Adelphi Spirit of Sunart
Blended Scotch Whisky | 40% ABV
My Prejudice Against 40% Whiskies Might Just Lift
A bit of a disaster really, when the shortcut ferry link to the Ardnamurchan peninsula gives up the ghost. Around here, there’s no such thing as a quick diversion, and the extra hour tacked onto our 4-hour journey smarts like a cold fish supper.
Eventually, we arrived — at dusk — tired but happy to step into the home-away-from-home self-catering digs that we vacate to each year. How quickly a year has flown by, but how much we packed into that time. Our house is located a short way along the shoogly road leading up the valley in the small village called Strontian, the place where they discovered the chemical element Strontium (codeword ‘Sr’). We’re up on the hill overlooking the sweeping, mountainous vistas. I have to admit: as we approached the steep driveway, an instant calm descended upon me.
That is, until the car needed to be unpacked, when tempers quickly flared and frowns creased our already tired faces. The next day was a more spirited, higher energy affair, starting with a nice cycle along the coastal road, looking over Loch Sunart at the morning mist floating peacefully over the copper springtime bracken. My wife likes to make soup, and she unpacked the various ingredients to discover she’d forgotten to include some onions. Soup without onions is like whisky without barley, so we had a saunter down to the local village shoppe to see if they had some.
Strontian is a funny wee place. As much a thoroughfare as it is a village, there’s a police station, a fire station, a school, and various hotels. On the weekends you can hear the sound of shinty players barking at each other amidst claps and cheers when someone scores, but during the April holiday week, it’s very quiet. The town layout is like a slingshot shape, with the handle forming the bulk of the housing — including where we are biding — with the prongs forming the coastal road with hotels, a gift shop, a pottery, and the main Strontian shop. You can travel the prongs in about 60 seconds, give or take.
What started as a quick nip to the shop turned into a party-of-four jaunt. Upon entering the shop, its selection took us all by surprise. From fruits and veg to axes and wedding gifts, this wee store has loads of little things to satiate the demands of the locals. It takes hours to get places out here, so having a well stocked, diverse local shop is a necessity. My wife got her onions, and the other two picked up some bits and bobs (a plastic bowl being one — because it was “just the right size”). I, of course, was hoping for some whisky action.
Looking at the selection, I was crestfallen: Whyte & Mackay beside Glenlivet and some Glenmorangie. Ach, never mind. Crowd-pleasers always sit on shelves. As we approached the till to pay, I saw a bottle sitting at the back of the shelf above a sticker that said “19.99”. My spirits rose immeasurably when I saw the dancy man on the label; without much hesitation, I reached out and placed it on the counter.
£20 is not a lot for whisky, and we’re all starting to sing in chorus about the rising prices of whisky. Thus, whilst this did have the dreaded “40% ABV” stamped on the side, the fact that it was an Adelphi bottling — and the fact that I’d seen it sitting alongside other more specialist drams at many whisky festivals and suchlike — made me consider it worthy of a punt.
The worst thing that could happen is that there would be a £20 whisky left in the digs for whomever fancied it after us; I’ve watched quadruple that amount being stuck in the cupboard under the mutterings of a waste of time and money. I waited until after the 4pm chime and then ripped the tin off the top.
Review
Adelphi, The Spirit of Sunart, Blended Scotch Whisky, 40% ABV
£20 and widely available
Adelphi is synonymous with a few words. Integrity is one. Quality is another. The wee dancing man motif, etched into the blue-bottled Ardnamurchan single casks and many other bottlings, looked like a lizard to me before I was politely corrected and told it was a cartoon of Sir William Gladstone, a 19th-century Chancellor of the Exchequer (and Prime Minister) who decreed that tax on whisky should be levied on the amount left in the cask at the point of bottling rather than on what was originally filled into the cask, thus beginning a new phase in the lengthier maturation of whisky.
The label here is simple and offers nothing in the way of indication of what this whisky will give us, so instead I just dig into it and see what I discover. The ABV has my face predisposed to expect little and accept the generally underpowered nature of a whisky so watered down, but who knows, I might be surprised.
Still, apprehension that it’ll taste like the whiskies that put me off whisky is soaring high.
Nose
A freshly exposed coastline after the tide has receded — seaweed and sand. Very interesting. Has a very fresh coastal vibe to it, bordering on metallic. Peppery. Oaty. Scalextric cars.
Palate
There’s quite a bit of flavour going on here! The coastal notes continue with the salty, sandy flavour hitting the palate. It opens up to a more sugary top of a crème brûlée — a bit bitter too. Not a bad bitterness either, for it adds an interesting counterpoint to the other flavours.
The Dregs
Very surprised and quite a bit delighted. £20! It’s not a whisky that will have you delving into the depths of human experience, but for something like what Gregor calls a “calibrator”, it’s an ideal candidate to get the palate warmed up and the flavour thesaurus glowing. That it can be picked up for as little as £19.99 gives me pause for thought, especially when I think about what we’re getting for our money, and what that extra money might actually deliver. Is a whisky 10x more expensive than this going to give me 10x more flavour?
I’m really happy to have tried this and removed a little bit of the stigma surrounding 40% whiskies. It’s not a patch on more potent whiskies, don’t misunderstand, but it’s got enough interesting components to have a solid place in my whisky stash — for days when I feel I need a bit of help to get the face calibrated and ready for bigger-ABV dramming.
Score: 5/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC