Douglas Laing’s Timorous Beasties Trio
Independent Bottlings| Number of the beast
Score: 5/10
Average. In A Good Way.
TL;DR
A strong brand goes a long way, but meeting the beast wasn’t quite as fierce as suspected
It’s Easy To Shout You Don’t Care About Presentation, As It’s The Liquid Inside That Matters, But You Couldn’t Be More Wrong
Talk to anyone who knows anything about the business aspect of building a brand, and the word ‘recognisability’ will pop up in the conversation sooner rather than later. Building an identity, something potential and committed customers alike can relate to and identify with, is key if you want to run a successful business. It applies to cars, garden tools, clothing, shoes… all the way down even to something as mundane as margarine. And whisky. There are very expensive courses out there one can take to help build a brand – a key factor in making a success of your business. However, what it always and inevitably comes down to is this: You can have the best product in the world, ever, but if people don’t recognise it and can’t relate, it’ll flop.
Zooming in on our favourite pastime here, you might have noticed there’s an awful lot of whisky about these days. To give you an idea, as I write this, the community driven website whiskybase.com counts more than 200,000 whiskies. Even if we assume that only some 10% of that staggering amount is available to any of us at any given time and place, you’d still find yourself in need of a small warehouse if you were planning a shopping spree.
It’s fair to say that during this era of the glass loch, it doesn’t hurt to get noticed. Equally important: more isn’t necessarily better. We live in an environmentally challenging time. Excess luxurious packaging and branding might still be in order if you’re selling something rare, old and likely very expensive, as the packaging then becomes part of the experience (and, rest assured, the price tag), so finding the right balance between an attractive and appealing presentation without overstating things, is key. And before you start shouting, “We don’t care about how it looks, as long as it tastes good,” you’re right. But also wrong.
While packaging and presentation are indeed of secondary importance to the quality of the product, we are far less immune to the power of suggestion than we like to give ourselves credit for. In the best case scenario, you’ll see a good looking bottle as a nice little aesthetic extra, some eye candy to go along with that nice relaxed dram, but at some subconscious, subliminal level, packaging and presentation will have had an impact somewhere along the way of your decision making process. When it comes to our shopping behaviour, we also buy with our eyes.
Back to whisky. We’ve established that getting noticed in a not overly conspicuous manner is a good way to go about things. Visually pleasant experiences help with that. Some brands pay more attention to it than others, some are absolute masters at it. Compass Box is probably a prime example.
“The whisky industry is a long-term thing; we believe with the brands we’ve got we can justify going into different regions to build small, bespoke distilleries”
Until about a decade ago, Douglas Laing, who already had two well-established ranges of independent releases with the Provenance and Old Particular series, stepped things up a notch. What started out with an instantly recognisable blended Islay malt under the Big Peat name paved the way for what was to become their Remarkable Regional Malts’ series – vatting different single malt whiskies from each official whisky region and the islands to create a new range from blended malts. The Scallywag from Speyside, the Rock Oyster (now Rock Island) from the islands, The Epicurean from the Lowlands, Big Peat for Islay, The Gauldrons for Campbeltown and Timorous Beastie for the Highlands. They initially started out with a standard NAS release for each regional malt, all at natural colour, un-chill filtered and at a decent ABV of 46% or higher. Over time we’ve seen a plethora of special releases within each series: batch strengths, age stated, cask finishes, limited releases, Christmas editions and so on. The very fact these exist, are, I believe, proof of the success of the initial NAS expressions. Brand recognisability in action as it were.
And while I haven’t got round to trying each of their regional malts expressions, I’d recognize a bottle of The Epicurean or The Gauldrons anywhere. So it’s fair to say, Douglas Laing is doing it right.
Review
Douglas Laing Timorous Beastie, No Age Statement, 46.8%
£30-£35 readily available
A few weeks ago, I received a message on Instagram from Douglas Laing. They invited me (and many others, I’m not quite ‘there’ yet to be granted a one on one) to try their new limited 13 year old Timorous Beastie, which would be tasted alongside the standard NAS and the 10 year old expression during an online session. And while I couldn’t make the scheduled date, they were kind enough to send me the sample pack in any case, so a thank you to Douglas Laing is in order here.
Let’s build this up and go from the NAS to the 10 yo and the 13 yo cs, why don’t we?
Nose
Pleasantly sour, waxy with a hint of polish remover. Linseed oil, green banana, some lavender going into a lemon scented soap. Leafy-floral and green apple at the back. This comes across as young and spirit driven.
Palate
Waxy mouthfeel, first impression is that this is easy-going, simple and youthful. A soft sour note and now that linseed oil comes with more vanilla surrounding it, while there is also something solvent here. A dash of pepper (accentuated further after a drop of water) leads into a short finish with ginger notes.
Review
Timorous Beastie Blended Highland Malt 10 year old small batch release, 46.8%
£40-£45 readily available
Score: 5/10
Average. In A Good Way.
TL;DR
Is it worth the extra?
Nose
Similar to the NAS expression: waxy-oily and solvent, but also more floral notes with some kitchen herbs in there as well. A bit sweeter too, with granulated sugar and honeysuckle.
Palate
Sweet arrival – again that sugar note. Floral, grainy (breakfast cereals) and with added water it turns more waxy on a medium full body. While the NAS had more ginger and pepper, this is sweeter, which translates into the finish as well. That’s about it, really.
Review
Timorous Beastie Blended Highland Malt 13yo cask strength 52.5%, ‘Meet the Beast’, edition of 3000
£75 via Douglas Laing
Score: 6/10
Good Stuff
TL;DR
A pleasant beast
Nose
Spirity – the higher ABV shows. Peppery (a consequence of the +50% ABV?), but give it some time to open up and it delivers a pleasant array of floral notes with some violets, vanilla and honey and a soft, sweet orange like citrus note..
Palate
Soft arrival now. Sweet and fruity and perfectly palatable at 52.5% ABV. Honey and vanilla – the usual suspects, and then it turns up the volume a bit with ginger and spice notes against a viscous, waxy mouthfeel. The finish is noticeably longer compared to the previous two with soft pepper and vanilla notes.
The Dregs
I don’t know why Douglas Laing insists on drawing the ‘beast’ card on these. I know Timorous Beastie comes from the famous Robert Burns’ poem To a Mouse poem, but to go as far as describing this as a “monster” (sic) of a malt whisky hiding behind the looks of a charming and timid field mouse, frankly that’s a bit far fetched.
The NAS Timorous Beastie is simple and pleasant, nothing overly busy or complex. A budget friendly malt, which is perfectly palatable, yet also a bit middle of the road. The 10 year old is in the same ballpark, with different accents. As a result, I don’t think it’s worth the extra asking price.
The 13 year old cask strength bottling easily has the most character, depth and personality of the three, and while it’s fuller and more matured, resulting in a nice flavour profile, it always remains very drinkable. Pleasant, but never complex, nor very exciting. There are many things you might label this, but ‘monstrous’ isn’t one of them. Far from it, in fact. Even when you’re playing your cards right with the branding, it turns out you can still overplay that hand.
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. EA
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Other opinions on this:
Maltbox (Timorous Beastie)
Whisky-doc (Timorous Beastie 10yo)
Got a link to a reliable review? Tell us.
