2017/04 - Ben Nevis - McDonald's Traditional

Mein Whisky des Monats April ist ein Spontankauf bei meinem Besuch bei BestWhisky in Stuttgart. Ich hab ihn auf Empfehlung von Peter Sondheim probiert und war sofort überzeugt. Bisher hatte ich nur 2 Abfüllungen von Ben Nevis probiert und keine hatte mich wirklich beeindruckt.

Dieser Whisky wurde, untypisch für 'Ben  Nevis', teilweise mit getorfter Gerste hergestellt und 5 Jahre gereift.  
Diese Abfüllung wurde ursprünglich zum 185. Jubiläum der Brennerei kreiert und ist einem Blended Malt nachempfunden, der 1882 aus Malts der Brennereien Nevis und Ben Nevis hergestellt wurde (Die komplette Geschichte findet Ihr in der Abschrift des Booklet-Textes am Ende des Artikels).  
Bei der International Wine and Sprit Competition (IWSC 2012) wurde der Whisky mit der Gold Outstanding Medal in der Kategorie Whisky ausgezeichnet. 

 

46% Vol. - 5 Jahre - Sherryfässer

 

Aroma: Kräftiger Sherry, reifer Pfirsich, Blutorange, Gewürze und leichter Rauch. 
Geschmack: Voll und cremig, Rauch im Antritt, gefolgt von Blutorange und Grapefruit, dann Walnuss und Schokolade. 
Abgang: Ziemlich lang und würzig. 
Fazit: Der Whisky hat tatsächlich einen old-fashioned Style, der mir ausgesprochen gut gefällt. 

Inhalt des beigefügten Booklets: 
Delving back into the history of our distillery we have discovered a number of interesting facts of distilling practices within our company. In this whisky we have attempted, as far as possible, to replicate this famous world-widely distributed malt whisky dating from 1882. At that time both the Ben Nevis and the Nevis Distilleries were producing malt spirit under the leadership and ownership of Donald Peter McDonald, son of the famous Long John McDonald, for use in the celebrated Dew of Ben Nevis Malt Whisky. From our research we know that he had his own fleet of small ships, sourcing barley from the rich fertile lands of Moray Firth and coal from Ayrshire.  
He also had his own peat moss on the lower slopes of the Ben Nevis mountain. From this we can ascertain that at that time the still would have been coal fired, and the peat would have been used to fuel the fire which would lightly toast this Moray Firth barley during the malting process when the green malt would have been dried in the kiln. This malt whisky would have been sold at a younger age than is currently fashionable today. 
Although the stills are no longer directly fired with coal, we currently use live steam from our Cochran boiler to fire the stills, the old peat workings on the lower slopes of Ben Nevis have long since been exhausted, we have sourced our peated malted barley from independent suppliers who continue to obtain their cereal from fertile coastal plains of the Moray Firth lands. Sadly, the Nevis Distillery   has now been demolished to make way for housing, so we have had to rely on production solely from Ben Nevis Distillery for this whisky. However, we do believe that this whisky which was fermented with a mixture of fresh culture yeast and brewer's yeast (skimmed and pressed from beer fermentations), distilled and then matured for at least five years, replicates, as near as possible, this renowned original whisky from 1882, bottled almost 130 years later.