Whisky Review: Gordon & MacPhail Millburn 27 Year/2003 Cask 1598

This was the first time I was able to try a whisky from a closed distillery and at the time one of the oldest that had passed my lips. It was also one of the first dusties I purchased from the Oregon liquor system, which later turned into a merry process of hunting down the gems of yesteryear.

The Millburn distillery, originally known as the Inverness Distillery, was created in 1807, more than a dozen years before distilling was legalized in 1823 by the Excise Act. It passed though quite a number of different hands (occasionally after being closed) before landing in the proto-Diageo Distillers Company Limited (DCL) in 1937. It continued in that form until 1985, when the whisky crisis of the 1980s led DCL to close it. Stocks may remain, but are getting very, very thin on the ground and you can generally expect to pay for the rarity. I was extremely lucky to pick up this G&M Reserve bottle for an extremely reasonable price, as it had been sitting on the shelf in a local liquor store for a decade.

This whisky was distilled in 1976, filled into what was likely an American oak refill sherry butt (judging from the number of bottles), then bottled in 2003 at 46% without coloring or chill filtration.

G&M Millburn 27 Year/2003 Cask #1598

Nose: tons of buttery vanilla, sweet malt, sugar cookie dough, bubblegum/cotton candy, light brown sugar, vegetal/floral undertones, subtle sherry, cinnamon/allspice, salted caramels, mature oak, berries and charcoal around the edges. After adding a few drops of water the sherry becomes much stronger and the floral notes are amplified, the cookie dough becomes gingerbread, and the vanilla turns into orange creamsicle.

Taste: almost piercing sweetness up front, very malty with a lot of vanilla, light sherry mid-palate, balanced oak, moderately tannic at the back, berries, ginger, and black pepper throughout, a touch more sweetness and some charcoal at the back. After dilution the sherry and berries become much stronger up front and some citrus peel comes out around the middle, dried apple notes going into the finish, but the oak is more sharply tannic at the back.

Finish: light sherry, vanilla, malt, berry residue, oak tannins, black pepper, ginger, a hint of peat

I feel extremely privileged to get to drink this whisky. It's not too often that you get to literally taste history.

Looking over the Malt Maniacs scores, it seems like I got very lucky in finding this whisky as it's one of the highest rated bottles from the distillery. With that said, if the regular output of the distillery was even half this good, then it's a crying shame that it was demolished. It has weight, but doesn't sink into the oak that can overwhelming older whiskies, retaining an almost spritely freshness. While there's tons of sweetness to go around, the tannins and smoky notes keep it reeled in, with delicious counterpoint. Unlike a lot of their whiskies, I'm glad G&M chose not to water this one down too much. While cask strength would have been lovely it still shines at 46%. Unless you're put off by sweeter whiskies, I would say this one is nearly flawless. That's not to say that it's the best whisky ever, simply that nothing seems to be out of place. I've saved a handful of samples from this bottle and passed a good chunk of it on to Tim Read, formerly of Scotch & Ice Cream, so I'll be very curious to see how others feel about this one.