Elixir "The Single Malts of Scotland" Reserve Casks - Clynelish 8-Year-Old

 Elixir "The Single Malts of Scotland" Reserve Casks - Clynelish 8-Year-Old

Details

Bottled at 48% abv

Distilled in 2010/11, Bottled in 2020

No. Casks 5

Non-Chill Filtered, Natural Colour.

Elixir (The Whisky Exchange Company)

"Elixir" is the name of the Independent Bottling company owned by The Whisky Exchange, with shops in Covent Garden, Great Portland Street and London Bridge in London, it is also the largest online Whisky shop in the world. TWE, as it's more often referred to, is owned by Sukhinder Singh. Incidentally, Sukhinder, under the name Elixir Distillers, is currently building a new distillery on Islay which will be situated just north of Port Ellen, on the way to the airport.

The recent explosion of Independent Bottlings which are now available in Israel is fantastic news for all of us.

It shows a growing maturity within the Israeli Whisky drinking community that has given existing importers, wine shops and whisky enthusiasts the confidence to sign agreements to import these Indie bottlings.

I have already covered in great detail, all the advantages of purchasing Indie bottlings and I refer you to my Whisky review on the Signatory Benrinnes 23 YO here:

So, with this Clynelish, purchased from Sipil.co.il, an excellent online Wine and Whisky shop here in Israel, we get to compare the Official Diageo bottling of Clynelish which has a very distinctive character; to this Independent bottling example.

Clynelish and Brora Distillery.

When it comes to writing about Clynelish and Brora, you can always tell if the reviewer or YouTuber has actually been there themselves or not, by the way they describe the location of Brora, relative to Clynelish distillery. You often see descriptions like “adjacent to the first one”, “opposite the road”, “just down the road” or “next door” each other. However, anyone who had actually been there would know that this is nonsense and that in fact, both mash and still houses are within the same distillery complex.

Clynelish/Brora Distillery from the air. (C) Google.com

The whole site can be best described as a hill-like castle construction. The new Clynelish distillery building, a typical 1960s British design, sits at the top of the hill, looking down on the car park below, which faces the main road, Victoria Road, part of the great A9, within the town of Brora.

Warehouses on the right, Brora on the left

Looking from Brora, towards the new building

Brora Distillery

From the car park, if you carry on walking around to the right, the tarmac path turns into  a 19th century brick paved street. On the right-hand side are traditional dunnage warehouses and to the left, is the original Clynelish distillery still house and mash room (today called Brora distillery), which was in use before they built the new building on top of the hill, when in 1967, the old equipment was mothballed.

Following a severe lack of heavily peated whisky for their Johnnie Walker Blends, the old still house at Clynelish was temporarily reopened in 1969 and employed in producing heavily peated whisky for Diageo. 

In order to differentiate between the standard Clynelish spirit being produced in the new building on top of the hill, and the peated Clynelish in the old still house, they decided to call the peated spirit “Brora”, after the name of the town. Indeed, since the founding of the distillery in 1819, its name has switched back and forth from Clynelish to Brora and back again a few times.

There is actually a tradition within the Scottish Whisky Industry for giving peated and non-peated spirit from the same distillery, different brand names. For instance, peated batches of whisky from Tobermory are called Ledaig. Tomintoul produce a heavily peated whisky called Old Ballantruan. Edradour's peated whisky is called Ballechin. There are many other examples.

The old still house was eventually closed in 1983 (seemingly for good this time), after Diageo’s stock requirements for heavily peated whisky was again being met by their Island and Islay distilleries.

Diageo made the astute decision to bottle the remaining stocks of Brora (that is, heavily peated Clynelish), as a special annual Limited Edition of Single Malt. Today, these bottles have reached cult status with bottles passing hands for prices which look like telephone numbers (including the International Code).

How it came to be, that whisky writers began to refer to Brora as a long-lost closed distillery, is probably due to clever Diageo marketing and a certain romanticism on the part of whisky journalists and a thirst for a good story.

