EPIC Head to head Littlemill Tasting - Bailey & McInnis Skype style!

I love the times that I am living in. The technology that exists in my lifetime has allowed me so many fantastic opportunities to not only meet people from all over the world, but also grants me the ability to forge new friendships and and try fantastic whiskies that likely would have been missed completely.

Case in point, first blog for 2016 was: 

http://whiskylassie.blogspot.ca/2016/01/happynew-year-what-better-way-to-start.html


Benoit was kind enough to write an insightful post about his visit to the long lost distillery called Littlemill and as stated at the end of that entry, he and I planned and then effectuated a head to head of seven (yes I said 7!) bottlings that we had between us over Skype. It was a great night spend talking, drinking and enjoying some lovely drams.

It was no easy task trying to figure where to begin with this line up of Littlemills but after some discussion we decided on our methodology and proceeded to start with the skype tasting.

Number 1 Littlemill 8 year old, official bottling at 40%:

Benoit
N: Initial dose of hay then, honeyed citrus fruits followed by some floral notes & fresh cut grass. After some time, a hint of dark chocolate.
P: Relatively surprising mouth coating quality initially but then followed rapidly by an impression that it was extremely thin. Then dark caramel appears, lots of burnt caramel. Not much else.
Overall: After revisiting this one and tasting the 25 year old Private Cellar, the floral notes on the nose appear part of the time to be Parma violet or it is just my imagination. This 8 year old clearly lacked complexity for me. The nose is much better than the palate.

Johanne
N: The first thought for me was a honey comb. Sweet, waxy. Then a familiar backdrop of some sharp citrus.
P: Not as nice as the nose, a bit unbalanced but still pleasant none the less. Citric acid (sour lemon candies). The finish was almost non-existent. I've had sneezes last longer? 
Overall: This is the youngest Littlemill I've ever tried. It wasn't terrible but probably not something I would seek out. 

Number 2 - Official Littlemill 12 year old bottled at 40% 

Johanne
N: Woody and acrid. First impression was pungent compost. But once it sat in the glass for a few moments it turned more into my grandmother's earth cellar. 
P: Sweet but tangy & creamy lemon meringue pie and with a bit of time and a drop of water Werther's original butterscotch candy. The finish was slightly bitter and tannic. 
Overall: The palate for me was better than the nose and at least this one had a finish. 

Benoit
N: Peppery hay, with some faint lemon, then massively vegetal again. After a while, the nose clearly appears to be a relative of the First Editions as well as the Scott's Selection.
P: Same buttery feel as the 8 year old but with a little more to offer, but still very thin. Spicy butterscotch, then a good mix of caramel and a hint of icing sugar.
F: Burnt caramel (again...)
Overall: The nose has clearly some Littlemill DNA, much more than the palate. Pretty similar to the 8 yr old with the same fault of being at 40% but with the nice addition of some interesting spiciness.

Number 3 - Cadenhead 1990, 24 year old bourbon hogshead, 53.7% ABV

Benoit
N: Delicate yet complex. Waves of different tropical fruits! And after a while, a healthy dose of icing sugar that mix so well with the tropical fruits. 
P: Creamy, mouth coating and so fresh (who peeled all those tropical fruits?). Tropical fruit salad that last and last with a fine dusting of icing sugar and pepper or some spice, probably cloves. Tropical paradise!
F: Tropical Fruits mainly pineapple that fade so slowly...
Overall: Wow!!!A great Littlemill that will be difficult to beat as my favorite in this tasting or even ever... Wish I had a never-ending supply for my first dram of the day! Did I mention tropical paradise?

Johanne
N: Agreed with Benoit, fresh tropical fruit salad. Coconut and almost mineral in nature (like tanning lotion). Very complex!
P: Mouthwatering & sublime dram. Sweet, full bodied, luscious and lots of lemon but not bitter. The finish is of medium length, just like a good night kiss might be.
Overall: Probably one of the best Littlemill's I've ever tasted. Well balanced, great example of ex-bourbon loveliness

Number 4 - Littlemill 25 Private Cellar Edition Oloroso finish, 50.4% official bottling

Johanne
N: Much spicier than the others we have tried so far. Almost peppery from the get go. After some time in the glass, it begins to turn into orange blossoms and much more flowery. Very faint but tomato plant leaves.
P: Totally different than the others we have tried so far. Very distinct in nature. Citrus but more lime than lemon and then heavy on the floral but with a really tannic finish (Almost like a strong cup of black tea).
Overall: I think had I drank this blind I would have never guessed it was a lowland at all. It's oaky and heavy and I wanted a cold beer after I drank it. Now to the hardcore Littlemill fans who want something completely different, this might just be what you are looking for?

