Dalmore 33 Years Old Rare & Prestige Serie Distilled: 21.03.1973 Cabernet Sauvignon Cask Bottle No. 657 Of 1000 Bottles 45% 1973

Professional reviews

Serge Valentin (87)

Let’s try this fantamagnibulous new Dalmore…

Colour: dark amber with orangey/reddish hues.

Nose: no wine, rather ultra-bold notes of varnish to start with, getting then slightly minty and camphory. Goes on with even bolder notes of old rum (really, it smells more of rum than whisky), incense, sandalwood, guignolet (cherry liqueur) and finally vanilla crème and arranged rum (dark rum with sliced bananas and pineapples). Gets a little less extravagant with time but also very slightly beefy. No odd winey note that I can get, the whole being a success on the nose I think.

Mouth: we have the same heavy woodiness at the start, with these varnishy notes, lots of tannins and toasted bread, huge notes of liquorice sticks. Also bitter chocolate, unsugared black tea, cinnamon… We’ve also got a little more wine here but it doesn’t stay apart at all (big notes of blackcurrant leaves)…

The finish is very long but very oaky, still sort of varnishy, tannic, drying… Yet, all that wood sort of works here, but you have to like this style. You can feel that something unusual happened to this old whisky!