Roseisle 12-Year-Old Diageo Special Edition 2023 Review

Roseisle 12-Year-Old Diageo Special Edition 2023

Roseisle 12-Year-Old 2013	Data Sheet
Owner:	Diageo
Barcode:	5000281073828
Price:	£135 in the UK, €140 Travel Retail
Available in Israel	No
Alcohol:	56.5% abv
Age:	12 Years
Bottle Size:	70cl
Cask Types:	First-Fill Ex-Bourbon and Refill Casks
Non-Chill-Filtered:	Undetermined*
Natural Colour:	Undetermined*
Kashrus Issues:	None
Kosher Certification:	No

* See article for further details

The Diageo Annual Special Releases

This Roseisle 12-Year-Old is part of the annual collection of Diageo Special Releases to show off the very best of what presumably their distilleries have to offer.

Whisky enthusiasts have heavily criticised this premium range for being hyped up and overpriced even though they are all bottled at Cask Strength. Apart from the outrageous prices, if I am very much mistaken, none of them state on the label or website that they are Natural Colour and Non-Chill-Filtered. Some of them are and some no doubt aren’t. Most in the range do have Age Statements (like this one), but there are some that don’t.

To release a super-premium collection at this kind of price range, presumably aimed at the whisky enthusiast with serious money to spend, but with this kind of "you'll get what yer given!" out of touch corporate marketing mindset, will inevitably (in my opinion), cause even further damage to Diageo's already battered reputation.

The Roseisle 12-Year-Old, matured in a combination of First-Fill Ex-Bourbon Barrels and Refill Bourbon Casks, was first released in 2023 and again in 2024 and 2025. A friend of mine who was coming back from Asia picked up a bottle for me in the Travel Retail for a significant discount. Obviously, I was expecting him to bring me the 2025 Edition but to my slight surprise, it turned out to be the 2023 First edition. My friend said that there were loads of them there.

These 2023 Limited Editions must obviously have been sitting there on the shelves for some time. No wonder the shop hadn't bothered ordering the 2024 and 2025 editions. Notice next to the Roseisle 12 is the Clynelish 10 also from two year old stock. How do I know? Because Diageo changes the artwork every year. That 2023 edition was called "The Jazz Crescendo".

So, one could argue that the Roseisle isn't selling because 90% of even whisky enthusiasts would never have heard of the distillery. But this still doesn't explain why for instance, people used to queue up in the street for the annual releases of Lagavulin 12 Special Edition and today, they sit on the shelves gathering dust. There's even still plenty of stock from the 2021 editions available online. The answer is, in my opinion, that Diageo has misread the room as to what the market is willing to pay or has simply got greedy.

The Roseisle 14-Year-Old

Incidentally, for the 2025, the 12-Year-Old has now been joined by a Roseisle 14-Year-Old (not that anyone would have noticed). Matured is a combination of Refill and Rejuvenated Casks. That being the case and with Diageo’s usual lack of transparency of information as to what these “rejuvenated” casks are and whether they have been re-seasoned, the kashrus status of the 14-Year-Old remains undetermined.

 

The Roseisle Distillery

Pronunciation

I wasn’t sure actually how you pronounced Roseisle. I thought it might be “Roh-Zile” or “Roh-Zill” and indeed I’ve heard YouTube reviewers pronounce it both ways. However, it turns out, at least according to Perplexity AI, that it’s actually “Roh-Zall” (rhyming with “Pall” but I suspect that it might be more towards “Zull” as in “Mull”). So, I’ll go with “Roh-Zull”.

Fun Fact: Roseisle is in Speyside (Not a lot of people know that!)

As you drive from Elgin to Forres along the A96, looking to your right towards the coast you’ll see the white chimney of Roseisle peeping over the line of trees in the distance.

Almost the entirety of Roseisle's spirit production goes into Diageo’s famous best selling Blended Scotch whiskies like Johnny Walker and Bells. However, a tiny amount is set aside and filled into First-Fill and Refill casks, destined to be bottled as Single Malt.

