Over the last two years, we’ve seen a series of wonderful Longmorn 1975 / 1976, but it will end sooner or later… This 1976 cask was released by the great people of The Whisky Agency in their Perfect Dram series, just before The Whisky Fair. I hadn’t heard of it until a few weeks ago and apparently it has been a lot harder to find in stores than most other Whisky Agency releases.
Longmorn 35 yo 1976
(53,6%, The Whisky Agency ‘Perfect Dram’ 2011, bourbon hogshead, 187 btl.)
Longmorn 35 yo 1976Nose: right. This has the same pastry and honey notes as the Malts of Scotland version. It develops on huge beehive notes, warm wax and all kinds of jams (apricot, mandarin). Papaya, overripe gooseberries and honeydew melon. Butter biscuits with almonds. Subtle mint, vanilla and cinnamon. Intensely fruity and getting warmer by the minute.
Mouth: oily and thick, almost a diluted jam with a lot of warm fruity notes (ripe apricots, plums, melon), evolving to citrus notes (oranges, pink grapefruit) but overall much less citrusy than the other 1976’s. Faint leathery notes. A little cinnamon, ginger and mint, but low on plain woody notes.
Finish: long, fruity and slightly mentholated. Drier notes only show in the very end.
Longmorn 1976 tends to show more citrus fruits compared to 1975 vintages. That’s not the case for this Perfect Dram: it’s very warm and fruity and the jammy / beehive / pastry notes make it exactly to my liking (and rather similar to 1972 Caperdonich in some respects).
I dare to say it’s my favourite Longmorn among all those releases of the last two years, even though they were all high quality. Around € 180 – now sold out.
Score: 94/100