Mac-Talla Strata 15yo
Islay Single Malt | 46% ABV
Score: 5/10
Average.
TL;DR
Sherry, spice, and some things not nice
Sometimes my purchasing habits can let me down
Human’s, like other mammals, can be creatures of habit. We can generally follow a pattern during our daily life, whether it’s your favourite caffeine fix in the morning, your bedtime routine, or even which days of the week laundry gets done.
Our purchasing can follow a similar routine, visiting the same stores, buying the same favourite cookie/biscuit, or snagging the same groceries to make the same mix of meals. This habitual progression also extends to our whisky purchases, whether it’s always stocking your favourite everyday dram, searching for the same distilleries on a shelf, website, or auction site - or even a flavour profile based on the wood maturation.
My initial purchasing habits generally follow this order: price, ABCDs, grain bill, flavour profile, then distillery.
When it comes to price, I’m a habitual sale or discount shopper. This is a hobby after all, and a potentially expensive one at that. So any chance I get, I’m creating e-commerce profiles for myself, constantly keeping them updated with the in-stock items that are catching my attention and pouncing on those favourited bottles if or when a sale pops up. If you’re like me, you’ll have a healthy backlog of whisky on the shelves and tucked away in boxes, so we can afford to sit on our wallets. We can drink away our stash while resisting the FOMO, keeping our precious pennies squirrelled away to make them go further when it counts.
The ABCDs are fairly self-explanatory. Is there an Age statement? What is the Bottling strength? Was Chill filtration used? Or was Dye/colouring added? For me, the presence of an age statement is a secondary or tertiary consideration. Just because something’s older isn’t a guarantee of a good flavour experience. When it comes to bottling strength, I prefer the 46-54% ABV range. Enough strength to carry a good mouthfeel without being too hot that you have to be careful drinking it, warming up your palate with a starter dram only to have some of your tastebuds blasted away. I’m an avid chaser of non-chill filtered whisky as I tend to focus on mouthfeel. The presence of colouring is relegated to tertiary considerations. The lack of colouring is a preference but won’t stop me from purchasing it.
Regarding the grain bill, it’s something I’ve touched on before in my Boulder Bourbon review. I prefer malted barley over corn, rye, or wheat predominant whiskies. However, I’ve been known to purchase outside of the barley mash bill just for the simple fact of stretching my palate with different spirits. My preferred flavour profiles have been perhaps the purchasing habit that changes the most frequently, whether it’s based on the season, the intended purpose of the bottle, or even just the natural progression of my palate or market fluctuations. In general however, I prefer peat and sherry combinations, and ex-bourbon or port matured unpeated whiskies.
Finally, following the above progression, the distillery or even country of origin matters the least in my purchasing habits. Just because it comes from Scotland isn’t a guarantee I’ll like the whisky. In the pursuit of good flavours, borders can mean very little other than providing an indication of the potential flavour profiles, quality, consistency, or mash bill of the whiskies. Just as there’s always a poor whisky, there’s a gold nugget hiding somewhere just waiting for someone to discover it.
As an unintended consequence of my purchasing habits, I realised I didn’t have any 40% ABV whisky on the shelf. I’ve been recently rectifying this oversight by buying some 40% ABV whiskies. In my recent purchases and consumption over the past couple of years, I’ve yet to replenish any low-proof whiskies. I’ve a few friends that chase the higher cask strength proofs, some who enjoy the 46% ABV range, and others who won’t budge off the minimum 40% ABV strength. In my habitual purchasing, I’d neglected to keep a watchful eye on my stock, letting any low-proof bottle kills go unreplaced. My habits had gotten in the way and I was being neglectful for some of my guests.
The Mac-Talla Strata 15yo recently came to my local market and only a handful of months behind the global release of this expression from Morrison Scotch Whisky Distillers. Morrison has many product lines, including their Càrn Mòr single cask or small batch vattings, many of which I’ve bought and enjoyed. You can see how my habits drew me to this whisky: the promise of sherry and peat, plus meeting the various ABCD’s and being a single malt from Islay. The price relative to other age-stated Islay single malts was also attractive, especially with the escalating prices overall. It’s a fully natural, 46% ABV, age-stated malt matured in a combination of bourbon and sherry. So what’s not to like… on paper?
