Mortlach at thirty years old is a rare thing. The distillery's output has almost always been swallowed by the blending houses, Johnnie Walker in particular, and long-aged single-cask or single-malt bottlings under the Mortlach name have historically been the province of independent bottlers rather than the distillery's owners. A Diageo Special Release of a thirty-year-old Mortlach is therefore an event, and one aimed squarely at those who already know what the distillery's peculiar 2.81-times distillation produces and want to see what three decades in oak will do to it.
The answer, in the glass, is a slow concentration rather than a softening. The meaty, savoury core of Mortlach is still there after thirty years — it would take rather more than that to drive it out — but it has been joined and partly framed by the dried fruit, leather and tobacco of long-matured refill sherry wood. The strength, at 46.1% ABV, is judged to give body without shouting, and the natural colour and non-chill-filtered presentation are the norm for Special Releases at this level.
Mortlach is not a distillery that ages in the same way as its lighter Speyside neighbours. The weight of the spirit means it can take more wood and more time without collapsing, and at thirty years it has reached a point where the savoury character and the oak tannins pull against each other in an unusually satisfying balance. It is not a delicate whisky, nor a fruity one. It is old, dark, resinous and faintly sulphurous, and those looking for elegance in the conventional sense should look elsewhere.
For Mortlach's admirers, however, this is the kind of bottling the distillery has long deserved under its own name. A serious whisky, at a serious price, from the meat market of Speyside.
