Douglas Laing The Old Malt Cask Director’s “Tactical” Selection 1980 Aged 20 Years

Style: Fruity and Maritime

Rating: ☆☆+ [Highly Recommended]

Nose:

Begins with a gentle, baked tropical fruits peck, closely followed by a mighty coastal wave packed with aroma of seaweed and minerals. Pickled green papaya, paprika, celery and wet moss side notes gathering around the core. Lovely, moderate amount of soot and white pepper infused into it. Fairly dry, but the imagination and the complexity is incredible. Pinch of sea salt, glimmering malt at the back.

Palate:

The shy fruitiness is now blossoming nicely on the palate. Assorted warm baked yellow fruits chorusing at the front, while golden malt mirroring it on the opposite side. Pineapple, green bananas and lime cordial. Maritime peat playing second fiddle, subtle notes of limestone, seaweed, white pepper and diesel smoke binds tightly to the barley. Perfect level of red chilli spice. Almond croissant and light chocolate drizzle on the malt towards the end.

Finish:

Malt whispering softly, minimal level of peat with beautiful tropical fruits lingering.

Thoughts:

In case anyone is wondering, "Director’s TACTICAL Selection” is code name for Talisker. While the profile of this one sits slightly on the drier side, especially on the nose, but it is the dryness, or rather, the lack of any "dominating sweetness" allows other subtle elements to set up a neat structure and dance among the stars, making it marvellously complex and delicious. It can be quite technical, challenging and probably not the most popular style, but personally I think it is an exceptional dram. High 2 stars.

[50% | Independent Bottling | 1980 Distilled | 2000 Bottled | Single Cask | Non Chill Filtered | Non Coloured | 359 Bottles | **+]

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