Millburn 17 Year Old 1971 Gordon & Macphail

Millburn. Never heard of it. Which comes as no surprise as the distillery closed in 1985 and was demolished in 1988. She started life as the Inverness Distillery in 1807, but then was converted into a grain mill. Only in 1876 was she reinstalled as a distillery, renamed Millburn. This 17 Year Old, a distillate from a time when I was still running around in a diaper, was bottled at the end of the eighties of last century by Gordon & Macphail.

The nose is, to put it mildly, weird. Pilchards! You know, canned sardines in tomato sauce. I kid you not. It evolves towards mashed potatoes with loads of butter. Umami that slowly turns sweet, but it does need a lot of time. Some apple sauce emerges. Boy, this is quite a new experience. And it is my first Millburn!

On the palate, it is equally strange. The apple sauce is served on a paper plate that has been too close to a fire. And suddenly a truckload of lavender turns up. Parma violets. Becomes soapy, in fact. A salty lining and trace of smoke cannot save this one anymore.

The finish, unfortunately, is rather long.

What a weird malt this is!

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