Dailuaine is sort of a misfit in the category of less desired single malts, as its only original bottling, a 16yo sherried one at 43% are spoken fondly of. The only problem is that there's so little of it around. Also, lately, there's been s bunch of independently bottled Dailuaines hitting the market, but I think that's kind of a new trend. Back in the early 2000's I remember almost never seeing it anywhere. But there's a couple ones in this session. It produces no less than 3.375m a year and was built back in 1852. It is to be found in mainly Johnnie Walker Blends. Only about 2% goes to single malt bottlings.
Dailuaine 26yo 1974-2001 40% Gordon & Macphail Connoisseurs Choice
Certainly a dark color in this one, about the same as the 16yo OB which I'll be trying next. Sort of orange/brown. It smells mild, needs time to open up. Hits me with some vanilla and pear drops after a while, a sweet one? Melted butter, raw onions and grounded coffee beans. The taste is very good, peppery, sherried, cinnamon, honey, buttery, oily, garlic and dried prunes, a bit tannic as well. I think this one is a swimmer. With added water it turns more bitter, lemon peel, overripe avocado, oily, green bananas, water just made it into a bitter mix of unlikely fruits and veggies, only the oilyness was left from the rather great neat tasting.
Try it neat, it's a delicate sherried one for it's 40%: 6
Dailuaine 16yo 43% OB
The color in this one is already described in last tasting note. Perhaps a small notch darker. From what I've read online and heard from people that also read online(!), this one is all from sherry casks. Again a weak and sort of silent nose, needs to be left alone for a while before further investigation can continue. The taste is on licorice and honey, sweet and salty with a small bitterness. It's hardly complex like the CC-version, but the fragrances in this one is much more offensive and clearer in lack of better words. This is an easy-going sweet and sherried dram that's hardly challenging in any way, but it's a perfect enjoyable dram for any occasion where you just wanna relax. Tuxedo and cigar whisky.
Did I mention its thick spice and honey notes???: 6.5
Dailuaine 27yo 53.6% Master of Malt
Time for a cask strength, and so far this small encounter with whisky from the Dailuaine Distillery has been a very pleasant experience. This one has the lightest color so farsomething like light orange, sort of princeton orange. The smell is oaky, spicy, nutmeg, ammonia, not what I'd usually prefer in a whisky, but it makes for an interesting old style profile in this whisky so far. The taste is a bit citrussy, thick, syrup, honey, parmesan cheese, feta cheese, smoked sausages, dark chocolate and drying concentrated raspberry lemonade, you know the on proportioned 1-10 with water, without the water. The aftertaste is leather, peppery, chorizo and more peppery notes. If it weren't for all the peppery notes in the finish, it'd been the perfect "smoky-without-peat-whisky".
A rich and big whisky, the way I like it: 7
The Friars Carse/Dailuaine 14yo 59.7% The Whisky Connoisseur
One bottled for Arthur J. A. Bell. I'm not 100% sure this one is a Dailuain, but again, with so much information online, somebody's eventually gonna have to be right on something. So, as Dailuaine was the distillery with most hits referencing to this whisky, I believe it's a Dailuaine. Anyway, whiskyfun.com says so, and that guy plays by the book. Well, this is a Dailuaine as pale as any other young bourbon casked one. Smells nice and fresh, toffee, lavender, ginseng, parmesan cheese, dried and salted christmas ham, eggnog, ginger, cigars a lot going on here, like an exotic mix of spicy roots and vegetables besides this smoked comfort. The nose is sweet, oranges, caramel and honey alongside eggnog agin and cream liqueur. The sweetness is very powerful so far on the palate, which I think would usually make the hairs on my back raise a bit. But it shortly turns into a tannic and peppery aftertaste which again would make the hairs on my... well you know. And since I don't have any hairs on my back I'll rather just say that this might be one of the most unlikely, yet extremely pleasant whiskies I've ever come across. It smells great, nothing wrong there, but then it gets as thick and sweet as syrup when first hitting my palate just before that's all beaten down again by this extremely drying red wine, tannic and peppery aftertaste. By the way, this is definitively a Dailuaine!
Some say minus and minus becomes a plus, surely, sometimes maybe even more: 9
Dailuaine 12yo 1997-1989 62.2% James MacArthur's
I'll leave it all up to mr. James MacArthur's once again to have the final say, and what punchline he can draw. I mean, if this one is as good as the other two youngster (relatively speaking) that I've had in this session I must say that I'll also be looking for Dailuaine's from now on. Well, this one is pale as white wine, bourbon or fino if you ask me, but of course I could be wrong. The nose shows fruit gums, smoke and ammonium once again, a weird mixture that seems to fit quite perfectly, in Dailuaine only? The taste is smoky, peppery, peaty, again a bravado of heavy and rich influences, cinnamon, honey and butter en masse. Amazing, I don't think there's enough to be said about this one if I tried the whole evening so I rather just make a comparison. Try to imagine the richest, fattest, most luxuriously honeyed sherried Highland Park you've ever come across? Well, deduct some of the peat. There you go, it doesn't get much better than this, or even any better if you ask me.
See a bottle of this? Buy it and hold on to it as if your life depended on it: 10
Next tasting: Off the Beaten Path#9
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