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Day 16 - KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - Boutique-y 18 Year Highland Single Malt (Peated)

Posted on January 30, 2025

Day 16 — Boutique-y 18 Year Highland Single Malt (Peated) — 45.8%

By Evan

Today we will be exploring a release from That Boutique-Y Whisky Company for the third time in this year’s KWM Not An Advent Calendar Tasting set. Like the 30-Year-Old Blended Grain Whisky we tasted back on day three in this series, this bottling is part of Boutique-Y’s current core range. Say hello to the Boutique-Y Highland 18-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky!

As often happens with That Boutique-Y Whisky Company releases, we once again have a bit of a mystery on our hands. The label shows a stag against a green background, with an ear tag that reads “Highland Peated”.

There is no information on exactly which distillery this single malt comes from, and it could possibly change from small batch to small batch. The current iteration is rumoured to be peated Knockdhu though, which would be great since we have never had a Knockdhu in our whisky calendars before from what I can recall! So let’s take that notion as fact and talk a little bit about the Knockdhu distillery.

Knockdhu was founded back in 1893, and more or less operated steadily for the next 100 years – except for short closures during the great depression and World War II — until the great Scottish distillery cull of 1983 nearly killed it for good. Knockdhu was mothballed at that time by then-owners DCL, but in 1988 a buyer by the name of Inver House was found. Inver House Distillers itself was founded in 1964 and lead the newly built Glen Flagler malt Distillery and Garnheath grain distillery on the same site in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire in the Scottish Lowlands. Glen Flagler and Garnheath were closed never to reopen in 1985 and 1986 respectively, a few years before the Knockdhu Distillery purchase.

After its purchase of Knockdhu in 1988, Inver House went on to add a few more distilleries to its portfolio over the following decade. Speyburn (purchased in 1991), Pulteney (acquired in 1995), Balblair (purchased in 1996) Balmenach (purchased in 1997), are all still part of the Inver House lineup, along with Knockdhu. Inver House Distillers itself changed hands a few times during its lifespan, but has been owned by the big-in-Asia company Thai Beverage since 2006.

Ever had an official bottling of Knockdhu? It might be hard to know. Official bottlings are not actually given the distillery name for release. Instead, they are given the name anCnoc, possibly to avoid confusion with another Scottish distillery named Knockando. Funny how attempting to avoid confusion often makes things even more confusing instead, isn’t it?

At least they didn’t go with Chamuis Dhu, I suppose.

The Knockdhu Distillery resides in the village of Knock within Aberdeenshire. This puts the distillery in the East Highlands o...

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Day 15 - KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - Rest & Be Thankful Port Charlotte 14 Year

Posted on December 15, 2024

Day 15 — Rest & Be Thankful Port Charlotte 14 Year – 57.4%

By Evan

I believe today’s bottle represents two firsts for us. This is both the first time we have featured a bottling of Port Charlotte in any of our KWM Whisky Calendars, and also the first time we have featured a whisky from indie bottler Rest & Be Thankful. Today’s dram is a 14-Year-Old single barrel bottling of Port Charlotte from Rest & Be.

That gives me a lot to talk about, and nearly nothing that I can crib or copy from prior years of writing our Whisky Calendar blogs. Brace yourself for some new content!

Port Charlotte is not a distillery – at least it hasn’t been for nearly a century. There was a Port Charlotte Distillery on Islay between 1829 and 1929. It was known alternatively as the Lochindaal Distillery or Lochindaal Distillery Port Charlotte or Rhinns, or Rhins. The name Port Charlotte refers to a heavily peated style of whisky made at Bruichladdich Distillery, which resides only a few kilometres away from the Port Charlotte Distillery site. Some of the original Port Charlotte/Lochindaal warehouses are currently used for aging Bruichladdich whisky stock, as the Bruichladdich purchased the site back in 2007.

Bruichladdich even had plans to rebuild and revive the Port Charlotte distillery, which they announced the same year they purchased the land the former distillery sat on. Unfortunately, an economic downturn and then Bruichladdich’s purchase by Rémy Cointreau in 2012 has not only killed this idea but also buried deep down in peat. It was a quaint notion, though!