Benoit
N: Lots of alcohol... Nutty with some tobacco but overall not a lot of what you expect from a sherried whisky because of the alcohol. Maybe candied orange.
P: Succulent creamy parma violets that quickly fade away to be replaced by an extreme dose of tannins... Overwhelming tsunami of tannins! Sorry could not really find anything else except some aromatic pepper.
F: So much astringency, I feel dehydrated.
Overall: I don't know if it is the first filled Oloroso casks in which it was finished or the use of especially overactive European oak which is responsible for the massive amount of tannins, but way too much for my taste as it masked most of the taste. Despite this, in some way, kind of an unpeated version of an 80's Bowmore because of the parma violets (sorry for the heresy). Very "un-Littlemill" for my taste. Because I do enjoy parma violets in Bowmore I am sure that the taste could have grown on me if I had received a full bottle as a gift despite the overwhelming astringency. Parma violets crunch candy disks anyone?

Number 5 - The First Editions 1988, 24 year old, 55.8% - Refilled hogshead

Benoit
N: Initially for a split second, the reminds me of a walk in a pine forest, then there is a generous breeze of a citrus fruit, grapefruit? and after a while, some faint icing sugar and cloves.
P: Sort of a typical peppery Littlemill: a sweet citrus fruit with pepper that evolves into hot pepper.
F: Peppery and vegetal with a hint of grapefruit.
Overall: Some are fruitier or have more citrus, some have more icing sugar where others are very vegetal but this one I would say is average. Average is not bad, in this case it means it's a typical and good representation of the distillery, the skeleton of Littlemill in fact.

Johanne                               

N: Wet vegetation, old slate roof after a rain storm. Almost mineral like for me. A bit of citrus on the backdrop, more like zest.
P: really "green" almost like chlorophyll, with a really peppery finish for me. Not at all what I expected. I liked it better with water, became more rounded and slightly fruity. 
Overall: Probably more typical of what I've come to like about Littlemills, except this one had a bit more "bite" to it.

Number 6 - Scott's Selection 1984-2004, 20 year old, 62.1%

Benoit
N: Another fruit salad with grapefruit rinds that developed into a good dose of pink grapefruits with a hint of floral notes. After a while, some pepper or more likely the 62.1%...
P: Thick, warming fruits with a dash of line and a generous serving of grapefruits. Also peppery icing sugar with oak that starts to take over after the grapefruit fades.
F: A long peppery fruity and oaky finish.
Overall: A powerful Littlemill with more oak than usual. If it had just a bit more of the icing sugar component than the oak, I think it could have been a stunner!

Johanne
N: Super strong smell of nail polish remover (acetone), followed by over ripe bananas. Quite unpleasant for me personally. 
P: Silky or maybe more like buttery. Sweet, reminds me of a key lime pie... That sweet but tart aspect. The finish seems oaky, almost "virgin oaky"... It's a bit much.
Overall: Not an overly dimensional whisky. I can't even say it was easy sipping because of the strength, it's a meh for me...

And last....

Number 7 - Hart Brothers First Port Pipe Filled 21 year old, 47.1% ABV

Johanne
N: Chocolate malted milk balls! Delightful. Then wine gummies. Maybe even a touch of chocolate covered cherries.
P: The port influence is apparent as it's a very fruity palate, almost on the side of cloying sweet. The finish is not overly long but is nice, sweet and slightly spicy.
Overall: Not exactly what I would consider a typical Littlemill as the port influence changes it from a delicate Lowland to something with a heavy "wine" influence.

Benoit
N: First your get the port, with some berry compote and then, at some point, sablé biscuit with a hint of lemon. With time, the icing sugar appears...
P: Again you get a big burst of wine (a vague reminder of the Black Art but with a lesser quality more diluted wine - I know sacrilege that I just committed; sorry in advance Mr. McEwen), then a sweet spicy taste.
F: Short sweet wine like with a bit of a vegetal presence.
Overall: I still like it despite being a vague Littlemill representation because of the powerful port impact. Surprised that the icing sugar component still came through for me.

