Four Independent Linkwoods | Various ABV

The Relegation Zone

My club just got relegated from the Premier League, but I’m not too bitter, in fact the whole journey itself was so rewarding, I’m already looking forward to the next season.

Dramface is not a football website, so if you’re interested in Luton’s story, it’s all over YouTube, and if you’re like me, you might even shed a tear watching one of those short documentaries or montages.

I started following Luton Town in 2013, when they were in the Conference League, the 5th tier in the English football pyramid. During a cup tie, they were drawn against Norwich City, which at the time was a Premier League team. Obviously, a top tier side would be considered strong favourites to win against a 5th tier side, but against all odds, Luton managed to beat Norwich, such was the shock that the news made it all the way over here in the Far East. From that day on, I started to pay attention to this small club called Luton Town.

What I didn’t know was that they are not actually traditionally a small club, but a club with a decent reputation who found themselves in the abyss of poor management, which saw the club drop from the top tier in 1992 way down to the 5th tier in 2009. Since then, management has changed hands, and after a few years lingering in the 5th tier, they began a hard fought, but surprisingly swift journey back to the top.

I bring this up because Dramface maintains a crowdsourced Top 40, and it looks very much like a league table. It is a popularity contest, there’s no doubt about that, but a democratic one reflective of the Dramface readership, and near the bottom of that list, it does have a feeling of a relegation battle to it, with distilleries trying hard to not fall out of the list. Last time round we’ve seen a few “relegated” distilleries, with Aberlour being one of the big names to drop off. During its most recent update, Benrinnes was the single name to be dropped.

As a whisky drinker, I’m not wedded to one distillery, like many of us, I have a few favourites. But while most of those I care about are safely in the Top 20, or even the Top 10, there are some that are near the bottom that I simply don’t care enough about. The only distillery that I care about which is close to the drop zone is the one and only Linkwood.

I’ve frequently confessed my love for Linkwood, I wrote my debut review on an IB Linkwood, and shared many other expressions to friends. When the Dramface Top 40 list was recently updated, I was pleased to see that it actually climbed two places, that’s two places away from the drop. It’s heartwarming to see the love from the community for this gem of a distillery, to be placed above what I perceive as giants like Mortlach and Bowmore, both great distilleries producing wonderful whiskies, just losing their way a bit with their official offerings.

Ironically, for the lack of a core range other than the sole Flora and Fauna expression, drinkers are not distracted by a potentially weak and overpriced official bottling. Instead, attention is directed towards expressions from independent bottlers, where there is so much variety. I would hazard a guess that if Diageo suddenly gave Linkwood some of the tough love that it’s shown to its more popular siblings, it will drop right out of the Dramface top 40.

For now, thanks to the independents, Linkwood is in a good place, but maybe only for now. The immediate concern is that Diageo is rumoured to have stopped the supply from its distilleries to independent bottlers; the space where Linkwood thrives in. But when I say immediate, the effects are unlikely to be felt in the short term, I trust that independent bottlers still have plenty of casks of Linkwood whisky, as well as casks of whiskies from other Diageo distilleries, so I’m in no hurry to go out to buy all the Linkwood whiskies that I can.

What worries me is not the impending death by Diageo of Linkwood, but the shifting of landscape triggered by the biggest and baddest operator in Scotch whisky. Their stranglehold on whisky is not as tight as Apple on the App Store, but being the owner of no less than 30 malt distilleries and producing approximately 40% of all scotch whisky, a wag of the tail by Diageo can be felt by all of Scotland, and in turn all over the world.

Maybe I’m panicking only because I’m fairly new to the world of whisky, more seasoned drinkers will tell me tales of shifting whisky landscapes in the past, and depending on who I ask, may either feel that there is nothing to fear, as there will always be more whisky, or feel that the future is doom and gloom, because the best of whisky is already behind us.

For now, I can only celebrate Linkwood the best way I can, by drinking and sharing it.

Review 1/4 - Ex-bourbon

Linkwood 14yo, Single Malts of Scotland (Elixir), bourbon cask matured, 58.9% ABV
£80 paid

I have reviewed a Linkwood on my debut piece, but here I shall dig deeper. In front of me are four different renditions of Linkwood, all cask strength whiskies in their teenage years. they are either matured or finished in four different cask types: ex-bourbon, ex-sherry, ex-Sauternes and ex-Rioja.

Score: 7/10

**Very Good Indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*A tropical fruit bomb*

Nose

Zesty nose, citrus fruits likes lemons and oranges, pineapples, mangoes, very much a fruit bomb on the nose, supplemented with vanilla and shortbread, ever so slightly oak

Palate

Nice oily mouthfeel, salted lemons and oranges, vanilla cream, butterscotch, mouth watering grapefruits in the development, the bitterness is very light on this one, well covered by the overall fruity sweetness of the whisky; the finish is medium in length, with a slightly funky metallic, white peppered syrup.

