I am fortunate enough to have gathered a fairly substantial shelf full of tasting stock in my office over the past few months. Time to wirte some notes for six of them before they get totally consumed.

Bell’s Royal Reserve 20yo. Rotation early 1950s. Missing front label. 

Colour: Straw

Nose: A burst of butter, linseed oil, wild flowers, minerals, flints, all kinds of gentle wax notes and beautifully metallic shades of peat. One of these delicate but complex old style whiskies that is completely unlike anything produced today. Goes on with fragile wood spices, tcp, more gentle metal notes, olive oil, furniture polish and something like green fruits and truffle shavings.

Palate: A big slurp of motor oil, canvas, hessian, dunnage, wet earth, wild mushrooms, tar and ancient, simmering peat. Something undeniably Ardbegish about this one with its concentration on all these old style phenols and peat notes without much in the way of over fruitiness. The fruit is there but its gentle and restrained like dried apricots, tinned pears in syrup and touches of rosewater and lychee. More floral notes of dandelion and fresh herbs with thick liqueur aspects becoming louder and thicker.

Finish: Long, tarry, honeyed and herbal with notes of old chartreuse, kummel, bitters, wood sap, phenols, metal and greengages.

Comments: There isn’t a shred of grain in this one, it’s just like drinking a great old style single malt. Of course this was bottled in the days when premium blends such as this one probably had upwards of 70% malt content, which over the years in glass would probably just completely assimilate, Borg style, any pesky grain floating about inside. A cracking dram, one that can still be found quite cheap if you’re careful.

Score: 91/100

Glen Grant 1936-1974 38yo. G&M. Screw cap. 70 proof. 26 2/3 fluid ounces. 

Part of a series from the same vintage that also includes an utterly incredible 42yo and the ‘as yet untasted’ (hint hint) 45 and 50yo versions. Big thanks to Wayne for this one.

Colour: Amber

Nose: Welcome to the 1930s! Where do we begin? In no particular order: leather, rancio, old pipe tobacco, metal polish, an ancient, extinct variety of peat and phenol aromas, every kind of fruit you can think of, enough shades of medicine to keep an old folks home going for a month and the kind of perfect, glistening, saline, fatty sherry aroma that most modern malts can only dream of. Honestly, if you’ve never tried one of these old pre-war malts then do whatever it takes because an aroma like this really demands to be experienced. It leaves almost all other malts in the dust in terms of elegance, subtlety, balance and depth.

Palate: Perfectly in keeping with the nose, massively oily, fatty, fruity and thick with a kind of jammy peat quality and all kinds of notes of metal, fruit, peats, smoke, tobacco and wood jumbling about the place. Goes on with softer notes of red fruits, balsamico, date liqueur, dried herbs, brown sugar, molasses and medicine. Masterly stuff.

Finish: Long, decadent, extravagant and unique to this pre-war style with all these aspects of fruit liqueur, tropical juice, peat, mead, metal and wax.

Comments: These old pre-war masterpieces are getting scarcer and scarcer, until someone starts making whisky like this again I’d recommend making the effort to taste these masterpieces. It really is a totally extinct kind of whisky, each one is a true privilege to taste.

Score: 93/100

Bowmore 30yo OB ‘Sea Dragon’ ceramic bottle. 1990s. 43%. 70cl. 

Colour: Amber

Nose: A sumptuous platter of tropical fruit, smoky bacon, seashore and peat oils. Very soft on the nose, quite wide and lazy with a tropical swagger to its gait. Feels like a few more degrees of alcohol would have focused it a bit more but as it is it’s still beautiful. These fragile notes of smoke, seaweed, mineral and marzipan start to come through now with soft touches of hessian, marmalade, orange bitters and apricots.

Palate: A lovely, even, drying delivery all on salt, toasted cereals, fresh tropical fruits, peat smoke and fragile hints of medicine. The fruit is quite loud with some wonderful drying qualities and a really appetising bitter edge full of salt, dark chocolate, cocoa powder, touches of lavender and sandalwood. Quite a fragrant smokiness hangs about the whole thing as well, like a small beach bonfire.

