Dalmore Castle Leod

The view from here

So, if you’ve been wondering why the silence from this end of the whisky tasting operation, it’s because I’ve been busy renovating, selling and moving house. Something which automatically calls for a dram.

The family and I have relocated to Fife. Rural enough without being remote, and fine for transport in any direction and by any mode, be it winged or wheeled.

And most importantly, closer to the whisky.

In the interim, it appears that Dubber has taken delivery of several samples of the new Dalmore releases – but whilst for the most part, he did the gracious thing and saved me the trouble of tasting them, he managed to send me one to evaluate.

On the rocks

The Dalmore Castle Leod is the second bottling to draw attention to Dalmore’s close historic ties with Clan Mackenzie (see tasting notes for that here… ). The Castle itself has been home to Clan Mackenzie since 1606, and The Mackenzie bottling helped in part to support The Mackenzie Clan Gathering last year.

It’s great that whisky companies appear to be waking up to the fact that their products are synonymously intertwined with culture, and are choosing to associate themselves with important issues and causes. Whilst the more cynical of you may dismiss this as mere marketing, I for one, am happy to see the profile of these causes benefitting from the extra exposure. If you can enjoy a dram whilst helping maintain important cultural iconography, then why not?

As for the dram itself, here’s what I made of it:

Nose: heavy wine notes, pot ale syrup/treacle, chocolate orange, custard creams, dried fruit

Palate: Astringent, big, robust, wine notes, lots of sawn wood, cocoa powder, blackcurrants, copper (?!?)

Finish: More red wine in the finish initially, giving way to chocolate again, back to wine and dried fruit, perhaps tropical fruit, mango, pineapple and the like, quite lengthy

All in all, an unusual whisky, but certainly offering something of the luxurious, as befitting it’s namesake. It would be a great end to a celebratory evening.

You can book a tour of the castle itself if you become one of the Dalmore Custodians. Next time I’m up that direction I intend to check it out.