This 40 yo Banff, distilled in 1976, was part of the 175th anniversary bottling by the independend bottler Cadenhead’s, and we got the chance to try it during the matching tasting with Mark Watt during the Campbeltown whisky festival 2017. I liked what I tasted (I had it at a tie with the Rosebank), so I brought most of the sample home for a proper tasting session. Let’s do this!

Tasting notes:
Colour: coppery gold
The nose is anything but weak – still going strong after 40 years in a hoggie! What did they do differently in the 70s? Many drams from that era (even ones bottled at a relatively young age) have such a rich, fruity, waxy palate that has rarely been produced since. We’ve got orange peel, waxed red apples, tinned peaches and tangerines, brown banana, banana bread, strawberries in milk chocolate. In short: a complex, rich summer fruit salad served on sweet bread. (Please, hipsters, don’t make that a thing!). Oak, you ask? Well… just a smidgen of oak influence and a light generic herbal note holding everything together in the background, but this is mostly distillate and age talking here. With extended time in the glass, the herbal notes intensify a bit.

Continue reading “Tasting: Banff 1976 40 yo – Cadenhead’s 175th anniversary”

Dram data:
Distillery: Glen Albyn
Bottler: Gordon & MacPhail
Distilled: 1976
Bottled: 2012
Age: ca. 36 years
Limitation: –
Casks: Ex-sherry
Alcohol: 43%
chill filtered, uncoloured
Whiskybase link

Tasting notes:
Colour: apple juice
My first Glen Albyn – a lost Inverness distillery, founded in 1846 and closed during the miserable 80s whisky downturn in 1983. Bottlings of this distillery are getting very scarce these days…
The nose opens with notes of dusty apple strudel with sugar (no raisins!), old mashed banana, icing sugar with a drop of lemon, rich, creamy old oak and dried orange zest. Very, very mellow and well-aged! The palate has notes of white and red apples – very light, actually, light spices and a lot of creaminess. Old, dried oranges, a hint of cardboard and an old banana with peel with a fragrant oak and a whiff of dusty old cellar (yep!) in the background. Continue reading “Tasting: Glen Albyn 1976 – 2012 by Gordon & Macphail”