Kinclaith whisky

1) Sorry - no trivia about Kinclaith yet...
 

Kinclaith 36yo 1969/2005 (50,1%, Duncan Taylor Rarest of the Rare, Cask 301456, 152 Bottles)
Nose: Deep sweetness at first. Then a lot of other stuff emerges. Discussed it rather than wrote it down.
Taste: Herbal like the Cadenhead's, but with the sweetness the balance is MUCH better now. Sherried.
Score: 85 points - which once again proves that the 20yo Cadenhead's bottling was an exception.

Kinclaith 35yo 1969/2004 (53.2%, Duncan Taylor Rarest of the Rare, C#301455, 207 Bottles)
Nose: Liquorice & aniseed. Not terribly expressive. String beans. Hint of oil. Minerals. You have to work at it.
Taste: Pleasant enough, but a little nondescript. Dry and a tad gritty. You can't really taste the age here.
Score: 78 points - a little 'better' than average, but at this age (and price) I would expect something more.

Kinclaith 35yo 1969/2004 (54%, Signatory Vintage, Cask #301443, 217 Bottles)
Nose: Liquorice & aniseed again. Quite subtle. Malty. Paprika. Farmy. Sweaty. Minerals. More oil. Turnip.
Taste: Quite hot and a little gritty. Tannins. Not nearly as interesting on the palate as in the nose, I'm afraid.
Score: 81 points - a class up from the Duncan Taylor bottling, but still not particulary impressive for a 35yo.

Kinclaith 26yo 1975 (52.3%, James McArthur) - sampled on Islay with some other maniacs
Nose: sweet, sherried and polished. Very rich, it reminded me of a tangerine liqueur like Grand Marnier.
Turkish delight. It grew spicier over time. This could very well be my favourite Kinclaiyh ever.
Taste: I found lots of tangerine on the palate as well. Marmelade; a highly enjoyable interplay of bitter & sweet.
Score: 88 points - a highly satisfying experience, and the highest scoring expression I've found so far.

Kinclaith 20yo (46%, Cadenhead, Black Label, Bottled +/- 1990)
Nose: Light & dusty. Not very expressive. Parafin. Gasoline. Opens up for brief episodes. Hint of peat?
Taste: Extremely herbal at first. Pine and resin. Perfumy. Faintest hint of antiquity. Plywood. Not my type.
Score: 57 points - I actually tried this before and feared I underscored it. I'll stick to my original score.

Kinclaith 1966 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail CC, Old map label, Bottled +/- 1985, 5cl) - a sample from Serge.
Nose: A little creamy, quite sweet and the faintest hint of oil. Then more organics emerge.
Growing complexity over time. Mint. Toffee. Subtle - it's hard to describe the other aroma's.
Taste: Oooh... Flat, bitter and a little soapy at first, growing fruitier in the centre. Metallic.
After some time the taste grew on me as well, although the finish is a tad too winey for me.
Score: 81 points - but please note that this one definitely needs some time to get there. The funny thing is that, after I sent Serge my score for the Kinclaith, he told me this had been his 1000th whisky (not exclusively single malts) as well. I didn't know that, but I complement him on his choice.
 

These were all the (independent) expressions of Kinclaith I've tried over the years.
 
My Track Record used to contain a complete overview of all the single malts I've tried, but when I passed the 2000 malts mark (and the complete whisky list wouldn't fit on two separate HTML pages anymore) I gave up. My Liquid Log still contains my tasting notes on most single malts I've sampled and scored, though. You can find a specific expression through the search box at the top of each distillery profile. The mAlmanac now contains (purely personal) selections of some of the best single malts and the worst whiskies I've tried so far - as well as the ones with the highest 'Bang-For-Your-Buck' value. But those tasting notes and scores only reflect my own, purely personal opinions.

On Serge's distillery profile on Whiskyfun you can find another perspective on the whisky made at this distillery.
Check out the Malt Maniacs Monitor on Malt Maniacs for my scores on all expressions I've tried so far - and those of almost all the other certified malt maniacs as well. The Malt Maniacs Matrix contains a few thousand single malts that were sampled and scored by at least four different malt maniacs, so you can compare our individual opinions.
 
