Mortlach 24 1991 Signatory Cask Strength Collection

Thanks to /u/cake_my_day for pouring me this dram

This is one of the ongoing review series I’m calling “Holy Crap I did too many of these at once and it comes across as muddled at best”, or rather, Day 13 of the Advent Calendar my wife put together for me in December that I’m only now posting.

Yay life being busy! It certainly was a great idea to do this while promising to hit 100 Irish whiskies, having two tastings, curling, being in two Dungeons and Dragons games, the holidays, and starting a new job.

Let’s get to the whisky, shall we?

Price: Discontinued

Region: Speyside

Distilled in: May 14th, 1991

Bottled on: December 2nd, 2015

Cask Type: Sherry Butt

Cask Number: 4240

Number of Bottles: 587

Abv: 55.5%

Colour: 2.5Y 8/8

Nose: Navel orange, lemon oil, rosemary, earth

Immediate acidity overwhelms. I fall to the earth. There are some herbs.

When a nose makes you haiku, you haiku. And by that, I mean freeform, because my amount-of-syllables is WAY off.

This is two different strong flavours. One’s rough, the other’s very acidic.

Taste: Ginger, sweet tea, molasses, lemon, ham

Hot. Sherry has taken over quite a bit here. There’s a lot of tannins. Any Mortlach (I didn’t guess Mortlach) flavours that you’re used to are strained here.

Some nice balance, but man is this hot. Water is very much needed to pick things out for me.

Finish: White chocolate, lemon, oat, caramel, ginger

Finish is nicer, but I was so beat-up by the hot flavour and the amount of acid that it’s almost like a consolation prize for not flinching when someone goes to hit you.

Nice balance again, once it calms down.

Conclusion: Too hot, seems like the sherry cask took over a bit too much. Gets better with time, but just wasn’t my thing at the end. Maybe too tannic for me. Maybe too acidic.

This is definitely one of those cases where my score reflects my personal preference more than anything that may be objectively correct. Which is the norm with reviews, I’m just saying this is more me not liking a ton of acidic elements or the sheer amount of heat.

This is really hot to me and doesn’t have the profile I typically go for in Morlachs. I found them missing quite a bit, replaced with too many tannins.

I’d say try before you buy on this one. Friends have enjoyed it much more than me.

81/100

Guess: Ex-bourbon, 46-50%, Speyside, 12-15 years old

Actually: Mortlach 24 1991 Signatory Cask Strength Collection

An older Cask Strength Mortlach. I was correct on the region. What was I thinking on the cask? Maybe an odd ex-bourbon cask. Overall I felt this was younger. But maybe it just lost it’s lustre over the years (for me).

Scotch review #1072, Speyside review #297, Whisky review #1670