Old Pulteney Flotilla Vintage 2008 Review

Including a section on how Cask Seasoning Removes those bitter flavours from the wood

Bottled at 46% abv

Non-Chill Filtered ? One would think so by the high abv, but not stated as such.

Natural Colour ? Probably although not stated on label.

Price : NIS 180 (In the UK, about £45)

Maturation: 100% First-Fill Ex-Bourbon Barrels

Kashrus Status: No Kashrus Issues.

I have been a big fan of Old Pulteney 12, the distillery’s bottom of the range Age Statement core product, for many years now. Apart from the obvious and frankly ridiculous use of E150a caramel colouring, which is really annoying, and that it’s bottled at the minimum legal abv of 40%, it’s still a very descent dram and is being sold at a very reasonable budget price.

See my review of the 12-Year-Old and distillery background here:

https://rebmordechaireviews.blogspot.com/2015/07/old-pulteney-12-year-old.html

The 12-Year-Old will give you yellow apples, coastal sea breeze spray, honey, caramel milk fudge, apple pie crust and subtle oak spices on the finish. I still have a bottle which comes in the old pre-Covid beige oval-shaped cardboard container.

(Having said this, I did read a recent article on the Dramface.com site which expressed the opinion that the current 12-Year-Old had dramatically decreased in quality since the latest rebranding but I cannot confirm this. I hope he is wrong).

I was therefore very excited to read about a  new “Integrity” style bottling from Pulteney, named "Flotilla” – “Vintage 2008”, which has entered the market.

What Is a Vintage Bottling?

The stated year of  a “Vintage bottling” is the year in which the spirit was distilled and not as some would think, the year when the barley was picked (similar to Vintage wines). Moreover, the designation of a “Vintage Statement” on the label almost always indicates that the bottle is a limited edition, either a one off or an annual release. However, unusually, this edition seems to be not only widely available and part of their new core-range, but also is being sold as a budget Single Malt, roughly in the same price bracket as the 12-Year-Old. I sought it out here in Israel and found it without any great difficulty.

Matured for 10 years and bottled at a high 46% abv, possibly non-chill filtered and with no signs of colouring, I had high hopes that this would be the Old Pulteney 12 (minus 2 years) as it was meant to be, with a full mouth feel and texture, showing what Old Pulteney can be when the marketing guys haven't dumb it down.

Outside the distillery in Wick.

The cork stopper label proudly declares “Distilled and Matured – by the sea”.

The front label further informs us that that this was matured in First-Fill Ex-Bourbon Barrels and even gives us a short tasting guide: “Spice and sweet with a warn, full-bodied finish”. That "full-bodied" description does kind of imply that it’s in fact Non-Chill Filtered despite not actually staying is outright. We shall see.

On the back label there is a delightful 19^th century style tiny drawing of two women, dressed in factory clothes, appearing to be kneading dough on a table top next to some whisky barrels. Underneath the picture is the caption: “Matured for ten years in first-fill ex-bourbon barrels. Spicy and Sweet with a warm, full-bodied finish.”

I haven’t the foggiest idea what the connection between Whisky and women kneading bread dough is, but somehow, it seems to fit.

Packaging

Package design and Artwork is traditional and generally very appealing. It’s certainly not over-the-top kitschy.  Despite a recent re-branding where they have exchanged an unusual oval shaped container (which was similar to the Appleton Estate Rum 21-Year-Old canister) for a more common cardboard box-type container, I am glad to say that you can still instantly recognise an Old Pulteney bottle by its traditional “Old Pulteney” character font and pot-Still shaped bottle neck. The top of the cork stopper is made of cheap plastic but I suppose one shouldn't complain being that it's a budget whisky.

This is unlike many other distillery re-brandings these days, where for reasons which totally escape me, the current fashion seems to be to change the packaging from being unique and instantly recognisable to being totally generic and indistinguishable from other bottles on the shelf.

 

Appearance in the Glass

The colour is a very pleasing pale straw tint which strongly indicates that this whisky is natural colour, although again, no mention as to whether they have added even a small amount of E150a or not is printed on the label. It’s a waisted opportunity. What a shame.

Swirling the whisky around in my Glencairn showed some rings of alcohol sticking to the sides of the glass, but in my opinion, not enough to signal non-chill filtration. The liquid just seems too thin, lacking oil. 

Non-Chill Filtered?

With a Non-Chill Filtered whisky, the beads which fall from the rings of whisky stuck to the inside of the glass, should fall slowly down the glass, producing "tears" or "legs". However, here, the rings disappear almost immediately, leaving a clear, clean liquid. This leads me to the conclusion that despite its impressive 46% abv, where one would assume they have not chill filtered this, that in fact the Flotilla has indeed been chill-filtered. How else can you explain the complete lack of oils in the glass? How disappointing.

On The Nose

Acidic Acid, Sour green Apple, natural Bees Honeycomb, candle wax and dry vanilla pods.

First impressions were dry, thin and sharp.

