Linkwood 7 Year Old 2008 Signatory for De Cluysenaer

Linkwood is a Speyside distillery, founded in 1821. She is a stone’s throw away from BenRiach and Longmorn. In 1840, when she was run by James Walker, she had a capacity of 90.000 liters. By 1900 that had increased to 227.000 liters. Today she is owned by Diageo and supplies whisky for famous blends such as White Horse, Haig, Bells and Dimple. It is not easy to find official releases. There is the Fauna & Flora and Rare Malt Selection bottlings, but at independent bottlers you come across Linkwood more frequently. In this case, I am trying a single cask, bottled by Signatory for the famous Belgian whisky restaurant De Cluysenaer (‘The Hermit’).

The nose is candy sweet on white fruit, mostly pears. Peach, maybe? A lovely waxiness as if from paraffine. That becomes quite loud in fact. Also loads of tannins, but in all honesty little else.

It is fairly oily on the palate. A bit of pepper. It is better on the palate than the nose promised. A bit feisty, even. Again the white fruit, but now also some pineapple. From the second sip forward it even turns beautifully fruity.

The finish is short to medium long on spices that slowly fade away.

This is not a grand Linkwood, but nevertheless a very nice card player’s whisky.

Find where to buy Linkwood whisky