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Whisky Reviews

St. Magdalene 19, 1979-1998, Rare Malts Selection, Bottle No. 4358, 63.8% abv.

 

St. Magdalene 19, 1979-1998, Rare Malts Selection, Bottle No. 4358, 63.8% abv.

In the 1980s, United Distillers released a series of bottles to showcase the distilleries across Scotland. This series would further expand and be known as the "Classic Malts of Scotland" and "The Classic Malts Selection". Emboldened by the success of the Classic Malts, UD released another collection called the Rare Malts around 1995, showcasing more lesser-known distilleries in their wide portfolio. Over the years, the Rare Malts not only became famous for its high quality, but also for its representation of Scotch history. UD became Diageo around 1997 and were looking to more or less replace the Rare Malts. That is how Diageo started their annual Special Releases.

Nose: intense, sweet caramel, light golden apples, dried salted seaweed, orange and lemon zest.

Palate: complex, so much going on, initially oily, initial palate is sweet, light citrus, mid palate has an intense sweetness or salted sweetness that I'm not sure what it is, I'm guessing really dark salted chocolate with strawberry jam and chrysanthemum scented honey, back palate is spicey, a little sour.

Finish: long, spicey, marmalade sweet.

Dry glass: fruited wax sold as soap at Newman Marcus.

A pretty complex one, so many flavors presented themselves simultaneously that it was hard to distinguish. It has strong, amazing flavors throughout. Difficult to separate the multiple flavors at once like chrysanthemum scented honey, chocolate type strawberry jam, and the sweet-saltiness that is very different from the Islay mafia malts, but equivalent in quality. I am at a loss of words.

Grade: A

Whiskyfun.com, Serge, 92 points
Malt maniacs, 89 points on 17 reviews
Scotchwhisky, Dave Broom, 88 points
Lawhiskeysociety, average, B+ on 6 reviews
Ralfy, 97/100

 

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

  

Eric Yee

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