North British 29 Year Old
Fragrant Drops - 200 Bottles - Fresh Bourbon Barrel | 50.9% ABV
Score: 8/10
Something Special.
TL;DR
A towering wave of glorious amber. The grain train leaves shortly.
A Highlight from the Glasgow Whisky Festival.
Walking up to the Fragrant Drops stand at Glasgow Whisky Festival, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d seen a number of Instahoot reviews of their bottlings over the years, but never really connected with the brand enough to consider buying one. Maybe it was the name working in parallel with the medicinal, pathological bottles bringing to my mind’s eye something of Jack the Ripper, or maybe the excellent film “Perfume: Story Of a Murderer”.
Drawn into the table through musical voice beckoning us forth, we were immediately enraptured by the magical words of Rachel Dixon, Operations Director for Keeble Cask Co / Fragrant Drops. I love talking to people, especially happy, excited people because that energy is immediately transferred into the gloomy mood-banks of my pessimistic soul, and I find myself actually smiling. Really smiling.
First up was a North British, the one that Jen from Callander Drinks Co / The Grail Tastings told us to try - the very reason we were at this table. The skull on the bottle makes me apprehensive. Coupled with those bottles and the dark liquid inside... Anyway, 42% ABV just, but then again it’s 30 years old. I’ve never tried anything so old in whisky before now, I don’t think. I’m wracking my brain to think if I’ve had any samples or things from anywhere. The oldest whisky I’ve reviewed is the 25yo Caperdonich from SMWS, but I think that’s it. Distilled in 1992 - I would have been 8 years old and settling into our new house in a bustling new commuter town, in the historical mining museum of northern fringe Fife.
1992. I’m trawling through Wikipedia to see if there’s anything of note for this year. Alongside various indiscretions in the Royal Fam, there’s the tragedy of Nigel Mansell retiring from Formula 1, John Major secures another term for the Conservative Government, Stuart Hogg, ex-captain of Scotland and now retired legend of rugby, was born, and Gary Windo, jazz saxophonist shuffles his angular music off this mortal coil. All notable events. That and North British were filling a cask full of new-make spirit to lay down for the next three decades. Magical moments.
In the glass, the 30yo NB was, as oor Jackie shouted into the frizzy air, like key-lime pie or a zingy lemon cheesecake. We all bark in agreement - this is some tasty beverage action and bloody hell should we be paying more attention to grain whiskies. Asking how much this delectable delight might set us back, we’re astounded to hear it’s £99. Granted it’s a little pour and at the very tail end of a magnificent tour around many drams, but it’s enough for us to really sit up and notice.
“Well if you like that, then how about this one, boys?” Rachel sings, and from the ether another bottle is produced and presented in glowing refractive beauty above their light-box presentation stands. This one, she says, is also a North British, but it’s 29 years old. In the glass it’s as good as the 30yo but has a bigger, more biscuitty form. By this point all three of us are vibrating - we’ve managed somehow to save the best stand for last and, whodathunkit, an independent that all three of us hadn’t tried before. The real joy of a whisky festival comes to bear - discovery. “It’s a New York Cheesecake!” Jackie shouts. We all nod in agreement - what a day.
So what’s the deal then, we ask. Is this a past bottling or what? Well, it’s actually part of the same release of bottles for 2023 - a scope of varying distilleries, ages and finishes that independents pick out to launch under their own branding as a way of highlighting casks that they think are worthy of exploration. Hang on, two North British whiskies of almost exactly the same age?! What gives?
“Yeah, a bit of a boo-boo there right enough!” You can see why some retailers maybe didn’t want to take both - two old grains from one distillery, under one indie brand, with similar casks. So they had to make a call - the 30yo or this 29yo to release onto market? The older won the round, heading to retailers around these lands and putting the 29yo into limbo.
An Ardmore banger concluded our time at Fragrant Drops, one of such distinction that the three shouty people decided that it was the dram of the day. Ardmore is a fantastic whisky and one I’ve enjoyed previously, vowing to try more. This one was finished in dark rum casks, aged 14yo and punted out at 56.5% ABV. This is a bottle we have to try at length, and with a price of £85 it’s well within EIS splitting territory. We sprung into action and procured a bottle the week after the GWF. With thanks and gratitude we waved Rachel goodbye and headed for the Thompson Bros stand for our final pour of the 2023 GWF.