So, now the myth of a distillery which never really existed in the first place, is being turned into reality. In 2017, Diageo announced to much fanfare, that they were going to re-open this much loved “Closed” distillery (along with Port Ellen on Islay, which unlike Brora, was a real distillery which was closed and dismantled in the 1980s and which also reached cult status due to their Limited Editions). The new "distillery" will once again be employed to produce that heavily peated Clynelish whisky which (as mentioned above), was only originally supposed to be a stopgap for a temporary lack of peated spirit back in the 1970s.

In 2018 they began a project to rebuild the old still-house and mash-room, and send the still which had been sitting there, idol for decades, to get refurbished. The “new” distillery should be open “again” sometime within the year.

Luckily, I have photos of the old buildings before the renovation which I took when we visited the Clynelish distillery back in October 2017.

Our Visit to Clynelish / Brora Distillery (ies)

As we entered the main building where the posh Visitor's centre was, I noticed the OK Kosher certificate proudly displayed on the wall, like an award certificate. I spoke to the girls on the front desk about this. They were under the mistaken impression that the certificate meant that everything in the distillery was kosher and proceeded to tell me so!!!

As luck would have it, there had been a leak in one of the washbacks at Clynelish distillery and they had cancelled all visits inside the building. I say, as luck would have it, because the guide women instead took us to the older part of the distillery to give us a guided tour of Brora. (This was before they announced the exciting news of the re-opening of this legendary / mythical distillery so the photos I took are quite historic showing what it looked like before the extensive renovations).

The warehouse was an incredible experience, (as all old Scottish warehouses are). As you enter, there is a wave of heavy alcohol spirit that hits your nostrils and sends your head into a spin. To our right were some newly arrived Spanish Sherry 500 L butts. Approaching them you became aware of a strong sweet fruity winery aroma which was quite intoxicating (in both sense of the words).

There were some amazing casks there, some stretching back to the 1960s. As well as Spanish Sherry butts, there were standard American Ex-Bourbon barrels and plenty of hogsheads, arranged neatly on racks.

We left the warehouse to explore the old Brora distillery buildings. The still house was most impressive with everything still in place as if they finished work for the day, sometime in the 1983, closed up and left everything as it was.

The Wash Still (with the little window)

The Spirit Still

The Old Vat

To prove my point about Brora which I made earlier, see here a plaque inside the Customs office of the old Clynelish distillery (Brora) which reads “Brora – Clynelish Distillery”.

The Clynelish Visitor's Centre

Back to the Visitor’s centre, we walked around admiring all the old sample bottles and Clynelish/Brora branded items. They unfortunately had no Clynelish Glencairn glasses in stock but did have plenty of Brora glasses, so I bought two.

I also bought a distillery only Bottling Clynelish matured exclusively in Ex-Bourbon barrels, which I still have today. I heard that when they got down to the last 1,000 of these bottlings, the Master Distiller and manager signed each bottle. I missed out of this by a couple of weeks.

Typical Clynelish profile is (Official bottling 14YO)

Barley: Slightly Peated at 5 PPM

Casks Used: 60% Ex-Sherry Casks (Old Refill, some having been used 4,5 or even 6 times before!!!), 40% Refill Ex-Bourbon. (Source: Distillery Warehouse Manager, Clynelish October, 2017).

Most casks are matured off site in Diageo’s “Cask City” in Sterling, which is where the Clynelish casks are married/vatted together, before bottling. Even the distillery’s Warehouse Manager does not know the exact blending recipe which goes into the bottling.

Smelling and Tasting:

Slightly coastal, slightly peaty.

Warehouse Mustiness.

Fragrant and spicy.

Fresh Candle Wax Aroma. Also, Beeswax in the mouth feel.

Cereal / Biscuit aroma and flavour.

Honey, Vanilla, Mixture of green and yellow Tropical fruits.

Kashrus Status: Interesting question! 60% Ex-Sherry casks would seem to discard this as having any chance of it being issued a descent kashrus hechsher, yet the OK give it their approval. It’s just conjecture, but this presumably is because the overwhelming majority of these Ex-Sherry Casks are quite “ancient” Refill Casks. We are talking many of them being used for the fifth or even sixth time! This means that if we say that each maturation period is 10 years or more, where the cask has been refilled with new-make-spirit each time, then a cask which has been used five times already, would have been assembled and seasoned in the 1960/70s and would have arrived in the UK around the 1970s. In other words, it hasn’t had actual Sherry in it for well over 50 years!

