Whisky: Mortlach 13 Year (2007), Hepburn's Choice "Below Bhainidh" for K&L

Country/Region: Scotland/Speyside

ABV: 54.5%

Cask: Refill Hogshead

Age: 13 Years (Distilled 2007, Bottled 2020)

Nose: Floral, grassy, and malty. Gingersnap cookies enjoyed in a flower garden with lemon tea; the sun beat down, releasing a fresh and very green floral aroma. Apple skins and ginger candies joined with herbal notes of menthol and lemongrass. Hints of thyme and clove lingered in the background with malty biscuits.

Palate: Full-bodied with a tingling spice, caramel, and grass. Salted caramels coated the palate as roasted sesame, and chocolaty kinako came to mind. The viscosity built with time as notes of yellow cake and sugary sprinkles emerged. Toward the backend were grass, pepper, and menthol notes.

Finish: Lingering notes of grass and spice.

Score: 5

Mental Image: Teddy Bear’s Garden Tea Party

Notes: Well, this was undoubtedly an interesting Mortlach, but I cannot say it was to my taste. I have had a few older ones with a similar floral-herbal profile, but that was often married to a lovely gaminess or an underlying savory leather quality provided by a sherry maturation. This was a young ex-bourbon Mortlach which allowed the spirit to shine through but lacked a lot of complexity.

This release was part of the tariff dodging series of bottles that came through K&L in 2020 and 2021. Thankfully the retailer no longer needs to ask bottlers to tea-spoon casks to avoid the tariff on single malts (it was not applied to blended malts, hints tea-spooning the whisky to dodge the tariff). Hopefully, the tariffs will not come back, and we can resign that brief period to a strange blip in time— though one that produced some great K&L releases, especially considering the price/quality ratio.

Overall, an intriguing Mortlach in which a mild ex-bourbon cask allowed the herbal quality of the spirit to shine through. I imagine that if I had tasted this blind, I would have thought it to be Aberfeldy, Aberlour, or Glengoyne— one of those distilleries with prominent grassy notes to the spirit. While this was not my favorite, I imagine fans of that particular spirit style would find a lot to love.