3 Young Fettercairns

Old Fettercairn NAS 40% OB W&M

I believe this one was bottled somewhere in the late 70's or early 80's not long after Whyte & MacKay bought the . With the letters "W&M" engraved in the glass. Not to be confused with independent bottlers Wilson & Morgan. There's a picture of the city port arch on the label, similar to the one found on the current bottlings apart from the Fior. Maybe its just the regular 10yo 40% OB in a new(old) suite? Smells nutty, hay, dry, malty, sweet, creamy, buttery, salty, old highland style. Magnificent so far! The taste is extremely light, too light for ma unfortunately, there's some hay, wheat and malty notes, but this is far from exciting. Hopefully a small drop of water will help it open up. With water it improves, some dry herbs, oregano and lemongrass along with some green peppers makes this a nice whisky for the summertime, goes well with pasta carbonara (I'm trying it now...).

A Fettercairn that's smooth sailing on water: 6.5


Old Fettercairn 10yo 43% OB

I don't think I've ever tried this one, only the 40%abv one from earlier days. Same color as the W&M, will 3% more give it a lift? This one smells much lighter than the prior, and also a bit spirity, I hope the palate can save this one. This is more on the spirity side even though it has some of that nice malty wheat flavor. Needs water. Now it gets even more spirity, not good at all, my biggest disappointment so far what Fettercairn is concerned.

Not a very good fettercairn, seems something went wrong in the 80's: 2.5


Fettercairn 11yo 1992-2003 60.5% James MacArthur's

A high strength Fettercairn, I'm yet to find a bad bottling in that category, but I was a bit disappointed with one of the 1975's CS I had the other day. Much lighter in appearance than the OB's, maybe cause it isn't added artificial coloring? Lots of sweet vanilla and peppery notes, very nice. A bit ester alongside pistachio and fresh laundry. The taste is a bit too influenced by the high strength, needs a small drop of water. Now it gets even more vanilla and something peaty-like. Strong pepper-influence and thick salty licorice. Another example that Fettercairn can be amazing when bottled at cask strength.

No fancy stuff here, just perfectly good whisky: 7.5





I have recently been tasting some weird whiskies, grains, undisclosed, foreign whiskies and so on. The reason for this is that I have endured on 1 and a half year of dramming almost exclusively on scotch single malt whisky. This has made me be a bit too biased when tasting whiskies from distilleries that I have become very familiar with lately. To try and re-egnite some of the passion and adventures that I usually find when tasting a new whisky I will now try to go a bit off the beaten track and have some sessions with other kinds of whisky. I will soon enough return to my old style of tasting primarily scotch, but going forward I'm expecting to broaden my horizon with these experimental tastings.