What a fantastic experience to share with another whisky enthusiast! It truly was something interesting and fun to do together. So here is how we both ranked them:

Benoit preferred:
1. Cadenhead's
2. Scott's Selection
3. First Editions
4. Hart Brothers
5. OB 25
6. OB 12
7. OB 8

whereas I liked:
1. Cadenhead's
2. First Editions
3. 12 Year Old
4. Hart Brothers
5. OB 25 
6. Scott's Selection
7. OB 8

So we both agreed that we loved and found the Cadenhead's bottling the best overall as it was complex well balanced and quite a lovely Littlemill. And... we both agreed the OB 8 was very one dimensional and truly didn't leave any type of Littlemill footprint (so to speak).  It's always interesting to see the in-betweens and we did discuss why/how they ranked the way they did for each of us. I would say that Benoit has a much healthier appreciation of the Littlemills than I do and was quick to be able to find the "skeleton" component that he described: Vegetal, icing sugar, peppery. 

I found all of these very interesting as far as either the nose, palate or sometimes both. If I could afford all these bottles they only two I still probably wouldn't purchase would be the last two in my seven. The Scott's was just fruit flavoured nail polish remover (Sorry if that sounds as harsh as it smelled/tasted) and the 8 year old was as interesting as... well, turnip...  Not that it tasted of it, it was just.. not much personality ;)

I would strongly recommend learning more about Littlemill. It's one of 'those' rare whiskies that is still affordable in most cases and in a few years from now, it won't be. I'll be seeking a couple for my whisky collection.  A HUGE thank you to Benoit for opening his collection, sharing his whiskies, opinions and a really great night tasting/talking whisky.

Cheers all!

Lassie 

Guest Blog - Benoit Bailey, the peathead with a penchant for Littlemills

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! What better way to start 2016 with an interesting piece from a fresh faced whisky enthusiast! You see... Benoit Bailey and I have not met, yet... well not in the physical sense but we have been friends on twitter for some time (@RatherBeOnIslay) and most recently we had a fantastic evening on Skype sharing some whisky samples. During that conversation we also discovered we are going to be on Islay at the same time in May 2016 so we are both looking forward to hanging out, visiting distilleries or hiking together once we are there. 

Benoit loves peated whiskies, there is no doubt about that. So you can imagine my surprise when one of our twitter conversations turned to talking about Lowland whiskies?! Specifically, he has a healthy obsession with Littlemill. So when I received a sample of the Littlemill 25, 2015 Private Cellar Edition for review I thought it would be a great idea if he would review it with me. What followed was very unexpected but so much fun! Between the two of us we had 7 different Littlemills so we sent each other samples and picked a date to have a horizontal tasting. The results of that will come in a later blog, but for now here is Benoit's first whisky post ever: 

"Littlemill… Did you say Littlemill? I could understand Port Ellen, or even Brora, but, Littlemill…?? Well for a peathead like me, this is a strange choice as a favorite lost distillery especially in Canada where it is difficult to find Littlemill bottles. Well, in fact, it is Littlemill just because I am a peathead! 

This was the first non-peated whisky (Berry Brothers & Rudd Littlemill 1992 20 yo cask 9) that I tasted and truly enjoyed. You know that feeling of something being so good you want to open a new bottle as soon as the first one is finished! It's also the first time that I bought a bottle when in fact should have purchased the remaining lot before it was sold out ->Hart Brothers Littlemill 1989 21 yo first filled sherry butt, oh my!! 

I'm sure you have had that unfortunate feeling of regret at one time or another. After tasting that very first Littlemill, the floodgate opened and suddenly, there was way more to whisky than just the peated variety.

I understand that Littlemill mostly seemed to have a bad reputation. This is why up to recently, I was only buying the bottles that I could find tasting notes for. The low scores of the young official bottling’s on the Malt Maniacs’ Whisky Monitor Database are examples of this bad rep. 

No wonder this Lowlands distillery closed: a distillery needs to have a good "teen" whisky to be successful. However, if we look back at the Malt Maniacs’ Whisky Monitor Database, it is also apparent that the older independent bottlings of Littlemill get much better ratings – as well as much more appealing tasting notes. Could it be that Littlemill needs to spend at least 20 years of quality time in casks in a dark corner of a warehouse or simply that the independent bottlers got rid of the bad casks? Who knows? 