Finish: Not overly long but full of blustery peat, tropical fruits, boiled sweeties, manure (the good kind), minerals and camphor.

Comments: A wonderfully drinkable and rather broad example of old style Bowmore, it effortlessly encompasses the lushness of the early 1960s distillates with the more pristine smoke and coastal qualities of the 1969/1970 style. A little lazy at times but super delicious and effortlessly charming.

Score: 92/100

Bruichladdich 10yo ceramic flagon. OB for USA. Rotation 1980s. 86 US Proof. 75cl.

I’d never seen this bottling before I found it in a collection on Islay.

Colour: Yellow

Nose:  A whole meadow and a seashore at first. Lots of oils, fresh butter, chopped parsley, seaweed, grass, wild flowers, chamomile, touches of sweat (in a good way), turmeric and some lively green fruits. A really big and impressive nose full of character and hugely invigorating with its freshness. Hints of crushed nettles, lavender, natural sea salt, preserved lemons in brine, coal fires, tarragon and buttered toast. A real live wire of a nose. There is even something kind of farmy and slightly dirty in quite a sexy way, a few greasy phenols hanging around in the background there. Great stuff.

Palate: It’s big for the strength, full of butter, herbs, spices and minerals with bags of salt, coastal freshness lemon skins, lime juice, white fish and crab meat. It goes on with a wonderfully direct and lively white pepper note on top of hints of quince, salted dark chocolate, lemon curd and more toast notes. A lot of flavour and character in this, it’s a really big whisky.

Finish: Super-long, coastal, green, zesty and becoming increasingly tropical as well with notes of papaya and mango. These slightly salty, farmy, sweaty notes keep coming back.

Comments: A wild Bruichladdich, full of distillery character, charm and personality. That rarest of whisky that is both old style and still quite sexy, it seems Bruichladdich is one of the few distilleries that can (or could) do that. A wonderful smorgasboard of character.

Score: 91/100

Glenfarclas 1970-2001 30yo. Cadenhead’s Chairman’s Stock. Bourbon Hogshead. 132 Bottles. 70cl. 53%. 

Colour: Copper. This must have been quite an active bourbon hoggie to give it such a colour. Either that or they made a mistake on the label.

Nose: Pin sharp wood polish, wax, super lush fruit and a wonderful mix of berries, fruit compote, citrus peel, stewed dark fruits and background notes of creme brulee and fresh vanilla cream. Really classy, lively old whisky that displays a great balance between fruit and wood characters. It also seems that the label was right as there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of ‘sherry’ character. It’s obviously just taken quite a bit from the wood in terms of its colour. Goes on with notes of wet hay, buttercups, fir trees, toasted walnuts and coriander marmalade. With water: quite typically its all wild mushrooms, wet leaves, forest flora and wet earth now. Hints of soy sauce, figs, root beer and cocoa all come through as well.

Palate: It’s a big jammy delivery full of mint juleps, coal dust, rancio, old tobacco, shoe leather, wax, mead, fresh parsley and mulling spices. A great big concentration of flavour that engages every part of the mouth really well, very thick and mouth-coating. With water: quite a bit dryer and more savory with these wonderful notes of brown bread, touches of Gueze beer and then tropical fruits like dried mango and papya. Brilliant with water, great development, it even acquires a slightly salty and lemony edge. It really dances all over the place this one. Like a cocaine fueled kitten in a box full of mice.

Finish: Long, earthy, leafy and drying with a wonderful streak of pipe smoke, brown sugar, nutmeg, cereal and coal dust. It just seems to get younger as you go this one.

Comments: With water it’s almost like it reverted back ten years but in a good way. Super fresh, lively, nervous, complex and full of surprises, both on the nose and the palate. A really fun Glenfarclas, great cask selection by Cadenheads (as usual). My mouth feels like I just smoked a cigar.

