Mortlach 30 Year Old 1992 SMWS Single 1st Fill Oloroso Hogshead 76.151 Cloves Studded in a Honey Glazed Ham Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2023) 70cl

1 of 167 bottles produced from a single bourbon barrel finished in a 1st fill Oloroso Sherry hogshead.

Old Mortlach is the stuff of dreams! We have never had a bad one. A bad Linkwood doesn't exist either.

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society was founded in Edinburgh in 1983 by Phillip 'Pip' Hills who, while travelling around Scotland in the 1970s, fell in love with whiskies drawn straight from the cask. After he expanded his syndicate the Society was purchased by Glenmorangie PLC in 2004. In 2015, the Society was sold back to private investors. In June 2021, the private owners floated the holding company The Artisanal Spirits Company plc on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange.

It has a unique code system where the first number refers to the distillery and the second refers to the cask from which the bottle comes. SMWS also offers the largest range of distilleries of any independent bottler. These curiously named drams really do have something for every whisky lover!

The SMWS are one of the Britain's most revered independent bottlers with a worldwide network of partner bars with one mission of getting as much whisky at natural cask strength without water to different nations including USA, Canada, Switzerland, UK, Austria, Germany and many others.

These older labels from the first runs are mostly with distillation methods that include direct heat which was replaced with steam for many distilleries for environmental reasons changing the taste of whisky forever. It'll get real interesting when nuclear fusion is used to distil whisky. We might glow green for a few weeks after we drink the stuff. Who knows.... but all we know is that the old stuff has a musky taste that is VERY welcomed by people nowadays trying to time travel through whisky's past.

TASTING NOTES

An irresistible concoction of coffee and cloves pulled us towards beef jerky smoked with pencil shavings and served with maple syrup on bacon. A prickly palate of peppercorns and pickles danced with glee to the sound of black pudding sizzling in whirling clouds of wood smoke. A drop of water unleashed a compelling accumulation of chamomile, caramel and cooling camphor that skilfully merged with the heavyweight hues of molasses, prunes and almond-coated Jamaica cake. Then cloves and saffron adorned poached pears alongside oloroso sherry trifle while we used burnt sticks to trickle rich honey over oily iberico ham. After spending 26 years in an ex-bourbon hogshead this was transferred to a first fill Spanish oak oloroso hogshead for the remainder of its maturation.

About Mortlach

Mortlach’s main claim to fame, production wise, is as the home of the most fiendishly complex distillation regime in Scotland.

The wash (from clear wort and long fermentation) is split between three wash stills; No. 3 wash still and No.3 spirit still work in tandem and as per normal.

The low wines from wash stills No. 1 and 2 is, however, split into two parts. The first 80% of the run is collected as the charge for spirit still No. 2. The remaining 20% (called weak feints) forms the charge for spirit still No.1 otherwise known as ‘The Wee Witchie’. This distils the weak feints three times with only the heart of the final run being collected. It all adds up to the new make spirit having been distilled 2.81 times.

In addition to this, all the stills are run relatively speedily with no air rests to rejuvenate the copper and all lyne arms running into cold worm tubs. The result of this complex regime in a copper-starved environment is a building up of sulphur and ‘meatiness’ in the new make spirit, with the ‘dud runs’ on the Wee Witchie providing an extra meaty boost. Although it is aged in a mix of casks, Mortlach’s weight makes it an ideal partner with ex-Sherry casks.

While other meaty spirits are made [most notably Benrinnes and Dailuaine] none have Mortlach’s weight, meaning that this is a highly-prized base note for blends. As a result, there has been little stock available for single malt bottlings bar the occasional independent bottlings (most notably with Gordon & MacPhail) and small batches of a 16-year-old in Diageo’s Flora & Fauna range. Mortlach seemed destined to remain a cult malt.

In 2014, however, that changed with the launch of a four-strong range: Rare Old, Special Strength, (both no-age-statement), 18-year-old, and 25-year-old.

Mortlach was the name of the original village which sprang up around the abbey of the name, founded by Saint Moluag in the 7th century. With the building of Dufftown in 1817 the old name fell in abeyance – apart from the distillery.

The distillery was the first to be licensed within Dufftown, being founded by James Findlater, Donald Mackintosh and Alex Gordon in 1823. It passed briefly into the hands of the Grant brothers of Glen Grant fame who gutted the buildings and used the equipment for their distillery in Rothes.

It was George Cowie and his son Alexander who, from the 1850s on, recommenced whisky production and steered Mortlach to a pre-eminent position as a blending malt.

Although no-one is sure where the unique distillation regime originated, its adherence to richness and weight singles Mortlach out as one of the distilleries with a robust belief in the older ways of making whisky.

It remained in the Cowie’s hands until 1923 when it became part of John Walker & Sons and from there via DCL into Diageo.

In 2014, it was announced that a mirror image of the existing distillery would be built which, when completed, will double total capacity.

*Box not included. Bottle only

57.2% ABV

70cl