Maybe the recent official releases by Loch Lomond, the actual owner of the Littlemill brand, could give us an insight into that. However, my bottles of the 2012 as well as the 2014 release of the 21 yo are still unopened. I tried to register for the Whisky Wire Littlemill Flash Blog review of the 2015 Private Cellar Edition 25 yo to taste it but sadly to no avail…

From the few Littlemill I sampled, I can draw my own humble flavor profile of Littlemill:

1) Icing powdered sugar: Until recently I had never seen any review mentioning this. I was pretty insecure when I used this description. However, I now have found out that Michael Jackson described the Littlemill as “marshmallow, perhaps powdery icing sugar?” Talk about confirmation that I should stop being insecure about my description!!! 

Interestingly, this flavor was still present in a first filled Port Pipe I tasted as well as in the sherry butt bottle I mentioned earlier– the later tasted like candied white powdered doughnuts, and Homer Simpson would have liked them a lot. I have never done a pairing with these white powdered doughnuts, but as I write this, I realized that these two bottles might make a perfectly paired dessert dram with it! For me this is the staple flavor that defines Littlemill.

2) Fruity: Usually citrus but also tropical fruits. And lots of fruits, enough to get your daily ration of fibers and vitamin C in a dram! This is what I am looking in the tasting notes when I am on the hunt for the Littlemill. This is what got me hooked on it!

3) Vegetal: It's a flavour that I would describe as hay in a bad way, almost decaying hay - never tasted that but I am sure this is it! I could pick it up in some of the samples I tasted before but not as much as in the official 12 yo I recently open. This explains why this bottling is rated so low and probably why I was able to find one very recently in the USA at a decent price. But luckily, you can still taste the icing powdered sugar in it, which rendered it mildly enjoyable despite the vegetal notes.

I am likely to update this flavor profile as I open more Littlemill bottles in the future. I just wished I had as many different Littlemill bottles to taste as Menno, the initiater and owner of the Whiskybase.com web site, and the likely foremost collectionner of Littlemill.

On a final note, on my first trip to Islay, I decided to stop in Bowling, on the site of the former distillery, 15-20 minutes away from Glasgow International Airport to do a recon. The amazing header picture of the new @Littlemill2015 twitter account would have been useful as a guide at the time of my visit. Of the Littlemill distillery, not much is left. We can still see the enclosed distillery Exciseman's House on Dumbarton Road. Its deterioration is sadly chronicled on the Buildings at risk Register for Scotland. 

There are also remains of the distillery that were incorporated at each end of a modern apartment building at Littlemill Place that is across the Exciseman's House.  The other buildings were either demolished or destroyed by a fire. However, there is also a Littlemill Lane just west of the Exciseman's House with a building just off Dumbarton Road made in the same stones as the remains of the distillery found at Littlemill Place. If it was not part of the distillery, it must have been built in the same years.

I also walked to the Auchentorlie Burn, the water source of the former distillery and brought back would could have been future whisky. Did I say that I am a Littlemill fan or what? It can be easily access by a footpath/bicycle route that parallels and is between the main road, the A82, and Dumbarton Road.  This burn supplied water for the Little Mill, the mill on the estate of Auchentorlie, which was on the same site as the distillery and explains its name. Interestingly, we can see the burn disappears under Dumbarton Road to reach the River Clyde near the Exciseman's House on what was the distillery site. Further down Dumbarton road, well east of the Exciseman's House are also Littlemill Court apartment buildings that commemorate the mill and the distillery but without remains. 

There is an interesting YouTube video that shows the inside and outside of the abandoned distillery in September and October 1996. At 3:47 you can see shelves with bottles apparently left behind as well as some casks. The emptied racked warehouse as it appeared on October 1^st 1996 is also shown at 5:26. Finally, the video shows crew at work from October 15^th to the 30^th demolishing buildings adjacent to the Exciseman’s House when it was clearly in better shape. Well, all this talk about Littlemill has left me really thirsty… Johanne, how about a tasting?"

