Clynelish 9yo - Thompson Bros Mystery Malt
Series 2 Release | 48.5% ABV
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Makes me glad to have it, with a glimmer of what we love about Clynelish
Is it a gamble?
There have been rumblings at the Dramface HQ that our Top 40* list is about to get updated, and so I quickly went and reviewed my own picks to see if some on the list needs replacing.
Lo and behold, I did make a couple of changes, relegated from my top 10 was Craigellachie and Lagg, while Teanininch and Clynelish were welcomed in.
This is not the fault of Craigellachie or Lagg, but since this list was last updated 18 months ago, I’ve had the opportunity to experience a lot of other whiskies in the meantime, and among those experiences, Teaninich and Clynelish have stuck with me. With the two Diageo distilleries stepping up, it’s no surprise that my recent encounters with them were from independents, especially Clynelish.
Pre-teenage Clynelish have landed on my shelves for relatively accessible prices, and I’m excited to say, despite not being in its official livery, Clynelish is back on my radar, and today I’d like to share one; a Mystery Malt Series 2 release from the Thompson Brothers.
Needless to say, there isn’t anything mysterious about my introduction as you already know what whisky it is. What I really wish to highlight is how generous the whisky community is, and in this case, the generosity came from a fellow writer, but I’m sure that the same is true for the rest of the community.
So, back when the team were preparing for the multi review of this batch of the Mystery Malt, a friend and team mate from my football team was travelling back to his native Scotland, so I was wondering if I could get a bottle muled to me by him. Naturally I scoured the interwebs for any bottles on sale, but they seem to be all sold out. I pinged my fellow writers inquiring about the situation, and I was told with no uncertain terms that they were sold out. In minutes, it seems.
I wasn’t particularly disappointed, I never thought I could get a hand on them anyway, but mere moments later, Charlie messaged me to say that he has a second bottle which he would be happy to have sent to my friend. Obviously I nodded a very hard yes (as hard as an emoji nod can be on WhatsApp). After the bottle was sent, I asked Charlie how much I owed him, and his response was, verbatim: “You don’t owe me a thing for it, I’m sure there will be a time to reciprocate in the future”, what a generous gesture, I really hope I can reciprocate Charlie’s kindness in the future.
As Charlie was generous towards me, I also try to be generous to those around me, and the most frequently gathered community is a specialist whisky shop. To me, this shop, let’s call it Joe’s Whisky Shop, is very special, because Joe doesn’t only sell whisky, he also shares them. On any day where I rock up to the shop unannounced, Joe would come up to me and ask if I wanted anything to drink, and he would have open bottles ready to pour. And these are generally not bottles that he has available to sell, these bottles range from reference bottles that Joe can use to show different profiles for customers who are new to whisky, to old and rare bottles that are simply a treat for anyone who walks through the door.
These whiskies are free to try, so it is ripe for exploitation, but such is the sincerity of Joe, he is well taken care of by his customers, we have inadvertently become part of a community centered around the shop, and we often reciprocate Joe’s generosity.
You might be wondering how Joe can afford to open expensive old and rare bottles for anyone to try for free, the answer is, he doesn’t. These bottles are opened by his customers and such is the relationship of everyone in the shop, the owners of these bottles tend to leave their bottles behind for other whisky lovers to try. It is certainly a special place.
Before I could reciprocate Charlie’s favour, I decided to bring this bottle to Joe’s shop to share, and of course I would open the bottle on the spot and have everyone try it together - blind, such is the spirit of this release.
Review
Clynelish 9yo, Thompson Bros Mystery Malt, Series 2, Refill hogshead, 48.5% ABV
£65 paid, gifted, long sold out, now secondary only
To avoid the Earie’s mishap of accidentally revealing the distillery, instead of peeling at the dotted line, we’ve opted to slice open the foil at the gap, this way, both sides of the foil would be folded slightly under the cork top and the bottle respectively, and the name of the distillery would remain hidden.
Including Joe and myself, five or so of us were present, all were invited to have a sip and give a go at guessing, while I provided the information on the possible casks and probabilities.
Pouring the whisky out of the glass immediately narrowed things down; the spirit was unpeated, and its colour was very pale, likely eliminating all the peated or sherry cask influenced whiskies. On my first nose, Benrinnes shouted at me, and there were two casks of Benrinnes going into this batch. One of them a 14 year old matured in a PX quarter cask - so that could be ruled out - the other one is a 27 year old from a dechar/rechar cask. Could this be a 27 year old Benrinnes? I parked that thought.
A few other guesses were made, but two people, including Joe, suspected that it was Clynelish. Joe, with his experience of Clynelish mentioned that he recognises this nose as a typical contemporary Clynelish nose, and was fairly certain that it was Clynelish. Secretly I wished he was wrong, I really hoped that it could be a 27 year old Benrinnes.