 

Kinclaith distillery was the last malt whisky distillery to be constructed in the
Glasgow area - as part of the Strathclyde grain whisky distillery. The Kinclaith
single malt whisky is extremely difficult to find; it was used mainly in blends
and the distillery operated for less than twenty years.
 
Cadenhead's and Gordon & MacPhail did offer a few bottlings of Kinclaith
several years ago, but since the distillery was closed (or rather the special set
of pot stills at Strathclyde that was used to produce Kinclaith was dismantled)
in 1975, it's highly unlikely that more bottlings will ever be released.
 
Because Kinclaith is so rare, this single malt malt commands a high price when
it does come up for auction. If you ask me, it's just not worth it...

There's precious little to tell about Kinclaith but when I asked the other malt maniacs to write some distilleriy profiles for closed distilleries, Davin de Kergommeaux from Canada still made a valliant attempt;
 

Kinclaith Distillery Profile - by Davin de kergommeaux

It's safe to say there was no pagoda atop the Kinclaith Distillery, no quaint dunnage warehouses with earthen floors and blackened, low, stone walls.  A babbling burn did not deliver the purest water in Scotland to mash the barley or cool the condensers.
No, Kinclaith was part of a big, ugly, urban, industrial complex. 
Yet someone in that complex cared about Kinclaith, for in its 18 short years of production some fine, and now much-sought-after malts emerged. All that remains of Kinclaith is a sign in the Strathclyde grain distillery, with the simple text: Strathclyde & Long John Distillers Limited  Kinclaith Distillery  1957  Glasgow.  For Kinclaith was an afterthought - a malt distillery housed within the mammoth Strathclyde grain distillery at 40 Moffat Street near the Glasgow airport.

Kinclaith was built in 1957 by Long John Distillers, its malt used almost entirely in-house for Long John blends.  Then Strathclyde was sold to Whitbread in 1975 and production of Kinclaith came to a halt as the distillery was dismantled to make way for more grain whisky production at Strathclyde.  What a shame that so often only hindsight is 20/20.

Releases are few and tasting notes rare, but reviewing what is available would lead one to wonder if Kinclaith had a distillery style at all. In any case notes for both smoky and fruity versions exist.  Michael Jackson in 1989 declared a Gordon & MacPhail bottling lightly fruity – melon dusted with ginger.  The melon comment has survived to date in many derivative articles and tasting notes, though no one else seems to have actually tasted it.  Jackson found a 20yo Cadenhead version light, gingery, aromatic and dry.  This is likely the same version Johannes called flat and grainy on the nose with maybe a whiff of smoke.  The palate too, was flat, spirity and very dry with no obvious character.  Neither Jackson nor Johannes particularly liked the Cadenhead bottling.  Wallace Milroy also found smoke and spirit in another Cadenhead bottling.

Serge and Olivier both tried a 1966 G&M version, which performed much better with scores in the high 80's. 
The nose was peppery with cooked apples, butterscotch, fresh pastry and hot croissants.  On the palate Serge found salted caramel, butter and lots of herbal tea notes, then cooked spinach, licorice, burned cake, coffee liqueur and roasted pecans.  Overall it was quite malty and salty.  Hmm… a salty Lowland whisky from an industrial area of Glasgow.  It does, once more, put the lie to the romantic stories of salt-sea air penetrating barrels, for no doubt Kinclaith was also warehoused in Glasgow. 

My own experience with Kinclaith is limited to a single bottling, probably a re-bottling, from James MacArthur's Fine Malt Selection.  More than anything, this lovely Kinclaith had benefited from years in a sherry butt.  The nose was very much like candied orange and there was the ginger that Jackson had found in his G&M version.  Is that the common thread? ginger?  but then more herbal tea notes appeared.  On the rich palate again the candied orange was right up front with lots of Christmas spices.  Just an excellent whisky by any standards and all the more for it's being so rare.  Two releases from Duncan Taylor are said to be in the same vein.  Other releases number only a few though one can hope that lying in some forgotten corner of some forgotten warehouse others will turn up, for this really is a whisky worth trying before we make our final judgments on the Lowlands.

So there you have Kinclaith, an ugly, short-lived, city-based, Lowland distillery with no official bottlings and only a handful of independents that stretch from barely drinkable to quite spectacular.  A whisky rarely seen but much coveted, with prices to match.

Davin de Kergommeaux