Next lowest price on Wine Search in MO is $279.99
A very compelling, moreish and appetising Mortlach for those who like their whisky robust. Astonishingly complex throughout and characterised by a fine interplay of meaty notes, malty sweetness and balancing citrus.
Light, well balanced and nuanced throughout. Delicate at first with the light fruity aroma of fresh green apples. This soon disappears in a well-paced development to reveal a supple and savoury Mortlach core suffused with candied sweetness: a heady mix of blackcurrant, roast chestnut and treacle toffee. With water, it opens slowly with spicy notes of cedar and caramelised fruit sugars.Medium to rich-bodied. Cooling, thick and smooth overall. Cautious and creamy at first, with flashes of intense sweetness before an espresso coffee note develops. This is Mortlach at its most robust; rich and muscular, with a mid-palate in which tannins bring out cocoa, damson and a real earthiness to compete with a rich honey sweetness. Later, faint notes of balsam introduce a growing sandalwood spiciness.
Coating, with a sparkling bitter-sweetness as found in a traditional cloudy lemonade or perfectly ripe raspberries. Ultimately drying and warming, with wood smoke or dried lavender and re-emerging cocoa nibs.
Mortlach 25 Year Old Single Malt...$599.99
Next lowest price in Missouri is $999.99 at Total Wine and More
Light, well balanced and nuanced throughout. Delicate at first with the light fruity aroma of fresh green apples. This soon disappears in a well-paced development to reveal a supple and savoury Mortlach core suffused with candied sweetness: a heady mix of blackcurrant, roast chestnut and treacle toffee. With water, it opens slowly with spicy notes of cedar and caramelised fruit sugars.Medium to rich-bodied. Cooling, thick and smooth overall. Cautious and creamy at first, with flashes of intense sweetness before an espresso coffee note develops. This is Mortlach at its most robust; rich and muscular, with a mid-palate in which tannins bring out cocoa, damson and a real earthiness to compete with a rich honey sweetness. Later, faint notes of balsam introduce a growing sandalwood spiciness.
Coating, with a sparkling bitter-sweetness as found in a traditional cloudy lemonade or perfectly ripe raspberries. Ultimately drying and warming, with wood smoke or dried lavender and re-emerging cocoa nibs.
Mortlach 25 Year Old Single Malt...$599.99
Next lowest price in Missouri is $999.99 at Total Wine and More
A multi-faceted Mortlach that is all full-strength, full-on impact, with an intriguing mix of elegance and power. Complex throughout: a big and chewy dram with high complexity, mixing roasting spices with dense layers of decadent sweetness.
Elegant and mature with tropical fruits and an initial, enigmatic sweet-savouriness. Quickly develops ripe fruits: soft plums, bruised red apples and hedgerow berries, then more sweetness like Christmas pudding and vanilla-rich white chocolate. Well-balanced, complex and deep, with smoky, waxy hints of chestnut purée and venison.
Softly coating with a smooth and delicate texture, then a burst of plummy fruit fools you into thinking it will get sweeter. But this massive barley-sugar richness instead develops into deep, rich, darkly malty notes then grows herbal. This is a big and chewy dram with high complexity, mixing roasting spices and a muscular, meaty nature with layers of dense sweetness.
Smooth, sweet, warming and tongue-tingling. Develops a vanilla creaminess before an aromatic, liquorice root complexity asserts itself, leading to a gently drying and appetisingly pithy conclusion.
MORTLACH SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY IS REBORN
Diageo has announced the rebirth of Mortlach™, one of the most formidable and revered Single Malt Scotch Whiskies to have been created on Speyside.
For decades, Mortlach’s output has been largely captured by Diageo’s blenders to add its unique notes to complex world-class Blended Scotch whiskies – though in recent times, a very limited number of bottles of Mortlach Single Malt Whisky have been available, and sold rapidly to connoisseurs in the know.
But now for the first time, and in response to suggestions over the years that such a rewarding Single Malt Whisky deserved a wider market, it will be available in global markets in four expressions aimed at global travel and the luxury and connoisseur segment: Rare Old, Special Strength, 18-year-old and 25-year-old.
Mortlach has been described by whisky connoisseurs as “The Beast of Dufftown”, for its rich and powerful flavours, produced in an astonishingly complicated and unique distillation process which commentators have attempted to explain as ‘2.81 Distilled’.
A famous family had a hand in that.
In 1823 Mortlach was the first distillery to be built at Dufftown, now one of the epicentres of Speyside whisky distilling. Its most eminent owners were the entrepreneurial Scottish civil engineer George Cowie, and his gifted and equally ambitious son Dr Alexander Cowie.
After playing a role in the shaping of the railway industry in the 19th century, George Cowie applied his pioneering and precise approach to engineering another great challenge, the production of Single Malt Scotch Whisky. He accepted a partnership at the Mortlach distillery in 1852, before becoming sole owner in 1867.
He clearly made an impact as shortly afterwards a local newspaper wrote: “There is not perhaps a distillery in Scotland that has so many private customers as Mortlach from which spirits are sent not only over the three kingdoms to families, but to America, India, China and Australia, in all of which Mr Cowie has customers who prefer his distillation to all others …” (The Elgin Courant, 1869).
In 1896, George died and his son Alexander, who through his own pioneering work had become an enlightened traveller, returned to Dufftown from Hong Kong and assumed full control of the distillery. Harnessing his entrepreneurial energies and scientific background to oversee the development of Mortlach, Alexander paved the way for the creation of a unique distillation system precisely calculated to create the highly complex and richly flavoured whisky that we know today. Alexander developed a profound knowledge and mastery of whisky making. Indeed, his pioneering work on whisky creation and production was soon recognised in the leading role he played in Scotland’s expanding malt whisky world.
