Old Pulteney 14YO Signatory Vintage Exclusive Selection Ink #4 Single Cask + Free Glenallachie 10YO CS B8 $299 Delivered @ Nicks

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Old Pulteney 14YO Signatory Vintage Exclusive Selection Ink #4 Single Cask + Free Glenallachie 10YO CS B8 $299 Delivered @ Nicks
Go to Deal
rosebank on 10/07/2024 - 15:50 nicks.com.au (800 clicks)
Last edited 10/07/2024 - 17:35 by 1 other user

Signatory Vintage continue a series which features sought-after malts selected exclusively for French retailer, Le Comptoir Irlandais. Easily one of the highlights of collection #4 is this little beauty from one of the most northerly distilleries in Scotland, guaranteeing a long, slow ageing and a strong sense of place. Located in a historic fishing port where whisky quickly joined herring in the holds of boats for export across Europe, the sea expresses itself in Pulteney's distillate. At natural strength, you can expect a salt-infused malt, round and balanced, with minerality, fino sherry and maritime notes, in this case gaining a chocolatey edge from Sherry wood. Distilled in 2008 and aged for 14 years before finishing in first-fill Sherry cask #5, it comes bottled without chill filtration. 56% Alc./Vol.

Notes from the bottlers… Nose: round, gourmet, roasted coffee and chocolate notes, hint of pepper, slightly mineral. Mouth: oily, chocolate texture, marked by Sherry. Slight mineral, herbaceous notes of heather and honey. Finish: rustic, maritime, long.

Old Pulteney is one of my favourite distilleries. Signatory is one of the better IBs and this was bottled for the French market and not many made it here, so $299 for this bottle is legit. Otherwise, a mid aged IB OP single cask goes for ~$200.

I''ve tried a couple batches of Glenallachie 10 CS and it's pretty consistent. I did the minimum amount of research between the difference between Batch 8 and 9 and they're essentially the same in terms of casks and ABV.

GlenAllachie 10 Year Old Cask Strength Batch 8 Single Malt Whisky

This is Batch 8 of the GlenAllachie 10 Year Old Cask Strength whiskies.
For this edition, master distiller Billy Walker has chosen whisky aged in Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez puncheons, virgin oak and rioja casks. Matured for 10 years and bottled at cask strength in October 2022.

Produc link

Here is the same deal, but with Batch 9.

Guided by 50 years of experience and fuelled by his passion for wood management, Billy crafted Batch 9 with perfection in mind. A marriage of spirit from Pedro Ximénez and Oloroso Sherry casks, along with Rioja barriques and medium charred/medium toasted American Virgin Oak barrels, this mahogany malt sits proudly alongside its predecessors. Delivering classic Sherried notes of indulgent dark chocolate and dried fruits, coupled with sweet spices and red berries, this prized release is one to be savoured. Batch 9 is bottled at 58.1%, non chill filtered and natural colour.

Glenallachie—after Billy Walker bought it—became a distillery that I gave more attention to because of their large and eclectic range, and their willingness to mess around with more obscure cask types, kinda like Jim McEwan when he was still at Bruichladdich.

If you're bored with the usual CS sherry bombs like Aberlour A'bunadh, Glanfarclas 105, Glendronach CS etc. I highly recommend the Glenallachie 10 CS because I find it more interesting due to the addition of other casks besides the usual oloroso and PX. When I was in Scotland I hand-filled a bottle of Single Cask Recioto Della Valapolicella at the distillery.

This remains the best value sherry bomb despite the hike in price, it used to be $105 for 1L of 105.

Glendronach CS is oloroso and PX. Batch 10 has more oloroso influence. I personally prefer oloroso. $125 is probably the cheapest online, and I highly recommend it.

Arran Sherry Cask The Bodega CS is great, and like the Glenallachie, is more interesting imo.

Benriach single casks have increased in price, but I have pretty big stash of the old label single casks. I found a 10yo PX for $150 which is pretty cheap for an SC PX , but I haven't bought from that store. I paid about $120 each for a 12yo oloroso and 11yo port cask only a few years ago. I found a couple of 12yo Benriach oloroso single casks collecting dust at duty free in MEL for $120 I think and i grabbed both of them. I like Benriach more than Glendronach because they still use a variety of different casks, hsve had triple distilled ones, and some are peated. Glendronach SCs are all PX or oloroso now. I remember buying ex-bourbon, virgin oak and port cask SCs a long time ago.

You can still buy old label Benriach 20-25yo for under $500, Glendronachs in that age bracket are over a grand now. I remember buying 25yo 'dronachs for 100GBP landed because we had a strong dollar at the time. This is a quick comparison from a store I've bought from.

Bens:
* Madeira: https://uptownliquor.com.au/products/benriach-1991-27-years-…
* Claret: https://uptownliquor.com.au/products/benriach-1993-25-year-o…
* Port: https://uptownliquor.com.au/products/benriach-1992-25-years-…
* Virgin oak: https://uptownliquor.com.au/products/benriach-single-cask-21…

Glens:

Yeah, the Glens are a few years older. I can find some a bit younger on other sites but I really cbf rn becasue I got sidetracked and my pain meds kicked in half an hour ago and i'm struggling to focus on the screen. Anyway Benriach > Glendronach regardless of price imo. I think I'm going to open this one that went on sale so bought a couple: https://www.nicks.com.au/products/1995-benriach-batch-16-sin…

Then there are Edradour who just dropped about a dozen of STFCs aged in different casks. I haven't really had a proper look at them yet.