So, Being the 2023 First-Edition, this is technically the distillery’s inaugural bottling. The age statement of 12 years is quite unusual for a distillery’s first whisky release as usually, the owner of a new distillery would want to release an expression, say at 3-5 years in order to start recouping his or her investment as soon as possible. However, as I’m about to explain, this is not your typical owner of a new distillery and certainly not your typical Malt distillery.

Founded in 2009 by Diageo, the world’s biggest Scotch Whisky producer, Roseisle joined the small but growing club of  Super-Mega-Distilleries. (Some Whisky enthusiasts have nicknamed Roseisle in particular as "The Death Star", an obvious reference to Star Wars).

These Super-Mega Distilleries produce more than 10 million litres of spirit per year. So, they are less what you’d call Malt Whisky distilleries and more like Malt Whisky factories!

From its gargantuan glass front building, looking more like an international airport terminal (without the planes), Roseisle currently produces a whopping 12.5 million litres of spirit per year compared to Diageo's other Super-Mega distillery, Glen Ord in the West Highlands, which produces “only” 11.5 million. Compare these figures to Diageo's most popular Single Malt brands like Lagavulin and Cardhu which produce just over 3 million litres, or Dalwhinnie and Glenkinchie at just over 2 million, or Oban which musters just over 900,000 litres.

Rival spirits company Pernod Ricard has its own Super-Mega Glenlivet distillery which even dwarfs Diageo’s latest plant with a production capacity of a monstrous 21.5 million litres per annum. 

Not to be outdone, William Grant & Sons owns two in this super heavyweight class as well, namely Glenfiddich distillery producing 21 million and Ailsa Bay at a more “modest” 12 million. 

Edrington Group can also boast its recently expanded Macallan distillery producing 15 million litres of whisky per year with its second favourite distillery, Highland Park managing 2.5 million. Edrington actually owns a third distillery called Glenrothes. Most think of this as a small craft distillery but behind the scenes, produces 5.6 million litres every year.

Besides pumping out gallons of whisky per year and designed for maximum energy and water efficiency as well as able to use multiple energy sources, Roseisle distillery has another very clever trick up its sleeve.

What Do You Do When a Malt Distillery Which Contributes a Major Component To Your Blended Whisky, Goes Off Line?

Do you remember my article on Clynelish and Brora distilleries, where I explained that both were called at one time or another, Clynelish distillery? Just to remind you all, the current distillery of that name was built in 1967 and sits on the top of the hill, overlooking the A9 (Victoria Road) in the North Highlands. It was built to replace the original 1819 distillery which lies just down the path within the same complex.

The old distillery was closed down in 1969, destined to become storehouses. Come the barley drought of the early 1960s on Islay and Diageo were in a panic as to how to replace the shortfall of Caol Ila whisky, a major component of Johnny Walker Black Label. Diageo came up with the idea of temporarily re-opening the recently closed old Clynelish distillery in order to produce some coastal style heavily peated whisky similar to their two Islay distilleries, Lagavulin and Caol Ila. What the old Clynelish distillery ended up producing actually wasn't bad at all.

For convenience sake, they were initially called Clynelish (1) and Clynelish (2) for a while but then they decided that the old distillery really needed a separate name in order to avoid confusion. Thus the old Clynelish was renamed "Brora", after the name of the surrounding town. (Interestingly, they both kept the exact same distillery branding logo, that of a Highland wildcat!)

The two distilleries existed side-by-side for a number of years until Caol Ila returned to full capacity. At that point they closed Brora for good in 1983. Or so they thought.

On a whim, Diageo decided to bottle as Single Malts, the leftover casks of Brora, thinking them surplus to requirements. Well, these heavily Peated Brora Single Malts became so popular that people started paying telephone number prices for the bottles. Brora became a legend. Then much to the delight of whisky enthusiasts, Diageo announced that they were re-opening Brora, albeit in a re-modernised incarnation. In 2021, Heavily peated new-make spirit started once again running off the old refurbished stills. However, first releases of "New Brora" are not expected for at least another 10 years.

