Revisiting Glen Mhor 

Glen Mhor is not a whisky I’ve tasted for quite a long time. Partly that is because bottlings of it have all but dried up, but also because it’s a name - or arguably the name - that conjures ideas of toughness, austerity and challenge to the taster in whisky. It was always a notoriously robust, hard and often ‘gritty’ make that could be entertaining but also pretty exhausting to taste. At least, that’s my memory of it. I’m delighted to be able to have a line-up of any closed distillery, but especially of Glen Mhor, so I can check and see if this impression still holds after quite a number of years. 

Glen Mhor 1979/2004 (43%, Gordon & MacPhail)
Colour: gold. Nose: hohoho, porridge with a midgie’s teaspoon of honey run through it. Also sheep wool, fresh laundry, putty, wood glue, plasticine and some funny mix of old camphor and stale tea. Highly unlikely but not necessarily ‘bad’. Mouth: ok, here I struggle. Very flat, lots of clay, some skimmed milk, stale beer, old bread. Being honest, it’s not so good now. Finish: short, teaish, some cardboard and fleeting impressions of rice wine. Comments: the only way is up! But seriously, a good benchmark for how funny and unlikely these 70s and 80s Glen Mhor could be.
 SGP: 441 - 77 points.

Glen Mhor 21 yo 1976/1997 (43%, Hart Bros)
Colour: pale gold. Nose: very similar in some respects with these funny low-lying mineral qualities, clay, putty, slightly cardboardy and porridge vibes, but here there’s also some nice green apple notes, flower nectars and vase water. Overall, a little more ‘classical’, as far as Scotch whisky goes. Mouth: ok, textbook grit, gravel, chalk, aspirin, concrete. Like drinking a tower block. Also rather a strong plasticine and even vinyl side. Flirts with soap at times too. Finish: medium, sappy, sharp, slightly acidic and tangy. Gets almost aggressively peppery after a while. Very funny! Comments: absolutely a bottling that demonstrates what made Glen Mhor such a brutalistic and challenging whisky. A whisky almost tailor made for whisky geeks to pour blind for their fellow enthusiasts at the outset of a dramming session. One more point for the apples! 
SGP: 251 - 78 points. 

Glen Mhor 8 yo (57%, Gordon & MacPhail ‘Distillery labels’, 1980s)
More power, fewer years… Colour: gold. Nose: this is still very brutalistic and rather austere, but it comes with a cereal backbone and sense of dusty waxiness that I find quite appealing. The porridge is also back, this time with a sprinkle of salt. Then it really begins to develop with lamp oil, animal fats, rye bread, stout, chicken broth, lanolin and coal scuttle. Also more of these funny ‘Mhor-esque’ mineral touches that make you think of gravel and plasticine, but here they are more controlled and subtle. With water: ever so slightly tamer, with some subtle honey, wood spices, lightly smoked teas, newspaper ink and mashed potato. Mouth: this is pretty good, there’s clearly some sherry at play, but it seems to only contribute to and magnify this brutality and austerity. It’s very lean, mineral and sharp in profile. Medicines, vapour rubs, tar, ham, pasta water, salt baked vegetables and bouillon powder. With water: at its best I would say, lean, bone dry, full of brittle waxes, peppery warmth, dusty old dried herbs, camphor and a rising tang of farmyard. Finish: really pretty long, still rather superbly peppery, full of camphor, dry waxes, lamp oil again, toolbox cloths and things like white mushroom, petrichor impressions and wet, mossy bark. Comments: hip flask whisky for dour teuchter farmers that own more than five tractors (only two working). Seriously, I would say this is the good side of Glen Mhor, but it’s still a total beast of a dram. Nothing exists today with this kind of profile in my experience. 
SGP: 372 - 86 points. 

Glen Mhor 30 yo 1982/2012 (54.1%, Cadenhead ‘Closed Distilleries’, bourbon, 198 bottles)
Colour: gold. Nose: I enjoy this a lot more. Thick, syrupy waxes, cooking oils, bone marrow on brown bread, cut grass and crushed flower stems that make me think of chlorophyll. Also, vase water, tiger balm and soot. A glimmer of mead in the background too. With water: vase water, oat milk, plain crackers and… a kiss of silage! Mouth: aaaaand, we’re back! Plasticine, camphor, slightly stale but salty butter, more bone marrow, suet, bouillon, crushed parsley, mashed parsnip and yeasty sourdough. Citric acidity, low lying waxes, more cooking oils and some paraffin. With water: sharp green apple, more fruit acids, gets tighter, sharper and generally more nervous. Old olive oil, lemon balm, chalk and aspirin. Can Glen Mhor cure its own headaches? Comments: I believe Glen Mhor may possess the power to kindle masochism, because I rather enjoy this one. Now, technically speaking, it’s still all over the place, but the fun factor is very high. 
SGP: 362 - 81 points. 

