Hi everyone,
A very special whisky here as the last whisky I tried as part of my shenanigans at festivals last year. (spoiler alert) It’s also the completion of my 90 club list on my blog.
So St. Magdalene distillery in the village of Linlithgow is one of those hyped lowland distilleries, probably on par with Rosebank. Some releases were under St. Magdalene, some Linlithgow. The stuff was the same. Triple distilled and worm tub condensed, same as Rosebank as far as I can tell.
That makes for a completely unique style that isn’t made at all anymore, since both are now closed (St. Magdalene is now flats). Official bottlings are scarce, along with any other bottlings making this stuff pretty hard to find too. But I spotted some at a stall in Inter. Whisky Frankfurt and it happened to be: 1. Not too expensive and 2. That golden age/strength that seems to generate 90’s scores.
Linlithgow 1974 Silver Seal 50%
Colour: Gold
Body: Medium
Nose: Lovely and perfumed nose, malty, floral complexity, fizzy lemon sweets, classy old school oak, oily and waxy, old Balvenie-esque class, honey.
Taste: Great arrival, very soft then builds and builds, amazing development, lemon, zesty, slightly fizzy, wax, old oak and chocolate, malty, beeswax, clean laundry, petals and unexpected medicinal clean bandages!
Finish: Long length. Quite soft here but whispers of flavour continue and continue. Malt in particular and soft chocolate.
Over 27 years old, bottled in 2001. Best Lowland I've tried so far. By a very long way. So subtle and yet so classy. Quite a unique one, especially in the mid-palate with those clean bandages. Really didn’t expect that. Great stuff would be an understatement.
90/100
Thanks for reading!
Scotch Review #563
Whisky Network Review #667
Network Average: 74.7
Best Score: 93
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.
