Old Pulteney 25 & 1983 Reviews

Hi everyone,

Old Pulteney redid their range a little while ago and because I’m not a professional whisky blogger, plus lazy, I haven’t gotten round to reviewing the new range. Yeah, perhaps more the lazy part…

Anyway, I still haven’t got round to reviewing the new range but I did find time to taste some of the new upper tier versions, namely the new 25yo and the 1983 vintage. I got hold of these at a recent whisky festival in Belgium.

Old Pulteney 25 46%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: Soft and tropical, salty and waxy, mango and oak, orange and grape, subtle grassiness, some green and red apples, some florals. Pleasant nose but not that impressive for OP. After time there is a little flatter note of cardboard.

Taste: Soft and light, orange and then more waxy and oily, more grape, red apple, some ginger and apple juice, a little flat in places, little of the classic OP saltiness.

Finish: Short/Medium length. Goes very soft (save the jokes...), with some malt and a little milk chocolate- praline.

A disappointing Pulteney that wasn't perhaps from the best casks. Much preferred the 17 and 21 to this. Disappointed with the lack of salt and waxiness, especially on the finish. Oh, and where’s the cutting lemon citrus? And the fresh tropical fruits?

72/100

 

Old Pulteney 1983 46%

Colour: Amber

Body: Medium

Nose: Clynelish? Super waxy and oily, freshly cut red and yellow apples, complex oak, sea air, delicate dry honey, beeswax and honeycomb, lovely old complex nose.

Taste: Soft and sweet, honeycomb and apple then very dry, lots of oak, slightly grassy but also quite flat in places, orange, some chocolate and a little malt.

Finish: Short length. Its gone! A bit of orange, some chocolate.

33yo. A nice nose doesn't save this one from being a little mediocre. I would be more than a little disappointed if I’d paid the money for this. Pulteney is such good whisky, as the nose on this suggests, but the taste and finish are just too flat to ignore. And once again, the tropical, citrus, salty, waxy loveliness, at what point did they kill that off?

71/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Reviews #756-#757

Whisky Network Reviews #898-#899

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Caol Ila IB Reviews: TWE Show Report

Hello everyone,

Back with more Caol Ila today. The smoky Diageo workhorse has been surprising me recently, it has its own character but aspects can remind me of Laphroaig or Ardbeg or Bowmore. It can be great young, it can be great old. Bourbon or Sherry. Cask strength or 43%.

First I tried a Gordon & MacPhail bottling exclusive to The Whisky Exchange. These are still available for £50.:

Caol Ila 2004 Gordon & MacPhail for TWE 46%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: A fruity Caol Ila, very tropical with mango and cinnamon, fruit basket, melon.

Taste: Fruity, melon then some smoke, peat, coal, ash, some pineapple, oak coming in.

Finish: Medium/Long length. Oak and spice.

From Bourbon barrel 306490. A great barrel, could be 30yo!

79/100

Next a Douglas Laing bottling for their Old Particular range:

Caol Ila 19 Douglas Laing 50.7%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: Fruity, peat, ash, cooling nose.

Taste: Intense fruit, ash, cooling again, spice then building with some tropical fruit.

Finish: Medium length. Tropical fruit and ash.

A little average in a way. From a refill Hogshead, also the first time I’ve seen a question mark on official tasting notes.

75/100

And an older Signatory. 1983 seems to be the vintage for Caol Ila. Like 1997 Clynelish, 1998 Laphroaig or 2004/5 Ledaig. I member when these were pretty good value for money, like less than £200 but the prices have been rising a lot and now you are looking at £300+.

Caol Ila 1983 Signatory Cask Strength 49.3%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: Tropical older peat, Laphroaig-esque pineapple + mango + cinnamon combo, perfumed.

Taste: Soft arrival, creamy tropical old Laphroaig, mango and cinnamon, perfumed oak.

Finish: Long length. More fruity and oak. Mango.

Could be a 25yo Laphroaig with those tropical fruit notes.

86/100

I’ve just cracked open a 19yo Caol Ila from a Sherry Hogshead which is fantastic too, so that review is coming up at some point.

Thanks for reading!

Reviews #228-#230

Network Average: 75.9

Best Score: 92

Worst Score: 44

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 OK to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Karuizawa 1983: TWE Show Report

Hi everyone,

I knew I wanted to try this at the show. 

Karuizawa. A name some will never have heard of, others start to drool at it's mention.

Karuizawa. A distillery built by a volcano. Some say the Macallan of Japan. 

Karuizawa. Men have lost themselves in it's Sherried depths, others have gone mad searching for those Noh bottlings. 

Karuizawa. A name I won't soon forget.

This cost me 4 dream drams (£40) but that's pretty cheap for an early 80's Sherry Karuizawa. This was a private bottling by Number 1 Drinks Co. (who own the Karuizawa stocks). I got this at the scotchwhiskyauctions.com table.

Karuizawa 1983 Private Bottling 59.1%

Colour: Dark Amber

Body: Full

Nose: Dark and brooding. Earthy Sherry, some vanilla, sweet figs, dates, a little meaty, complex spice. Really complex.

Water: More complex (if that is possible!), wood and spice integration, more earthy, forest floor, autumnal, a beautiful black cherry note.

Taste: Mega. Sweet and complex, figs, raisin, spices, huge Sherry, really rich, mouth watering, cinnamon, ginger, wood spice.

