Longmorn 10 Year Single Malt – Cask Strength Single Cask!

LONGMORN SINGLE MALT
Exclusive first-fill sherry single cask selected by K&L (2022)

MASH BILL – 100% malted barley

PROOF – 112

AGE – 10 years 11 months

DISTILLERY – Longmorn Distillery (Bottled by Hart Brothers)

PRICE – $81

WORTH BUYING? – Yes

Tasted in The Year of No Buying (The what? 🔗 here.)

Longmorn is a lesser known distillery in the Speyside region of Scotland. Owned by Pernod Ricard, the French company that oversees a wide range of international alcohol brands, Longmorn mostly goes into blends like Chivas Regal. Releases under the Longmorn name rarely make it to the US, but can be found in small quantities in and around Scotland.

Luckily for American scotch fans, secondary bottlers like Hart Brothers are a dependable source for single cask, usually cask strength, releases of single malt and single grain whiskies from these less widely promoted distilleries. Some, like Longmorn, have been around for generations. Their teams are experienced distillers with the depth and breadth of practical knowledge that can only come with time. How the whiskies and related brands are then managed by the company that owns them is another matter. Operations like Hart Brothers, which buy single casks from multiple distilleries and often continue to age them in their own warehouses, offer whisky fans the opportunity to explore the many side streams obscured by the louder mainstream brands that all together make up the teeming ecosystem of scotch whisky.

This is my first experience with Longmorn. It’s three weeks since I uncorked this bottle and I’m a full handful of pours into it. These brief notes were taken using a traditional Glencairn.

COLOR – clear buttery and lemon yellows, very reflective of the world around the glass

NOSE – fresh and breezy, zingy lemon , juicy pineapple, bright pine sap, light vanilla-caramel, a light ethanol and/or tannic edge

TASTE – both syrupy and silky, the bright flavor notes hit first (fruit, citrus, pine, vanilla) followed by a wave of- not darker, but warmer notes like caramel sauce and milk chocolate pudding, ending with an outline of the brighter pine and citrus

FINISH – caramel, milk chocolate, lemon, vanilla, that light ethanol/tannic edge

OVERALL – bright, refreshing, springy, summery, desserty

This was aged in a first-fill sherry cask? I’d have guessed bourbon all the way. The caramel, vanilla, and milk chocolate base serve up the brighter fruit, citrus and pine notes well. That edgy aspect that veers between ethanol and tannins cuts a thin flaw into what is otherwise delightfully clear and sunny.

I can understand why Longmorn makes such a solid backbone for blends. It’s approachable, easy to like, complex without being complicated, and fun. It really does come across like a warm sunny day.

I’m thrown by it a bit, I’ll admit. My knowledge of the first-fill sherry cask involved tosses my expectations of the impact of sherry into the air. Could be it’s adding to the warmer aspects of the candy notes. But there’s certainly none of the red fruit or sulfur I tend to expect. If I sit quietly and search through the finish, maybe… But that could also be me projecting my expectations onto my senses. Wouldn’t be the first time!

All in all, a delightful dram. Not a mind-blower. Not a must-have. It’s the good table wine of whisky. And, quality cask strength single malts aged near 11 years for this price are increasingly rare. Similarly aged cask strength Laphroaig, for example, goes for around $90 before taxes on a good day. And a decade+ cask strength Macallan? Forget it.

So three cheers for the side stream distilleries. And thank you to Hart Brothers and Hunter Laing and Alexander Murray and the like for making such gems available in a world drenched in mass marketed mediocrity. This humble Longmorn release is yet another bottle of evidence that one need not bother with the most obvious players to enjoy solid single malt scotch whisky.

Cheers!