| |
Home
Thousands of tastings,
all the ramblings
and all the fun
(hopefully!)
Whiskyfun.com
Guaranteed ad-free
copyright 2002-2026
|
 |
|
| Hi, this is one of our (almost) daily tastings. Santé! |
| |
|
| |
| |
October 9, 2026 |
|
  |
|
The Time Warp Sessions,
today Pulteney 17 vs 50 |
The north-east coast gang! You may have noticed that we shamelessly seize every opportunity to taste Pulteney, and today’s duo is quite something, as we’re pitting a new 17-year-old for LMDW at a rather explosive strength against the celebrated official 50-year-old released this year. Somewhat unusually, we’ll start with the latter, on account of its much ‘gentler’ bottling strength. |
|
Old Pulteney 50 yo (40.8%, OB, 200 bottles, 2026) 
The oldest Pulteney ever bottled, we could almost call it ‘Old Old Pulteney’, were that not rather inelegant. Speaking of elegance, I find the bottle beautifully refined, perhaps unlike much of what other distillers tend to produce for whiskies boasting this sort of pedigree. Anyway, this is a marriage of four casks aged at least fifty years, brought together to celebrate the distillery’s bicentenary this year (1826-2026). Colour: gold. Nose: what freshness! Beautiful notes of oolong tea, wonderfully precise kiwi and equally precise apple, honeysuckle, sweet woodruff, just the right amounts of liquorice and mint, a surprising touch of pear (at fifty!) and then a few distinctly maritime wafts, quite real rather than imagined, in the shape of samphire. It’s beautiful, fresh, almost cheerful and sprightly. Mouth: a mirror of the nose, with a little more oolong tea and a little less fresh fruit, but the components are otherwise identical, save for a little oak that inevitably now puts in an appearance. At 50 years and 41% vol., it would have been very surprising otherwise. Finish: short but fresh, with touches of gooseberry, wakame and little orchard apples. More fairly well-steeped green tea in the aftertaste, but again, that’s only to be expected. Comments: there’s a faint sense of a miracle here and there, and a slight fragility on the palate that ultimately only adds to the considerable charm of this beautiful 50-year-old. It proves, re-racking or no re-racking, that no, not all malts fall apart after 35 years in cask.
SGP:441 - 90 points. |
|
Old Pulteney 17 yo 2009/2026 (64.8%, OB for LMDW, Collection Anthologie, first fill bourbon barrel, cask #268, 186 bottles)
At this strength, either the cask matured right at the top of a palletised warehouse, or we’re already seeing the effects of climate change. Or both… But that tells us nothing about the quality of this inevitably rather potent baby. Colour: gold. Nose: I don’t think I’ve found quite so much citrus in a malt whisky, certainly not recently. Incredible blood oranges, followed by a procession of bergamot, mandarins and citrons. Needless to say, we adore this. But careful, we’re at almost 65% vol… so, with water: believe it or not, it barely changes, even at +/-45%, except that it becomes a little more vanilla-led, with hints of mango syrup too. Mouth (neat): another explosion of citrus and orange blossom, with an inevitable earl grey tea character. And quite a bit of ethanol… With water: it takes off towards passion fruit, little shellfish, green pepper and plain old lemon. Touches of wax bring to mind the nearest distillery to the south. Finish: inevitably a little ‘limoncello-y’, with a duo of peppermint and little oysters in the background, then that wakame we mentioned above. Comments: you know what, let’s not overthink this, we’ll give it the same score. So, should you acquire this magnificent Pulteney rather than its ancestor, you’ll have saved yourself a very tidy sum in the process. We’re joking, such considerations are rather vulgar, of course…
SGP:651 - 90 points. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