Water: Softer but huge still, more paced out and longer development, long Sherry and stewed fruit, earthy, goes on and on. Chewy.

Finish: Long length. Sherry, spice, little oak, dunnage. Water softens with more soft spices and dunnage wood, oak.

92/100

Hugely complex, integrated, balanced and powerful.

Maybe not worth the huge prices these are fetching, but at least I know why now.

Review #213

Network Average: 75.5

Best Score: 92

Worst Score: 44

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Caol Ila 2004 GM & 1983 LMDW

Hello again everyone!

You're looking well!

Me? Oh, I'm good. Had a day off work today so I've been trying some whisky. Today it's been some lovely spirit driven Caol Ila I bought on my trip to Islay.

You'll remember I didn't actually buy anything when I went on the tour of Caol Ila Distillery, but on the last day of the trip I popped into the Spar in Bowmore which has a big collection. In fact every small shop on Islay has a better whisky selection than most megasupermarkets around here.

I didn't want to buy something hugely expensive and wanted to buy something from Caol Ila or Bowmore because I found the OB's to be a little disappointing. Bowmore a lot more than Caol Ila for the record.

I ended up getting a 2004 Vintage Caol Ila from Gordan & Macphail's Cask Strength Collection. So here we go:

Caol Ila 2004 G&M 60.1%

Colour: Gold

Body: Light/Medium

Nose: Creamy and sweet. Quite light and ethereal with classic lemon, banana, pineapple and some mango. A mineral side that hints at Bruichladdich with some smoke and medicinal notes as well. Some light malt with brown bread.

Water: More malt, more brown bread then more citrus with lots of lemon and some lime. After a bit- More leafy and earthy with wet leaves, green apple and some young smoke. Toasted brown bread, smoked vanilla pod, a little biscuity.

Taste: Light arrival, prickling alcohol with lemon juice and peel, building oily smoke, light lemon, very mineral development (Reminiscent of an Octomore for me) with smoke and sea salt, a little scorched wood too, charcoal.

Water: Sweeter, fuller arrival. More prickling development with sour citrus, lemon and lime, then going smoky with very oily mineral notes. Peat smoke and salty lemon juice. More water: More sweet again, green apple, more peat smoke, peated malt. Even more water: Green banana, smoked pears, bonfire embers, a little hot with white pepper and ginger.

Finish: Medium/Long length. Light smokiness with salty lemon juice and oily mineral stoniness.

Notes: Distilled 08/12/2004, bottled 13/02/2015. 10 years old from 4 1st Fill and Refill Sherry Butts. Very distillate driven, very clean. Reminds me of Octomore or Bruichladdich spirit with the mineral notes.

76/100

It's rather excellent and it's getting better the more the level is going down. As per usual, when you leave a whisky at CS, don't colour or chill-filter it can be great even when it's young.

Hold on! I've got a sample of an older Caol Ila to compare it against!

Caol Ila 1983 Artist 4th Ed. 53.9%

Colour: Light Gold

Body: Medium/Full

Nose: Still quite peaty for it's age. Complex with the peat merging with a BBQ note (quite sweet)- Sweet BBQ sauce, a fantastic sooty lemon note, fizzy lemon sherbet, a little stewed pear, a little fresh pineapple and mango, lots of cough sweets. Underneath that there's windswept beaches- Salty sea air. I find it quite meaty really- BBQ on the beach, slightly scorched pork? Lathered in BBQ sauce. Huge dry oak starting to come out now. After oxidising- Next to no meatiness and a lot more fresh fruitiness. Zesty, juicy and fresh lemon, lime, pear, mango, melon and pineapple. Really reminds me of a more intense 25yo Laphroaig.

Water: More dry oak, sandalwood, the peat is more smoking heather and less BBQ. Complex lemon- Juice joining the sherbet, lemon fizzy sweets, lemon chewy sweets, delicious grilled pineapple, caramelised honey. A little mineral after a bit with burnt pipe tobacco and cigar.

Taste: Sweet initially, then the peat starts creeping out and battles with the immense sweetness. The cough sweets are back, lots of lemon, lemon sherbert, quite fizzy, lime, pineapple, mango, a lot of melon, pineapple, quite tropical and juicy. The oak is there, merging with the peat, driftwood fires, salty dry oak. In short it's huge, hugely complex and quite overwelmingly so. Big sweetness fighting with big oakiness, goes quite quiet into the finish though.

Water: The peat and the oak are a bit more creamy, the sweetness more to start and the peat taking over after a bit, peat smoke, quite phenolic with cough sweets. A sherry sweetness starts coming out after some time- Quite juicy with melon, mango, grapefruit and pineapple then very zesty with lemon and lime.

Finish: Long/Very long length. Instantly receeds with cough sweets then dry oak and lemon sherbet linger for ages.

Notes: Distilled 1983, bottled 2014. Just over 30 years old. Bottled for La Maison du Whisky (Signatory stock I think) from a single Hogshead. I'd guess Refill Bourbon. This stuff is big and perfect.

89/100

Wowzers. Can't wait to try the 30yo OB! This was actually very different from when I first tried it, it was a lot more meaty and BBQ-y. Now it's a lot more like an old Laphroaig with the fresh tropical fruit.

Thanks for reading everyone.

Reviews #33-#34

Whisky Network Average: 78.7