Duncan Taylor Dalmunach 2016

The very rare, exclusive (and slightly spooky) appearance of one of Scotland’s biggest distilleries that only a special few scant drops ever make it into the world as a single malt whisky. It’s the utterly fabulous 750ml bottling of a 2016 Dalmunach 8-year-old single malt whisky!

The Duncan Taylor Dalmunach 2016 8-year-old is a single ex-bourbon cask (no.10843869) matured for 8 years at the distillery, then split into the smaller (French oak ex-sherry) Octave casks and finished in these for a further 9 months before being re-married and bottled exclusively for the Single Malt Whisky Club at a delicious 46% abv. Oh… nearly forgot to mention, this has been bottled in 750ml bottles, so an extra dram than usual per bottle – JOY!

This 2016 Dalmunach (like July’s Malt of the Month, the Duncan Taylor 2008 Glenrothes) has undergone finishing in Duncan Taylor’s ‘Octave’ program. The ‘Octave’ program involves finishing the whisky in small – Octave – casks of around 70 litres capacity. These Octaves are hand selected French oak casks whose smaller size (hence larger surface to area ratio) means more interaction between the spirit and the wood – speeding up the finishing time for the whisky.

Dalmunach Distillery was built (by Pernot Ricard) on the site of the old Imperial Distillery (which had made whisky for inclusion in such blends as Teacher’s, Ballantine’s and Old Smuggler) which had closed years before. Work began in the new distillery in 2013 and much of the materials from the old Imperial distillery were re-used in the new Dalmunach distillery. The end result is truly a thing of architectural beauty, sitting on the edge of the pool on the River Spey that the distillery is named for. What an impressive (and thoroughly modern) distillery it is – 16 washbacks (where fermentation occurs) of 59,000l each, 8 stills of 30,000l capacity each (4 wash stills, 4 spirit stills) all producing over 10 MILLION litres of 69%abv new make every year. And yet, effectively 0% of that vast amount of whisky is ever released under the distilleries own label.

Now Dalmunach distillery is both a comparatively young distillery (completed 2015) and now one of Scotland’s biggest producers at around 10 million litres per year output. Conversely – it has one of the LOWEST outputs of self-branded single malt whiskies of all the Scottish distilleries. All but a dribble of Dalmunach’s wonderful spirit goes into such blends as Chivas Regal, Ballantine’s, 100 Pipers and Royal Salute (to name a few). The Dalmunach style is light, fruity and floral – which makes it perfect for balancing out heavier malts and providing those lighter ‘top’ notes in these blends.

With so much of the Dalmunach spirit being used in these blends, we’re fortunate that some Indy bottlers like Duncan Taylor are able to snag limited quantities before it’s blended away. Duncan Taylor are one of the biggest and most respected independent bottlers in the world. Founded in 1938, originally established in Glasgow and later relocating to Huntly in Aberdeenshire. Duncan Taylor owns one of the largest privately held collections of rare and aged Scotch whisky casks, including many from now-closed (silent) distilleries.