Right before xmas, Lukasz of the Edinburgh Whisky Blog (http://www.edinburghwhiskyblog.com/) sent me some samples, Old Pulteney 17yo and 21yo. As I understand it he is doing some online marketing for Inver House and being a twitter contact of him can be beneficial, as you can see on thursday :-)
Together with a few of my own Old Pulteneys, I will do a little distillery vertical.
Old Pulteney is the northernmost distillery on mainland Brittain. It is located far up north in Wick, in an coastal area with very little trees and lots of weather :-). The distillery is located in the outskirt of the southern part of the city, and coming down the street to it, the distillery looks like a part of the buildings facing the street. No pagodas or anything is revealing the distillery. There's a wee visitor center and a tasting room, where you can bottle your own Old Pulteney. I bottled one in 2005 and another in 2007 and both were around 15yo ex-bourbon casks. They were excellent whiskies and are of course long gone....both among the best bottle-your-own whisky I ever had, and I had some over the years.
1. Old Pulteney 12yo 40%
Miniature
This is somewhat a different 12yo OB than what you otherwise find on the market. I mainly find this dry and minty, with nuts and oranges emerging and then more mint. It's very minty actual, and that's something I like. The finish is short and in generel this is quite moreish and I really enjoyed. Should have been bottled at a higher ABV, but I always say that :-). Above average in the 40% OB catagory, I think its the mint!
Rating 82
2. Old Pulteney 17yo 46%
A natural upgrade of the 12yo. The biggest difference is the finish which is longer, and there's a slight char or ashy touch to the nose. The palate got a spicy touch, and the mint is not as powerful. It's a nice good dram which reaches well about 80 on my rating scale
Rating 83
3. Old Pulteney 21yo 46%
Oh, a huge change to a more nutty and spicy character. For sure the wood influence is getting more powerful. The finish is more intense but shorter again. There's a natural development for the age of these three OB's. Another lovely dram
Rating 84
4. Old Pulteney WK499
This is back to style of the 12yo, but the cask strength REALLY benefits this Old Pulteney. It's a very sharp and briny whisky, and as salty is often mentioned as the Old Pulteney character I finally get it here, or see what others mean when they describe Old Pulteney as "salty". A very enjoyable dram, and you wont get better value for money whisky out there. I've seen 2 liters for 50£ in Edinburgh Airport !!. Excellent
Rating 86
5. Old Pulteney 1982 58.2%
This could be bottled in 2002 as the bottlecode starts with L2...
It's a miniature and the writing on the label is just too small and too hard to read
read it yourself..I can't
Oh, this is quite different. And similar at the same time. Sweet. Mint, slight sulphur, could be something I imagine. The initial sweetness weirdly turns into a very very dry whisky fast. This isn't really working for me, is it a refill sherry cask ?. Does Old Pulteney work with ex-sherry casks. It sure does with ex-bourbon. Lets see how WK209 is received on thursday, its supposed to be from ex-sherry casks - It got something to live up to for sure.
This one I don't like. The sulphur bits.... I am going back to WK499 now
Rating 71
