After dipping the toe into Irish whisky last week, it’s back on familiar ground (so to speak) in my quest for dirty whisky. Having covered Islay, and with a (compulsory/inevitable) trip to Campbeltown planned for next week, it’s well worth stopping in the vast region of the Highlands, as we’re not exactly short on options here either when trying to find a dirty whisky. For starters, there’s Ledaig, a few Clynelish as well probably, and let’s not rule out some indie Highland Park, a heavily peated Arran or Ardmore… but the two obvious choices would probably be either a Ben Nevis 10 (provided you can actually find one these days) or something from ‘Scotland’s little gem’ – Edradour. Both distilleries have built a reputation on bringing bold, hefty, strong whiskies, so it really came down to what I was ale to pick up. Having had a few bottles of both Ben Nevis 10 and Edradour 12 in the past, I fondly remember their robust and powerful characters, with Ben Nevis probably taking the cake if you fancy a bit of an industrial, savoury-meaty style, while Edradour gives you that damp, slightly musty dunnage warehouse flavour.
Indeed, it would have all come down to flipping an actual coin as I was still very much ‘in dubio’ on which one to pick, were it not for the fact that there’s virtually no official Ben Nevis 10 to be found anywhere near me, or not at reasonable prices at least . Luckily, one of my go to stores did have a few bottles of Edradour 12 sitting on the shelf, so sometimes decisions are being made for you rather than by you.
I was, however, kind of surprised to find out that the bottle code of the Edradour I picked up revealed that this was a 2017 release. Beggars, of course, cannot be choosers, but in any case I think it’s kind of cool to stumble upon a bit of an older release. The Pitlochry based distillery prided itself for many years to be one of the smallest (if not the smallest) distilleries in Scotland, hence its credo ‘Scotland’s little gem’. Interestingly, this was ne of the first distilleries to be owned by an independent bottler – Signatory- after deemed redundant by Pernod Ricard in 2002. Making the most of the distillery’ limited production capacity (some 300,000 LPA), Signatory owner Andrew Symington renovated the distillery, built a bottling line facility on site and expanded the warehouses to mature both new make from the distillery and the (vast) stock of all types of different Signatory casks. Little fun fact: like so many other distilleries, the ‘since 1825’ claim needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. The distillery was in fact founded by a group of local farmers in 1837, but since one of them was a licensed distiller as far back as 1825, didn’t that date come in real handy to claim an extra 12 years of ‘provenance’. Anyhow…
Edradour 12 yo ‘Caledonia’, 46% ABV, natural colour, UCF, 2017 release, app. €70
Nose
The sherry is strong on this one! (Chocolate covered) raisins, plums, figs sitting agains a soft note of soap and floral notes. Where’s the dirt? Well, there’s a distinct oiliness to it, and something damp, wet cloth and dunnage warehouse like as well.
Palate
Again it starts with a big hit of sherry cask influences, alongside a blast of red fruit. Very viscous as well, bringing with it notes of oil/gasoline introducing the dirty side of this. At the back notes of wet wood. After a few drops of water, those (wet) wood notes are pushed to the front, while also adding some mineral, slightly salty flavours.
Finish
Woody, autumn leaves, slightly oily and industrial.
Final thoughts
This comes very close to delivering a textbook example of a dirty whisky. It’s big and round on sherry cask influences, full of oily notes while also adding that dampness from dunnage warehouses. And yet, this release is not as dirty as I remember my previous bottle (a 2019 release if memory serves me right) to be. Now, I know batch consistency, especially for some of the older releases, hasn’t always been Edradour’s strong suit, but we need to take the drinker, i.e.: me, into the equation as well. Palates evolve and change, and memory is a tricky thing as well. So I’m not at all ruling out the possibility that my memory from my first encounter with this whisky from a few years ago had me believing it was (even) heftier, bigger and dirtier compared to what I’m experiencing now. Whatever the case, this whisky suits this series quite well. At €70 (£65) or there about, it’s on the pricier side for a 12 year old whisky, and while I’m quite enjoying my time with this and also appreciate that Edradour has a small outturn (very small even, given that since 2006 some part of it is going into the peated Ballechin range), the pricepoint does have an effect on my appreciation of this whisky. Intrinsically it sits around 84-85, but I’m landing on a (still very decent) 83/100.
Drop in again next week for the final stop: Campbeltown.
Gret review, Menno.