Score: 92/100

Random Cask Sample. Bottled early 1960s. About 8-12 years old. Somewhere near Elgin. 

There is a great story to this bottle. I was visiting an elderly lady in Elgin who had quite a substantial stash of utterly incredibly old Macallans that I was attempting to persuade her to sell in our auction. Thankfully she did. When I asked her how she came to acquire such spectacular old bottles she told me they had belonged to her father. He had worked in the off trade in Elgin during the 1940s and 1950s. You can only imagine the whiskies he must have tasted at the time. After this we were (when I say we I mean me) rooting around in her drinks cabinet to see what other ‘old bottles’ she had squirreled away. That’s when I saw this one poking out at me. It was black, almost completely full, had no ring seal on the screw cap and was almost identical to the old Campbell, Hope and King bottles. When I asked her what it was she told me it had been given to her as a gift by a friend of her fathers when she worked in the bank in Elgin during the early 1960s. She said I could have it seeing as she was never going to drink it (I know, jammy doesn’t even cover it). She had no idea what was in it but the bottle is exactly the same one that was used frequently by Campbell, Hope & King to bottle their Macallans. Does that make it Macallan inside, who knows or cares. What’s for sure is that it is, as you’ll see, a spectacular dram, probably about 8-12 years old at the time it was drawn from cask and a complete, beautiful, unrepeatable oddity that I’m eternally grateful to have encountered. Thanks Mrs S!

Colour: Soy Sauce

Nose: This is one of those old sherry casks that just don’t exist any more. The cleanest, most vibrant, abundant and spectacular array of dark fruits, balsamico, tobacco, rancio, wood spices, hints of wild mushrooms, tar, leather polish, old books, raisins stewed in cognac, wet earth and just a hint of farmyard in the form of cow sheds. Goes on with roast, ground coffee beans, hints of old medicine, eucalyptus and green peppercorns in brine. It’s a kind of concentration that you just don’t really find on modern young whiskies. With water: it gets earthier and a tad more floral with water with some wonderful notes of heather, wet bracken, leather, violets, camphor, rice pudding and touches of dark chocolate with sea salt. Just epic.

Palate: Yowee. This is definitely at cask strength. Hot, thick and super rich, a melee of dark fruits, dates, prune juice, all kinds of jam and fruit compote, soy sauce, ancient balsamico, espresso, dark chocolate, old green chartreuse, molasses, ancient dark rum, XO cognac, ,more notes of stewed raisins and sultanas and herbal toothpaste. An utterly old school sherry monster that just keeps slugging away at your palate with layer upon layer of flavour. With water: wild strawberry liqueur, roasted chestnuts, chocolate raisins, banana bread, walnut oil, more notes of rum and cognac and then something like chocolate sauce coated marzipan. Utter joy!

Finish: Endless and bristling with all of the above.

Comments: For me this is the definition of the perfect sherried whisky. Powerful, rich, decadent, fresh and overflowing with flavour but at no point tiring, hard work, over powering, overtly chalky, tannic or imbalanced. Just a small, unrepeatable masterpiece from the kind of cask that must make the current directors at Macallan weep nightly into their pillows (or it bloody well should at any rate). What a shame its finished, but what a privilege to have acquired and shared it with friends. It’s because of bottles like this that I’m into whisky.

Score: 94/100

What is the value of whisky to you? There is much talk of whisky speculation, investment, expanding markets, developing markets, collecting, consumption, branding and super-premium these days. Is it a coincidence that it all seems to have come at a time when I’ve just started a new job in a relatively youthful auction house? Or is my position a symptom of circumstance or, worse still, the ‘market’? I know for a fact that my job exists because its existence facilitates profit. We talk a lot about value these days. I see all the rants, raves and comments about it coagulating like puddles on the shores of social media. I hear it when I speak to the retailers. Margins, allocations and profits are getting tighter and tighter, the auctioneers are winning and the retailers are fighting up hill. Is this all because there is less and less of the old stuff to go around, the juicy old bottles that everyone wants. The spiraling auction prices and the increasing feeling that the old bottles and new releases are two separate worlds would seem to suggest so.

