Take a Walk on the Speyside

For the first meeting of the new year, The Cabinet met last Tuesday night to take an imagined walking tour of sorts through the central part of the Speyside scotch whisky region. This comprised a virtual walk of some 25 km from the Cragganmore distillery in the southwest, across the River Spey, up into the hills to the north and west of the river to Cardhu and then back down into the valley ending at Aberlour.

I will give away the punchline by saying that none of these whiskies overwhelmed us. To be fair, it has always been difficult for the more subtle Speysides to hold their own against the robust and complex coastal and island malts in the hearts of many whisky lovers, and perhaps it is a bit of an "apples and oranges" type of comparison. And does a whisky really always need to "overwhelm"? Certainly you don't want it to underwhelm either, but what about inbetween? Is "whelm" itself even a word? A lexicographical and at heart philosophical question for another day.

The Cragganmore Distiller's Edition first then. There was some dispute as to the nose, but the flavour was universally viewed as heavily toffee and caramel in character - a real malt bomb with more than a hint of sweetness. Not a bad whisky, but not a very complex one either. Under the new "honest whisky rating"

scheme the votes placed it comfortably in the "Two Drams" range (zero to four being the range): recommended with reservation. The reservation here being that for the price this is a fairly simple whisky. It's not badly made at all, but it's not special in any way either.

On to Cardhu! Cardhu was the object of a scandal of sorts that anyone with access to Google can read for themselves, but apparently that is behind it now and they are trying to rebuild their market. In the opinion of The Cabinet, regardless of the irrelevant history, the current 12 year old product will not help much. It was

more complex than the Cragganmore, but also even sweeter. Because of the complexity the votes here ranged quite a bit as member's picked up on different aspects, but the vote averaged to "Two Drams" again, which is an appropriate rating, with the reservation here being that opinions about it will vary widely, but nobody is likely to love it.

Finally then back down to and over the Spey to Aberlour. This one we had the greatest hopes for as the 16 year old has won several awards and, awards aside, has a solid reputation among whisky fans. In our opinion it had the notable toffee-ish malt character of the Cragganmore and the complexity of the Cardhu, but it somehow came across as not very well balanced. It was also quite sweet. It is definitely one I would personally like to try again and explore a little more deeply, but on first pass it failed to live up to expectations. "Two Drams". Recommended with reservation.

It's interesting to note that three whiskies produced within a very tight geographical perimeter using the same water and presumably barley can be so different. The only unifying factor was the sweetness and perhaps it is because none of us are personally fond of sweet notes in whiskies that the ratings were a bit lower than expected. 

These ultimately in-offensive whiskies were perhaps overshadowed by Grant and Cory's excellent homemade whisky salami, cured I believe in Laphroaig and Talisker (or perhaps it was Lagavulin...). Brilliant. And brilliant fun all around as always as conversation ranged from the advantages of tamarack as firewood to the disadvantages of being predated upon.  

Slainte!

The River Spey near Cragganmore