The Dregs

Feels like a fairly active bourbon cask, but otherwise, Linkwood’s distillate is on full display here. A tropical fruit bomb, very much a summer whisky

Score: 7/10

Review 2/4 - Ex-Sauternes

Linkwood 14yo, Infrequest Flyers (Alistair Walker), Sauternes hogshead finish, 54.9% ABV
£90 paid

Score: 7/10

**Very good indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Sweet, bright & drenched in honey, if that’s your thing*

Nose

Honeycomb right out of the glass, more of that honeyed malty syrup kind of note, honey-glazed almonds, (at this point I might as well “factor out” the honey, it’s everywhere), lemons, oranges and grapefruits, among the general fruity nose

Palate

Sweet and salty arrival, with the honey thing again all over the palate, along with distinctive savoury grapefruit notes, maltiness seeping through, and the sauternes cask influence is making itself known, in the form of a sustained sweetness through the development that coats the bitterness of the distillate. Medium finish, with some mixed nuts, the sweetness gone now, and the savoury grapefruit is back where I expect it to be.

The Dregs

On the label, it specifically states that it’s a finish, so I’m guessing the previous maturation would be from a bourbon cask. With my limited experience with Sauternes casks, I don’t know how long the finish is, but the bright kind of sweetness is not something I would generally associate with other whiskies.

Score: 7/10

Review 3/4 - Ex-Sherry

Linkwood 17yo, North Star Spirits, Series 023, oloroso sherry cask matured, 59.5% ABV
£110 paid

Score: 8/10

**Something special.**
***TL;DR***
*Age vs cask balance; a belter*

Nose

A bit sharp, but zesty and refreshing, cinnamon, chocolate, grapefruits, overripe apples.

Palate

Crisp arrival; that slightly bitter grapefruit signature again I get from Linkwood is front and centre, accompanying that is a spiced note, a sort of combination of white pepper and anise. Salted sultana along the way, red apples, and that grapefruit just wouldn’t go away, turning into a peppery grapefruit in the development; mouth watering, medium to long finish, 70% dark chocolate, and the white pepper to finish off.

The Dregs

Very well executed ex-sherry maturation. It says on the label that it’s an oloroso sherry butt, but there is no information on whether it’s a full maturation or a finish, what I can be fairly certain is that it is a refill sherry cask, as I didn’t get any of those dark dried fruit notes that a dominant sherry cask would typically impart. The oloroso cask added to the distillate character without dominating, plus a decent age at a reasonable price, belter of a whisky.

Score: 8/10

Review 4/4 - Ex-Rioja

Linkwood 13yo, Scotch Universe, first fill Rioja cask matured, 52.4% ABV
£75 paid

Score: 4/10

**Some promise.**
***TL;DR***
*All about the cask, Linkwood is lost, still, some folk like that*

Nose

Winey, leather, artificial berries, strawberries in particular, a bit of cinnamon, overall, imagine a red wine nose with a bit more sweetness, pretty obvious cask influence.

Palate

Quite mouth drying on the arrival, mildly bitter tannins dominating the palate, a bit of leather, quite astringent in general; even adding quite a bit of water, the whisky refuses to fully open up, still the same mouth drying and tannic palate, I’m looking for the grapefruit and it’s there, but only in the faint background, and quite bitter. Medium finish, but again, tannic. Time in the glass tames the tannins, but only very slightly.

The Dregs

Easily the most disappointing out of the four; the cask influence has pushed the distillate well out of the way. This could easily have started off as an unpeated spirit from any other distillery and I wouldn’t have been able to tell.

This one is hard to score between a 4/10 and a 5/10, but again looking at the Dramface scoring system, “annoyingly haven’t come together as we’d hoped” describes my experience quite accurately, so a high 4/10 it is.

Score: 4/10

The Final Dregs

I was happy to find a common thread through these four whiskies, perhaps predictably so, but the activity was a good experience, and I’d encourage anyone with at least two expressions from the same distillery to try the same.

Some distilleries produce “chameleon malts” as Ralfy would put it, they morph and change in the face of the maturation. While the four whiskies did express themselves differently under the influence of different casks, the character of the distillate stood strong and refused to retreat into the background, (well… maybe with the exception of the last one, which kind of got pushed out of the way), so I’m not sure if Linkwood qualifies as a chameleon malt.

It’s been said that “it’s hard to screw up a Caol Ila”, well, despite the Rioja cask almost screwing up the Linkwood, I’d still say that it’s also pretty hard to screw up a Linkwood.

Time to get it up those charts and out of the relegation zone! Vote here.

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. MMc

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