Loch Lomond 17 Organic Review

Hi everyone,

What is an organic whisky?

Well, if you’re Benromach it means getting everything certified organic; the barley, I assume yeast? and wood. Meaning that they use virgin oak.

This one does not, it has a soil association sticker round the neck, so I think the gimmick is that the soil the barley was grown in was organic or some shit.

What I saw really was a cask strength, 17yo Loch Lomond in a Bruichladdich Blue label.

 

Loch Lomond 17 Organic 54.9%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: Vanilla custard, some rubber, biscuit and malt, quite a nice light one, relaxed and not too in your face, vanilla bon bons, custard creams.

Taste: Soft and light, lovely creamy vanilla, shortbread and malt then a nice burst of tropical fruit with mango and pineapple. Nice mouthfeel too, juicy.

Finish: Long length. Suddenly chocolatey with drying but very nice fresh ginger.

From 1st fill bourbon. Apart from the little rubber on the nose, this is a very impressive Loch Lomond. Not sure the organic stuff is making a difference to the flavour, its just a good CS one at a slightly older age. Price should be reasonable too.

78/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Review #746

Whisky Network Review #884

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?

Inchmoan 12 & Croftengea 2007 The Single Cask Reviews

Loch Lomond

Inchmurrin

Inchfad

Inchmoan

Croftengea

Craiglodge

Old Rhosdhu

These are the brands of malt whisky that Loch Lomond distillery produce from various stills and various peating levels. Is it confusing? Yes. Is it interesting? Yes, I think so anyway.

As far as I am aware, both of these are heavily peated whiskies coming from the distillery but using the different still systems to give slightly different flavours. The Inchmoan uses the stills with rectifying plates in and the Croftengea doesn’t? Perhaps? But there’s isn’t really much info online, hopefully we can clear this all up when I’m at the distillery in November. In the meantime what are these two like?

Inchmoan 12 46%

Colour: Gold

Body: Full

Nose: Medicinal and Laphroaig-like at first nosing, sweeter underneath, spiced orange, some vanilla, salted fish.

Taste: Medicinal hit, TCP and medicine cupboards, its a god damn Pharmacy in here!, some chewy orange (classic Lomond), late spice.

Finish: Long length. Think Laphroaig again, medicinal and mineral and thick and intense.

Looking for a Laphroaig replacement? Loch Lomond has you covered. Seriously powerful and medicinal whisky, that tasted blind, I would probably guess Laphroaig.

75/100

 

Croftengea 2007 The Single Cask 60.2%

Colour: Straw

Body: Full

Nose: Lovely slightly meaty Ledaiggian smoke. a little cheese, farmhouse cider.

Water: Lighter and less funky.

Taste: Soft, very balanced, lemon, peat, more maritime as it develops, sea salt, cheap pepper.

Water: More lemon, more spice as it develops. Unbalances.

Finish: Medium length. Maritime, salt and pepper, lemon.

11yo, nice and reminds me of Ledaig but doesn't quite pull off the same greatness. There’s that funk but it lacks in complexity compared to the Inchmoan.

74/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Reviews #674-#675

Whisky Network Reviews #808-#809

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?

Inchmurrin 2007 Distillery Exclusive Review

Hi everyone,

Loch Lomond Distillery I unashamedly do not understand. But I am in the process of attempting to understand it, landing myself a tour there in November (report to follow I hope).

What I do know is that it could be the most adaptable Scotch whisky distillery, able to make grain and malt whisky of various different styles. Loch Lomond, Inchmurrin, Inchmoan, Inchfad, Old Rosdhu, Croftengea and Craiglodge being some of the different styles. These could be from different stills and different peating levels.

This one is an Inchmurrin, which means that it was distilled in a still with rectifying plates in (which apparently isn’t a Lomond still) and is unpeated. In addition, this one has been fermented with a Chardonnay white wine yeast, you know, because you can…

 

Inchmurrin 2007 Single Cask 57.8%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: Lovely creamy marzipan, slightly dirty orange, some perfume, orange chewing gum, marshmallow. Complex nose.

Water: Goes lovelyly chocolatey.

Taste: Creamy and light, delicate then orange, chewy and perfumed, orange peel, some ginger and cardamom spice.

