Whisky: Old Perth 23 Year (1994) Blended Malt Whisky, Morrison & Mackay

Country/Region: Scotland/Blended Malt

ABV: 44.9%

Cask: Sherry

Age: 23 Years (Distilled 1994, Bottled 2018)

Nose: Fruit Roll-Ups on a lacquered cutting board, green papaya and salty shoyu, stewed plums and prunes which brightened up as a semi-tropical fruit punch with water, musty tobacco and cloves in the background.

Palate: Medium-bodied, fruity with dried plums, dates, and figs in a fruit syrup, molasses, dry grass smoke, leather, heather, hints of menthol and rose hips, cloves and cherry at the end.

Finish: Medium to long and drying with cherry, spice, and oak.

Score: 6-7

Mental Image: The Curse of Saint Vitus

Narrative & Notes: This sherry-matured blended malt comes from the old Highland Distillers company (nowadays known as Edrington). The company combined malts from Macallan, Highland Park, Glenrothes, Glenturret, Tamdhu, and Bunnahabhain, or some combination of the lot with Macallan said to be the most considerable portion, in large sherry butts. Morrison & MacKay, as well as other independent bottlers, have released variations of this blend over the years at varying ages. I particularly enjoyed a younger, modern incarnation of the blend that Single Cask Nation released a few years back.

I bought this bottle reasonably early in my whisky journey. I was seduced by the storytelling aspect, the vintage, the age, and the fine presentation— I typically recycle or toss packaging, but this was class. A bit of FOMO was all the motivation I needed to add a bottle to my cart with a delightful Caol Ila and then several other Morrison and MacKay bottles that all ended up a bit disappointing. I let the FOMO monster take over when I bought those bottles, and the fact that four out of the six were disappointments on one level or another has helped me avoid being taken in quite so strongly by that feeling again.

Overall, not a bad blended malt by any measure, with plenty of sherry and oak that gives it a classy vibe. Still, I wanted more from this whisky, and it never lived up to my expectations. It was not my biggest bottle-buying regret, but it was one that, in retrospect, I wished I had been able to temper my FOMO and skip. If I liked sherry-driven whiskies and old oak notes, I would likely score this a bit higher, but I have since learned those are not big draws for me.

Weekly Theme: Blended Malt

I originally intended the theme this week to be on blends broadly, but after all was said and done, I realized I had been tasting blended malts specifically. So instead, the theme this week is blended malts, a small but beloved category of whiskies that includes everything from Monkey Shoulder and Johnnie Walker Green Label to many of the Compass Box products. The Whisky Exchange has an entire page of blended malt listings, illustrating the market's diversity in age, price, maturation, and label.

Blended malts contain only single malt whiskies, which, as the name suggests, have been blended together. This is a bit different from your everyday blended scotch whisky, which contains single malts and grain whiskies. Grain whiskies can vary wildly in quality, and some whisky aficionados avoid blended whiskies because they can contain cheap, mass-produced grain whisky.

Grain whisky can sometimes take a few decades to mellow and develop into something beautiful, so while high-end blends may utilize very mature grain whisky to help elevate or complement the malt flavors, cheaper blends might contain young, spirited, and less flavorful grain whisky. This varies, and I would never write off a whisky just because it is a blend or a blended malt without first having a background with the producer or bottler. Experience is key, but in place of experience, hopefully, online reviews, mine or otherwise, can help fill in the gap.

Whether to go blended malt or just plain blend, it is, in the end, a matter of personal preference!