Glen Flagler: 100% Pot Still Whisky – Rare All Malt (Scottish Lowland Single Malt Whisky: 40% ABV)

Visual: Very pale, lightly grain coloured whisky. Very slow, medium thickness puckering comes from the spirit.

Nose: Crushed concrete dust. Wisp of smoke. Noticeable alcohol. Menthol to lime air. Light dried beef slices. White grapes and vanilla. With water it is still rocky but cleaner and with less alcohol.

Body: Wet rocks. Vanilla. Moderate peat. Slightly gritty. Moss. Vanilla fudge. Slight sulphur. Water makes smoother. Still mossy and gritty. Peated caramel. Chocolate eclair hard sweets.

Finish: Wet rocks. Gritty. Vanilla. Moss. Smoke to ash trays. Slight sulphur. Water makes very gritty.

Conclusion: Another peated lowland? Was this a trend in the past that I missed out on or something? Though since it seems every distillery that tried it died there may not be as much demand for peated lowland as I hoped. May be just me wanting it then.

This is slightly more rough edges than the Dunglass I tried – there is definitely a more evident youthful spirit character, even though I *think* they may be the same age. If feels kind of similar to the Dunglass but grittier, rockier and with more evident peat.

Now, this isn’t the experience the whole way through. It does open up to a sweeter vanilla fudge style over time, but even then it has a sulphur led roughness to it.

Water initially just smooths the alcohol, which is appreciated, but keeps it fairly gritty as a whole. However a touch more water brings out a caramel and chocolate set of notes, kind of like chocolate eclair hard sweets. This does mean that the higher levels of peat gives it a peated caramel style which is not something I expected to ever encounter.

Now the peat isn’t heavy, just heavier than Dunglass does it, but the smoke and rocky character is definitely the defining element here.

Since we are comparing dead peated lowlands here, Dunglass did it better. This is a bit more of a rough experience, it doesn’t really full indulge the peat, nor the smoothness of the lowland character, so doesn’t make the most of either style it wears.

It still makes me want more peated lowland whisky, it is just this doesn’t quite have the spark. A nice idea that has been done better by another (also dead) distillery. We so need a running distillery to get on this.

Background: Well, this is hard one to get information on, I have bought or been given a ton of books on Whisky over the years and the vast majority didn’t even mention this one. It is a peated lowland whisky that was made between 1964 and 1985. I saw this miniature at Old and Rare whisky and grabbed it to be able to give this dead distillery a try. This is the last of a small batch of miniatures I got from there. They are a darn expensive web site, even for what they have, but I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to try these without having to buy a very expensive 70cl bottle. This is listed as 70% proof, which may confuse some people from the USA as by USA measures that would be 35% abv and so below the 40% abv minimum needed for whisky. However by UK 70% proof that is 40% abv. Confusing, yes? So now you know. There is no age statement on this, but the art matches the 5 year 70cl bottling, sooo, maybe that? Who knows. Went with Pulp: Different Class as backing music. Still good after all this time.

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