Lady of the Glen Tullibardine Tasting Notes

Lady of the Glen Rare Cask Tullibardine 2006 (11 year old) 59.3%

First Fill Bourbon Cask #617

Dist: Sept 2006 Btl: May 2018/ Tasted: Nov 2018

The nose is slightly musty with hard barley, toffee, black fruit and winey, dusty tannins. Water makes it a little cleaner with more barley and vanilla showing.

The palate is like the nose faintly musty with earthy black fruit, toffee and plenty of mouth puckering tannins. Water brings out a subtle, almost peated character. Still hard and still a bit dirty. Short and a little hot with lingering vanilla and industrial notes. In conclusion: I don’t think this was filled into a particularly good quality cask.

Lady of the Glen Rare Cask Tullibardine 2006 (14 year old) 55.3%

7 years Bourbon/ 7 years rum cask finish

Cask 36

Dist: 2006 Btl: 2020/ Tasted: Jul 2020

The nose is intense and rummy. Quite high toned with rose petal, brown sugar, earthy wood spice and hints of pot pourri and apricot. Well balance with the slightly industrial spirit character coming through.

The palate opens with the rum cask, followed by high toned rose petal, brown sugar, earthy/ duety pot pourri and wood spice. Intense, dried fruit middle and finish with dried pineapple, apricot and some balancing edgy spirit. It’s definitely not lacking in character.

House of Macduff Tullibardine Tasting Notes

House of Macduff ‘Golden Cask – Reserve’ Tullibardine 2010 (11 year old) 55.9%

Bourbon Hogshead/ Ref: CM289

Dist: Nov 2010 Btl: 2022/ Tasted: July 2022

The nose is edgy and biscuity with plenty of malt, hard barley and toffee. Hints of lime and sweet vanilla.

The palate opens with the sweet vanilla oak and honey. Moves into slightly hard barley, malt biscuit and sweet spice/ pepper. Good spicy and malty finish.

Water makes no change to the nose, whilst the palate is less sweet and showing more of the malt biscuits. A touch of toffee and coffee on the middle and then it’s back to the malt flakes and biscuits.

Duncan Taylor Tullibardine Tasting Notes

Duncan Taylor Battlehill Tullibardine 8 year old 46%

Tasted: Nov 2021

The nose is quite spirity and neutral with hints of hard barley, which is softened a little by a touch of honey and creamy oak. Subtle rose petal marc, lime, sweet corn and rye-like spices.

The palate opens with hard barley and honey. Good balance but it does become a bit cardboardy on the middle. Chunky vanilla and Bourbony oak comes through on the middle along with spice and citrus. A little hot, but not too hot. Good spicy after-taste with lingering clean rose petal marc.

Brave New Spirits Tormore Tasting Notes

Whisky of Voodoo ‘The Nailed Puppet’ Speyside Single Malt 11 year old 52.6%

Batch 1 – Tormore aged in First and Second Fill Bourbon Barrels

Tasted: Jun 2022

The nose is a little tight but honeyed with apple, pear, peach and a touch of orange and gooseberry. Late vanilla and lemon.

The palate opens with some creamy oak, barley and apricot. Fuller than the nose suggests as the oak is more noticeable. Orange, pear, gooseberry, spice and citrus appears. Good length, if a little hot, but pleasantly spiced.

Diluted the nose is fuller and more honeyed and oaky. Simpler with late malt biscuits. The palate is also simpler and oakier. Less citrus, more malt. Longer, maltier finish.

Thompson Brothers Tormore Tasting Notes

Thompson Brothers Tormore 1992 (28 year old) 47.3%

Refill Bourbon Hogshead

Dist: 1992 Btl: 2021/ Tasted: July 2022

The nose is high toned and straw-like with some lovely. Juicy orange blossom honey, barley and subtle, mature, sawdusty oak. The aromas become quite creamy as the oak asserts itself. Lat marzipan and almond skin.

The palate is full and honeyed but there is a slightly raw edginess. Hints of tea leaf, cardboard and subtle orange. It becomes more astringent and rougher towards the middle. Short, astringent, bitter spiced finish.

With water the nose is simpler and shows more sugar coated orange, wet hay and tobacco leaf. The palate has come extremely cardboardy, which is a shame. The spirit is creaking!

That Boutique-y Whisky Company Tormore Tasting Notes

That Boutique-y Whisky Company Tormore Batch 2 51.4%

Btl: 2015/ Tasted: Feb 2016

The nose is full, fragrant and tropical – honeydew melon, peach, pear and apricot notes  mingle with runny honey and sawdusty oak. With time a balancing lime citrus note appears along with some buttery oak notes.

Full and barley’d on the palate with hints of straw to begin with. Less tropical but showing a lovely density of apricot, lime and orange fruit. Obviously mature with subtle coffee’d oak. Long, fleshy, minerally and slightly citric with the alcohol drying a little but the oak lingers. In conclusion: A lovely Spey. I’d like to have seen a little more honey sweetness on the finish to balance the drier notes, but that nit picking!

