40,8°
Distillery : Littlemill - Lowlands
American Oak Cask and 1st Fill Oloroso Sherry Hogshead Finish
Original Bottling
Limited Edition
Single Cask
Bottled in 2022
Unchillfiltered, Uncoloured, Cask Strength
Totally Unpeated
If the distillery had not closed its doors for good in 1994, it would have celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2022. The Loch Lomond group, which now owns all the remaining casks of Littlemill, was keen to celebrate this anniversary, even if it is more of a commemoration. It's an opportunity to release this 45 year old, at the time the oldest Littlemill ever produced. It was succeeded last year by a 47-year-old. It spent almost 45 years in an American oak cask, before being finished for 6 months in a 1st Fill Oloroso Sherry Hogshead. And 250 bottles are on sale, at an eye-watering price. Each bottle comes with a box featuring an original photograph by Stephan Sappert, an artist who works exclusively with 19th-century materials.
Let's Taste It :
Typically Littlemill nose, blood oranges and orchard fruits, yellow apples, juicy pears, peaches, herbaceous notes, laurel and honeysuckle, warm chestnuts, forest berries, rough bark. Vanilla, of course, acacia honey, a lime zest, grapefruit, reeds, a few vegetables, leeks, medlars, turnips. Delicately floral notes. On the palate, it's silky, smooth, balanced, close to perfection. Litchis, rosewater, exotic fruit, melon, apricots, but behind that, chocolate, honey, almond milk, and very discreet spices, nutmeg, cinnamon. The finish is long, but not very powerful, with lots of hazelnuts and cashew nuts, parsley, noble wood, notes of coffee, earth, charcoal.
In Short,
It's really excellent, intense and original. I thought it was a very typical Littlemill, but with a few hints of Sherry, blood oranges, chocolate and honey, hazelnuts. The finish, on the other hand, seemed relatively weak, but I'd tasted a number of much stronger whiskies before, so I think if I tasted it on its own, as I should, it would be much more enjoyable. The price is, of course, outrageous, this is not a whisky made to be drunk, but for speculators to have fun with. Nonetheless, it's really very good.
Score : 91
To Be Listened While Sipping :
Joseph Haydn - Symphony n°49 in F minor "La Passione"
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