Premium Bottlers Vatted Malt GLLS 101

Thanks to /u/slackerdude for this sample.

I was digging through some old samples and found one from quite a while ago. Premium Bottlers Vatted Malt GLLS 101 is different, that’s for certain.

The company, Premium Bottlers, would eventually go on to become a distillery here in Ontario, Canada. They make their own whisky under the name Still Water Distillery, with the whiskies being known as Stalk & Barrel. They are still ageing their whiskies, have a bunch out, etcetera. I’ve reviewed a few of them here and there.

However, before they were a distillery, they were an independent bottler. From what I understand, in order to release the whiskies in Ontario at a cost that wasn’t reserved for the 1%, they added in 1% of their own Canadian whisky. Thus, in the case of Premium Bottlers Vatted Malt GLLS 101, we have a Glenlossie that is tablespooned (or teaspooned, I can never remember) with a bit of their own distillate.

So anywhere else that didn’t have rough laws would have released this without that. Here? Not so much. I have enjoyed what few Glenlossie’s I’ve had, and a teaspoon (or tablespoon more likely) isn’t going to through me off. So let’s see how this tastes, shall we?

Price: No longer for sale

Region: World (99% Scotch, 1% Canadian whisky)

Age: 12 years

Released: 2006

Bottles: 400

Abv: 46%

Colour: 10Y 9/4

Nose: Grassy, anise, pineapple, arugula, jujubes

Initial grassy and spice notes, with some fruit. Takes a bit to open up, though it’s not accountant’s strength, so don’t expect a shrinking violet here. Or any violets, there’re no floral notes.

Quite the grass and fruit-filled dram. Some sweets, though not an overload of them.

Taste: Lime candy, grass, lemon, mango

Seeing as I got this from slackerdude, and his love for mango, I shouldn’t be surprised it showed up here. Lots of citruses and tropical fruits. Nothing overly ambitious, and it’s simple, though if like him you go gaga for mango, then you’ll love it.

Wish some of the spice from the nose had shown up here.

Finish: Ginger, cardamon, maraschino cherries

Finish is simple. It gives you the spice finally, yet leaves most everything else out. If there was a picture of this finish, it’d be a person driving away with a cup of coffee on the roof of their car.

Nice sweet cherry note eventually pops up.

Conclusion: A simple dram at the end of the day. It’s mostly fruit and grass and does it’s simple, meh thing throughout. Not going to make you unhappy, however, it’s not going to wow you either. The toughest part is a quick to finish spice finish.

All in all, I could see people enjoying this dram. As a first step for a distillery, I don’t blame them for releasing this. Perhaps I’ll come back later after having many more Glenlossie drams that don’t have the spoonful of Canadian whisky (or more) added and see if that caused some roadblocks, however, I feel this was a simple dram that could be sold, and it merely added the grassiness, something their juice is known for.

72/100

World Whisky review #324, World review #5, Whisky Network review #1461