The star bottles in our latest auction. How many of us can now afford to obtain, let alone open, bottles such as these?

But there is a bigger picture here I think. All this increasing talk of value or perception of value seems indicative of a trending change in the way many of us think about whisky. How many of us can now afford to open old 1960s Laphroaigs or 1950s Macallans? These bottles have become tokens, they are symbolic of their perceived worth, in short, they are currency. Ten years ago there was McTears in Glasgow, they held whisky auctions no more than four times a year. Christie’s and Sotheby’s did fine wine auctions but that is something still far divorced from whisky in terms of the truly astronomical prices and quantities, it was then and it still is. Now we have the online specialist aucitoneers Whisky Auction, Scotch Whisky Auctions and more on the horizon no doubt. We have McTears (now on ten auctions a year), Bonhams and, most recently, Mulberry Bank Auctions, where I work. There will almost certainly be further additions to this list in the next year and I haven’t even mentioned all the smaller auction houses in Britain that do occasional whisky auctions or specialist sections of larger auctions dedicated to whisky. There has been an explosion of whisky at auction over the past decade, in both prices achieved and quantity sold. But what does it all mean?

One of the best illustrations of why whisky has value is Ardbeg Manager's Dram. Bottled in 1999 it was a single cask of astonishing quality and character. The bottles were practically given away at £69 a piece. Now enough people want one of these incredible bottles that the price is nudging £2000 a pop.

With straightforward analysis it means that the desire to drink great whisky, coupled with the cumulative effect of three decades worth of cheap to fairly priced, good to outstanding quality whiskies being steadily released around the world, has created a huge demand and an ever dwindling supply. Their inevitable consumption means there are more people who want to hoard/collect and drink than there are bottles left to satisfy these demands. It also means there are many people who kept or own these bottles, for whatever reason, and are increasingly persuaded to part with them, almost always because they seem too valuable to justify keeping. Or they were keen eyed enough to spot an opportunity and played it with an eye to raw investment. The bottom line is money has the power to exert influence over our perceptions of what something is for and what we are willing to do with it. I swore I would never part with the small selection of very special bottles I had gathered throughout the previous decade, but then in 2010 I had an overdraft and I badly wanted to go traveling . Needless to say I soon found out that I wasn’t so attached to them after all, I could no longer justify sitting on several thousand pounds worth of bottled liquid. Do I miss those bottles? No, not really, one or two that were unique and I’ll never see again, but I’ve been fortunate enough to taste most of them already in my lifetime and I’ll taste many more great drams so I don’t feel too precious about it. But the point is they evolved in my mind from potential bottled memories and stored olfactory beauty into the achievable fantasy of black ink on my bank statement instead of red and a few more stamps in my passport.

Unlike Whisky, it's impossible to put a price on the best experiences in your life. After the time I had in South America I'll never regret selling my bottles for a second.

People rant and rave about whisky being for drinking a lot these days, it is the understandable and ill informed reaction to the many discussions about collecting/investing/speculating (call it what you will). People seem awfully proud to blurt out their philosophy that ‘Whisky is for drinking not for collecting’ every time they hear of a bottle being stored in a dark cupboard rather than immediately cracked open with pristine abandon while the cork burns in the fire. Of course whisky is for drinking, it is after all a drink, that is the very reason these bottles are expensive. Forget the artificially expensive Dalmore (insert ludicrous latin name here) for a minute, these are different beasts altogether. I’m talking about the vast majority of older bottles and the more desirable, modern independent bottlings, these whiskies acquire great expense because people want to own and drink them (because word spread out from the many that already have). The number of people acquiring them for purely monetary purposes is nothing like the number of people who want to keep them with a view to one day drinking them.

There are more of these old bottles getting opened than you might imagine. That's another reason for their ever increasing value. (And yes I know it's a Cognac but give me a break.)

