Linkwood 13yo 2009
Signatory Vintage Unchillfiltered Series | 46% ABV
Drinking Without Shame
According to The Whisky Tribe, a channel that helped me fall down the Whiskytube rabbit-hole, the best whisky is the whisky you like to drink, the way you like to drink it.
I’m lucky enough to have been on board with this concept before I even started my whisky journey. It makes so much sense; so many things in life are about personal preferences. If my favourite snack is Kit-Kat and I’d like to warm up my Kit-Kat bars with my bare hands and then lick the molten chocolate, who is anyone to say my chocolate preferences are wrong? An exaggeration, but you get my point.
So imagine my frustration when I walked into a specialist whisky shop, recommended by a friend, open-mindedly asking for recommendations, only to discover I wasn’t appreciating whisky the right way.
As is typical of these visits, I entered the shop and introduced myself as a friend of Brian, and the shop owner introduced himself. His appearance was unremarkable, if he was introduced to me under almost any other circumstances, he would be almost forgettable. However, the moment he spoke, he conveyed an aura of confidence backed up by knowledge and experience, not the type that would come across as arrogant, but clearly, he knew his way around a bottle of whisky.
We would go on to have an engaging chat about all things whisky, and by engaging, I mean he was educating me. He touched upon how stills affect the character of new make spirit, the effects of cut points, what fermentation does to the final product, the difference between worm tub and shell and tube condensers, and so much more. At that stage of my whisky journey, I already had general ideas of these topics and concepts. Still, while I had been peeking through the doors of the proverbial library of whisky knowledge, he held the metaphorical door open for me. Learning so much, I was in awe.
He then mentioned that the more significant cask influence on a whisky, the better, because it is casks that make whiskies tasty, by enhancing the spirit with added flavours and mellowing out jagged edges (this would become important later).
Soon, we went on to share our respective preferences on whiskies, and it was here that I felt things turn a little uneasy. While I leaned towards ex-bourbon matured whiskies, he was quick to point out that he preferred ex-sherry matured whiskies. So we prefer different styles of whiskies, all good. I mentally rhyme off the Tribe’s mantra and listen on.
He then proclaimed Glenallachie 15 to be, objectively, the greatest value whisky, because there is no other fully ex-sherry matured 15 year old whisky which carries a lower price-tag. I tried to suggest alternatives, such as the Bunnahabhain 12 (rebuttal: not fully ex-sherry matured), Glendronach 15 (rebuttal: more expensive), and a few others (with associated rebuttals). Fair enough, his mind was set, and I took his point.
Even though he’s made his love for sherry bombs clear, he wasn’t dismissive towards ex-bourbon matured whiskies and he did comment that ex-bourbon matured whiskies from Deanston can be great, and wasn’t dismissive of my love for the Glencadam 15 either. So, I shared a recent purchase experience, which was excellent for me personally; a Signatory Vintage expression of a 13 year old Linkwood.
When I bought this particular bottle at another shop, it was recommended because apparently, Signatory had deliberately picked tired casks to mature the whisky, keeping the cask influence at a minimum and allowing the spirit character to shine through into its teenage years. I couldn’t verify that this was indeed what Signatory intended to do, but the colour of the whisky and my experience of drinking it certainly backs up this notion.
Back to the conversation with our specialist, being the walking Wikipedia of whisky, he knew precisely what bottle I was talking about, and his comment was blunt and straight to the point:
“You’re just tasting new-make.”
At that moment, I had enjoyed around half of the bottle. Having shared and evangelised this bottle, I felt that my experience had been instantly invalidated; I felt like a fool. How can I be so ignorant to enjoy a bottle of incomplete whisky? A whisky that has a glaring flaw because the all-important cask influence is missing?
I left the shop with a bottle of sherry matured independent bottled Glenturret, a little overpriced, but it was a belter. In the back of my mind, though, I could not get rid of those words “You’re just tasting new-make”. I was well aware of the Tribe’s rule, but if inception was possible, he was bloody close to achieving it.
A couple of years have transpired since then, and I’ve come a long way in my own whisky development. I’ve gained the confidence to be honest with myself about what I like and what I don’t like. WhiskyTube has been raving about Kilchoman, but guess what? I’m not connecting with it; Hazelburn is a product from one of my favourite distilleries, but, even after making the pilgrimage to Springbank, I’m not connecting with it either; Glenallachie is getting all the buzz because of the legendary Billy Walker, and guess what? Actually… I love what’s coming out of that distillery and can’t get enough of it.
And if that 13-year-old Linkwood from Signatory Vintage tastes like new-make, then fine, I like new-make from the Linkwood distillery.
As long as it’s 13 year old new-make.
Review
Linkwood 13yo, Signatory Vintage Unchillfiltered Series, small batch vatting of four bourbon barrels, 46% ABV
£55-65 and occassionally available (various vintages and cask types)
Nose
Crisp and clean, spirit-forward, zesty tangerines, green apples, minty vanilla.
Palate
Very nice continuation from the nose. Sour and bitter arrival, crispy mouthfeel, nothing dirty about the palate, fresh green apples from the nose, grapefruits, peaches and pineapples, a bit of creamy butterscotch, ginger and vanilla on the development. Medium finish, with butterscotch and a hint of salinity to wrap up. With water and time, this whisky develops into a very mouth-watering and pleasantly sour one. This is a whisky that I can pour a dram of to nose and savour, or also for an evening of computer games or TV shows.
The Dregs
I have been a fanboy of Linkwood for a while, and I don’t quite remember exactly how it started, but this bottle was definitely part of the “indoctrination”.
When I first bought this bottle of whisky, it was my first experience of a “quiet cask letting the whisky do its thing”, paired with the clean style of Linkwood’s spirit, it was an eye-opener, and interestingly, the same manner that Laphroaig was an eye-opener for me some years back. There will be moments when I'm looking for a huge sherry bomb fix, or a heavily peated hit, but when I’m in the mood for something unpeated, spirit driven yet relatively rounded, this is the type of whisky I would lean on. How beautiful is the diversity in Scotch malt whisky?
I don’t usually buy back up bottles of whiskies, but I do repurchase bottles which I enjoy, and these bottles loosely make up my permashelf. The small batch nature of this bottle of Linkwood was never going to become a permashelf item for me, and when I poured the last dram from my first bottle, I honestly thought that was the last time I’d be experiencing that whisky.
So when I stumbled upon the same bottle on a local website a month ago, I didn’t blink twice before pulling the trigger.
“You’re just tasting new-make”. Sure, maybe I do enjoy new-make, and I'm not ashamed of it.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. MMc
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