Single Grain Scotch Whisky
Circa £32.00 70cl
I first discovered this whisky at Whisky Live London earlier this year, I was intrigued at the time, to learn that it was a single grain made with 100% malted barley distilled through their Coffey Stills.
You see, the Loch Lomond Distillery is a very adaptable distillery, being somewhat unique (certainly for Scotland) having a range of different distillation apparatus.
We were fortunate to visit the Loch Lomond distillery earlier this year, the headline trip of Dramboree 2016, and saw for ourselves the unusual set up of stills. When we visited there were four pairs of copper pot stills, however, all but two of them are fitted with rectification columns instead of the traditional swan necks, alongside there was a Coffey Still that was installed in the early 1990's. There's also five continuous stills used for their grain whisky production. The distillery's capacity is noted at around 5 million litres of malt spirit and 18 million litres of grain.
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| A curious combination of stills |
The legal definition of a single malt whisky says it "must be made exclusively from malted barley (although the addition of E150A caramel colouring is allowed), and must be distilled using copper pot stills at a single distillery." Therefore this Coffey Still distilled spirit cannot be called a single malt, hence the Single Grain tag.
So What Did We Think?
Nose: Plenty of sweet, fruity grain character here, I was picking up a strawberry note, which Kat said reminded her of strawberry shortbread. There are subtle hints of candied lemon peels, icing sugar, and fresh grasses, not your lawn grass, but summer hedgerow grass.
Palate: Pineapple juice is one of the official notes,and it's certainly something I picked up, albeit more of a canned pineapple flavour. It's sweet, but not overly so. I found stewed apples too, alongside pencil shavings and some woody spices adding a mild peppery hit. There's a pithy dryness towards the finish
Finish: Surprisingly long, which starts off dry with grapefruit pith, and finishes with Wrigley's Juicy fruit chewing gum.
Verdict
This is a very easy drinking whisky, It's soft, and smooth, with a barley water sweetness. It's not overly complicated, but it is very enjoyable. Think of it if you will, as the Scottish equivalent of Nikka's Coffey Malt, but at a fraction of the price!
Slàinte! Dave