Review
Distilled 17.11.93 - Bottled 10.02.23, 50.9% ABV
£95 - patch availability. Might be more available in 2024
I debated what to buy for far too long, long enough that the 30yo was sold out of Royal Mile Whiskies before I had a chance to capitalise on the £10 voucher from GWF. Bummer. The sticking point was the price - £100 for a whisky is serious territory for me and a decision I do not take lightly. Not only that but for some reason, despite trying it and connecting with what I found in that tiddly pour, the words “grain” still made me apprehensive. What is it about grain whisky that makes me indecisive?
At this point, the week after the GWF, I had opened the SMWS Dark ‘n’ Stormy Crème Brûlée bottle and found it soapy and disappointing. That’s grain, albeit mostly corn, some rye and a bit of barley. Thinking back to the tour of Kingsbarns last year, I recall trying the grain whisky they offered at the end of the tour, which turns out to be also a North British but of 10 years maturation, just. Notes of PVA glue and varnish. Maybe I was too hot on the heels of all that other great whisky and, through elevated excitability, found the 30yo North British fantastic, regardless of if it was or not.
The bout of justification begins. It’s a lot of money. It’s an unknown bottle (sort of). It’s a lot of money. I could get two bottles of something else for that price. It’s a lot of money. And so on, until I see that Milroys have a 10%-off joining discount and, in a blaze of v-pub madness, I go for it alongside a bottle of Maker’s Mark, to bring the postage up to the free bracket. It just so happens to be the Thursday night before Black Friday, when Milroy’s along with everyone else decide to drop a 15% discount on everything, but I should’ve waited. Not to worry, it’s done now and I can relax, having itched the mouse button scratch.
The bottle in person, with time to study it, is beautiful. Mrs Crystal immediately swoops in like a magpie and snaps it up, placing it in some exquisitely curated position in our house for a brief moment, before handing it back with instructions to keep it available, should she want to deploy it into her rota of objects being moved around the place depending on mood and weather. I head outside into the sun for some photos and by golly it’s a looker. Glass, refractions, nice label, glass ball, dark amber liquid. It’s a sight to behold.
Score: 8/10
Something Special.
TL;DR
A towering wave of glorious amber. The grain train leaves shortly.
Nose
Bright lights. Lemon curd on hob-nob. Lemon bon bons and powdered icing sugar. Sweet cinnamon. Ginger. Soft permanent marker pens. Hot cross bun. Sweet shop with old wooden shelves. Car air freshener. Heather honey. A creeping hint of coriander arrives. Peppery spice cupboard. Leafy mint. Big buttery biscuit.
It’s wonderfully woody, perfumed wood of cedar and spruce - fragrant! Think a twilight rooftop garden in bloom in the city with a chip shop far below and a curry house far away. It’s cool nighttime fresh air mixed with sweet flowers, veges and the smell of the city - cars, take-aways and sweet cheesecake on the table.
A red note appears, vivid and potent - I’m going to say red currants. Jammy, sweet red currant jam loveliness. Then a PVA glue note - not overt and quite enjoyable. Rocket.
Palate
Sweet gym socks and biscuit bases. Cheesecakes. Soft sugars - dark. Highland toffee with a raspberry thrown in for kicks. Bit of heated spice up the rear. Nice baking spices - nutmeg and sweet cinnamon. A wee salty pip! A leaf. Bright red vivid disco light - those red currants, or a raspberry or sharp red grape. Back to buttery biscuit cheesecake with a little bit of sharp mascarpone. A hint of espresso and walnut cake maybe? Decadent. Delightful.
The Dregs
“It’s always 7s and 8s with you”.
A criticism aimed at me for loving a particular distillery too much has stuck with me, alongside a comment below the latest Rum Cask Release review stating that I cannot be taken seriously as a whisky critic if I keep banging on about one distillery. They’ve combined to give me a bit of creeping doubt in what I do here at Dramface. Can you ever love something too much? Can something become hated through someone else loving it so much? You there! Boy! You need to stop talking about that because you can’t see past your complete adoration enough to give critical thoughts about other things.
I have been drinking whisky in a focused and analytical way for over 2 years now - a very short amount of time compared to a lot of people writing about and sharing their opinions of whisky. In that time, looking retrospectively, I’ve gone from tentative steps into this world, through an explosion of excitement and unrestrained buying of anything and everything, to finding my area of whisky and finally spelunking deep into the hole of one distillery. Around the periphery of more recent mining I’ve still been buying and drinking other things, but when you find a distillate that lands squarely in the feels, you can’t help but charge down that avenue head first.