Glen Mhor 30 yo 1975/2005 (51.2%, Glenkeir Treasures, 270 bottles)
This bottling series really takes me back to being at Uni in Glasgow from 2003-2007 (Film & TV studies, in case you were asking). Colour: bright straw. Nose: farmyard cider, wee inflections of silage, smoked teas and smoked beers, coal scuttle and a slowly emerging waxy side. Also more of these crushed flower stem and vase water vibes. With water: banana bread, olive oil, slightly ‘off’ waxes, wild garlic and further grassy and beery ‘stuff’. Mouth: very dry, sappy, peppery and with a sharp medicinal streak that makes me wonder if this wasn’t from an ex-peater cask? Very tough and back on austerity up to 11. Loads of limestone, concrete, graphite with funky notes of pickled tarragon and mashed turnip! With water: disjointed and rather all over the place, some low lying feelings of peat, some medicine, some sour herbal notes, yoghurt, aniseed, beer once again and stale malt. Finish: medium, arid, gritty, austere and with some mashed veg and cereals. Comments: a tricky one in that there are elements I really quite enjoy, but the whole is really quite all over the place and discombobulating. Like five whiskies stitched together by a one-armed lunatic. SGP: 263 - 77 points.  This bottling series really takes me back to being at Uni in Glasgow from 2003-2007 (Film & TV studies, in case you were asking). Colour: bright straw. Nose: farmyard cider, wee inflections of silage, smoked teas and smoked beers, coal scuttle and a slowly emerging waxy side. Also more of these crushed flower stem and vase water vibes. With water: banana bread, olive oil, slightly ‘off’ waxes, wild garlic and further grassy and beery ‘stuff’. Mouth: very dry, sappy, peppery and with a sharp medicinal streak that makes me wonder if this wasn’t from an ex-peater cask? Very tough and back on austerity up to 11. Loads of limestone, concrete, graphite with funky notes of pickled tarragon and mashed turnip! With water: disjointed and rather all over the place, some low lying feelings of peat, some medicine, some sour herbal notes, yoghurt, aniseed, beer once again and stale malt. Finish: medium, arid, gritty, austere and with some mashed veg and cereals. Comments: a tricky one in that there are elements I really quite enjoy, but the whole is really quite all over the place and discombobulating. Like five whiskies stitched together by a one-armed lunatic. 
SGP: 263 - 77 points. 

Glen Mhor 30 yo 1967/1997 (60.1%, Gordon & MacPhail for 30th Anniversary of Barmetro, sherry, 199 bottles)
A famous bottling! Colour: mahogany. Nose: another universe! An unctuous and powerful sherry, very leathery, mineral and slightly animalistic with furs, old pinot noir and the most beautiful cured meats. There are also wonderful fruity details such as spiced marmalades, some very old Cointreau, figs in syrup and marzipan. Pretty stunning! With water: it’s funny, you even get a sense of that Glen Mhor concrete and austerity beneath all these wonderful wood saps, fir resins, ointments and precious hardwoods. Huge whisky! Mouth: dominating and extremely powerful but still controlled and with hugely impressive gamey and umami notes. Drenched in Maggi, pepper sauce, Serrano ham, anchovy paste and forest mushrooms. Also gathers more sticky dark fruit characteristics, as it did on the nose, the more it develops. With water: goes really towards camphor, shoe polish, booze-filled dark chocolates, bitter marmalade with coriander seeds and winter mulling spices. The power never wanes. Finish: very long! Bitterly herbal, with hints of salted liquorice, tar extracts, wintergreen, sultanas and clove. Comments: the unstoppable force of an amazing old school sherry cask meets the immovable object that was Glen Mhor distillate. The result is a brilliant but extremely powerful and monolithic whisky. You could eat sixteen bowls of porridge, arm yourself with twelve magnums of Highland Spring, wear a bandolier of pipettes and this wee beastie would still defeat you in tasting battle at the end of the day! 
SGP: 562 - 93 points.