Tasting

I usually include a section on "Mouth Feel" but honestly, there is none. It has the liquid consistency of water in the mouth, lacking any viscosity at all. This is further evidence that the Flotilla has not only been chill filtered but chill filtered to an inch of its life.

Sweet and sour green apple skins, dry fudge left out for a week and a very unusual taste of oak sap resin bitterness. Something which I have never experienced in a whisky before.

The Finish is sour, flat and slightly astringent.

This wood sap dryness wouldn’t go away despite adding water and leaving the glass to oxidate for a quite some while.

It’s just about drinkable but honestly, this whisky really is most unpleasant.

Conclusion

This near integrity craft-style bottling is a rare example of a whisky which looks like a sure winner on paper but it ends up not fulfilling its potential due to a fatal flaw in the maturation. At least that's the case with this Vintage 2008. Other "Flotilla" vintages might be fantastic. I don't know.

So, what went wrong? Well, in order to diagnose the problem, we need to look at the Cask Seasoning process.

 

The Cask Seasoning Process and how it removes those bitter flavours from the wood.

First of all, let me stress that I have no inside information and the following is just my personal theory, but in my opinion, this whisky has been matured in casks which have not been properly seasoned.

Usually, when whisky geeks talk about the term “seasoning”, they are referring to the previous contents of the cask (be it Sherry, Bourbon, Rum...), which has flavoured the oak, removing much of the new wood harsher notes.

However, the term actually refers to the entire process of treating the freshly-cut oak so that it is ready to be made into casks, suitable for maturing alcohol.

There are three steps in the cask seasoning process which can reduce the bitter sappy notes in a whisky.

1. Drying the freshly cut blanks

2. Charring (or toasting and then charring) for American Barrels. Toasting for Sherry Casks.

3. Seasoning the cask with an alcohol (Bourbon, Sherry, Rum…) as opposed to using Virgin Oak casks to mature Scotch Whisky.

The Drying Process:

https://www.wineoakbarrels.com/oakstaves.html

https://www.internationalwinechallenge.com/Canopy-Articles/oak-what-coopers-say.html

Traditionally, the process of seasoning begins by leaving the freshly cut staves outside and exposing them to the elements for around three years. This reduces the humidity in the wood as well as reducing (but not eliminating completely) aldehydes and coumarin compounds which are responsible for those bitter and astringent woody flavours which would otherwise transfer into the maturing liquid in the cask. We don’t want to remove these natural organic compounds totally though, as when combined with the sweeter wood flavours such as glucose and vanillin, these compounds in tiny amounts, will actually contribute interesting flavours and body which add to the character of a whisky.

https://www.drykilns.com/continuous-kilns/

In resent times, new methods have been developed in modern industrial cooperages in America which rapidly speed up the seasoning process by heating the oak staves in large kilns at 50 Degrees Celsius for about a month. Although using this method, the staves can be ready for use in a matter of a few weeks instead of years, it has been shown that when too many corners are cut, these harsh aldehydes and other bitter flavours may not have fully broken down. Tannins remain more pronounced and astringent and those bitter coumarins remains in higher concentrations.

The Charring Process:

All is not lost though. The harsh effects of these compounds can be further mitigated by the next step in the American Oak barrel seasoning process, which is “Charring”. The inside of the cask is subjected to a direct flame at a temperature of around 250 Degrees Celsius for around a minute. A heavy charring will burn into around 5-10 mm of the interior of the cask, cracking the wood and resulting in a shiny carbonated charcoal like surface. The charcoal not only filters out bitter notes but boosts the sweet flavour influence by caramelising the glucose in the wood. Heavier charring can also produce sweet smoky “meat” type aromas and flavours in the whisky.

The Final Seasoning Process:

Even if this stage goes wrong, there is still hope. There is the last step in the seasoning process which most whisky lovers will recognise. That is, once the casks have been built, they are almost always “seasoned” in an alcohol before they are used to mature Scotch Whisky. In the case of American Oak, it is usually American whiskey, most often Bourbon. The majority of Spanish Oak casks are also made from American Oak and they will arrive in Scotland, pre-seasoned with Sherry. This last seasoning step will not only add flavour notes from the previous alcohol (Bourbon, Sherry, Rum etc…) but will also extract harsh wood flavours from the cask.

(If this last step is missed then the casks are known as Virgin oak casks. These casks will go through an extra charring process in order to sweeten them up).

So, in my opinion, at least for Vintage 2008, something has gone seriously wrong with the Cask management at Pulteney, either at the drying stage, the charring stage, or at the Bourbon aging stage, or all three!

We can only hope that this problem is unique to the 2008 Vintage. Googling "Old Pulteney Flotilla" I notice that there seems to have been a new Vintage almost every year since 2000, the latest being Vintage 2010. If I see this then I shall certainly give it a try.

Update

The bottle has been open for a couple of months now, and I have to admit that the whisky has improved slightly. However, I stand by all my comments above. The whisky is slightly sweeter now and lost some of its sappiness, but it's so thin and lacking any body. Had I looked at this without checking the abv on the box, I would have assumed this was definitely 40% abv (or less!). Still not recommended.