Over that period of discovery I’ve been extremely fortunate to write about it publicly; whisky and life go hand in hand, and I don’t think anyone, apart from perhaps the most dedicated and robotic of ‘reviewers’ in this industry, can separate the two. We are human and human nature is to want to share discovery, to discuss it and how it makes you feel with your pals and anyone else that might show interest. To share is to feel part of something bigger than yourself, and in my case writing about life and how I feel whilst I’m considering a whisky in my glass, is a way for me to cope with the journey. Perhaps if I speak openly about how I feel in my whisky writing, especially when life throws some lemons, someone else might think ‘oh, I feel that way too’ and all of a sudden we have light where once was darkness.
Whisky is life. It breeds good will and brings good fortune (for some), and writing about it from a very personal, very emotional perspective makes for an honest appraisal, I think. If it resonates, then words pour out and if it stinks, likewise. It’s the middlers, the mediocres; it’s the whiskies that fail to light up the senses that find words hard to generate. Yes I could probably trudge through many, many whiskies that are not up to snuff and bring some balance to my overall whisky review score average. I could do that. I could actively seek out and buy things that I know I won’t like so that I can appraise all whisky, and therefore somehow be good enough. I could be a real boy.
Feeling nervous about awarding another 7 or 8 or 9, because someone might question the integrity of your abilities to compare and consider whisky disconnected from the emotional cortex that permeates through everything you do, is not a pleasant place to operate. Oh here he comes, with another 8 - he must think all whisky is fantastic and so his scoring, and reviews, are just a pile of saccharine nonsense.
Perhaps part of the journey in whisky is coming of age. Is being able to decipher the unfathomable choice in whiskyland and pick out from the groaning masses one bottle that you feel will work for you. That and talking to others, reading and listening. Making a choice to ingest whisky into your bulging body because you want to be happy when doing so, not disappointed or fed up or miserable because you’ve blown your budget, small as it is, on a whisky you had a good feeling you might not like, but did it anyway because you want to appear to be a genuine whisky critic.
I’m no whisky critic, let me tell ye. I’m so far down the line of serious whisky opinionators that you need to use the James Webb telescope to see where my dull flickering light used to be. I write from a perspective of me, because that’s all I know and all I could ever know. 2 years doesn’t give me the benefit of a thousand whiskies under my belt that I’ve written detailed notes to reference. Believe me I’ve tried, but there comes a point where the scatter gun approach isn’t sustainable, or enjoyable - seeing multiple bottles that are almost full, sitting for years on my shelf unloved, is no fun for anyone. I can only reference what I have tried - which happens to be a load of western highland coastal whisky. I try to link across all my reviews (a lot of them beginning with ‘A’) so that there is some relationship between them all. Anyone following the Dougie Crystal path of social awkwardness can have some indication of where it sits in my world. If you share a similar palate, then those might work for you too.
Which is to say, I’m so chuffed Jen pointed us at the Fragrant Drops table at the Glasgow Whisky Festival. I’m so chuffed Rachel brought this bottle out from the hidden place and allowed us to try it. I’m so chuffed I made a great decision to buy it. Because this whisky is a delight of the senses. It’s a vast expanse of joy; a sunset casting over the autumnal rolling hills of the Misty Isle and illuminating the ferns and heather and grass in a vivid amber glow. There’s deep dark shadows and there’s a sky ablaze with the colour of rage, but together cast a bloom of such visual opulence that I can’t help but stand and bear witness to the majesty of the world; drink it all in, surrounded by the slowly fading noise of a bad week. I tried this whisky in comparison with many others - Loch Lomond 10yo Single Cask, Glentauchers 10y Cadenhead’s and a whisky of western highland coastal fame. Beside these varied and interesting whiskies this North British 29yo sat like a big warm hug. Exactly when I needed it.
It flits from huge towering waves of toffee sweetness to a delicate floral exposition, with little pips of savoury, spice and salt. It has everything I could ever want to find in any whisky, not just grain. This has brought me real pleasure. This is a beautiful whisky to savour. It's 8/10 all day long, even if it means I’m not taken seriously as a whisky critic. A 29 year old whisky for £95? Consider me fully onboard the as yet untapped train of grain.
Score: 8/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC
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