Review 275. Loch Lomond/Inchmurrin 13 yo Mystery Malt Thompson Brothers

In the (still?)  expanding glass loch we currently find ourselves in, it takes an ingenious bit of ‘marketing’ or ‘branding’  if you want to stand out amidst the plethora of options available to us today. Sure, there’s always the option to go for dashing looking bottles or containers, but

a) probably excess is not the buzz word to go for in these eco footprint conscious times

and

b) chances are Compass Box will still have at least a few bottles that are better looking in terms of artwork

So, back to the drawing board then? Not necessarily, as there are other options. Like what we’re seeing from Signatory Vintage with their 100° proof series – age stated, untampered with, all but cask strength releases from just about any distillery worth its salt, all priced at around £50/€60. I think the words “yes, please, and can I have some more” where invented for this exact purpose.

A similar approach, yet with a few twists to the concept, can be found in what the Thompson Brothers have been doing with their Mystery Malts releases. Utterly opaque bottles, all with the same ABV, the same RRP, where you spin the wheel of fortune and could land on anything between a  4 year old Raasay,  a 17 year old Tormore and then all the way up to a 27 year old Inchgower and just about anything in between.

When they first launched in May last year, the entire batch sold out in a heartbeat and people couldn’t stop talking about it. One year later and onto batch 6 the hype may have died down a little, but fair to assume they’re still selling these like hotcakes. Of course the chances of striking lucky and bagging yourself a +20 year old malt at what essentially is an absolute bargain price (around £65/€75 I believe) are a bit slimmer than landing on a relatively young or ‘mid aged’ bottle of whisky, but even then I’ll argue that, while the bargain element may not fully or always apply, you still get an absolutely decent deal. And, contrary to playing the lottery, you definitely do end up with something real and tangible, so it’s not as if you’re left wanting or anything. These releases will not be around forever, and seeing how  I am a fan  of the concept, it makes sense to actually review one. Also, possibly subconsciously, it might have been inspired by Roy doing a full blind  on 6 bottles of their latest batch with the legend that is Roddy Graham just last week.

Inchmurrin 13 yo Thompson Brothers Mystery Malt batch 5 (December 2025 release). 46.3% ABV, NC, UCF, 276 bottles, refill bourbon barrel.

A few weeks (and reviews back) I mentioned how, probably more by sheer luck than actual knowledge, I ‘won’ this bottle when we were doing a blind tasting with the fellow Belgian barflies hosted by Yuri. Needles to say the bottle was opened and ‘distributed’ on the spot to allow everyone present at least a decent sample. What makes it particularly generous on Yuri’s behalf is that he too didn’t know what was inside the bottle until that moment. It might just as well have been a27 yo Glen Garioch or a 24 yo Clynelish. And truth be told, if it had been such a ‘high end’ bottle, I’m not at all sure I would have been comfortable “claiming” such a price and probably would have settled for a sample at best. But such is the generosity of this community that he didn’t even blink. Also, truth be told, I couldn’t have been happier to find out this was indeed a 13 year old Inchmurrin, from a refill bourbon barrel. Loch Lomond is firmly in my top 5  of favourite distilleries (they were and probably still count as my most ‘hoarded’ distillery) and then to have one of their whiskies made in their straight-neck pot stills (if it says ‘Inchmurrin’, that’s what this implies: the use of their straight-neck stills,  essentially a pot still with a column still mounted on top of it to allow further ‘rectification’ as you would from using a ‘regular’ column still  =  fruit galore), which was then matured in refill bourbon barrels, meaning a lot of the delicious spirit is allowed plenty of leeway to make itself known: that’s boxes being ticked in my book…

Nose

As hoped and expected: this is incredibly fruity! Orchard notes (with a lot of both green and red apples and pears), grapes, white fruit (melon)… the works. Sweet and sour with notes of barley sugar, vanilla and granulated sugar. Lush!

Palate

Hmmm! ‘Classic’ bourbon cask matured highland whisky. In the best of ways. If anything, this reminds me (a lot!) of Glencadam 10, which is a whisky I hold in very high regard. Again: so many orchard notes, barley and grain, some vanilla… not the most complex whisky to ever touch my lips, but with a fantastic balance, an almost silky, velvety gentle mouthfeel (without even as much as a suggestion of an alcohol nip): this is so, so morish!

Finish

Medium long, grainy - cereal and some vanilla.

Final thoughts

This is a delight! If I can’t say ‘smooth’ on account of getting busted by the whisky taste police, I’ll happily go with ‘mellow’ instead. A perfect summer whisky which in all of its ‘modest classic notes’ excels and shines. Overall I’m dead serious when I say I would rather have 1 of these than a 20 something year old that was laid to rest in a first fill Oloroso cask and has turned into something utterly generic, where it has become completely  impossible to even guess what distillery it might have come from. This is honest, bear naked, absolutely lovely whisky. And because, thanks to Yuri, I did have about half a bottle to try and assess, I’m happy to put out a score again: this is an easy 85/100 in my book.