Bladnoch SMWS 50.72 “Summer’s night in Lovers Lane”

Thanks to /u/xile_ for sharing this one with us.

Bladnoch. Lowland. These two words are ones you hear in whisky circles, and then half the group goes “Huh, never had anything from there. What do they make again?”

Bladnoch has only recently been revitalized, so some of the older barrels from the last batch are popping up. Not to mention they were a distillery that opened and closed multiple times, and have only just reopened again for the second time in 17 years. It’s enough to confuse you and forget about them, contrary to that 80’s song by Simple Minds, “Alive and Kicking”.

As such, when the first sample was a Lowland, I was quite happy. It’s an older SMWS Bladnoch. I definitely haven’t had this.

So let’s see how it tastes, shall we?

Price: Sold Out

Region: Lowland

Date Distilled: January 1990

Age: 25 years

Cask Type: Refill barrel

Outturn: 94

Abv: 50.2%

Colour: 2.5Y 8/6

Nose: Grass, Normandy butter, green banana, green apple

Light nose. Lighter than you would think at 50.2%. Angels stole a lot of this one. Has a strong butter note, tartness, and some light banana notes. Takes awhile to pick things out.

Before anyone says it: This was the first whisky of the day. I had nothing before this. So no, it wasn’t light compared to a stronger whisky. It was light… period.

Taste: Green apple, butter, wax, lemon, graham crackers

More tartness, more butter, and waxy. It’s like a Clynelish without the honey aspects to it, and more butter.

Again, light taste. Takes quite some time to pick apart.

Finish: Lime, arugula, grass, mineral, sand, pineapple

Finish is where this picks up. Quite a bit, I might add. More citrus, less tart, more pepper than just grassiness, and pineapple. It’s a nice finish, though I wish some of this showed up earlier.

Conclusion: An interesting but lacking dram. It doesn’t hold anything back, however for a 25 year old cask strength whisky, it’s all grass and butter. Which is fine… in a glass of milk. Buttermilk. Or ice cream.

Here? Needs some work. It’s a good dram to start with, however doesn’t live up to the age. I like the finish, the others aren’t bad, just not that complex.

78/100

Scotch review #693, Lowland review #34, Whisky Network review #1154