Mortlach 12 Year Old The Wee Witchie
Mogwai
1 284
Review by @markjedi1
- Nose~
- Taste~
- Finish~
- Balance~
- Overall84
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For years Mortlach was only available as a 16 Year old in the Flora & Fauna series, but in 2015 Diageo decided to ‘premiumise’ the brand. It was replaced by a NAS (Rare Old), and 18 and 25 years old, but the prices were so high that the bottles gathered dust on the shelves. So Diageo rethought their strategy and replaced the core range once more with an (more) affordable 12, 16 and 20 years old. I’ll gladly try them for you. Let me start with the 12 Year Old, named The Wee Witchi after the small No 1 Wines Still with a contents of a mere 7.880 liters.
The nose is fruity and sweet on sugared oranges, plums, sultanas with a soft note of vanilla. Pretty creamy. Some cinnamon and nutmeg. Hint of pencil shavings and banana peel.
Creamy and quite spicy on nutmeg, ginger and woodspice on the palate. Less sweet than the nose announce. More like sweet & sour. Lovely notes of orange marmalade, chewing tobacco and some gooseberries. I light bitterness as well. Nice.
Pretty long finish that allows the bitter note to continue and leaves the mouth fairly dry. Luckily it is sweet enough to not become astringent. It does remain quite spicy.
Despite the young age, this Mortlach is already quite round and spicy with a good body. The Mogwai of the series.
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Thanks for your review, Mark. I had this Mortlach 12, as well as their current OB 16 yo and 20 yo recently at the 2019 The Tales of the Cocktail. I liked all three, and found no sulphur to bother lthem. I was shocked when the rep informed me that their 12 yo would sell at around $ 55, a seeming step back from their earlier premiumization pricing. .