CROFTENGEA?

[Deactivated Member]

I sampled a SMWS bott;ong a few weeks ago.

Whilst I was sipping tantatively on it, I was thinking how the nose/taste/finish were all vile.

But, several hours later I found myself fancying another one!

What are your thoughts on this high-phenol Loch Lomond expression?

[Deactivated Member]

Never tried it--but you reminded me of an incident many years ago with a roommate who ate green olives from the jar like popcorn. He offered me one, and my response on tasting was "Blech, that's awful! ....Can I have another?" Sometimes we learn to like what seems unpleasant at first. Come to think of it, who among us was enchanted by his or her first sip of whisky, of any sort?

[Lawrence]

I ordered two bottles from the Society for my club, we'll be trying them next year (it pays to plan ahead!). The bottling is 122.8 and in the description they describe it as 'cannabis, chocolate and limes'. It should prove to be interesting.

[Admiral]

Whilst I'm hardly in a position to pooh-pooh the whisky, I suspect it is more of a curiosity than a genuinely great peated whisky.

After all, it's not like the distillery flooded the market with one or more OB expressions after the initial Limburg Whisky Festival bottling. Although I was surprised to see how quickly the SMWS picked up on it.

Cheers,
Admiral

[Lawrence]

JM scores 122.1 93 points and the Whisky Fair bottling 86 points. I hope our 122.8 does as well.

Lawrence

Admiral, it sounds like there's a little pooh poohing going on.

[Admiral]

Well, not directly.

Loch Lomond is a pretty firmly established distillery and an increasingly larger player in the game. I have OB bottlings of Loch Lomond, Inchmurrin, and Old Rosdhu, and whilst they're pleasantly drinkable malts, there's certainly nothing special about them.

Given the distillery's status, I would have thought that it would be very easy for them to launch an OB of Croftengea if they felt it was any good.

So I'm only surmising that the lack of an OB suggests not much confidence in the product from the owners themselves. Admittedly, Croftengea is made purely for blending anyway, so it's not like they're setting out to make a marketable single malt to begin with.

However, it could also be that the SMWS has an enormous demand to supply peated malts to its members, and they'll happily source drinkable peated whisky from wherever they can get it!

But, as I said initially, I haven't tasted the beast, so my comments should be taken accordingly!

Cheers,
Admiral

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

Loch Lomond seems to have begun to bottle some of the eight malts they produce themselves. Croftengea has been bottled by others for various occasions as has Inchmoan.
But the Craiglodge below is the first bottling afik.

http://www.lfw.co.uk/acatalog/Stock_Lis ... d_109.html

Greetings
kallaskander

PS There is more: http://www.lfw.co.uk/whisky_review/SWR2 ... e23-9.html

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

just read that press release about Compass Box. If you look at the second link I quoted in my first post you will see that the two Loch Lomond bottlings are described as "collecters items, peated Lowland whiskies".
Well, I do not want to make a fuss. Loch Lomond Distillery sits right on the Highland Line. Depending on where you draw it Loch Lomond is a Lowland distillery or a Highland distillery.
As far as I remember my books most authors concede that the buildings are in the Lowlands but the water supply comes from the Highlands.
Be that as it may, Loch Lomond whiskies are no Lowland whiskies, peated or otherwise.
I think highly of Loch Fyne Whiskies but here marketing struck again.

Greetings
kallaskander

[Aidan]

I think Auchentoshan's water supply is from the Highlands too.

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

might be. Another contestant is Glengoyne if memory serfs me right.

Greetings
kallaskander

[Admiral]

This line of discussion is a bit silly, isn't it chaps?

A malt's region is defined by where it is made, not where the ingredients come from.

If you're going to nit-pick about where the water came from, you may as well fault where the barley came from and where the yeast was produced as well!

The water may have come from the other side of the Highland line, but I suggest that the rain the water came from probably evaporated into the sky from a lake in Italy or Germany before falling in Scotland anyway, so I wouldn't get too bothered about such matters.

Cheers,
Admiral

[Aidan]

I wasn't making an argument for Auchentoshan to be called a Highland distillery. I just said that Auchentoshan's water supply was from the Highlands, and it is deffinately a Lowland distillery, so the point I'm making is the same as yours.

[kallaskander]

Hi there

yep Admiral, things can always be driven too far.

Would you buy a Lowland malt that isn`t?

There is a wide variation in the ways you can describe a malt. Origin is one of them. In other threads we discused the question if there are different styles of whiskies in different regions.
I see a Northern Highland style, others don`t. Some say there is a Speyside style which others define by saying that it doesn´t exist!

Northern, Western, Eastern Highland style, Coastal style, Island style, Islay style, Campbeltown style, Speyside style, Findhorn style, ...
I think we agree that taste is the deciding factor, but some kind of reliable regionality should apply if I want to describe a malt.
So why call Loch Lomond Lowland suddenly if most people agree that it is a Highland distillery?
The distillery itselfs says that it is a Highland distillery. Loch Lomond nas, Loch Lomond 21 years, Inchmurrin and Old Rhosdhu call themselves "Pruduced in the Scottish Highlands" on their labels.

Greetings
kallaskander

[Deactivated Member]

We've discussed the location of the Highland Line before; there seems to be no universally agreed on definition, and it's plain that the distillery folk want to push it as far south as possible, as such as Glengoyne would rather be one of dozens of Highland distillers, rather than one of a few Lowlanders. There has long been a perception (right or wrong) that Highland whisky is more "authentic".

For some perspective on the historical division, listen to the old folk song, "The Battle of Harlaw", as recorded by the band Old Blind Dogs, whose roots are in the Aberdeen area. It's a propaganda piece, describing the battle as a one-sided victory for the Aberdonians against "fifty-thousand Heilan' men" under Donald MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, who was trying to extend his territory to include most of northern Scotland. In other words, the Aberdonians considered themselves Lowlanders. Magnus Magnusson calls the battle "a ferocious confrontation between the Gaelic-speaking north and west of Scotland, and the forces of the northeastern Lowlands". I infer from that that culture and language had as much to do with the division as geology and geography.

(In the song, only a handful of Highlanders live to go home; the rest are "sleeping at Harlaw". In fact, MacDonald lost about a thousand of his force of 10,000, and the Lowlanders also suffered heavy casualties in what is usually described as a bloody stalemate. Nevertheless, the MacDonald's ambition was thwarted. Jefford also mentions the battle on page 95 of PS&S.)

[Lawrence]

Would you buy a Lowland malt that isn`t?

Yes! Sounds pretty cool to me and if it tasted great then I'd buy a second bottle.

Instead of getting worked up about how LFW has classified a whisky why don't you ask Richard Joynson for his reasoning?

shop@lfw.co.uk

I can say with certainty that he will respond to your email with a good answer.

I bought a OB bottle of Craiglodge over the weekend.

[Spirit of Islay]

However, it could also be that the SMWS has an enormous demand to supply peated malts to its members, and they'll happily source drinkable peated whisky from wherever they can get it!

We had the 122.2 at a tasting and were informed they came across the casks the first time they had a look in the warehouses at Glenmorangie .
Although not upto the standards of the South Shore peat monsters , Croftengea isn't a bad dram but it does have some interesting side tastes ........

Slainté
Gordon

[Admiral]

Interesting reading, Gordon, and certainly a credible explanation.

I wonder if any of the discovered casks were deemed unworthy of bottling?

Cheers,
Admiral