Craigellachie 13 Year Old Speyside Scotch Single Malt Whisky with Gift Tube, Sherry & Bourbon Cask Finish, 46% ABV, 70cl / 700ml

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I find it quite singular in that the nose could just as well be one of Glenlivet or Glenfiddich, but the palet and finish are completely different – grassy, mineral, spicy and thought-provoking. These are traditionally large wooden vessels full of water in which the whisky passes via coiled copper pipes to cool on its journey to the spirit safe. Smelling like the inside of a plastic water tub that’s been in the sun, but you’re now inside a dusty damp warehouse. Craigellachie 13 Year Old is one of the three 2014 releases, and it is a bold and rich dram with exquisite taste. Tonight, with porridge for dinner (bicycle night) it’s a little sharper and the caramel threads are more subdued – a drop of water brings it back nicely.

Both times it has appeared to me to be a middle-weight Speysider with a decent balance of fruit and caramel notes that is otherwise forgettable. The oil firing leaves the grain with sufficient sulphurous notes to be detectable in the matured spirit. This Craigellachie 13 Year Old Single Malt is matured in a mixture of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. I think I’ll be replacing it with the core range yellow-label once it’s gone - I just love that drift into the golden ocean too much, and the appearance of citrus blasters keeps shaking me out of my amber haze.Speyside Whiskies are known to be fruity and floral, but as the rock of Speyside, Craigellachie Malt defies with its oil fired, rich character. The copper worm tubs, which act as condensers, encourage a higher concentration of heavy oils and compounds, resulting in a rich and distinctive flavor profile. Today they still use old - fashioned 'worm tubs' to cool their spirit and bestow it with extra flavour creating a dram to rival whiskies twice its age. Our boxes are made of 100% recyclable cardboard and our protective honeycomb paper wrap keeps your package safe and significantly reduces our need for plastic.

I happen to be a huge citrus fan and by that I mean I can sit and eat a whole lime and enjoy it, so to find big zingers inside the bold Craigellachie signature is really exciting. The wood is nice, as are the well-balanced sugar notes that verge on toasty toffee and caramel, but there isn’t much else to recommend it.Whiskybase holds the answer and I’m satisfied it’s naturally presented, but even if it wasn’t I wouldn’t mind too much – it doesn’t have the Irn-Bru-like Aberlour Casg Annamh vibrancy to it. It’s all caramel waves intermingling with sharper fruit notes for a while before a tropical, coconut pineapple thing appeared but left before I’d really taken it in. Craigellachie has another trick up its sleeve when it comes to the meaty rich sulphurous note: the Glenesk maltings. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Craigellachie is a Speyside distillery, in the heart of the region, which is atypical of the lighter style of whisky popularised in the 1970s to the 2000s.

Our packaging is eco-conscious: 100% recyclable, compostable, and biodegradable internal fittings made from recycled materials. I think we can say that Craigellachie walks that fine line between being approachable and having sufficient depth to appeal to the more seasoned whisky drinker. There is a spicy note which is rounded so I don’t attribute that to the spirit alone and so assume the casks had a little life left in them still.The opposite turned out to be true - this was a brand new bottling of the core range 13 but finished in a Bas-Armagnac French oak cask. It begins promisingly on the front palate, but the development and finish has some notes that I find really unpleasant. Select ‘Your Message Engraved’ from the Personalise menu, then enter your message in the Engraving box.