Hannah Whisky Merchants Tormore Tasting Notes

Dalgety Limited Release Small Batch Tormore 2011 (11 year old) 50.5%

Refill Sherry Hogsheads

Dist: Jan 2011 Btl: July 2022/ Tasted: Aug 2022

The nose is fresh, citric and barley’d with a subtle sherry dried fruit influence. Hints of wheat flakes, vanilla and with time green apple and sweet pecan nuts.

The palate is oilier and fuller and shows a touch more sherried dried fruit along with a touch of fudge. Well balanced with a touch of barley, green fruit and menthol coming through. Good length with a malty, nutty, citric finish and a slightly earthy after-taste.

Lady of the Glen Rare Cask Tormore 2011 (11 year old) 55.1%

Cask 1 Sauternes Barrique Finish/ Dist: 2011 Btl: 2023/ Tasted: Mar 2023

The nose is soft and honeyed with a developing honeycomb note but also some raw tannins. It’s definitely edgier Sauternes rather than soft and sweet Sauternes. Late dried apricot and beeswax.

Raw Sauternes cask on the palate. It feels like licking out the inside of the cask! Tannic, but slightly honeyed with wood smoke, astringent green fruit, burnt scrub and honey coated tar!? Now I wasn’t expecting that!

Diluted the nose and the palate is still cask heavy but less raw and a bit softer and sweeter.

Chorlton Whisky Tormore Tasting Notes

Bourbon Hogshead

Dist: Nov 1992 Btl: July 2021/ Tasted: Jun 2022

The nose displays a noticeable alcohol prickle along with grass, lime and high toned, almost crunchy barley. With time toasty/ mature American oak and subtle burnt wood notes. It seems younger.

The palate is little edgy and alcoholic. Grippy barley, grass and lime follow. Quite a tart and alcoholic middle with practically no oak character bar a little toffee. Short, very intense finish and a barley’d after-taste.

Water brings out sugar, lanolin, white fruit, tangerine and soap on the nose. The palate has become fuller and oilier. Honeyed but simpler. The citrus has become quite muted and the middle has become a bit sugary. Longer, mature spirit finish with lingering barley.

Carn Mor Tormore Tasting Notes

Carn Mor Strictly Limited Tormore 2011 (8 year old) 46%

Bourbon Barrel

Dist: 2011 Btl: Apr 2019/ Tasted: July 2019

Aromas of soft, buttery oak and fleshy apricot with hints of menthol, mint and eucalyptus. A touch of pear and citrus comes through to freshen the nose and in doing so allows some lovely barley notes to appear.

The palate opens with the soft vanilla oak with fleshy white fruit. white liquorice, menthol and eycalyptus. Like the nose a pleasant balancing citrus note comes through along with some soft spices. Slightly mouth-watering citrus and barley’d finish with returning oak.

Torabhaig Distillery Tasting Notes

Torabhaig ‘The Legacy Series – 2017’ 46%

Tasted: Feb 2021

The nose is quite shy to begin with but opens with the mashtun notes of cereal, malt biscuits, lemon and barley. Although it has a heavy PPM phenol count the peat is fairly subtle and herbal. Delicate and oily with a faint salt and petrol note.

The palate is again quite shy (or should that be skye?!) The peat is more pronounced, ashier and sootier. There’s also more coastal saltiness and citrus. Good crisp barley and white fruit middle. Long, oily, cereal, salt, zesty citrus with lingering earth peat and mashtun notes. The palate is probably more expressive than the nose, but it’s still good.

Torabhaig Legacy Series: Allt Gleann 46%

1^st Fill & Refill Bourbon

Tasted: Aug 2021

A young, fresh and barley’d nose with earthy and sweet peat, salt, citrus and hints of tobacco leaf and vanilla. The coastal notes build in intensity, and it has more than a passing resemblance to young Talisker, minus the pepperiness.

The palate is lightly oiled and a touch fuller due to more noticeable oak character and a good dollop of honey. The salty citric notes balance and the peat is a little subtler but still quite earthy. Long and continuing sweetly bartley’d with lingering pepper, bonfire ash and vanilla.

Torabhaig Legacy Series: Allt Gleann ‘2nd Release’ 46%

Code: 20188/ Tasted: Jun 2022

A fresh and citric nose with lemon, earth, dusty peat along with hints of fern, rose petal and very subtle vanilla. Faint soapiness and late coal dust.

The palate is fuller and opens with barley, apricot and citrus. Astringent coastal peat and earthy peat notes follow along with a touch of salt and tannin on the middle. Lovely intensity and continuing citric and peaty. Long, coal/ peat dust finish with bog myrtle and youthful, astringent spirit notes.