hello multi marvelous meticulous malt meisters and thank you to richard kelly
for that malt mention richard hello and to your wonderful partner as well
i met you both in a supermarket on the island a few weeks ago and um
here we are you've waited a wee while but here is your mop mention introducing ralphie review 898
and i've recently completed a series of 10 and 12 year old relatively widely available
official bottling single malt whiskies and i'm now going to move on to what i referred to
from a patreon pulse when i was intimating what i was going to be reviewing over the next four weeks
i flippantly called last of the affordable whiskies and time will tell as to whether
that's true but i would advise you malt mates that we're entering a period of global inflation and
if you do have the resources it's a good idea to stock up on the good quality available whiskeys
now because the way things are looking from the bothy in the irish sea prices are just going to go
up and keep going up and you'll find yourself if you've got maybe a dozen or so bottles set aside
in your stash and i know it requires a little bit of self-discipline not to open up all these
bottles in a short space of time but hey we're about quality not quantity that's the fact of it
and we have that self-discipline to buy a bottle that we don't open for quite a while i bought this
bottle um quite a number of months ago i'll narrow that down about down a bit about four months ago
and there was no rush to open it immediately i opened it one month ago had my first taste of it
and i found it a little bit confectionary and two-dimensional and that's not a problem because
i can tell you right now when you have your first taste experience and you're not entirely happy
with it just leave the bottle in your shelf for another month and come back to it and you will
find that it's slightly improved and will continue for a short period of time for a few months
to improve as it opens up a little bit and oxidizes a little bit as regards going past the
point of being its best version of itself you're really looking at younger whiskeys depending on
the temperature in which you're storing you're looking at eight months a year sometimes more
with older whiskeys more delicate whiskeys with big age statements and big price tags
they will oxidize a lot more quickly and you may find that they're kind of losing their energy
after about four or five months this is one traditional reason why decanters were used
not just for presentation but you know decanters would be slightly smaller than the standard bottle
and therefore they would basically you could have a few glasses from the bottle and then
decant into something a smaller vessel and it would help regulate the degree of oxidization
there you go the whiskey i'm reviewing for you the first
of a series of 15 year old whiskies is going to be tully barton and tully barton gets this is
making another very rare appearance on ralphie.com bear in mind i've reviewed
teddy on towards a thousand whiskies and i've already used reviewed tilly burden once before
and it was an independent bottling because frankly i found independent bottlings more to my palette
however the official bottlings are certainly more widely available so i'm sharing this with you
because independent bottlings of tully barton out with of europe
are hard to find you'd be struggling to see them gordon macphail do them caden heads do
them believe signatory occasionally do them you will find with the small independent bottlers
more of these independent versions are going to surface and i highly recommend you keep your nose
out for them because i have great expectations from independent bottlers who are going to present
more naturally and more authentically than the official bottling bless them
this is a 43 it's got an age statement that's a good start but sure it's chill filtered
and it's probably got some caramel color in it i'm having a quick secondary look in case i've missed
any small print however i've got my reading glasses on so it's highly unlikely
yeah it's a generic bottling thank goodness it's at 43 and not 40 otherwise my review would be
worse than it's going to be but it's still a decent malt but as i kind of alluded to at the
start of this video when you first open the bottle of tilly bardon 15 year old i know it looks the
part particularly with the packaging i'll come to that shortly but i think you're going to be
disappointed it's going to be very reminiscent of a standard bland bottling of fettuccine
confectionery sweet barley sugar rapid arrival quite an offensive very jobbing very practical
reasonably soft development with a bit of banana in it but spices in the background a typical
genetic highland whiskey and a competent enough finish which is rather clipped at the end because
of the chill filtration completely removing the mouth feel and texture of the whiskey
but here's the nose let's start with the nose i've i've spent about a month with this i haven't
consumed that much but i've consumed enough to help me get my bearings to share with you
slight sweet and sour barley sugar sultana soft soft raisin filling vanilla some spices in the
background nothing distinct um and that's what the first thing you notice about this it's a
very generalized malt it doesn't really have a punchy signature not like kleinlisch for example