So, where is Port Charlotte whisky made? At Bruichladdich, of course. Since Bruichladdich Distillery’s own revival happened, and it reopened in under feisty new management in 2001 after being mothballed in 1995, it has been used two distill a few different types of Single Malt:

Bruichladdich – the main spirit which the distillery is known for. It is unpeated in style.
Port Charlotte – heavily peated single malt – around 40PPM
Lochindaal – slightly more peated than Port Charlotte at around 50 PPM. It was only made for a few years before production of this style was ceased in favour of Port Charlotte single malt.
X4 – A no longer made four times distilled single malt that was experimented with for a very brief period. Very little has made its way to bottle, or into the fuel tanks of race cars.

Octomore – The most peated whisky, bar none. Ranging from 80 to 300+ PPM, depending on which release we are talking about. This monstrous abomination that is surprisingly drinkable if you like Islay Single Malt has been distilled in small quantities since 2002.

Bruichla...

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Day 14 - KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - G&M Distillery Label Mortlach 25 Year

Posted on December 14, 2024

Day 14 — G&M Distillery Label Mortlach 25 Year – 46%

“What’s with all of this young whisky?”- You might be thinking after the past two days of our 2024 Not An Advent Calendar. How fickle our memories are this time of year — it is easy to forget we had a 21-Year-Old Irish Whiskey recently, back on Day Eleven. Maybe this is just me projecting my own memory issues on you, though? Regardless, today we are jumping into something older. Say hello to this 25-Year-Old Gordon & MacPhail bottling of Mortlach!

Mortlach Distillery was founded back in 1823 and is located in Speyside, within Dufftown. It is the oldest distillery in Duftown and its nearest distillery neighbours include Glendullan, heavy hitters Glenfiddich and Balvenie, as well as the aptly named Dufftown Distillery itself.

Mortlach is known as “The Beast of Dufftown” thanks to its heavy and often meaty distillate profile that often shows up in its whisky as well. This rich, characterful profile makes it highly sought after by blenders. The distillery is owned by (stop me if you have heard this before) alcohol giant Diageo. The whisky Mortlach produces is showcased throughout the Johnnie Walker range, including the bold and peated Black Label.

The distillation process at Mortlach is curious and unique, thanks to both utilizing worm tubs and being distilled 2.81 times. Not double-distilled or triple-distilled, but some strange and confusing mathematical equation between them. The copper at Mortlach is made of three wash stills and three spirit stills, all with different sizes and shapes. Somehow, these stills create three different types of spirit that are then merged into what we know as Mortlach’s style. This process was first adopted in 1896 and has not been changed since.

Here is a YouTube Video that delves into the 2.81 Distillation Process from The Scotch Malt Whisky Society.

The bottler of this whisky is Gordon & MacPhail. G&M has featured prominently over our past decade-plus of making KWM Whisky Calendars, as well as on our store shelves, and in our hearts for that matter.

Gordon & MacPhail started as a grocery store in Elgin, back in 1895, founded by James Gordon and John Alexander MacPhail. The first generation of the Urquhart Family – which owns G&M – John Urquhart started as an apprentice to the two founding partners.

(Gordon & MacPhail in the beginning: a single grocery store. Photo from gordonandmacphail.com)

Over John’s lifetime, he helped push G&M firmly into the Scotch Whisky scene by sourcing whisky from many Speyside and Scottish distilleries, which was then matured and bottled by G&M. His legacy with G&M is still seen to this day, with some of the whisky laid down during ...

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Day 13 - KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - Ardnamurchan AD/11:16 KWM Cask

Posted on December 13, 2024

Day 13 — Ardnamurchan AD/11:16 KWM Cask 1146 – 57.5%

By Evan

Like yesterday, we will be diving into a whisky from a younger distillery for Day Thirteen. This time we are moving from the Lowlands, where Lindores Abbey is located, all the way to the coast Western Highlands. Say hello to Kensington Wine Market’s first single cask of Ardnamurchan.

We have featured Ardnamurchan in our Whisky Calendar once before, back in 2021 on Day 16 of that calendar. That whisky was so good, it ended up being my favourite in that year's 25 bottle lineup.

Ardnamurchan Distillery is located in the Western Highlands on the west coast. It is about a four-hour drive north and west from Glasgow along the A82, and a bit over a three-hour drive south and west from Inverness on the same road. Fort William is also an hour and a half drive away. The distillery takes its name from the Peninsula it resides on, just to the north of the Isle of Mull.