For the full story and pictures of the old Brora distillery before it was refurbished, see my article here:

The point of all this story is that Brora just happened to be available at the right place and the right time. It was pure luck, and large multinational corporates don’t like relying on luck. So, they came up with a novel and hopefully what they thought was a permanent solution.

Roseisle – The Chameleon Distillery

From the beginning, Diageo designed this new hi-tech fully computerised distillery with the ability to produce literally any style of malt whisky that Diageo would require.

Fourteen massive stainless steel washbacks. Seven pairs of giant steels. All seven Spirit stills have copper condensers but on three of them, they have additional stainless-steel condensers that can be swapped in to produce a more sulphury spirit.

The distillery also houses a Reverse Osmosis Water computer system able to mimic any type water from mountain springs to peaty rivers.

Diageo currently owns 31 malt whisky distilleries, each having its own unique house flavour, some non-peated, some light, and some heavily peated. They are situated in every Scotch Whisky region. As is often the case, production at any one of these distilleries will be occasionally shutdown for maintenance or expansion or perhaps demand for a particular malt whisky outstrips supply. Distilleries like Cardhu, Clynelish, Caol Ila, Lagavulin, Clynelish, Benrinnes, Mortlach etc., are all vital ingredients in Diageo’s Blended Scotch Whisky brands. Having the capability at Roseisle to literally mimic any whisky style and produce it to fill in a gap in production gives Diageo a very powerful tool and insurance against whatever might come in the future.

This makes this Roseisle 12 even more interesting because don’t forget at Roseisle, they had the capability of engineering any style whisky they wanted for their Special Edition collection. However, the executives at Diageo dafka decided to produce a Single Malt in the typical Speyside style, thus reflecting the actual geographical region the distillery is physically located in.

This led to some whisky enthusiasts speculating as to what the style of future bottlings of single malts from Roseisle might be?  Will they stick to Speyside style or perhaps go for something completely different? Why? Simply because they can! So far however, that hasn't been the case.

 

Product Design and Artwork

The Diageo range of Special Editions have come with some really outlandish modern artwork over the years.

Take the Lagavulin 12 for instance. They used the traditional distillery labeling and artwork up until 2019. The Lagavulin 12 became the most popular malt in the Special Edition Annual range. Then, for some reason, someone decided to go wild spending loads of cash giving each bottle a special theme with an appropriate fancy name. Of course, they passed on the extra cost of this marketing splurge onto the consumers with hiked up price-tags. As already mentioned, I would imagine to the surprise of the experts in the Marketing department, sales plummeted!

Compared to other labels in this range, the Roseisle 12 is positively understated and I think it’s rather tasteful. Despite some marketing blurb about it on the back, I’m still not sure what the connection an Origami kite has with the Roseisle distillery, or what for that matter, a lone tree that looks like it's growing in the middle of a beach with a cat looking up at it has to do with anything? Still, it’s very pretty.

The bottle shape is Diageo’s standard one, used for many of Diageo’s products. Lagavulin, Caol Ila, Clynelish, Glenkinchie and all the Flora and Fauna range, to name a few examples.

QR-Code

There’s a QR-Code on the back but strangely, when I scanned it, it took me to Diageo's Malts.com website that under Diageo distilleries, had no reference to Roseisle whatsoever. In fact, it only lists two Speyside distilleries: Cardhu and Cragganmore. However, when you do a direct search within the website for Roseisle, it does return pages for both the 12 and 14-Year-Old. Go figure!

Mysterious Numbers Printed on the Package

I thought I knew everything about symbols and codes on a bottle of Scotch whisky but looking at the tube canister and the labels of this Diageo product, I noticed some mysterious 10-digit numbers that I don't believe I'd ever noticed before.

The Barcode is a standard 13-digits: 5000281073828.

However, just below it and the "Please Recycle" symbol is another number of 10 digits: 3105499848.

