WHISKY REVIEWS, NEWS, HISTORY & FOLKLORE
Last week, I was invited to take part in an online Whisky Tasting with independent bottler, Murray McDavid. Naturally I agreed but because I’m incapable of maintaining anything that might resemble an organised diary, I was double booked!The tasting it turned out, was on the same evening as the latest Islay Whisky Academy live stream (which you can watch here by the way). Short of switching between the two like a comic character in a badly written farce, there wasn’t an awful lot I could do to resolve the conflict but thankfully, the lovely folks at MM were able to record their tasting and I watched the next night. It was a bit like having my cake and eating it at the same time. Or having my whisky and drinking it, more accurately.
Murray McDavid always seem to come up with some interesting stuff, with lots of blends, grain whiskies and interesting cask finishes on offer, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on the drams here.
For those that don’t know, Murray McDavid is an independent bottler that was founded by Mark Reynier and Simon Coughlin in the 1990s. If those names sound familiar, it’s because they were the driving force behind the rebirth of Bruichladdich Distillery. For a time, Murray McDavid and Bruichladdich were siblings but the Islay distillery’s takeover by Remy Cointreau saw the bottler sold to Aceo Spirits Ltd. Aqua-coloured branding is a tell-tale sign of their former connections, however!
*Full disclosure: the drams featured in this review were sent to me free of charge. As always, I will strive to give an honest opinion on the quality of the whisky and the value for money it represents.
“Select Grain” Girvan 16 years old
Most grain whiskies bottled by independent bottlers are upwards of 20 years in age. There’s a notion that the category only gets good at those advanced ages but I think a lot of that comes down to the casks chosen. Grain is generally used as bulk filler for blends, which means the spirit is filled into tired, refill casks with very little to give but Murray McDavid pride themselves on “the Art of Maturation” and that means experimentation with cask finishes. In this case, the Girvan spirit was originally matured in refill bourbon hogsheads before being finished in 1st fill sherry, Madeira and bourbon casks for an outturn of 1100 bottles. The whisky is bottled at 50% abv.
Smell: Honeyed breakfast cereals and salted caramel. Toffee and vanilla. A wee bit nutty. Ginger biscuits. Lots of fresh fruit… Apple and especially pear.
Taste: Honey and vanilla. Black pepper and new oak. Gristy. Apples and pineapple juice. Digestive biscuits. Dry, oaky finish.
Thoughts: There’s more weight on the palate and more depth of flavour than you might expect from a single grain. Despite the obvious cask influence, though, you can still pick up on the spicy, peppery grain character which mingles with a whole host of other flavours. For me, it perhaps felt a bit disjointed at times, with so much going on, but there was still a sense of fun about the overall experience – something which I don’t always think applies to the grain category.
Price: Somewhere around £60, I believe, which isn’t bad for a 16 year old whisky, grain or otherwise. I don’t know that it will win over everyone but those who enjoy the quirky and unusual might get on well with it.
“Crafted Blend” Rebel’s Reserve 12-year-old
So many indie bottlers focus on single cask releases but Murray McDavid has been experimenting with blends for years. This is something I’ve always liked about them – people think of blends as being limited to the bottom shelf brands we find in local supermarkets but there’s no reason a blend can’t be every bit as charismatic as a single malt, if it’s put together correctly. In this case, we have whiskies from Islay, the Highlands, Speyside and the Lowlands matured in bourbon hogsheads before being finished in Madeira and French Red Wine casks and bottled at 49.5% abv.
Smell: Orange liqueur. Marmalade. Orange zest. Very much an orangey vibe for me. Then I was reminded of agave syrup with some fresh lemons juice. In the back there’s rich tea biscuits with a wee bit of tobacco ash. Over time, that developed into wee wisps of smoke.
Taste: Following on nicely from the nose with oranges and lemons and maybe even some pineapple. Apricot jam and mango chutney. It turns malty and oaky around the middle before a wee burst of smoke on the finish. Pepper and some festive nutmeg notes along the way.
Thoughts: You can tell there’s a high malt content in this blend but the grain components aren’t without character of their own. In fact, the balance that’s been achieved is impressive given the amount of contributing factors involved – peated malt in Madeira cask, young grain in a red wine cask and old grain in refill bourbon could easily have become confused but it sits together well and the flavours really complement each other. The smoky element is quite subtle, though more noticeable on the palate than the nose suggests, and it acts like a sort of seasoning, giving the finishing touches to a rather intriguing dram. It’s a good example of what can be done with blending, if the blender puts the pursuit of flavour front and centre.
Price: Around £40. A quirky wee blend with some interesting characteristics, at a very good price.
“Benchmark” Glenlossie 14-year-old
Glenlossie is a Speyside distillery that was founded in 1876 and taken over by the Distillers Company Ltd (DCL) in 1919. Of course, DCL, through a series of mergers and takeovers, morphed into Diageo, who remain at the helm to this day. Much of what the distillery produces goes to blends, with single malt bottlings few and far between. Casks of Glenlossie occasionally make it to the independent bottlers, however, and Murray McDavid have vatted a few here. The spirit was matured in refill bourbon hogsheads before being finished in 1st fill Sauternes wine casks. It’s bottled at 50% abv.
Smell: Rich and nutty with honey and pear drops. Then some fizzy, sour sweets. Lots of tinned fruits, like tinned peaches, tinned pineapple.. even those tinned fruit cocktails my Gran used to force me to eat as a wean. Also some malt and toffee.
Taste: It’s got quite a big arrival with warming oaky spices and a nice chewy texture. There’s grapes and pineapple, melon and apple. Honey and toffee. Barley sugars. New oak. Baking spices. Marmalade and lemon curd.
Thoughts: The Sauternes cask is prominent with lots of winey fruits and a nice malty, robust backbone. It’s got a nice weight and some warming spice that helps to prevent the wine cask from making the dram too light and sweet. That weight on the palate gives a nice luxurious feel as well and the decision to bottle at 50% gives plenty of intensity whilst still being at an accessible drinking strength. Good stuff this, I’ve been sampling a lot of peated drams from Sauternes casks of late, so nice to see its effects on an unpeated malt.
Price: £80. Not cheap but probably normal for a malt of this age in today’s market and to be fair, the quality probably matches the price.
For more on Murray McDavid visit HERE
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