Hot on the heels of the 175th Anniversary 17 year old bottling comes Royal Lochnagar’s only other bottling that isn’t their 12 Year Old distillery bottling. Just 3000 bottles have been produced of this fine single malt, a cask strength dram that commemorates the day Queen Victoria first visited the Lochnagar distillery in September 1848.
Our own head of whisky Tod Bradbury considers this a “classic highland style of whisky. Soft and gentle on the pallet, but with deep flavours of Marzipan, treacle toffee and dark chocolate. A whisp of smoke and more cereal notes than the distillery release. A suggestion of raisins, figs and stone fruits. For me a perfect Christmas dram to be enjoyed by an open fire”
Read MoreThis small craft distillery sits one mile from Balmoral Castle, at the foot of the Cairngorm mountains, and is fed by the crystal clear water of the Scarnock springs. Diminutive in size, it is one of very few in Scotland to employ an open top mash tun, and the tiny production of just two small hand-filled batches each week permits longer fermentations to protect the whisky’s smooth, fruity flavour as well as shorter ones to emphasise its robust nutty-spicy notes. This unique mix of long and short fermentation gives a whisky of exceptional smoothness and balance – a gloriously soft and gentle expression of a highland malt.
Tasting note:
Deep amber in colour, medium bodied with a smooth mouthfeel. On the nose it is deep and complex. Mossy, but with hedgerow flora and fruits (brambles, damson jam); sawn wood and minty-fresh pine resin; turned earth; behind this some deep toffee notes and beyond that artist's turpentine, which keeps it fresh and balances the wood. Changes and develops continually. Overall, sweet and deep. The finish is sharp, well balanced.