Now, on the front of the bottle label on the left hand side hiding at the base of the purple mountain, just above the 56.5% abv I noticed another one of these 10-digit numbers. This one is: 3105499670.

Then on the back bottle label, running vertically up the side to the left of the Barcode is yet another 10-digit number: 3105499677.

3105499|848

3105499|670

3105499|677

All three numbers share the same first 7 digits with only the last three different. I decided to look for another Diageo Single Malt Whisky and sure enough, on my bottle of Lagavulin 8, below the barcode printed at the base of the box, is the 10-digit number 3105437893. On the front label, hidden on the right hand side in a tiny font is the number 3105437958 and on the back label, to the left of the barcode is the number 3105458250.

Again, the first 7 digits are the same. Interestingly, both the Roseisle and the Lagavulin numbers share the same first 5 digits of "31054".

My best educated guess is that these are internal company package / label codes for each product. The first 7 digits must be Diageo's internal product code and the last three figures are the individual printed items making up each product. Apologies for the geekiness. I just found it fascinating.

Roseisle 12-Year-Old, 56.5% abv – The Review

Appearance

It has a medium to dark suspiciously fake looking orangy-brown colour. Now, I want to state that this whisky might well be natural colour if those First-Fill Bourbon casks were super active but then again, the orange tint could also indicate a touch of naughty-naughty added Caramel colouring. So, is this natural colour? The jury is still out.

After adding water (this is bottled at Cask Strength after all), the whisky remains suspiciously crystal clear. It’s just my opinion but I really don’t believe that it’s Non-Chill-Filtered. Ada-raba, all indications shows that it is probably chill-filtered. (Again, just my opinion).

 

Aroma

It has the nose of a typical classic Speysider like Glen Moray, The Glenlivet and in particular, reminded me of Knockando 12, a whisky I have not sampled in many years. However, this Roseisle seems to combine the very best of all three. The nose is simply delightful.

Really floral like a spring garden. Roses and honeysuckle. Caster (Powder) Sugar. Vanilla powder. Warm Citrus notes. Big notes of sweet cooked apples, golden sultanas and lemon. Other fruits like ripe honeydew melon and peaches. Boiled fruit sweets with powdered sugar.

The smell of freshly baked bread. Lashings of waxy honey, milky Fudge tablets, buttery Scottish Shortcake biscuits, malty melt in-your-mouth Digestive biscuits and English Tea (with milk of course).

There’s also a lovely and very noticeable sweet musky fragrance of Oak Casks sitting in a damp Dunnage Warehouse. I have to admit that this is one of my favourite smelling notes when it comes to whisky. That, and "cocktail cabinet" wood smells. There are soft spices perfectly integrating into the fruits and cereal. Cinamon, Cardamon, Caraway Seeds and cooked English pepper.

It’s light and spirity even without water but adding water, even a few drops sharpens the aroma. A great start. The question is, would this wonderful list of aromas translate into the taste?

Mouth Feel

It’s clean bright and tangy. With or without water, for a Cask Strength Whisky it has a  surprisingly light texture. I wouldn’t call it thin in the mouth, but gentil on the back of the tongue. I do think however, that despite some nice looking tears running down the inside of the glass, it’s lacking some barley oil body. (Another indication that there is at least some chill-filtration going on perhaps?)

Taste

Light delicate bright tropical yellow fruits like stewed apples, sultanas and pineapple.

Sugar coated apple and vanilla cream pastries.

A fresh Spring like floral, fruity and oaky character. It smells and tastes like Single Malt much older than 12 years. Perhaps 15 or 16 years, that reminds me a little of the Dalwhinnie 15-Year-Old. It has that mellow softness with a touch of warehouse muskiness that so many older Single Malts have. Honey is dominant with big silky soft oaky spices taking a strong supporting role.

It’s delicious, satisfying and moorish.

