Distillery exclusive bottling are always sought after by malt geeks, and It’s always nice to visit a distillery and buy a limited bottle you can not get elsewhere, it does remind you of fond memories when you revisit it when at home some months after the actual visit. If you ask the average whisky geek, the preferred format should be a cask strength edition, preferably bottle your own, from a single cask or so, right? Well, think again. The Dalmore have created such an exclusive recently, but sadly it’s bottled at 48% abv (which is a tad higher than usual for Dalmore, yes) , and pre-bottled, so there goes those two fantasies. The other thing is the price, £150 is a lot of money for whisky, let alone a NAS whisky (which means you do not know what you are paying for) , certainly a lot of money for a whisky at 48%… There are only 450 such bottles (which will get snatched quite fast, I can imagine). The whisky itself is a vatting of of port, Moscatel and Madeira casks before finally being finessed in first fill bourbon barrels. So is this a good whisky (or a good wine-sky)? Let’s check it out then..
The Dalmore distillery exclusive 2015 edition , 48% abv , £150 
Nose: Certainly a lot of wine influence going on here. Not the sweet cloying sherry stuff but more balanced when it comes to sweet notes.wine gums in addition to candied orange , dried fruit( sultana and and fig) as well as dark chocolate and rum n’ raisin ice cream.
Palate: The palate is rich and sweet. All the desert wines do mix well to create a thick fudge.There’s also tons of sultana soaked in rum cinnamon and nuts. Thick ripe black cherries macerated in sweet syrup. Pepper. More cocoa. Ending on chocolate covered ripe oranges.
Finish : Lots of wood spices , chocolate and cinnamon. Oaky yet rich and luscious.
This is not a bad whisky, actually it’s very tasty, and easy going, rich and sweet without being too sweet (it’s got a lot of wine effect, so if you’re turned off by wine – this is not up your alley – but you knew that already , right?), The vatting has worked out quite nicely, and I can see myself sipping this whisky and enjoying it very much. But, and that’s a big but – for 150 quid, I’d expect a bit more, and limited as it is, I find the price point to be higher than what it should have been. Good stuff, at any rate. The Dalmore has the knowledge and whisky to create that, as we well know.
Interesting one here as I really liked this dram despite not normally liking wine, although I do like dessert wines.
Price wise it comes down to did it taste like £150 a bottle and for me it did, age is just a number as they say 😉
Would I have loved to see it at 50-55% with at least a vintage or like the tun1401 list of casks, yes, but would it out me off spending £150 a bottle, no.
That’s quite true. the wine effect here is quite large, but it’s a pleasant one IMHO. i was expecting much more a “winesky”. again, 150 quid is a lot. i’d rather pay for a Tun since i know what’s inside (transparency is nice) and it does feel “older” as in old wood feeling i love so much. and the Cask strength too. 48%? that does not cut it anymore.
so unless a collector or Dalmore die hard, you wont buy…
Yeah I think more than anything the issue with NAS is simply a lack of transparency, I’d love to see more batches with specific cask info, or range, even if it said a blend of casks aged 7-12 etc would give people more confidence in paying larger amounts.
This was sweet enough for me without the metallic notes of red wine tannins, so it works for me, if I was passing the distillery, I’d have a bottle of this. Would love to,see them do a distillery only single cask at £100 or under though