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Kensington Wine Market's 2023 Whisky Calendar UBER EDITION Day 23 - G&M Bladnoch 1988 KWM Cask

Posted on December 23, 2023

by Evan

Well, now. Here is another distillery I don’t believe I have written about yet. Bladnoch!

Bladnoch is a distillery in the Lowlands, nearly as far south in Scotland as you can get. It resides in the village of Bladnoch in Wigtownshire, on the north side of the River Bladnoch. It is just across the B7005 road, west of the Bladnoch Inn, and just north of the Bladnoch Bridge. Bladnoch. Bladnoch. Bladnoch. Its nearest distillery neighbour is likely Crafty Distillery, which does not yet have a whisky but does make Hills & Harbour Gin. Crafty is about a 10 minute drive to north along the A714.

If you continue north on the A714 for another 45 minutes or so, you will come across the town of Girvan, which is home the Ailsa Bay Single Malt and Girvan Single Grain Distilleries, which are part of Wiliam Grant & Sons. If you head east from Bladnoch along the A75 for about an hour and a half, you will get to Annandale Distillery, which started up in its current iteration in 2014.

Bladnoch was founded in 1817 by John and Thomas McClelland on what was at that time their farm. It remained in the hands of the McClelland family until 1905, then production ceased for 6 years until it was purchased by Irish Whisky company Dunville & Co, which did not spell whisky with an ‘e’ on their labels like most other Irish Whiskey brands did. That company operated Bladnoch sporadically for the following 25 or so years until 1937, when Dunville & Co. was shut down and liquidated.

It was then purchased by another Irish company called Ross & Coulter, who eagerly leaned into the liquidation concept by dismantling and selling off Bladnoch’s distilling equipment and all of its mature whisky stock. Bladnoch “distillery” was tossed around to various owners like a hot potato after this fire sale before finally reopening in 1956. Things were looking good for a decade and in 1966 production was increased thanks to new stills being added. Ownership of Bladnoch continued to change hands about every decade or so until 1993, when the then-owners United Distillers mothballed the distillery. 1993 is the year another Lowland Distillery was shut down; that was Rosebank Distillery in Falkirk.

In 1994, Two Northern Irish brothers with the last name of Armstrong purchased the Bladnoch Distillery and the land it was on; but the purchase came with the stipulation that the site could not be used to make whisky. This curious term of sale stood for six years until the brothers finally convinced Diageo (the new name for United Distillers) to let them distill up to 100,000 litres of spirit annually. Limited production commenced near the end of the year 2000 and continued sporadically until around 2010 when Bladnoch was once more mothballed.

In 2015 the Bladnoch Distillery was purchased by David Prior, a businessman from Australia. After about two years of refurbishing, the Distillery started production once more in 2017.

There is currently a range of Bladnoch releases available, though the lineup is sure to change quite a bit over the next decade thanks to the large gaps in stock that David Prior and those working at Bladnoch Distillery have to contend with.

The Bladnoch we are tasting today is from Gordon & MacPhail. It was distilled way back in 1988, when things probably seemed alright at the distillery. It had been running smoothly and a change of ownership hadn’t happened since 1985, so the future must have looked oh-so bright!

A lot has happened to Bladnoch Distillery in the 33 years since this whisky was put into cask. Who knows what the future holds for the distillery as it stands? Will it be smooth sailing, or will it go through yet another regime change sooner rather than later? It has been about eight years of steady ownership at this point after all…

Check out Andrew's video on our G&M Bladnoch KWM Cask here!

Only time will tell what is to come for Bladnoch, so in the meantime, we might as well find out what time has done for this dram! Shall we give this most-expensive-KWM-cask-we-have-ever-selected a taste?

G&M Connoisseurs Choice Bladnoch 1988 KWM Cask #2107 - 33-Year-Old - 54.1%

Once again our friends at Gordon & MacPhail have outdone themselves by offering us the opportunity to bottle this gorgeous cask. At 33 years of age, this 1988 vintage Bladnoch is the oldest KWM exclusive cask we have had the privilege of bottling since our Berry's 40-Year Blend more than 5 years ago. Filled into a Refill Sherry Hogshead on August 17, 1988, there were only 53 bottles left in the cask when it was bottled on the 21st of July, 2022 at 54.1%. A sister cask to this whisky, filled on the same day, is currently scoring 89.43pts on Whiskybase. I expect ours is even better!

This is another one of those KWM casks, where prior to sampling the whisky, Andrew said there was no way we were going to buy a full cask at that price. But the whisky is stunning, and when it was sampled by the KWM whisky team we knew we had to have it. It didn't hurt that the cask had only 53 bottles of liquid left in it at the time of bottling... those are some greedy angels!

Evan’s Tasting Note

Nose: Cedar wood panels in a sauna, lavender petals pressed between pages in a leatherbound book, apple blossoms, all sorts of fresh berries including blueberry, blackberry, strawberry, and raspberry, plus watermelon slices, cookie dough ice cream, and sweet grains.

Palate: Blueberry cheesecake, Crème Brule, chalky Parma Violet candies, peach tea, Chambord and St. Germain liqueurs mixed together, mango and pineapple slices, lychee, lavender macarons, a dusting of icing sugar, and a touch of wormwood and absinthe-like heat.

Finish: The floral and spice notes slowly fade, leaving plenty of berry notes left in their place, along with vanilla and a bit of drying oak spice.

Comment: This is a gorgeous, elegant dram that shows surprising and enticing floral notes and a different style of sherry cask influence. It is a wonderful and fairly unique whisky for its age. Oddly enough, what it reminds me of most is soft, 25 to 35 year old refill hogshead or ex-bourbon Bowmore and Laphroaig, but without any peat at all.

Cheers,
Evan
evan@kensingtonwinemarket.com
Facebook & Instagram: @sagelikefool

You can find all blog posts for the UBER EDITION of Kensington Wine Market’s 2023 Whisky Calendar Here