Core Range NAS | 46% ABV

Score: 6/10

**Good Stuff.**
***TL;DR***
*Middle of the pack coastal fun.*

To the High Seas!

Coming home from last year’s Fife Whisky Festival the cabbie asked what I’d been up to, for me to need collected from Ladybank train station at 11pm on a Saturday. When I mentioned it was whisky, his first response was to say he enjoys Old Pulteney. “Oh aye, I fair enjoy an Auld Pool-tenny, so I do.”

It’s always been on my wish-list to try Old Pulteney, because of my love for the sea. It’s marketed heavily as “The Maritime Malt”, “Distilled and Matured by the Sea”, and “Born in the Port of Wick Caithness”. Their little motif is of a ship, there’s wavy lines all over the place to denote the swell of the sea and a compass - a de-facto symbol of navigation and seamanship - is moulded in glass and plastic on the bottle base and stopper respectively.

My favoured nautical dram de jour is the Western Highland distillery of roaring ascendancy, if the Dramface Top 40 is anything to go by; voted by the public and fluid in positioning, this little chart does a lot to show where the whisky exciter group-think is positioned and right now Ardnamurchan are soaring at #2. As we know by now, Ardnamurchan whisky is generally accepted to be of a coastal character, and I love the salty sweet mix of unpeated/peated magic. Pulteney is currently #31 on the list, firmly in the mix and on the rise too, up 4 places from last count. It’ll be interesting to see if I’m immediately on board or not.

While I’m at it, in the November Whisky Auctioneer I won, alongside the two Tullibardines, a bottle of 7 year old SMWS Old Pulteney called “Contrapuntal Complementaries”. At 57.9% ABV and in first-fill ex-bourbon casks, I hoped it would present as a defacto cask strength expression of this Northern Highland coastal spirit. Until now it’s been sitting gathering dust - opened and sampled, but not leaving any mark of note. I’ve been reaching past it for months now because, like it or not, it’s hotter than Jackie’s lower cheeks after he’s been busted by his better half buying even more whisky. Skelpt arse.

I mentioned in the Aberfeldy review that I picked up a few bottles recently and one of them was the Old Pulteney “Huddart”, chosen solely because it’s the pick of Pulteney’s bunch by brand ambassador Stuart Baxter, who appeared on the Aqvavitae vPub a while back. His favoured dram stuck in my mind as the one to try if I ever did decide to buy something from Old Pulteney. At 46% and avoiding the chill-filtration guillotine, it’s aligned to the exciter market, albeit coloured with e150a thus not quite making the full trifecta tick-list of many. I don’t really care about colouring as long as it doesn’t resemble Irn Bru, which in the case of the Huddart it doesn’t.

So. Has the SMWS tamed itself after 3 months of airtime? Will the Old Pulteney Huddart take the mantle for the most coastal whisky? How good is it versus an Independent single cask? Will Jackie ever find a successful mechanism for covert whisky deliveries? So many questions.

Review 1 of 2

Mix of ex-bourbon matured stock with an ex-peated cask finish | 46% ABV
£47.95 available worldwide.

Nose

Wow - big creels and coastal vibes. Salty pretzel! Downwind cheesemonger. Coal piles and engine oil. A farmyard/newmake malty note appears. Almost ripe banana. Pickled onion crisps. Nduja sausage. Liquorice. Distant lick of green apple. Concretey, sandy patch. Caramel shortcake without the choc top - buttery ribbons of sticky caramel.

Palate

Oily and savoury. Salt. Sour and savoury. Creels, nets and harbours. Dusty woods. Honey peanuts/cashews. A bit of a herbal thing happening, leafy greens.

The Dregs

I try to, where possible, spend a good chunk of time with a whisky in isolation, getting a feel for what’s going on without any external influences. Maybe I’ll take the contents down to the mid-label level, or often into the last 3rd before I decide where it rests on my scale of whisky. What has really surprised me about Old Pulteney Huddart is how much of a difference there is between drinking Huddart in isolation, and drinking in comparison. Alone the Huddart paints a very decent coastal picture - it presents quite bright, almost metallic but with salt and sweets very nicely combined. Nothing too untoward or overt, but enough peppery spice to keep the cheeks rosy. It’s a really easy sipper.

Stick it alongside other things though, and it takes flight. The coastal character shines brightly with creels, harbours and salty air mingling around all the sweets of caramels and sugary nuts. There’s a really interesting mechanical thing going on, reminding me of engine oil or dirty garages, maybe even the weird red gritty hand cleaner stuff. Grimy, in a good way. Then some oddball things like the Nduja; a really savoury salty meaty note - quite interesting! This is NAS whisky that has been matured in ex-bourbon casks and finished in some ex-peated casks too. The smoke is not the show here, rather a subtle background component part. It’s nice to have the earthy, coal-like thread and it balances quite lovely against the other notes.