The Sherry casks are not completely in-active however. The Sherry Casks will, in my opinion, no longer have any Stam Yeinam influence but will continue to impart sweet oaky tannin spice notes, and along with a unique type of distillation, the Clynelish signature flavour of waxy furniture polish. However, the overwhelming flavour influence will be coming from the fresher Ex-Bourbon casks made up of American White Oak Barrels and hogsheads.

Now to our Independent bottling...

Elixir “The Single Malts of Scotland” - Reserve Casks Clynelish 8-Year-Old

Packaging Design

If I had an annual award for Package design then this one would win my Silver Medal. Almost everything about the design and details is pretty near perfect, in my opinion.

The style of this exceedingly high-quality box is made to look like a brown Parcel box. The cardboard employed is thick and rigid and offers excellent protection. The bottle fits snugly inside the box and employs a tongue flap that holds the bottle secure during transport.

I like the design and font of the Brand name “The Single Malts of Scotland” with the integrated squiggles that form a thistle and barley spike. The Words “PARCEL NO.2” is printed at a 45-degree angle in red across the box in the style of a Postal overprint stamp.

The details and font used, which is printed on the box, is in the style of a printed address made with an old-fashioned typewriter, you would typically see on an old parcel. I love the typewriter style % symbol and the way that the characters don’t line up exactly. Really cool.

The front bottle label looks very smart with good use of space. I really like the official “Post Office Form” style with the double red-lines dividing the different data fields.

I wish to thank the Israeli importers, SIPIL, for not sticking his import Hebrew label over the original English back label. I really appreciate it!

I do have a few criticisms though.

The Non-Chill Filtered and Natural Colour statement should, in my opinion, be stated clearly on the front label and not hidden within the blurb of the back-label text.

The Distillery name "Clynelish" is just another one of the technical details printed in small font, along with the Age, Angels’ Share and Date of bottling. In my opinion, the Distillery name, that is, where the spirit was distilled should be placed below the brand name (which according to SWA regulations should be in the biggest font), and above the other technical details, in a larger font.

Also, I was rather amused by the Post-Mark style stamp printed at an angle in the style of a Post Mark which consists of a lion, standing on two legs and, who appears to be beating the top of a Cask like a drum! OK. That’s a bit weird. The stamp reads “2002 – Established”. What was established in 2002? The Brand or Elixir?

The Tasting Sessions

The tasting sessions were carried out on three separate Friday night visits with my eldest son (along with our dear daughter-in-law and grandson), during the evening Shabbos Seudah (festive meal). What you see below is a combination of these sessions.

Appearance

A gorgeous looking and naturally bright translucent lemon sorbet like yellow.

(The official 14-Year-Old comes with gallons of E150a colouring).

Swirling the liquid around in a Brora Distillery Glencairn glass, the whisky has an oily appearance. Tears roll down slowly indicating a high abv. At 48% abv this was not totally unexpected but you usually see this in whiskies of a much higher abv, say 50% abv and above. Very impressive!

Aroma

Without water, Fresh air, Sweet white wine spirit solvent.

Pears Flavour Boiled Travel Sweets and powdered sugar.

What I found remarkable was that there wasn’t a hint of Peat. Is this a Clynelish made from unpeated barley? Apparently so!

Also, of note was a lack of that signature waxiness as well.

There was a slight sweet Iodine aroma but in a pleasant way. It wasn’t off putting at all. There was a general feeling of the whisky being a bit closed and reserved.

However, with just a few drops of water added, that reserved character disappeared completely. The Iodine note was replaced by fresh white and green fruit and sugary sweetness.

https://draxe.com/nutrition/lemon-verbena/

The first thing I became aware of, was a lovely fresh smell of Lemon Verbena tea. Amazingly, this plant naturally produces a magical smell and flavour very similar to commercial lemonade drinks like R. White’s Lemonade® or Sprite®.

https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/hisense-rb335n4wg1

Incidentally, my family has recently started growing the Lemon Verbena plant in their homes. Not only does it act as a natural air freshener, a few leaves in a glass of hot water makes for a delicious lemonade flavour tea. What’s more, there is no bitterness whatsoever which you tend to get with other lemon flavour type plants.

Lots of fresh and young fruits like pears, tangy green apples.

