Glen Keith 25 yo 1998/2024 (49.7%, Club Qing 'Happy Loner', cask #149567, 1st fill bourbon barrel, 191 bottles)
Colour: gold. Nose: abundant fruits! Plenty of ripe pineapple, mango, assorted fruit salad juice vibes, lychee, star fruit and kiwi. Behind that a few hints of beeswax and wee peppery hints. But it remains dominated by the fruits in a highly luscious and utterly splendid way! Mouth: same feeling of fruit salad goo! Syrupy and textural, with flower honeys, beeswax, more gentle peppery touches and then evolving impressions of sweet cereals, herbal teas and dried exotic fruit chunks. Finish: long, with persistent green and exotic fruits, also a little miso and pepper in the aftertaste. Comments: I feel like Glen Keith specialises in surprise fruit bombs that come at you, Ninja-style like this. Although, after a few such bottlings, should we really continue to be surprised? Anyway, a luscious and embarrassingly enjoyable wee Glen Keith. 
SGP: 751 - 90 points.

Glen Keith 29 yo 1993/2022 (54.3%, Signatory Vintage for The Whisky Exchange 50th Anniversary, cask #82789, refill hogshead, 236 bottles)
Colour: deep gold. Nose: dominated by orchard fruits and runny honey, also some flower nectars and pollens, sweetened porridge, some slightly over-stewed fruit teas and things like mirabelle, eucalyptus and a light earthy note that make me think of white mushroom. Quite typical, characterful early 1990s, mature Glen Keith. Although, I would say this one noticeably lacks some of the more opulent exotic characteristics of QC bottling. With water: typically easy, honeyed, rich and showing this lovely, fruit-forward mature Speyside profile. More green fruits now, overripe banana, some mango and star fruit. Mouth: nice level of honeyed sweetness on arrival, that also incorporates those lovely flower nectars, honeycomb, golden syrup on toast, dried mint and pine wood. Tiny notes of tobacco leaf, some lemon-infused olive oil and bergamot. With water: once again, it gets even fruiter with reduction, lemon syrup, tinned pineapple, rhubarb and custard boiled sweets and apple pie with custard. Delicious, fun and easy whisky. Finish: good length, a little sharper and more peppery and waxier, but the fruits stand guard to the very end. Comments: Maybe suffers ever so slightly after the QC 1998, but it's the same feeling of fruit-induced surprise and pleasure. Do we talk enough about how good Glen Keith can be? Probably. 
SGP: 651 - 89 points.

Macallan Special Reserve (43%, OB, mid 1980s)
This is an early NAS bottling released to mark the opening of Easter Elchies house by Princess Margaret (presumably Andrew was otherwise engaged at the time). It is reputed to be the same liquid as the Charles and Di Royal Marriage bottling, but left in cask a couple of years longer; let us hope it has withstood time better than the royal family's reputation... Now, Serge tried this one back in 2015 and wasn't 'too' impressed (WF86), but with old bottles from bottle to bottle over the decades you just never know... Colour: amber. Nose: dark honeys, wet leaves, pollens, beeswax, golden sultanas and some wonderfully leafy and 'cakey' old sherry. Proper old school tobacco leaf, mushroom powder and figs soaking in old armagnac. Gorgeous nose, dominated by old sherry and a sense of fat, old school distillate beneath. Mouth: pretty impressive heft and delivery for 43%! Rather a lot of wood spices, tarragon, dried herbs, fig jam, mincemeat, old Cointreau and spiced quince jelly. Feels pretty peppery and even a little mustardy. Finish: quite long, on figs, sultana, raisins and bitter dark chocolate with hints of walnut liqueur and vielle prune. Comments: impressive old sherried Macallan, and I can believe it may well have been the same juice as the Charles and Di bottling with a couple of extra years. Although, the punch and peppery power on the palate suggest something still rather vital and fresh - so, the opposite of the royal family in that sense. I feel more generously inclined towards this one than Serge did a decade previously... 
SGP: 662 - 89 points.

Macallan 1950 (43%, OB for Toshikazu Koyanagi, Japan, 1980s)
Serge also tried this one (WF87), but it was a short note recorded for the French market version (no idea if all these various market specific versions were the same juice or separate vattings) at that famously analytical nosing laboratory in Paris: Harry's Bar! And those notes were recorded back in... 2007! Ooft! Colour: deep gold. Nose: a glorious medley of old honeys, beeswax, lamp oils, paraffin, linseed oil, tiger balm, the subtlest of medicinal embrocations, metal polish, cedar wood and gorse flower. Indeed that gorse flower note goes more towards coconut with time, then dried out exotic fruit pieces and some dusty hessian rag. There’s also even some sublime notes that recall very old Sauternes with these stunning honeyed and nectar notes that stray towards botrytis. An amazing nose. Mouth: very waxy and peppery up front, drying as well, with old wood, camphor, putty, fir resins, natural tar and very delicate, peppery suggestion of peat. Also medicinal things like gauze, then more of these big linseed oil and beeswax impressions, and even a little funky cider apple tinge. Finish: medium, possibly just a suggestion of tiredness, but it’s still got this stupendous, old school waxy, honeyed, syrupy quality going on. With final tropical glimmers in the aftertaste. Comments: I wonder how many more years these old bottlings at 40% and 43% will continue to impress us with the same vividness and directness that they have in recent decades? This is still stunning old whisky, but it has an undeniable fragility about it that doesn’t feel like it would have been there at time of bottling. Anyway, this is still magnificent old style malt whisky with a depth and intensity of character that modern malts just don’t compare to. 
SGP: 653 - 91 points.