Priced at £48, it’s a tall ask for something that is mingling amongst quite a few age-stated whiskies like Tobermory 12, Arran 10, Aberfeldy 12, Deanston 12, Ledaig 10, Ardbeg 10, Talisker 10 and Blair Athol 12. A few of those are reputable exciter drams and I very recently spent a lovely evening with a Tobermory 12 heel, reminding myself of why I should buy more Tobermory 12. I also just reviewed the Aberfeldy 12, so I know how it stacks up against the 40% squad lining the £40-50 mark; Aberlour 12, Cardhu Gold and, most tellingly, Old Pulteney 12.

Of that list I think the Old Pulteney Huddart surpasses the Aberfeldy 12 by a fair distance, and maybe pips the Talisker 10 to the coastal champ. Against the Aberlour 12 it’s head and shoulders, likewise the Cardhu. But against things like Ledaig, Deanston and Arran, it’s no match. I haven’t tried Old Pulteney 12 but, going by the 40% fiddled presentation and that it’s not the pick for the brand ambassador, it kind of makes it a wee bit redundant, in my eyes. Are age statements really enough to compensate against lack of flavour or character? I should reserve judgement, and it must make good business sense or they wouldn’t be doing it - that and punters might place numbers before flavour too.

Against Ardnamurchan AD/? I’d be lying if I said that Old Pulteney wasn’t the more coastal of the two. A rain drenched harbour, with seaweed and creels and the wisp of dense coal fires from nearby bothies. That’s Old Pulteney. The smell of sunshine, sand, bonfires and fresh sea air? That’s Ardnamurchan. Overcast creaking fishing boat versus summer frisbee with marshmallows. Both inherently coastal but in different ways. There’s a place for both in Captain Crystal’s wheelhouse, but Ardnamurchan (as expected) remains my maritime gravitational pull.

I would give this a 7 but something’s stopping me. It’s not given me real pleasure where I’ve thought WOW, I need to get back into the OP amber world. It’s been pleasant and enjoyable, with a few interesting things catching my nose hairs just enough, but not so much for it to be well above average. Recent reviews of Raasay, The Hearach, Ardnamurchan Rum Cask, Geery Founder’s Reserve and even The Illeach all hit 6/10 and I feel far more comfortable putting the Huddart in beside these drams than, say, Lagg Corriecravie or Glencadam Tawny that deserved their 7’s. Maybe it’s the price, maybe it’s the knowledge of the list of 12 year old bottlings at lesser expense that deliver more that’s stopping me too.

It’s good stuff; but right in the middle of the pack.

Score: 6/10

Review 2 of 2

SMWS 52.39 “Contrapuntal Complementaries | 57.9% ABV
£49 rrp (sold out) - won at auction for £56 incl fees.

What about the cask strength, single cask whalloper of heat that has sat collecting dust for three months? Will this be another SMWS weirdo with buttery biscuits as the canvas to which little wispy threads are woven randomly? I’ve checked the SMWS website since opening the bottle at Christmas time, just before I go in for another round as I write this review and note that they talk of poolside scallops, Turkish delight and ruffle bars…

Score: 4/10

**Some Promise.**
***TL;DR***
*No more SMWS for me.*

Nose

Neck pour: Aquamarine. Seaside soaps - sweet and blue. Kiwi fruit - citrus and vegetal. The greens are arriving now - apples, maybe even a cucumber!? Raita! Even the natural yoghurt appears. Sweet ‘n Sour Sauce - slight rancio - festering fruit in the butterfly farm.

Water: Pine sap. Banana bread.

3 months later: It just reminds me of all the other SMWS bottlings I’ve bought and tried - buttery biscuit caramel sweetness. Looking past that there is in the distance powdery lemon bonbons, but not soapy. Green banana milkshake. It’s still very bright, not in a zesty or sharp way, more like a summer’s day. Still quite prickly on the nose with a big ol’ sniff.

Palate

Neck pour: Rubber balloons what the heck? Hotter than an oven-fresh pizza jammed in your face.

Water: Old wood bookshelf. Still quite spicy but the blue fruits are here - blueberries, sharper red grapes. Jolly rancher hard candy. Strawberry jam?

3 months later: Spicy bamstick. Then that rubber balloon thing again! There’s an initial savoury something then straight into blueberries on sourdough, wee bit of salty butter on there for lube. Then rubbery at the death.

The Dregs

SMWS. Single Malt Whisky Society. Or rather Same Motherflubbin’ Whisky, Stupid. I don’t know what to make of it anymore - I’m going to stop buying SMWS bottlings because honestly, I’m a wee bit fed up with having the same tasting notes every time. Aye there’s little peeks at maybe a lemon or blueberry, but overall it’s the same digestive buttery biscuit character I’ve found in so many of their releases.

No coastal whatsits. No creels, harbours or saltiness. No ruffle bars or perfectly seared scallops. Maybe in a wee while (years?) it’ll develop into something, but right now with the level past the top of the SMWS logo, it’s shaping up to be wholly disappointing. I won this for £50 hammer so what, £56 incl fees? The RRP on this was £49, so the value is definitely not there. It doesn’t resemble Huddart in any way, has little in the way of Old Pulteney character and, after learning to live with disappointment lately, sinks in like another midnight wet fart.

Deflated rubbery balloon.

Score: 4/10

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

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