Craigellachie 11 Year Old 1999 Commitment to Malt

Commitment to Malt is a Dutch whisky club with plenty of members. They often bottle single malts for them (I have tasted a few and even have three of their Auchentoshan in my collection, thanks to my Dutch friend Imanuel). The new bottles finally have a lable worth looking at. This 11 Year Old is a distillate from 1999.

The nose is very prickly. Mostly white fruit (apple and pear) and garden herbs. Thyme, I think. It is very powerful. After some patience, it also offers a lot vanilla and caramel. Some crystal sugar, too. This is much better than the Carn Mor version, although it only matured two more years. Well, in this case that means 20% more maturation, of course.

Slightly creamy with a lovely smoky edge. Surprising. Where did that come from? But very powerful again. This cannot be 46%. Must be cask strength. Printing error on the label? This needs water. That makes it honeysweet on caramel, vanilla and sweet apple juice.

The finish is fairly long and spicy, even diluted.

Imanuel already hinted that this was a cask strength bottling, despite the 46% on the label. I tend to agree with him, for this is a very powerful Craigellachie. With water, though, it goes down like lemonade. Thanks, Imanuel.

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