or glenn farkles
in the glass it will start to become a little bit more aromatic you'll get some slightly spice
mild vegetal herbaceous notes and the herb herbal part of this
it's a little bit of mint
a little bit of
angelica
sage mild and really that's about it first taste
sharp acidic arrival straight into the development fairly short no length to it
for its age a 15 year old whiskey should have more length but the processing that's done it
you get this sweet slightly cloying confectionery
um banana middle section in the development which is masking the complexity there
time to add some water the finish mild ginger a bit of vanilla not such a lot adding water
i've added about one and a half two milliliters that's really all i'm prepared to add to this
i would recommend a minute in the glass for each year in the cask however while that whiskey's
opening up let's go to the presentation packaging this bottling would definitely be at home in a
travel retail shop you have cosmetic presentation a big heavy duty cardboard box with plastic on it
and a sort of open gate front with a little frame um all tastefully done a matte interior you
even get a little sachet of um activated carbon deodorizer now i'm not sure why they would want
to deodorize a container for a bottle of whiskey um initially i thought that this was um basically
to stop any humidity in the box but it clearly stakes in the packet uh deodorizer do not eat so
that's that
quite a hefty amount of weight to this box they've got a qr code in the back it's nice to see that
so they're going to direct you i'm sure to the website where you can look at the other non-age
statement single malts but i can if you're going out to buy a tully garden i recommend the muddy
that's the one to go for not this one but this one has an
age statement so i'm going with this at the moment uh because that's my policy
how much did this carton cost i'd reckon it cost at least five pounds
probably more and that of course is added to the cost of the whiskey and if the whiskey is an
accessible price for a 15 year old which this is it's a very good indication of the demand for a
single malt this particular single malt and in my opinion tully barden are really selling themselves
short i'm going to give tilly barton some advice here because i know tilly barton at some point
will catch up with this video it's quite simple here here's my message to you tully barton
do this 15 year old uncle filtered natural color at 46 percent
remove the carton completely just sell the bottle on its own
and watch how the sales suddenly appear if you want any more advice from the bothy from ralphie
here it is go over to loch lomond and see how they're presenting their whiskey and do it but
do what you're whiskey a bit more like they're doing their whiskey
good luck to you now i've added some water let's come back to the nose
a little more interesting a little more of vitality and complexity in the nose
it's more aromatic you're seeing more going on there's more gentle soft fruits
that are got a certain pungency to them and they're lifting
away from the almost the sanitization on the nose of the barley sugar smell
it's just simply more complex taste
there's more bitter with the sour
far more interesting that's it
excuse me i went down the wrong way that's my punishment for criticism
just a tiny drop of water and you see such a dramatic difference in the palette in particular
that's a really good telltale sign by the way you'll find it time and time again of a single
malt under achieving and underperforming it's when you you add a drop of water and suddenly it seems
to it wants to come alive it can deliver so much more but it's not there because of the the the
bottling strength you see this all the time with glenn going um and there really is something quite
special and singular about the single malt but we just don't see it not in this style of bottling
um back to the taste i'll do the development in the finish and then i'll give it a more mark
a much more expressive arrival the bitterness
challenges that sweet confectionary note that you first come across very successfully it balances
out it in increases the sensation range which then delivers the flavors in the whiskey more complex
in a more complex style now we're getting bitter lemon in here the citrus is becoming more visible
the savory herbaceous note is just in the background nicely filling on all the
little corners and and creating something more dynamic which is not reaching its full potential
but it's there it is there but it's commuted it's commuted and it's muted
um the finish clean and fresh mild ginger lemon rind a little bit of bitter and sour
it's really sensations which define the finish rather than flavors but thank goodness added
some water to this or else i would never have noticed it anyway let's give this a multi mark
la la la la la
83 out of 100 it's a malt mark from ralphie in the buffy now
if you want to head back again to my channel shortly for ralphie review 898
i will be talking about a trend in packaging
in scotch whiskey which i think is very interesting
and i'm going to give you my perspective on it
so stay tuned thanks for watching subscribe if you haven't already subscribed
and if you'd like to follow me on patreon my patreon patreon.com channel is called ralphie see