It's nearest distillery neighbours include another new distillery called Nc'nean to the south across where Loch Sunart meets the sea and Tobermory Distillery is a ferry ride away on the Isle of Mull. Though both of these distilleries are geographically nearby, they both would take at least an hour and a half to get to from Ardnamurchan.

The remote distillery is owned by the Independent bottler Adelphi. Adelphi made the decision we have seen other indie bottlers make over the past few decades in building a distillery. This put them on a list of bottlers-slash-distillery-owners that includes the likes of:

Cadenhead (Springbank and Glengyle distilleries)
Gordon & MacPhail (Benromach and The Cairn distilleries)
Signatory (Edradour Distillery)
Hunter Laing (Ardnahoe Distillery)
Douglas Laing (Strathearn Distillery)

I am sure a few others that are just not coming to my mind right now. The reason for this diversification is to ensure that they always have something to bottle of their own if they suddenly cannot buy stock from other distillers or suppliers. It also gives them stock that they can potentially trade with other companies if they wish to.

Adelphi started planning on Ardnamurchan back in 2007, though the distillery was not built and in production until seven years later in 2014. The first casks of new make were filled that year on August 1st.

Thanks to Adelphi having their independent bottlings, they were able to take a bit more time to get things running the way they wanted at Ardnamurchan. The company has not had as much pressure as young distilleries often have to produce and sell gin and get that first whisky out the door ASAP in order to start recouping costs. They were plenty excited to share Ardnamurchan with the rest of the world, howe...

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Day 12 - KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - Casks Of Lindores II Bourbon Cask

Posted on December 12, 2024

Day 12 — Casks Of Lindores II Bourbon Cask

By Evan

This is the second time we have featured Lindores Abbey Distillery in a KWM Whisky Calendar. We had the Lindores Abbey Single Malt in the 2022 KWM Whisky Calendar.

Like Bushmills, which we discussed yesterday, Lindores Abbey has a history of distillation. While Lindores Abbey itself has a long history, the distillery does not. It was only just founded in 2017 on the site of the ruins of the former Abbey by owners Drew and Helen Mackenzie Smith.

(Photo from Lindores Abbey Distillery's Facebook Page)

Lindores Abbey is one of only a handful of Scottish distilleries that has the ability to make Single Estate Whisky. This is all thanks to being able to use barley crops grown on fields nearby that were owned by the Abbey, dating back to the 1400s.

Lindores Abbey itself dates back more than two centuries prior to that. It was founded by the Earl of Huntingdon around 1178. The site included a church and monastery and is responsible for the earliest known record of Scotch Whisky: In 1494 King James IV paid Friar Jon Cor of Lindores Abbey: “To Friar John Cor, by order of the King, VIII bolls of Malt, wherewith to make acqua vitae"

The Abbey was ordered to be torn down in 1559, and now, nearly half a millennium later, only the ruins of a few walls and old grave sites remain to show where it once stood.

The site and the distillery residing on it are located in what is considered the Scottish Lowlands near the town of Newburgh, east of Perth and West of St Andrews, near the southern shore of the River Tay. Most of its closest distillery neighbours are also relatively new. Daftmill Distillery is about a 15-minute drive south. Kingsbarns Distillery is a 50-minute drive to the East. Or you could travel to the much older Glenturret Distillery, which is a 50-minute drive to the West.

That is enough of that for now. Let’s taste some whisky! This Lindores bottling is a small batch matured entirely in ex-Bourbon casks, then bottled at 49.4%. We also have a sister batch to this bottling, that was ex-red wine STR casks that is excellent as well.

Lindores Casks Of Lindores II Bourbon Cask – 49.4%

“The second edition of one of the three core Lindores Abbey expressions. This Ex-Bourbon style is maybe the truest expression we've seen from Lindores. It allows more of the distillery's intrinsic character to shine through. Good young whisky from a distillery with so much potential.”

Evan’s Tasting Note

Nose: Vanilla, macadamia nuts, roasted sunflower seeds, apple crumple, banana cream pie, mocha, coffee beans being roasted, and a touch of peanut oil.

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