Thursday 5 February 2009

CRAGGANMORE 86/100

.......... a delightful speysider, and providing a rich, sweet/dry/fruity/spicy combo, and as complex a finish as one could ever ask from a whisky.
Official bottlings are usually part of the Diageo 'Classic Malts' range therefore are a 'Brand' presentation which inhibits the quality of the whisky but, the Indi's have this in 'craft' bottlings and they are generally well worth the effort.
This whisky is well respected by Blenders, and appears in the Johnnie Walker Range helping to round off the Talisker/Caol Ila double-act.
Cragganmore 12 y.o. 90/100

2 comments:

  1. Some muddled thinking here, IMHO. Why do you suggest that the quality is less because it is a 'Brand'? Chateau Lafite-Rothschild is a 'brand'! And where do you suppose the so-called 'independents' get their stocks from, if not the very same distillery that supplies the owners? And why do distillery bottlings so regularly win the top quality prizes (e.g.Port Ellen, a distillery-own bottling, was declared "Best Single Malt" at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition just last month).

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think he means branded as in 40% chill-filtered and coloured. Whereas the independents will generally bottle straight from the cask without any meddling other than taking the big bits of wood out...

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.