Garden Flowers.

Lovely fruity young flesh white wine like a Gewürztraminer or Viognier.

Fresh Pineapple and Pear juice

Vanilla walnut cream custard cakes

Sherbet-ty fizzy lemon candy sugar confectionary sweet

Bananas.

Pineapple Travel sweets boiled sweets in powdered sugar

Ripe Honey Dew Melon

Melon and Pineapple jam.

https://www.glutenfreepalate.com/pineapple-ice-cream/

Walnut Cream Whip

Taste in the Mouth

A good full flavoured mouthfeel and slightly oily.

Walnut Cream Whip

Pineapple, Lemon and Vanilla ice cream.

A hint of white chocolate and Lemon Meringue pie.

Freshly laundered clothes with a lemony fragrance.

New cotton clothes from a shop.

Lemon Verbena (See my description above).

Finish

For a young whisky this had a remarkably long finish of Tangy Pineapple and Lemon Sherbet Meringue and Pineapple fruit confectionery.

I would guess that the casks used were either 2nd or even 3rd Refill Ex-Bourbon casks as wood Oak spices were nowhere to be found. However, this isn’t a criticism, just an observation. This Indie Clynelish was absolutely delicious.

So, how much of this classic Clynelish profile is evident in this Independent bottling?

What they don’t have in common:

Fascinating indeed! What happened to the Beeswax? I always assumed that the major source of that Clynelish signature waxiness, which is very dominant in Brora spirit as well, comes primarily from the distillation process, the shape of the stills and the distillation method they use. However, at least in my opinion, this Elixir Independent Bottling expression shows no signs of any waxiness whatsoever. Not even a hint of a little Chanuka candle! This leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the waxy candle mouth-feel and flavour notes are coming from a combination of muskiness from these ancient Ex-Sherry casks, and the peat used to dry the barley in the official standard distillery expression!

What they do have in common:

The Elixir does however share all these rich tropical fruit flavours and is, like it’s official bottling brother, very full bodied. These characteristics must be coming from the new-make-spirit.

So, where is that Waxiness coming from?

Now, if I were brave/full hardy (delete as appropriate), I’d open my bottle of Distillery Only Clynelish which I bought back in 2017 when I visited the distillery. (Back then, it cost me over a £100 so I can only imagine what its value is today!) This limited edition (as far as I know), used Clynelish’s regular 5 PPM peated barley but was matured (just like our Elixir bottling) exclusively in Ex-Bourbon casks. Doing a side-by-side comparison I would be able to tell you whether that Waxiness was coming from those Ex-Sherry casks or the peat! Hmmm, will I be doing this anytime soon? Don’t hold your breath.

In Conclusion…

Independent Bottlings: Berachim HaBa’im - Welcome To Israel

First and foremost, I really want to say that I am extremely grateful to all those entrepreneurs who have invested their own money (and taken what might have seemed to others as a big risk), and started bringing all these wonderful Independent bottlings into Israel. Kol HaKavod to you all.

As mentioned earlier, it shows a growing confidence and maturity within the Israeli Whisky market that there are customers out there who are looking for a whisky experience beyond what is offered from the official bottlings. These customers don’t mind buying younger single malts if it means getting Single Malt Whisky which has not been over-processed, covered in sickly sweet Caramel colouring and sickly-sweet marketing hype. A Single Malt which has not had the “kishkes” torn out of it with Chill-Filtration, watered down and having the character blended out of it to produce another “really smooth” bottle of “Ben-Glen-Auchen-Load-Of-Toshen-More”.

Independent bottlings are (with a very few exceptions), honest if not sometimes raw versions of our familiar favourite drams, presented to us in a very unfamiliar way.

As for this Clynelish 8-Year-Old, if you happen to come across this bottle being sold at the recommended retail price, grab it. Grab them all!

It is Clynelish, but not as we know it! This is a clean not peated, full bodied dram which proves that sometimes, age matters less than the cask quality. This young 8-Year-Old is packed with fruity sweetness and complexity. Believe me, you won’t get bored of this anytime soon. It’s a Single Malt that just keeps on giving. Very highly recommended. I’m tempted now to try some of the other whiskies in “The Single Malts of Scotland” series. Stay tuned.