As Chairman of the North of Scotland Malt Distillers’ Association, Alexander represented the interests of over 40 distillers in the North of Scotland and spoke on their behalf at the 1908/09 Royal Commission on Whiskey, where he proudly claimed “I am a malt distiller of high flavoured whisky, a thick type of whisky”.
In a golden age of Victorian expansion and improvement, George and Alexander Cowie were typical of those generations of Scottish engineers, scientists, surveyors and entrepreneurs who, with a energetic sense of purpose, made a confident and lasting mark not just in Scotland and Britain but around the world.
At the helm of the Mortlach distillery for over half a century, the Cowies’ innovative spirit shaped the brand and liquid for centuries to come. In the spirit of these pioneers, the reborn Mortlach whiskies are a celebration of those audacious thinkers who shaped today’s world, just as their forefathers did in the era in which Mortlach was born.
Just as both generations of Cowies made major investments to expand and improve their distillery, so they would undoubtedly be proud to note that its present owners (as announced in April 2013) are investing to double the distillery’s capacity and promote its whiskies widely – a statement of intent and ambition that George and Alexander would surely endorse. The expansion will include the building of a new stillhouse, which will replicate the bewilderingly complex distillation process which makes Mortlach™ unique.
Elegant and mature with tropical fruits and an initial, enigmatic sweet-savouriness. Quickly develops ripe fruits: soft plums, bruised red apples and hedgerow berries, then more sweetness like Christmas pudding and vanilla-rich white chocolate. Well-balanced, complex and deep, with smoky, waxy hints of chestnut purée and venison.
Softly coating with a smooth and delicate texture, then a burst of plummy fruit fools you into thinking it will get sweeter. But this massive barley-sugar richness instead develops into deep, rich, darkly malty notes then grows herbal. This is a big and chewy dram with high complexity, mixing roasting spices and a muscular, meaty nature with layers of dense sweetness.
Smooth, sweet, warming and tongue-tingling. Develops a vanilla creaminess before an aromatic, liquorice root complexity asserts itself, leading to a gently drying and appetisingly pithy conclusion.
MORTLACH SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY IS REBORN
Diageo has announced the rebirth of Mortlach™, one of the most formidable and revered Single Malt Scotch Whiskies to have been created on Speyside.
For decades, Mortlach’s output has been largely captured by Diageo’s blenders to add its unique notes to complex world-class Blended Scotch whiskies – though in recent times, a very limited number of bottles of Mortlach Single Malt Whisky have been available, and sold rapidly to connoisseurs in the know.
But now for the first time, and in response to suggestions over the years that such a rewarding Single Malt Whisky deserved a wider market, it will be available in global markets in four expressions aimed at global travel and the luxury and connoisseur segment: Rare Old, Special Strength, 18-year-old and 25-year-old.
Mortlach has been described by whisky connoisseurs as “The Beast of Dufftown”, for its rich and powerful flavours, produced in an astonishingly complicated and unique distillation process which commentators have attempted to explain as ‘2.81 Distilled’.
A famous family had a hand in that.
In 1823 Mortlach was the first distillery to be built at Dufftown, now one of the epicentres of Speyside whisky distilling. Its most eminent owners were the entrepreneurial Scottish civil engineer George Cowie, and his gifted and equally ambitious son Dr Alexander Cowie.
After playing a role in the shaping of the railway industry in the 19th century, George Cowie applied his pioneering and precise approach to engineering another great challenge, the production of Single Malt Scotch Whisky. He accepted a partnership at the Mortlach distillery in 1852, before becoming sole owner in 1867.
He clearly made an impact as shortly afterwards a local newspaper wrote: “There is not perhaps a distillery in Scotland that has so many private customers as Mortlach from which spirits are sent not only over the three kingdoms to families, but to America, India, China and Australia, in all of which Mr Cowie has customers who prefer his distillation to all others …” (The Elgin Courant, 1869).
In 1896, George died and his son Alexander, who through his own pioneering work had become an enlightened traveller, returned to Dufftown from Hong Kong and assumed full control of the distillery. Harnessing his entrepreneurial energies and scientific background to oversee the development of Mortlach, Alexander paved the way for the creation of a unique distillation system precisely calculated to create the highly complex and richly flavoured whisky that we know today. Alexander developed a profound knowledge and mastery of whisky making. Indeed, his pioneering work on whisky creation and production was soon recognised in the leading role he played in Scotland’s expanding malt whisky world.
As Chairman of the North of Scotland Malt Distillers’ Association, Alexander represented the interests of over 40 distillers in the North of Scotland and spoke on their behalf at the 1908/09 Royal Commission on Whiskey, where he proudly claimed “I am a malt distiller of high flavoured whisky, a thick type of whisky”.
In a golden age of Victorian expansion and improvement, George and Alexander Cowie were typical of those generations of Scottish engineers, scientists, surveyors and entrepreneurs who, with a energetic sense of purpose, made a confident and lasting mark not just in Scotland and Britain but around the world.
At the helm of the Mortlach distillery for over half a century, the Cowies’ innovative spirit shaped the brand and liquid for centuries to come. In the spirit of these pioneers, the reborn Mortlach whiskies are a celebration of those audacious thinkers who shaped today’s world, just as their forefathers did in the era in which Mortlach was born.
Just as both generations of Cowies made major investments to expand and improve their distillery, so they would undoubtedly be proud to note that its present owners (as announced in April 2013) are investing to double the distillery’s capacity and promote its whiskies widely – a statement of intent and ambition that George and Alexander would surely endorse. The expansion will include the building of a new stillhouse, which will replicate the bewilderingly complex distillation process which makes Mortlach™ unique.
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