However, if you’ll allow me to play Devil’s advocate to myself for a moment there is a flip side. Whisky is for drinking. I come back to my original question, what is the value of whisky to you? Is it a drink that stokes the fires of great company and friendship? Is it grease to the cogs of late night imagination? Is it the ink that outlines and shades your greatest and darkest memories? Is it a liquid bound up in tears and laughter, one that toasts the fortunes and mourns the people and joys that happenstance cuts out of your life? This is where our passion for whisky often lies, it is born in the avenues of surprise and exploration and it is a glorious journey. But we are changing, these perceptions are being all too often forgotten and swept away in the face of the behemoth of money and its sticky fingers that latch onto every corner of our lives. We have made an enemy of our own passions. ‘Whisky’ is now an industry with sub-markets, markets forged by the very love we feel for the drink that started us on this journey in the first place. The prices now paid for the great bottlings are a measure of the length to which we are willing to go for our love of ‘the hard stuff’. At the end of the day these prices are paid because there are more than enough people with the money and the will to pay it who want these whiskies. The same money and keen willpower that has fired this expanding market for rare and desirable bottles.

When we speak of wine nowadays it suffers from an image of middle-class, Guardian-reading, bourgeois association. It is linked with wealth, food matching, Michelin stars and snobbery. The mainstream press chooses to forget in these instances (whenever it suits them) the vast quantities of people who nightly chastise their innards with litres of putrid Blossom Hill swill. The predominant and popular image is of finery and privilege. A shame that, amongst these two ends of the spectrum, is often lost the truth that wine was, and often remains, a grassroots, agricultural industry. One that requires great skill and offers simple and delicious reward beyond the obvious financial return. Wine’s rustic origins and proud role in the history of human decadence, zest for life and earned indulgence is often lost or forgotten amidst a global industry hell bent on image, price control and premium products aimed at premium clientele. Whisky it seems, in this sense, is not far behind. The only difference is whisky will never be as big as wine. The idea that a case of old whisky, even something like Malt Mill (God willing!) would match the price at auction of a case of 1870 Latour (if one should ever come up for sale), is somewhat ludicrous. Whisky is acting bigger than it is, and therefore it feels like it is bursting at the seems a little bit. It makes you wonder how much longer these markets can sustain themselves. How much higher in price can these top end Ardbegs and Port Ellens go? Whisky as an industry has always had its big ups and very big downs. It has also quite noticeably always failed to learn from its own history. Probably something to do with it being a long term product that requires great age and, as a result, the people that sell it are often replaced every ten-twenty years with a new set of people with big wide dollar signs in their eyes, all looking straight ahead into developing markets and never glancing over their shoulder to what has gone before. This specialist and rare whisky market is still a relatively new beast, I wonder how long before it, like the the rest of the industry at large has several times already, takes its first tumble? Is it just me or does it feel like we’re in those slow, steep, up-hill moments before the roller-coaster plunges…

A visual history of the Whisky industry.

I know that we all love whisky, with great passion. All this social media debating and all these blogs (including this one) wouldn’t exist without that love. I’ll be honest right now and say I’m not a fan of capitalism and the vast profiteering its structures can facilitate, despite the obvious fact that I am one of many who has undeniably reaped more than my fair share of its spoils over the years in the guise of privilege. With this in mind I have often struggled to reconcile my love of an increasingly expensive drink and the money I’ve paid for it on many an occasion, with the vastly unfair distribution of wealth on this planet. I suppose my musings today have been largely driven by these internal conflicts. Whatever it is, I am increasingly having to remind myself that whisky is, first and foremost, a source of joy, along with art, music, love, sex, films, expression, adventure, exercise, food of greater extravagance than is considered essential, literature and general festivities. These are the apps of life, not just to alleviate pain but to actively provide joy and decadence, to make life worth living. We have an abundance of them here in the west which is partly why so many of us are curdled by gnawing guilt. But the fact is we have them and we should not be ashamed to enjoy them so long as we appreciate our incredible good fortune to have them. I’m just sad to see that whisky is being transported ever upwards and away from these more humble spheres into realms where it is often all too easy to forget (or just to fucking expensive to remember) why we truly love it.

