The last Gordon & MacPhail Discovery bottle of this little set brings out a new colour, purple. Purple obviously being the well know colour for sherry. ( ?!?) What is interesting for me though is my first contact with Miltonduff distillery which is rarely seen on the shelves of a whisky shop.

The Distillery

The Miltonduff distillery in Elgin Speyside was founded officially in 1824 when Mr Peary and Mr Bain bought a distilling licence.

Currently owned by Chivas Brother the Miltonduff distillery has 3 sets of pot stills producing up to 5.9 million litres of alcohol each year. From 1964 until 1981 the distillery was also home to a pair of Lomond stills which produced Mosstowie whisky which you can still buy from independent bottlers today. All are well aged of course and pretty damn expensive. https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/mosstowie/mosstowie-38-year-old-1979-cask-14575-cask-strength-collection-signatory-whisky/

The Ballentines blend currently takes in most of the output as well as G&M taking the new make and maturing it in their own warehouses for releases like the one we are reviewing today. However, last year an official 15 year old was released which doesn’t seem to be available in any shops just now and actually completely passed me by at the release time. However, the bottle looks like the below with similar Glentauchers and Glenburgie’s

The Dram

With 10 years in a sherry cask this natural colour in the whisky is totally natural. Like the other bottles in the Discovery series it is 43%ABV and around £50 in the UK. Judging from the other ones in the series so far I would expect this to be quite mellow and approachable rather than a hard hitting intense sherry bomb.

Tasting Notes

Colour – orange marmalade

Nose – mmm quite intense actually so not what I was expecting. Lots of tobacco, raisins and sultanas. A pure sherry bomb with perhaps some px notes in there? Slightly nutty and a note of perfumed candle wax.

Palate – A nice thick texture holds fruitcake flavours with nuts running through the mix. The initial attack is quite sharp given the strength which implies the youthfulness of the spirit but the development brings in the cask influence which is much fruitier and sweeter.

Finish – Dry tobacco leaves, cinnamon sticks and bitter tannins from the oak. The length is a solidly long on as well.

Final Thoughts

Much more of a sherrybomb than I was expecting and I liked this one the most. I think quite a lot of people will like this and actually with Aberlour pricing on the  up this is not a bad replacement at all.

I  guess it is quite easy to always like the most wood influenced ones and think of spirit led whiskies as being inferior. I wouldn’t like that to be anyways takeaway from this series its just how the reviews landed in this case.