Review
Mac-Talla Strata, 15yo, 46% ABV
£72 (CAS$105 / £64 paid)
Nose
A refined nose with nothing jagged poking out, with the oloroso sweetness intertwining with a light dry peat in a cohesive manner. Dates, walnuts, raisins and a faint citrus/orange-like zest mingle with a clean dry peat or well-oxygenated campfire. Smell of a polished smooth river rock freshly plucked from a glacier-fed crystal clear mountain stream. A smidge of heavily charred pineapple and the off-gases from burning coal. Very interesting.
Palate
It’s a bit of a rollercoaster on the palate. The initial approach is unassuming, starting as a slight creaminess then building in intensity by introducing a slight initial peat/medicinal note. This is followed by a dip in presence as some sherry sweetness emerges before building towards a smouldering coal-like smoke finish with a peppery bite. It drops off sharply into a medley of brown sugar, wood char bitterness and a healthy dose of black pepper that tingles the sides of my tongue.
In terms of individual notes, the dry peat/wood smoke from the nose is now distinctly an ashy/coal smoke note. It’s met with a light raisiny sweetness, bitter wood, a light tobacco note such as a well-kept pipe smoke or a smidge of old leather belts (depends on the day which note I’m getting), and a healthy dose of black pepper. I get a charred smoked meat note like the bitterness sometimes found of heavily charred brisket burnt ends, especially with some time in the glass. The citrus is still there, although very much in the background; however the palate is more peat-dominated than the nose would lead you to believe. The bourbon maturation has provided a light creaminess and some vanilla to the experience.
The palate is well-integrated, if a bit simple and thin but very powerful. If you don’t acclimate your palate first, the first sip will smack your taste buds around. The finish is medium-short in length, especially for the age, trailing into a slightly bitter wet wood smoke and black pepper tingle. Retronasal several minutes after your last dram is a mix of wet peat/wood smoke, orange citrus notes, and raisins.
The Dregs
The nose is lovely. The palate has markedly improved over the past several weeks I’ve had this open, each time reducing the pepper bite and bringing the palate more in balance. If you’re considering this Strata 15 yo as a purchase, please give it several weeks and some air time to level out. It’s levelled out after about a month for me. I went in thinking this might be a moderately aged Caol Ila however I’m now significantly leaning towards Bowmore… intriguing.
Checking with my well-stocked variety of Caol Ila and I’m convincing myself it’s either unlike any other Caol Ila I’ve tried, which is many, or this is Bowmore. The bite in the palate reminds me of some of the official bottle of Bowmore 12 and 15 although admittedly I haven’t had either in several years I’m relying on a fuzzy memory and evolving palate for my reference points so take my assumptions with a heavy grain of salt. In the end it doesn’t matter - it’s the little details that me as a whisky nerd wants to know.
Water collapses the beautiful nose and surprisingly tamps down most of the initial peat smoke on the palate, allowing more of the citrus and vanilla sweetness to shine through. The finish is still short for the age and consists of the wet wood and black pepper notes. My recommendation is to enjoy at bottle strength, but it’s your whisky, so drink it as you wish.
I struggled scoring this one. It’s quite different from the current trend of uber-sweet and smooth palate experiences of late, leaning more towards an aggressive bite in your mouth. So I guess it’s different strokes for different folks here. Coincidentally, I’m reviewing this along with Bunnahabhain’s Toiteach A Dha, another peated Islay dram with a portion matured in oloroso sherry casks. I enjoyed the Bunnahabhain much more, with its better balance of sweetness and smoke, and significantly less black pepper fire. Going back and forth, the Strata is more heavy-handed with the black pepper and the Bunnahabhain is comparatively devoid. The Strata also has a shorter, thinner and more bitter finish. Coincidentally, I’ve got a bourbon and refill sherry finished North Star Caol Ila sitting on the shelf also for comparison. Coming in at half the age and nearly half the price, it is much more balanced and consistent.
Given the palate experience and price relative to that Bunnahabhain or other indie whiskies from Islay, this Mac-Talla Strata is getting a 5/10. For my preferences, it struggles to meet a 5/10 especially for the relative price increase relative to the Bunnahabhain or others. But if you can get this on sale, the flavour proposition makes more sense - especially if you prefer a sharper and rougher dram.
Score: 5/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. BB
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