Another one of us suggested that it could be a Tormore, respectfully I didn’t say anything, but the Tormore was matured in a Sauternes cask, and from my experience, Sauternes casks often have a huge honey influence on both the nose and palate, which was absent to me, so I confidently ruled that out.
Once we started sipping though, I was convinced that Joe was right. I didn’t find characters that would generally come from a 27 year old whisky. Originally I was going to keep the foil on for longer so we could let whoever came later to try this blind, but one of the guys had to leave, and surely we couldn’t let him leave without the answer, so we tore off the foil. Lo and behold we had our 9 year old Clynelish. Hats off to Joe.
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Makes me glad to have it, with a glimmer of what we love about Clynelish
Nose
Floral (which was why I thought it was a Benrinnes); fresh and zesty, lemons and limes, freshly cut green apples, white sugar, sugar cane, hints of honey, slightly metallic, and I’m not sure if it’s the power of suggestion, but I get a little bit of waxiness now that I didn’t get when tasting it blind.
Palate
It’s definitely waxy on arrival, chrysanthemum tea, sweet vanilla, cotton candy, followed by coconuts, peaches, melons, bitter gourd, very mouth watering on the development, hints of black pepper, considering it’s a 9 year old whisky bottled at 48.5%, the finish is very long, full of that chrysanthemum tea, not a tannic black tea, but green tea with hints of chrysanthemum.
The Dregs
First of all, let’s make a quick comparison to the hand-fill that I got from the distillery: there are similarities like floral notes, green apples, zestiness, etc, but if I was presented with both whiskies side by side I would not have identified them as from the same distillery. Such is the nature of small batch and single cask releases.
For some, Clynelish is a frustrating distillery to talk about. There’s no doubt that they can make good whisky, great whisky even, but more recent releases both from IB and OB have been a shadow of its former reputation. There has been speculation that the cleaning of its equipment many moons ago inadvertently caused the waxiness to disappear. While Diageo is often blamed for the poor presentation of what makes it to bottle, the perceived decline of Clynelish may be an unfortunate consequence rather than mismanagement. Recently though, I’ve heard mentions that the waxiness slowly “returning”, is the gunk in the feints receiver starting to build up again? I’m not sure, and I’m not convinced that it’s the reason, but as a drinker, my main focus is on the end product. If there are signs of Clynelish becoming good again, I’m very happy for them. As this bottle has demonstrated, young Clynelish can be good, and is cause for optimism for future encounters. Blind or otherwise.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this experience, especially since it’s given me another Clynelish on the shelf, and while I have every intention of reciprocating Charlie’s generosity, it’s not easy given that he lives on a different side of the planet. For now, I can only be generous to the whisky lovers close to me, hoping they will be equally generous to their circle of friends, and maybe one day this chain of generosity will make its way to Charlie, a long shot, but it’s not doing any harm is it?
As of today, let’s drink to generosity, slainte Charlie!
Score: 7/10
Epilogue
As an epilogue to this review, I wish to address the concept of the Mystery Malt.
On face value, this is a lottery, and lottery is a form of gambling, and if it isn’t handled carefully, the concept could be sliding down a slippery slope.
Experiments have been performed where subjects’ actions are not directly correlated with reward, rather, the action-reward correlation has been designed to match a pre-selected percentage. In other words, from the perspective of the subject, reward was handed out randomly as a result of a designated action; another control group is set up where actions directly yielded reward..
It has been found that the dopamine levels of the experiment group are significantly higher than the control group, and they are much more engaged in the activity; the experiment group engaged in the activity much more enthusiastically than the control group, despite their reward being lower. This is the reason why gambling is addictive, because playing games of chance increases dopamine levels.
Are Thompson Brothers preying on those who are susceptible to gambling addiction? Let’s try to answer that by putting on the shoes of a typical bookmaker or casino.
We would have to look at expected values and payout rates, and ensure the payout rate is always in the house’s favour, thus the saying the house always wins. In the case of the Mystery Malts, though, the payout is the whisky, and can anyone argue that these whiskies would be selling less than the RRP on their own? I don’t think so, which means if they are trying to prey on addictive purchasing for profit, they are doing a terrible job, in fact, I’d confidently argue that all of these single malts could be asking for the RRP, most of them more, some a lot more.
So, even starting from a cynic’s perspective, I’ve come to the opinion that the Thompson Brothers have genuinely put out a nice product, encouraging people to try whiskies blind, and encouraging drinkers to seek out whiskies from distilleries that they haven’t tried before, by putting the liquid in their hands.
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. MMc
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