Distillery Profile

Taste rating 4

Region: Highland, north.

Oranges, rich, spicy and growing. High regard.

New presentation of Dalmores starts with a limited edition of 64yo with a recomended price of £100,000 for one of the two numbered bottles.

However here the new presentation finishes with a re-vamp of the 12yo by upping the sherry cask ration from a third to half. Not tried it yet, comes in a particularly wide carton so no shop keeper is going to be very happy about that.

Flavour Map Ref: F4
Complex

Product added to lfw.co.uk 12th November, 2007

Entirely sherry cask matured, shame it's only 40%, we will see when I try it.

Product added to lfw.co.uk 12th November, 2007

60% Oloroso cask, 40% bourbon and 40% alcohol, that's all we are told - but hey! it's called Gran Reserva so it must be worth £40.00.

Product added to lfw.co.uk 12th November, 2007

'In 1263 the ancestor of Clan Mackenzie saved King Alexander III from being gored by a stag with a single arrow. The grateful king granted him the right to bear a stag's head in his coat of arms, with the motto "Help the King" (Cuidich 'n'Righ, in the Gaelic language). The Dalmore distillery was long owned by the Mackenzie family, and every bottle of The Dalmore is adorned with this noble emblem: a stag's head, with twelve pounts to its antlers, signifying a "Royal".

A reminder of our heroic past and an inspiration for all who taste our single Highland malt.

Tasting Notes:

This luxurious aged malt is the result of decades maturation in a variety of wine casks. Aged aromatic Oloroso and Madeira butts provide great backbone and a structure of crushed almonds and rich citrus fruits. The rich Port and Marsala woods add hints of wild berries and fleshy plums. Warm vanilla notes of creamy toffee from the aged Bourbon barrells combine eloquently with the majestic whispers of ripe red fruits offered up by Cabernet Sauvignon barriques. Complex, characterful and craved by connoisseurs.'

There you'd think I'd made that up, but I didn't

On the Malt Whisky Flavour Map we reckon this belongs in square: H2
Rich / Delicate

'Uber stylish outer gift box,' they call it, well it would be, in a walnut box a 1973 finished in Cabernet sauvignon from a dead posh chateau.

Limited to 1,000 bottles I understand it to be very very good and so many will be opened.

Added to LFW.CO.UK 20-AUGUST-2007

A leather case bigger than my fireside slipper box. Smells sensational - but that's the leather boxes for me, not tried the whisky, which is as dark as a Smartie tube full of rubies.

Distilled 1966, 1,000 bottles, probably quite nice...

Added to LFW.CO.UK 20-AUGUST-2007

OVERSEAS ORDERS: A heavy box shipping charge may apply to this item.

Quite pale for a first fill sherry cask. A nose of treacle, toffee, hand-rolling tobacco (but not Old Holborn) some esters and lots of promise, this is going to be good. The neat taste is (at best) very surprising, not like the promising nose, there is lots of cloves and power but not at all like the nose, a little pleasant perfume at the back. With water the nose reflects the neat taste but the taste is as good as the neat aroma.

So smell neat and drink wet!

A signatory independent single cask strength bottling.

See 'label explanations' above for more information.