Back to the deal. I probably would have bought the OP by itself fot $299 because I'm an OP fanboy. The Glenallachie is just a great bonus sherry bomb that's more interesting than the usual ones.

This post seriously took me over an hour to write, and I have over 20 tabs open.

Alcohol Liquor Old Pulteney Scotch Whisky Whisky

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Comments

  • puka on 10/07/2024 - 15:52
    +1

    I'm getting a 'page not found' when clicking the link

    • rosebank on 10/07/2024 - 16:00
      +1

      I think the URL was too long. i've edied to link to all the Glenallchies

  • thisisscotts on 10/07/2024 - 15:55
    +1

    Upvoting because of the OP's time and effort (and reasoning that this is a deal!)

  • Drpepper666 on 10/07/2024 - 15:56
    +1

    I believe Arran pulling out of au so get some if you like it

    Edit really good deal but I have too much whisky ATM

  • Gunnar on 10/07/2024 - 15:57
    +1

    Great post! I was very tempted by that Nicks offer when it first launched because $300 fro those two is an excellent price.

    • rosebank on 10/07/2024 - 16:00

      Yeah, it was an insta-cop for me

      • Gunnar on 10/07/2024 - 16:04

        I’ve run out of storage space ☹️

        What is likely to get me to buy is getting me to look at this after a few 😉

        • rosebank on 10/07/2024 - 16:09
          +3

          I’ve run out of storage space

          I don't undertand this. Just buy another house.

  • Gunnar on 10/07/2024 - 16:03
    +1

    Also forgot to add (and @rosebank will know this) the Billy Walker years at Glendronach produced some excellent whiskies (well they were using the old stock from pre 1996 but dam they are good whiskies)

    • rosebank on 10/07/2024 - 16:17

      I'm but a huge Glendronach fan, 15 was good when it was $100, and CS is still quite cheap $125

      Only bought SCs, had a couple of 20+ yo PX ones that were shit, so I stick to oloroso now and tap out at 25-30 years. The best ones I've had were 15-20yo

      Rachel Barrie seems to be doing okay. I've had a couple of young oloroso ones that were great. Idk about their core range tho because I don't buy them

      • Gunnar on 10/07/2024 - 18:03
        +1

        The 15 was excellent, esp. 10 years ago when it was $100. I actually did a back to back test of bottlings of the 15 from 2013/14, 2018, and 2022/23 some months ago. The first ran rings around the other two but there was a sharp drop in quality between 2018-23.

        The newer styles are a bit ‘spicier’. Good if you like them, not great if you love their sherry bombs from years gone ago (my pick have been the PX ones). I could go on for hours on this and how their core range and single casks have changed over recent years.

        Funnily enough I totally agree with you in the years. My pick for stuff is cask strength aged between 15-25 years. Older tend to be too oaky for my palette (never mind the cost). Oldest SC Glendronach I’ve had was 32 years but I preferred the stuff in their early 20s.

        Thanks for the article. I remember reading that a long time ago and thinking to myself that I am looking way too much into this 😉 (much like their 1993 being their grail year).

        These days, my money on Glendronach is spent chasing down bottlings pre 2019/2020. Outside of that I look elsewhere but thankfully I have more than enough to last me for a very, very long time.

        • rosebank on 10/07/2024 - 19:47
          +1

          I've got a stash of pre-2015 dronach SCs, but I've alway felt they were overhyped. I'll take a Glenfarclas Family Cask over them any day, and the farclas 15 is a lot better than the dronach 15 imo. Even the discontinued Tobermory 15 although a full on bomb. Or if I go the auction route, I'll take a Mac 18 Sherry 1990s release for about the same pice as a 25+yo Glendronach PX. Or a properly sherried Mortlach or Benrinnes. I prefer ex-bourbon balvenie, but a sherry heavy batch of Tun 1401 can't be beat. Kilchoman is so versatile, it works with pretty much everything, I'd take it over a sherry Laphroaig. Sherry cask Ardnamurchans are very good.

          I loaded up on Japanese SMWS bottles back when they were sensibly priced. All first fill Yamazaki, Hakashu and Miyagiko betweem 11-17yo. The hakushu 14 SMWS 120.7 was my pick, I bought 4. Or sherried Karuizawa Noh bottles for 100GBP when our dollar was strong, so prob around 2010.

          One of the shit Glendronach SCs i bought was a 1993 PX. It was flat and lifeless; had no character and just taste like drinking sherry.