So, what is the value of whisky to you?

This image from the Vancouver riots seems somehow appropriate for 2011. Almost makes me wish I'd been there. Almost makes me wish it (probably) wasn't photoshopped.

By any measure this has been a tumultuous year, 2012 has a lot to live up to it seems. It’s going to need more than the Olympics and a pile of hogwash about the end of the Mayan calender to compete with what 2011 has thrown at our feet. The Arab spring, an increasingly introverted and suicidal Euro, the UK Economy being run by a bunch of public school boys who still don’t understand why the general population can’t simply inherit some money to ease their financial quibbles. In Britain we had riots, marches, fury, extensive government cuts and a Scottish government of increasing popularity making good their promise and laying the framework for the potential dismantling of the UK. In America they had their own economic woes, they had less money than Apple at one point, and then there was the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Europe finally caved and went begging to China for spare cash, everyone’s favourite EU leader Berlusconi sadly had to go due to his country managing to have some kind of anti-economy based solely on under age prostitution, ‘Bunga Bunga’ parties, whisky faking and bribery. Angela Merkel proved herself to be the Girl Guide of Europe, David Cameron failed to deny he was a Synthetic Android from the Alien film franchise and Nicholas Sarkozy remained short. China continued to become massiver and massiver and to ignore ever increasing grumbles about its rather lax attitude towards human rights, after all who cares what others think when you have that much disposable income. Greece finally collapsed after years of reliance on an economy based solely on plate breaking and Ireland still writhes in the grip of the great cappuccino famine of 2011. This was also the year of the phone hacking scandal where Rupert Murdoch and his underlings managed to create the buck that never stops. Dictators of the world fell like playing cards in a wind tunnel this year, who can forget the blood lusty, yet satisfying way Colonel Gaddafi was gunned down in the streen, HA! Happy times. The most recent one though was North Korea’s comedy miniature despot Kim Jong-il who died, we can only assume from reading his official biography, from the fact that he never defecated. An impressive feat although it did explain why he spoke utter shit for most of his life. His copycat fat son is everyone’s favourite to win Despots On Ice 2012. Oh, and Bin Laden got shot in the head by Navy Seals. Apparently the reason he wasn’t forcibly extracted back to US soil to stand trial was that he was defending himself with automatic loaded wives, or something like that according to a memo from the CIA. So, a tumultuous year all in all.

But what about the year in Whisky? Well as the above image suggests it was a very good  year for publicity stunts. Dalmore, Macallan, Glenfiddich, Old Pulteney, they all clambered over each other, slavering at the gums like hounds of the baskerville with marketing diplomas. Desperate to conquer the squalid back pages of the press with their fetid little bling bottlings, or to tell us that Jim Murray, the greatest gift to whisky since domestic violence, had endorsed their product with his latest super score. There were other things afoot in whisky as well with the ‘world’ whiskies starting to finally gain the recognition they deserve. People continued to complain about the Ardbeg Committee with staggering levels of naivety, as if it was actually supposed to be some kind of exclusive country club instead of a big, oily marketing engine that runs on raw, self perpetuating nonsense. Maybe in 2012 people will actually stop complaining and realise that it is the way it is and they can’t help it so just stop approaching me at festivals and complaining to me because I happened to work at the distillery for two summers while at uni as if that somehow means I can just call up someone at Moet Hennessey and ‘have a wee word’. Gosh it feels good to get things off your chest. In related Ardbeggy news, the great blender Rachel Barrie left Glenmorangie and headed to the Bowmore/Glen Garioch/Auchentoshan stable and proceeded to say some very encouraging things about future production methods, although I’m still waiting for a reply to a comment I made on her facebook status about doing some more peated Glen Garioch, time will tell. The rush for Port Ellen 11th release drove consumers into a frenzy of mindless violence that ended in further outbreaks of rioting throughout the whisky shops of Europe. Lady Gaga got five cases though.  Whiskyfun turned 9 this year on July 28th, selfishly only 8 days after my own birthday thereby overshadowing that event in the whisky calender for so many people. I’ll get you yet Valentin (shakes fist). There has been much speculation over what Serge will do once Whiskyfun turns 10. However we all know he will convert the site into an online scores auctioneering base where companies bid thousands of euros (or francs depending on how things are looking come August) a time for whatever score he is offering that week. The first score will be 98 points and we know Inverhouse are already putting together a bid for their new non-aged, Iron Bru finished An Cnoc. Good times ahead.

