Dalmore The Portfolio Series No.1

A Dalmore, a distillery bottling, at 46.8%, 5000 bottles in all. Dalmore is a full bodied, sherried Highland single malt from the shores of the Cromarty Firth. Most expressions are finished in aged sherry wood, giving orange, chocolate and treacle.

Made in copper stills whose water jackets give a heavy make, giving the thick, oily spirit that drinks sherry so well. First fill bourbon gave a fuller vanilla and orange over the rich spirit. With no age statement, the oak has given vanillin as vanilla and oak lactones as coconut over the rich, sherried spirit. An aged Oloroso cask suits the rich spirit, dried fruit and chocolate meeting the oily weight. Its flat topped wash stills and water jacketed spirit stills build a thick, rich, oily spirit. Refill oak lets the full bodied Dalmore character lead, orange and dried fruit beneath. The Mackenzie clan ran it from 1867, and gave it the twelve pointed Royal Stag, after an ancestor saved King Alexander III from a charging stag in 1263.

Bottled at 46.8%, it is rounded. Orange, dark chocolate and dried fruit, with a soft vanilla from the oak. The texture is thick and oily, the fruit lifted by a rich sherry. The finish is long, rich and chocolatey. This is Dalmore's opulent, chocolate orange Highland style.