Independent bottler Douglas Laing’s ‘Old Particular’ is a range of single casks whiskies (both single malts and single grains) from across the regions of Scotland. Bottled with natural colour, unchill-filtered and at cask strength, Old Particular bottlings offer the discerning drinker an experience which they claim is close to ‘…sampling a dram straight from its cask in the hallowed surroundings of a distillery warehouse’.
Today’s Old Particular comes from Glenturret. The distillery was founded in 1775 (making it one of the older Scottish distilleries) on the banks of the river Turret near Crieff in Perthshire. The hidden glen location of the distillery is often claimed to hark back to its history as a location rife with illicit stills. As a key element of the popular world-wide blend Famous Grouse, since 1990 it has been home to ‘The Famous Grouse Experience’, an award winning interactive tourist attraction. Also of note for cat lovers is that World record breaking mouse catcher ‘Towser the Mouser’ lived at the distillery from 1963 to 1987. She is now commemorated with her own bronze statute in the visitor centre.
Enough trivial, back to today’s notes. Our bottling was distilled in November 1987 and matured in a refill hogshead (number DL11028) until December 2015. It’s bottled at 51.5% and is from a relatively small batch of only 168 bottles.
Nose: Pronounced and showing off its age well with tons of polish, brass, wood spice and quite a dry and dusty character. Whilst the aged notes are firmly in the driving seats, a touch of sweetness is provided by warm sugared corns, orange peels and golden syrup. The wood spice is quite evident, but still manages to give a little freshness in the form of pine. The addition of water dulls down the polish notes and heightens the orange with some pleasant spice.
Taste: Viscous and mouth coating. The palate is much sweeter than the nose initially implies. It’s also more malty too. Cask influence is heavy again with polish and spice in the form of cinnamon, clove and some lovely gingerbread notes. Water reduces the viscosity (boo), but adds to the maltiness.
Finish: Long and packed full of varnish and spicing.
This is a great example of a well-aged Glenturret. There’s tons of character in amongst the mature aromas and flavours. You’ll need to quite like wood and wood spice in particular to get the most out of this, but to my taste I find all the elements extremely well-balanced and sympathetic to one another. An older bottle so now sold out, but you might see one at auction – I paid a reasonable amount for it (less than £100), so you should aim to do so also.