          Old Lark sherry casks were fantastic; Heartwood Release the Beast is one of the the best non-Sullivans juice HWs.. I don't buy lark anymore, but apera cask rum finish Killara is surprisingly good. Amber Lane do sherry, sorry, I mean apera quite well for a young distillery. Smith's Angaston (especially the young CS ones) was excellent, although not full sherry. Pre-Diageo Starward apera straight from the solera was great, as were some of the NWP releasaes. Single cask PX Amrut, Teerenpeli Kaski. Kavalan Solist Oloroso, Fino and Manzanilla.

          Older bottlings of Bunnahabhain, Springbank, Bowmore, Miltonduff, Blair Athol, Ben Nevis, Arran and Glenglassaugh play very well with sherry. Young CS sherry cask Kilkerrans have no right to be as good as they are for an 8yo. Or if you want to go full yolo, 70s Brora, Dallas Dhu, and Ardbeg (Springbank can probably slot in here as well looking at the current prices)

          Lately I've been more into clean, fruity ex-bourbon whisky and overpriced indy rums lol

          • Gunnar on 10/07/2024 - 20:35
            +1

            @rosebank: Man, so much in there I agree with!!

            I'll take a Mac 18 Sherry 1990s release for about the same pice as a 25+yo Glendronach PX. Or a properly sherried Mortlach

            This in particular was music to my ears, they are both fantastic but hard to get, particularly the Mortlach. I paid like £45-50 for a bunch of 15-18YO mortlachs in Scotland about 15 years ago. Those days are long gone and all but one bottle remain (they were independent bottlings).

            Glen Keith for an easy drinking and delicious speyside (but not at current prices, the ones when they sold to independents and $200 would get you a 20YO CS). I have a bottle of Imperial sitting around as well which I loved when I tasted it, I’ll open it someday.

            I didn’t know about Smith’s angaston, will have to check it out when I’m next in SA. My favourite Aussie distillery is actually Fleurieu. I only recently tried amberlane and loved it.

            • rosebank on 11/07/2024 - 13:34
              +1

              @Gunnar: Unfortunately, Smiths Angaston is dead. There were rumours they were going to fire up the stills again, but nothing has happend so I'll have to get them from auctions. Luckily they're not well known or desirable so the prices aren't too crazy. I have a 10CS, a couple 12s, a 14 and a couple 15s. Early Fleurieus were gross so I've avoided them. I'll try get some of they new stuff. Tin Shed/Iniquity is very good and very transparent with age and provenance of casks. Camborne is a newcomer and I've tried 3 of their first 4 releases. Not quite there yet but the juice is good. They're like St Agnes's side project. St Agnes 15yo XO brandy shits all over the french equilavent XOs with no age statements andl loaded with E150a. Special Relaese Cut Hill is great but they currently don't have anything good, I tried their tawny CS andit tasted almost like a good young Sullys. Tria Prima is a tiny one man operation who quit his job at CSIRO to follow his dreams. I have all 3 of their releases, doubled up on 2 of them because they are great, the third one not so much. 3 Souls is an IB; their first 3 releases were original Southern Coast stock, and they releases a few Fleurieu last year. There half a dozen more SA distilleries, but they're not that great. The McLaren Vale one is quality but super wanky so I haven't bought any of them,

              I have a few Signatory CS Mortlach 1990s Sherry cask bottles, an Adelphi, a couple of the 16 F&F and a G&M 15. I have an open 10yo 1st fill that sort of smells like a mortlach, but just tastes like sherry. Its super dark as well. i shared it with the distributor of Springbank and Cadenhead and we both agreed it must have been a very wet cask.

              I checked my spreadsheet and I have 2 Glen Keith 20yo, one Blackadder Raw Cask and a Sig CS, both early 90s.

              I have 1.5 bottles of Mac 18 Sherry 1994 in HK, drank all the OBs I had at home except a 1962 25yo Anniverasy. Got a G&M 1st fill Speymalt 18 bottled at 46% from Japan, an Adelphi, and a couple of American bottlings of the 12 Sherry that are 43% rather than the 40% we get here. I have the 2022 Mac 18 Sherry, but they've started to get too expensive. Now they have an 18yo that are matured in "sherry seasoned casks", so they can't even get proper casks anymore and have to use virgin oak that has been rinsed with sherry lol.

              If you come to ADL, hit me up and we'll go raid my 50 bottle stash locked in a cage at a bar.

              • Gunnar on 13/07/2024 - 10:04
                +1

                @rosebank: Wow! What a collection. I say this as someone with a large collection but that sh.ts over mine! I also like that you drink them!

                I’ve got an Sig Cs Glen Keith, ‘92, 22YO. There’s also a couple of of Sig and Old Malt Cask non CS. All are delicious!

                I bought a few of the game of thrones mortlach a few years ago. Haven’t opened any of them, I don’t have high hopes but they were $80ish for a bottle.

                Thanks for the offer! I’m actually in SA quite a bit as I’ve got family through Flinders and Port Augusta. ADL not so much but I may be there in august.

                I also know we have a shared love of watches and sneakers/shoes too!

  • thisisscotts on 10/07/2024 - 16:14
    +1

    Thanks OP, I pulled the trigger!

  • dirtyhen on 10/07/2024 - 18:06

    already spent $500 last month on semilon

    my wife gonna kill me

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