Longmorn, located near Elgin, one of Speyside’s most noted distilling towns (not to mention the home of renowned independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail) is a shining example of the fickleness of the whisky industry. The distillery was built by John Duff in 1893. Five years later, he built another distillery called BenRiach right next door. Although neither whisky had an especially high profile as a single malt, for most of their respective lives, Longmorn seemed to be the more fortunate--as well as the elder--sibling. While BenRiach experienced intermittent closures and peculiar experiments with peat, Longmorn chugged along producing a somewhat obscure whisky highly respected among blenders, critics and connoisseurs.
If either whisky were destined for stardom, it seemed to be Longmorn. But a change in ownership shifted their respective fortunes: both were originally part of the Chivas Bros. empire, but BenRiach was closed and then sold to an independent consortium interested in promoting it as a single malt while Longmorn continued to toil away providing fillings for blends. BenRiach’s new owners successfully leveraged it into a widely known and respected single malt brand with a raft of affordable and imaginative bottlings, while Longmorn has largely stayed put, with only a handful of official bottlings and a relatively low profile.
For quite awhile, the sole official bottling of Longmorn was an excellent 15 year old, later replaced by this 16 year old; lately, there is a no age statement bottling and a slightly repackaged 16 year old. My thoughts on this middle iteration (which should still be relatively easy to find):
Region: Speyside
Nose: Surprisingly light, fresh and tangy--apple Laffy Taffy. Elmer’s glue. Strawberries and cream. Apple juice. Pear is in the mix as well, becoming more pronounced with subsequent nosings, and there’s even some green grape.
Body: Medium, surprisingly sharp and aggressive.
Palate: Apples, vanilla and Bourbon-soaked wood chips. Ricolla cough drops--mountain herbs and roots. Quite hot and spicy--the apples have cracked peppercorns on them? Becoming richer with both dark chocolate and dry red wine and still that chili edge.
Finish: Medium to long; drying to pleasant woodiness with some dark chocolate notes.
Score: 86/100
Comment: Not bad, but a big step down from the old 15 year old that preceded this bottling. If you can lay your hands on the old 15 year old instead, do so.
Price: $65-85. To be honest, a little overpriced for the quality.
Availability: Specialist retailers? It’s still being bottled at 16 years of age, but the packaging has been changed slightly, so I’m not sure whether the liquid in the bottle on newer iterations would be noticeably different.