The Hadron Collider, a big player in the whisky scene of 2012? Also don't do what I just did and run a google image search for 'Large Hardon Collider' by mistake.

So what does 2012 hold for whisky? I suspect we will see even higher prices, more fakes, the pointlessness of the ‘most expensive bottle ever sold’ war will spiral into the cosmic belly button of utter despair and consume all who dare venture near, like a black hole of fat, sweaty bollocks. The German Independent Bottling market will continue to blossom providing the best whiskies and the best prices. Kilchoman will continue to get better with age. Richard Patterson will host a tasting in the Large Hadron Collider. Ralfy will move to Sky One. Joel and Neil from caskstrength.net will open for the Pope at Glastonbury. Fred and Stuart Laing will merge into a single, two-headed person like Zaphod Beeblebrox from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Port Ellen 12th release will be released in the style of Red Cross aid parcels in Ethiopia. UN soldiers will throw armfuls of them into baying crowds of angry whisky lovers armed to the teeth with pitchforks and ipads and just hope for the best while a representative from Diageo looks on via a satellite link up and calmly motions to his minions to begin ‘phase 2′. The Olympic opening ceremony will be sponsored by Bruichladdich, Jim McEwan and Boris Johnson will open the show with a beginners guide to Coopering. Octomore will be peated to 1 trillion ppm thus causing a tear in the space time continuum and creating what is known as a ‘phenolic irregularity’. Dave Broom will be the new Doctor Who companion and Martine Nouet will be the new Doctor Who. Daftmill will buy Diageo, George Osborne will retire from politics and re-open Brora with his vast personal fortune and Nick Clegg, finally overwhelmed by his spineless guilt, will commit suicide live on national television by downing a thousand miniatures of Edradour. So an exciting year for us all to look forward to.

Be sure to tune in for Nick Clegg's 'dram with destiny' in 2012.

On a personal note it is difficult to comment too succinctly on a  year that was racked by so much intensity, belt tightening, death and downright misery, purely because for me it was far and away the best year of my life. I travelled and made some of the best friends I’ve ever had, I found a great new job, moved into the best flat I’ve ever lived in with the best flatmate I’ve ever had and I’m in a position where things seem to be looking up. I am, in short, incredibly lucky and I try to realise it every day. So the final tasting of 2011 will be one themed around starting as you mean to go on, at least for as long as possible, I’m not sure how many more great Brora tastings I’ll be able to do..? A worrying thought indeed.

Brora 1970-2002. 32yo. Douglas Laing ‘Old & Rare’. 58.4%. 70cl. 

Huge thanks to Wayne for opening this beauty.

Colour: Straw Gold

Nose: Why do other distilleries bother making peated whisky? This is just another typically perfect early Brora. A myriad of farmyard, industrial, coastal and medical qualities with farminess taking the initial lead. Just beautiful! Opens up slowly with lemon skins, oils, mineral notes, pebbles, sea salt, camphor and tar. Sea air, brine, coal and a perfect underlying waxiness. It’s definitely leaning more towards coastal guises now. Lots of sea spray, lime juice, olive oil, seaweed, white flowers, sandalwood and tcp. It’s just massively fresh and vibrant. Just stunning, lets see if water can improve it even further… With water it just becomes almost hyper coastal, like raw sea water and oysters. Lemon juice, raw peat smoke, old kilns, iodine.