Thank you Benoit for not only providing us with a walk through your experience in Scotland but some insight on this silent distillery. I've written previously that I had had a pretty bad first experience with Littlemills to the point where I was somewhat reluctant to try them again. Super glad I did a few times in 2015 as it's changed my mind, and with some insight on what bottlings I should be looking for, they are still somewhat reasonably priced as far as silent distillery whisky goes. 

In the coming days, I will be posting the results of my and Benoit's Facetime Littlemill horizontal tasting of 7 different bottlings. It was a great night with new discoveries including what we both thought of the Loch Lomond Group Littlemill 25. Stay tuned, there were some very interesting whiskies that night.

So here's to a new year, may your discoveries be as interesting as mine!

Cheers,

Lassie 

Lassie's top 10 memorable drams for 2015 - #9 Oh no you didn't!!! Yes, yes I did....

Sometimes... either due to being stubborn or maybe it's more about genetics but some of humans have a tendency to make decisions about something and then stick with them for the rest of our lives. My father is a "domestic car" kinda of guy because the foreign stuff is crap (his words not mine so don't send me hate mail please)... He's bought North American Cars since before I was born. Me, well I've been an American Football Fan since I was 13 and for those 36 years I have been a true New England Patriots FAN through the good and the bad!!!! 

This bring me to drams (yes there are two this year that taught me a huge lesson...) number 9's. The first is as a result of my father instilling in me that anything but Gibson's Canadian whisky was SHITE... The second stems from trying one dram of a particular distillery last year while at the Campbeltown Festival with Mark Watt and saying to myself, oh my gawd... how can anyone like this at all?? It's... SHITE, but as I looked around the warehouse at the other 20+ participants I quickly realized just about everyone but me was enjoying that dram. Just not my cup of tea I said to myself quietly as I gave my dram to someone else.

Let's jump right to it: 

Dram #9.1 -> Crown Royal Monarch 75th anniversary blend. I actually got to taste a small sample in December of 2014 but spent much of 2015 enjoying & sharing it with many people. I picked this one as part of my top 10 for a few reasons. In all my years as a whisky drinker I had mostly (due to my dad) turned my nose up to anything that was made by Crown Royal. I had an aha moment last year and shamefully declared how much I had started to enjoy tasting CR's but still had never actually bought one. So, in February of 2015 this was the first bottle of Crown Royal whisky I ever bought and I've since bought a few more as a result, including the Northern Harvest Rye in June (BUT I STILL DON'T THINK IT'S A 97.5!!!)

The Monarch has become the CR I will recommend to friends/followers if they are looking for something unique from CR to bring home to friends or enjoy. It retails for a little more than the regular CR but in my very humble opinion of not being a fan for way too long, it is well worth the $60.

Dram #9.2  -> The Pearls of Scotland Littlemill CS, Distilled 1991, cask 116 (23 years old). As I stated up above, I was in a warehouse tasting with Mark Watt (WM Cadenhead) in 2014 when some crazy American named Matt yelled: Hey do you have any casks of Littlemill?" The crowd went wild when Mark walked over to an area and opened the cask. We all received a small sample and as I watched Matt and most of the participants go quiet and enjoy the dram fully. Me... not so much. I didn't even write a single tasting note, it was simply Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Fast forward to Toronto Canada in September and our good friend Rick Culver says: "Hey do you and Graham want to come to a Littlemill exclusive tasting". I will not lie to you when I say I told Graham: "I'll go but I know I really won't like them". Fast forward again to that evening, I'm the only woman (meh so what)... and when Igor handed over the Pearls sample I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I looked over at Graham a bit gobsmacked. Then 4 other gorgeous Littlemills, one after the other and I not only really enjoyed every single one, I immediately sought out to buy a bottle as soon as I could, and buy we did! Probably one of my best discoveries of 2015 is good quality Littlemill bottlings.

I LOVED the Littlemills so much, a friend of mine in Québec and I are having a vertical tasting of 7 of them over Skype on December 27th and I am beyond thrilled... I may not have "got" it at the time what the hub bub was about in that warehouse in Campbeltown, but I certainly do now.

LESSON LEARNED from drams 9.1 & 9.2

Just because you tried one bottle from a distillery or independent bottler doesn't mean the lot of them are SHITE...  Educate yourself, ask questions, get the history and keep trying the whiskies.

I also learned something else: Trust Mark Watt, he knows his shit...  errr, I mean whiskies!  

Cheers and off to Dram 8 tomorrow...

Lassie