardless of any costs related to production. What’s more it’s clear that Mortlach has been undervalued for a long time – probably by a factor of about 7. It’s a wonder other distilleries manage to keep afloat – but then they don’t have the special distillation process <insert details>.
Anyway, I’m getting distracted by the pricing fuss again. So here we go. The Whisky Writer verdict;

Old and Rare
It’s great
Old and Rare Special Strength
I wasn’t too sure whether to risk being slightly dissenting on this one to show a bit of impartiality. But decided to go with below- what do you think?
Really, really great.
18 Year Old
Just awesome. Totally better and different to 16yo F&F bottling which now seems like fucking dog’s piss by comparison (too far?)
25 Year Old
Just perfection. £600 might seem like a lot of money but believe me you won’t be thinking about how much each dram is costing you as you sip this stuff!

Conclusion: I don’t know what the fuss is about for pricing – this stuff is a bargain. Furthermore just show I’m totally genuine I’m going to forgo our family holiday this year and buy one bottle of each.


Let me know what you think – PS any chance of a sample? Cheers WW

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