Water: Even softer, better balance and a better build up to a spicier finish.

Finish: Long length. More orange chewy gum, light still but with some mouthfeel.

Distillery exclusive from Loch Lomond. I’ve tried one other Inchmurrin in the past and remember that being good too. Need to try more from these guys. Many thanks to Ibon for the taste and the rest of the bottle, you sir are a gentleman.

78/100

Updated Distillery Rankings

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #671

Whisky Network Review #804

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?

Inchmoan 1992 Review [From Paris with Love]

Hi everyone,

Seeing the title you're probably wondering whether this review is going to contain a lot of sexual innuendo around the words 'Inch' and 'Moan' to fill content?

No, because I have real content and I can't think of anything good..

Before talking to someone from Loch Lomond distillery, I thought I knew something about Loch Lomond distillery.

I didn't.

Turns out they don't have Lomond stills (despite the name), they have stills with rectifier columns and the whole thing is a bit more complicated than I first thought. Anyway, what that means is that they can draw of the new make at different strengths to concentrate different flavour compounds.

Apparently for this particular Inchmoan, they tried to channel more the spicy flavours into the spirit rather than the peat (Inchmoan is heavily peated).

That spirit (I think the new make was around 75%ish) was then matured in refill barrels for 24 years, before being finished for 12 months in first full Bourbon barrels.

Did it work out though?

Inchmoan 1992 48.6%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: Herbal and minty. What BensWhisky.com would call 'alien peat.' Very subtle tropical fruit with pineapple, dusty but interesting. Peppermint and spearmint, a little salted fish and green peppercorns.

Taste: Dusty, lemon, quite sour, some dry oak, whisky warehouse smell, sour grape, old white wine that's a little overaged, a little salt. Spicy ginger.

Finish: Medium/Long length. Goes then comes back. Tropical then dusty red apple and peppery spice.

Can't say it's not complex, but it's challenging and very hard to score. Obviously great quality.

81/100

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #453

Whisky Network Review #517

Network Average: 74.2

Best Score: 92

Worst Score: 22

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 am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Loch Lomond Original & Inchmurrin TBWC Batch 1 Reviews

Hi everyone,

Today I've got some Loch Lomond reviews, which is perhaps the ugly duckling of the scotch whisky industry. It's a complicated, perhaps misunderstood distillery that doesn't play by the rules but doesn't have the bad boy persona of Compass Box.

Loch Lomond has a few different types of stills. They have 6 Lomond stills with rectifying necks (Imagine a pot still with plates in), 2 continuous Coffey stills making 20 million litres a year, another Coffey still only using malted barely in it (which the SWA say is still grain whisky) and a pair of traditional pots stills.

Along with several different peating levels and yeast types, Loch Lomond is maybe the most adaptable distillery with a huge range of brands.

Is it any good? Well, it didn't have the best reputation in the world but people have been talking about some new heavily peated stuff, which is meant to be good. So it may be a distillery to keep an eye on.

Anyway, here's the two I've tried...

Loch Lomond Original 40%

Colour: E150a

Body: Medium

Nose: Vanilla, cream soda, butter, malty, little burnt note- Burnt toffee, burnt malt, caramel.

Taste: Creamy/watery arrival, vanilla, toffee, caramel, burnt bitterness building with sour wood.

Finish: Short/Medium length. Burnt malt bitterness, a little watery.

New bottling 2015. Lightly peated apparently. Not really a nice one IMO, a bit weird and burnt.

62/100

Inchmurrin TBWC Batch 1 54.7%

Colour: Amber

Body: Full

Nose: Big ol' Sherry bomb. Lots of honey and orange, Christmas cake and spice, orange liqueur, brown sugar.

Taste: Full on sherry monster. Surprisingly easy at full strength, thick cream with loads of sherried sweetness, tonnes of orange and rich spice, orange chocolate and liqueur.

Finish: Long length. More orange with spices and oak lingering nicely.

My first TBWC. Not just a Boutique marketing whisky! According to internet, Inchmurrin is only made with whisky from the Lomond stills. This was lovely, like drinking some kind of orange dessert, but did fall apart with any water.

76/100

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Reviews #446-#447

Whisky Network Reviews #508-#509

Network Average: 74.2

Best Score: 92

Worst Score: 22

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 am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?