Palate: Massively oily on delivery, like boiler sheds, thick green peats, tar, peat oil, drying medicinal notes, smoked cereals, sea water, green olives in brine, hay, hessian and treacle. Smoked vanilla (?), chilli oatcakes, black pepper, Riesling, melted butter and chopped chives. Shellfish, crab meat, smoked mussels, fresh lemon juice, cured ham and more salt. With water: a really luxurious, elegant peat comes through now, loads of olive oil, bonfire smoke, burning grass, wax, smoked cereals, peppered mackerel and some wonderfully farmy notes of engine oil and horse stables.

Finish: Very long with drying peat smoke, wax, cereals, tar, white pepper, burnt toast, camphor and fish oil.

Comments: Another incredibly Brora, I think the 1970 and 71s were not quite as stellar as the 72s in my opinion. It seems like they were still experimenting and constantly tweaking the recipe, in 1972 they must have got things very right. However, this is all relative as this one is still galaxies ahead of most modern peated malts.

Score: 94/100

Brora 1972-1995. 22yo. OB Rare Malts. 61.6%. 70cl.

This is one of several truly legendary early Broras from the Rare Malts series.

Colour: Gold

Nose: Ouch! The word beast could have been invented for this one. Imagine a peat, honey, salt and turpentine smoothy and you’re not far off. Quite closed even after a long time in glass, aggressive and difficult but even with all that grumpy, miserly austerity it is still quite beautiful. Struck flints, big, raw mineral notes, hay, horse stables, burnt grass and old petrol cans. A true powerhouse whisky. I think we’ll add a bit of water straight away… with a little water it starts to freshen out a bit, salt, lemons, limes and a nice manure quality all start to make themselves felt. Becomes intensely ‘Brora’ with a huge farminess and notes of coal fires, seaweed, parsley and wax. Lets try another little bit of water: it actually got even better, now its super fresh, leafy, smoky and very medicinal. A stunning and perfect mix of all the classic Brora characters. This is one of those whiskies that swims like a fish, it absolutely needs careful time with water to bloom, but when it does, my god it’s magnificent.

Palate: Neat it is an aggressive bag of gravel, wet earth, green, concentrated peat oil and feisty minerals. Some farmyard hints of stables, hay, horses and tar then muesli, rope, wet leaves, coal and mercurochrome. With a first dilution… wow, a perfect profile, all on minty, leafy peats, all kinds of wax, a dazzling array of coastal notes and different oils. Perfect but lets try a little more water anyway… the peat gets even oilier, almost simmering like an old Ardbeg, oily, fat and mouth coating with a wonderfully farmy dirtiness. Superlative notes of seaweed, tar, tcp, bread, olive oil, brine, anchovies, kippers, black and green peppercorns, hummus, matchsticks and more salt. It’s quite incredible really, we’d best stop.

Finish: Ask me in 2013 how it’s coming along

Comments: I’ve wanted to taste this one for a long long time and, thanks to the generosity of Mr Brora (aka Serge) at D-Day I was finally able to. All I can say is these bottles are now expensive for a very good reason, they’re fucking brilliant whisky. Water is essential with this one, even adding it in increments it seems to change drastically with each new dilution. You could literally play for days if you had a full bottle, adding a little water, then a bit more whisky, seeing just how epic you could make it, mind the ‘ground zero’ of perfection if you like. There’s nothing being made anywhere in the world today in my opinion that can hold a candle to this kind of whisky. Maybe for 2012 the industry could look to the past a bit more for future inspiration.

Score: 96/100

Whatever happens next year I hope you can all become happier, wiser and more aware in everything you do and achieve. Enjoy the simple things in life, strive to make things better for yourself and all those around you. And above all, don’t take things too seriously.

Happy Hogmanay from all of us here at Whisky Online. Slante!

Angus. 31/12/2011