Strathclyde 9 yo 2005 - 55.7%.Clan Denny, sherry butt #10710

[opelfruit]

Ok, yes I know; it's a single grain and not a single malt. Bah, whatever.


So this baby is a Single Grain, bottled by Douglas Laing for the Clan Denny range. Cask strength at 55.7% abv, natural colour, not chill filtered and a very reasonable £45 (or there abouts):



Nose:

Old leather chairs and polished wood floors, pipe tobacco, roasted nuts and some damp earth/rancio. Spent coffee grounds, butter toffee, chocolate and a touch of menthol.



Palate:

Big, but not a hot delivery as you'd expect for 55.7% - viscous and creamy mouth-feel. Spicy sweet; ginger, clove, butterscotch candy (Wethers Originals), toffee, some vanilla and then bitters to 90% dark chocolate, stong Java coffee and burnt clementine peel. The fragrant tobacco notes appear from the nose and a tannic note too (strong black tea).



Finish:

Very long. Moves back to spices, Christmas cake baking spices specifically with some chilli. Sweetens again to raisins, maple syrup and tails off with spiced toffee sauce, spiced caramel, spiced butter...whatever. Spiced creamy nice things.



Right. 9 years old, right? Whatever. If it did this blind I'd put it at 20 years old, given its a grain, maybe even into the mid-20s. No youthful notes and loads of old sherry and bags of complexity, totally the opposite of what I'd expect for a 9 year old grain. There were points in this where I was picking up definite notes of high quality, well aged bourbon (think George T Stagg, maybe Eagle Rare 17yo).

It's also dangerously drinkable for 55.7%abv, very little heat, just buzzing spices.

Lets be honest, grain spirit isn't the most characterful. This must have taken all it's goodness from the cask, and I have to assume that it was a very active, very very good sherry cask that's been stored at the top of a rack in a palatalised warehouse for the level of cask interaction it's picked up.

For £45 it's going to be pretty hard to beat this for me this year, in terms of value and quality for money.

One word: Incredible.
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"Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough."

[Quaich1]

Great review Opel. It certainly has a lot of the qualities of an older whisky as you describe it. I doubt it will ever make its way here across the pond but you never know...
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"Always carry a large flagon of whisky in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake."
W.C. Fields (1880-1946)

[opelfruit]

Not sure what the outrun from the butt was, it's only young but i feel its matured on fast forward so there may have been quite a bit of loss to those greedy angels. There's a fair few bottles knocking about over here but I don't imagine it's the kind of thing that gets shipped over-seas......not enough bottles.

Really hard to get my head round it, just shouldn't deliver the profile it does for what it is. It's a bit sweet, but then it's most likely corn spirit. The sweetness has gone down a touch since I opened it last week and there's more of "your dad's old leather jacket", so it seems to be displaying more older sherry notes the more it's open.


Looking forward to coming back to it again next week and seeing what it's got then. Lots of depth and lots to find if you're looking hard enough.
_________________
"Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough."