Sheep Dip - Old Hebridean - 1990

K

kevin heatherington

Location
Leicestershire
Bottled in 2009 this is a blended (vatted) malt made from different malt whiskies distilled before 1990. By reputation it contains a mix of 19yo Dalmore, 21yo Fettercairn and 25 yo Ardbeg.

I picked up a bottle at auction earlier this year.

Massive peat on the nose but with serious sherry in the background, hints of pencil shavings but the oak is well integrated. It has the depth and complexity on the nose that only comes with old whisky. Taste - real power despite only being 40%. Lots of peaty ash, good phenolics from the Ardbeg in this. Sherry in the background but rounds it out. Good spicy finish. A couple of drops of water brings out more of the Highland character and dilutes the peat a bit. Minty finish. Most impressive Whisky I’ve had for a long time (since a Glen Grant 1962 drunk in 2011).

Best with no water.
 
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Thom Blach said:
How and why is the decision made to cut a whisky to 40% when it is no longer a question of duty, I wonder?
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Short answer: David Lloyd George.

Before WWI whisky was typically bottled at around 46%. Lloyd George, an abstainer, made it 40% in 1915 in order to aim to retain grain stocks for food and reduce drunkenness amongst workers in wartime. In 1917 it was changed by him again to a minimum strength of 28.6% and a maximum strength of 40%. The legal minimum strength of 40% for whisky was set in 1988, it now cannot be less than that, though it can be stronger. Most malt whisky drinkers know that higher strength whisky carries more flavour so a strength of 46% is preferred and increasing numbers of distilleries are moving to that though some of the bigger ones are holding at 40%.
 
kevin heatherington said:
Short answer: David Lloyd George.

Before WWI whisky was typically bottled at around 46%. Lloyd George, an abstainer, made it 40% in 1915 in order to aim to retain grain stocks for food and reduce drunkenness amongst workers in wartime. In 1917 it was changed by him again to a minimum strength of 28.6% and a maximum strength of 40%. The legal minimum strength of 40% for whisky was set in 1988, it now cannot be less than that, though it can be stronger. Most malt whisky drinkers know that higher strength whisky carries more flavour so a strength of 46% is preferred and increasing numbers of distilleries are moving to that though some of the bigger ones are holding at 40%.
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Isn't 40% always a taxation-induced compromise? I tend not to consider spirits bottled in so diluted a form though this certainly restricts Cognac choices.
 
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