Finish

That English tea, sugar coated vanilla cream pastry and oak cask warehouse flavour remains on the palate for a medium finish.  Moreover, there’s a rich fruitiness that ligures even though it wasn’t as dominant when the liquid first entered the mouth. I hate to say it, but this is tasty stuff

 

Conclusion

"Reviewing" some of the reviews of the Roseisle 12 by my list of trusted whisky reviewers, it seems like this Roseisle 2023 Edition was a big hit with them. (Interestingly though, I haven't seen any follow-up reviews of later editions). Many said that it was the best Diageo Special Release in the entire collection. At least one person said that due to the ridiculously high RRP and mediocre whisky, he had been ignoring the entire Diageo Special Release Collection for years, all except this one.

People often talk about the typical Speyside character. That is, malty biscuit, floral, fruity, soft spices with a light to medium body. However, every Speysider is slightly different with an emphasis on fruity or floral or malty biscuit. Some like Cragganmore are more herbily and spicy. Some like Glen Moray emphasise the maltiness. Some like The Glenlivet or Balvenie are fruitier. However, the Roseisle 12 seems to have everything is equal perfect proportions. It’s as if the operator spoke into the microphone of his AI enabled Roseisle computer and said:

“Roseisle! Create a typical classic Speyside whisky for me”

...and off it went, tuning all the virtual dials and knobs to engineer the perfect typical Speysider.

Now, although the last paragraph might seem a bit cynical, it really isn’t as no other Speyside seems to come close to Roseisle’s beautiful balance of floral, fruitiness, maltiness and spices, and as the cherry on the top of the cake, it also has that dunnage warehouse wet oak in the aroma as well as in the mouth and finish. There are no off notes in this whisky whatsoever but plenty of unusual flavours or combination of flavours to make this a really interesting dram indeed. This gives the Roseisle a very unique flavour profile that surpasses a mere caricature of a Speysider. A Generic Speysider this certainly is NOT!

I don’t happen to have any to hand at the moment as I finished my 3^rd bottle and the price has shot up, but it kind of reminds me of the Glencadam 15 (my all-time favourite Highlander) with its glazed oranges, pastries and warehouse sweetness.  I’d like to do a side-by-side comparison of the Roseisle 12 and the Glencadam 15 one day.

Despite my criticisms and grumbles of how Diageo could make this even better if they tried (my main grumble being a lack of mouthfeel), it nevertheless is really delicious whisky with dare I say, an authentic distillery character of its own. I am loving my time with it and will be sorry when the bottle is finally empty. I won’t however, be replacing it anytime soon, unless I see it on sale again. (This might be sooner than later as seeing that these Special Releases are just not shifting, Diageo will have to do something about the inevitable retailers' complaints of not being able to sell them at the RRP).

So, the bottom line. The Roseisle 12 would have got my solid recommendation had it not been for its ridiculously high price. Now in 2026, it's currently £135. That’s just taking the mickey. The price has already gone up from £120 back in 2023 and knowing Diageo, will keep going up (with the occasional flash sale to try and boost sales. It won’t help them though).

See Lagavulin and Talisker Special Editions for examples of this corporate yoyo behaviour of gradual increases followed by a few weeks of upto half price sale.

To put the price into proper perspective, don’t forget that this is a relatively young 12-Year-Old that has come out of one of Scotland’s largest distilleries. It is only “limited” because they chose to make it so. There is no actual rarity of any item that makes up this Single Malt. Diageo is perfectly capable of almost immediately pumping out tens of thousands of these bottles if they saw a market for it. Even at Cask Strength, truth be told, it really should be selling for around £60-80 in my opinion. In other words, it's double the price it ought to be. Is it any wonder that whisky enthusiasts are looking elsewhere?

Having said all this, wherever you are in the world, forget about all my gripes about a lack of integrity and transparency and how it’s probably been engineered by an AI generated algorithm. Wait patiently for one of these inevitable Diageo "up to half-price" flash sales. Grab yourself a bottle and look for the next opportunity for some peace and quiet, making yourself nice and cozy in a comfy armchair by the open fire (or oil filled radiator) and pour yourself a dram of Roseisle 12. Sip, smile and enjoy.