Adelphi the Kincardine

Adelphi’s The Kincardine is a whisky in Adelphi’s Glover series, which is a super interesting project mixing scottish whisky and world whisky. In this case, a 20 year old Glen Elgin, an 18 year old Macallan, and a 7 year old Amrut. I really love that they’re doing this, it is to me one of the most interesting things I’ve heard about in Scotch whisky in a while. The Adelphi rep told us a great story of the hurdles they had to overcome with the SWA in order to be able to bottle this. The SWA does not allow world whiskey to be blended with scotch whisky… in Scotland. So Adelphi used the obvious loophole of sending casks to England to be blended. But the SWA does not allow Single Malt Scotch Whisky to be exported from Scotland other than in a bottle. So Adelphi had to teaspoon the single malts intended for blending, to make them legal for export. A lot of hoops to jump through just to make these blends! The Adelphi rep strongly hinted that their next blend would involve Canada, and I’m very excited for that.

This is one of a bunch of whiskies I had recently at a fantastic Adelphi tasting.

1. Adelphi Miltonduff 2007
2. Adelphi Glenborrodale Batch 6
3. Adelphi Breath of Speyside 2006 (10yo)
4. Adelphi The Kincardine
5. Adelphi Bowmore 19yo 1997
6. Ardnamurchan Spirit 2018/AD

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Distiller: Glen Elgin, Macallan, Amrut
Distilled: Undisclosed
Bottled: 2018
ABV: 52.9%
Age: 7yo age stated (unofficially a blend of 7yo, 18yo and 20yo)
Cask type: Undisclosed
Source: Pour at Apollon, Bergen, Norway.
Setting: Blind (prior knowledge: Adelphi bottling)

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Nose: Drying oak, vanilla, mint, old herb cupboard, mandarin skin. A slight whisper of smoke.
Palate: Friendly. Creamy truffle custard with an oily mandarin pith garnish.
Finish: The mandarin pith note expands here, and gains some interesting oily black tea and nutty wood complexity. Sits for a good while.
Overall: A damn interesting dram, that’s for sure. It’s almost bourbony on the nose but it has some distinctive spicy citrus notes. There’s a lot of undenyable speyside on the palate and finish, but those mandarin pith and spice notes were pervasive and added a really interesting layer of complexity on top. I loved what was going on here, this is one of those moments in whisky that you taste something completely new and you just want to sit there dissecting it for a while. Great stuff.
Rank: 8