Scotch Whisky Review #346: Adelphi Rosebank 14 Year (1991)

Image Credit: /u/b1uepenguin, his review can be found here.

Distillery: Rosebank.

Bottler: Adelphi.

Region: Lowland.

Age: 14 Year. Distilled in 1991, Bottled in 2006.

ABV: 53.9%.

Cask Type: Refill American Oak Barrel

Cask Number: 2051

Price: Sample courtesy of /u/KissMeElon.

Color: 0.2, Pale Straw.

This is the 11th installment of this years’ Christmas Countdown. You can see the 2020 edition here and 2019 edition here.

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Nose: It’s fruity with assorted grapes galore. There’s some heather along with grass and a lot of malt.

Palate: Quite hot and needs water before its drinkable. With a splash of water, it does calm down thankfully. There’s some sweeter notes in the form of honey and malt barley. The main and quite dominant note is a floral one, heather to be specific. It stays on the side of pleasantly floral, but any more than whats here and it could easily have been “it tastes like soap” levels of it.

Finish: Much like the Gordon & MacPhail 12 year bottling we tried right before this, the finish on this is super short and virtually just vanishes. Similar to the 12 year, it leaves behind a clean aftertaste.

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Conclusion: Second in our lineup for “dead & zombie distillery night” was another Rosebank. This one had two years more in the cask and also bottled at a much higher ABV so I was curious to see if there was any noticeable difference. Compared to the 12 year Gordon & MacPhail 12 year offering, this was noticeably hotter but also noticeably simpler. While the base profiles of flavors are virtually identical, this Adelphi bottling leans heavy on heather and heather alone while the 12 year introduced some other floral elements. Not bad by any stretch of the imagination, just quite simple.

Final Score: 77.

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Scotch Whisky Review #346, Lowland Review #13, Whisky Network Review #496

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Scoring Legend:

• 96-100: The perfect dram, nectar of the gods.
• 90-95: Near perfect, there is something truly special about this whisky.
• 85-89: Amazing, will always try to keep a bottle of this in my collection (if feasible).
• 80-84: Very Good, maybe only one minor nitpick about the whisky keeping it here.
• 75-79: Good, quite enjoyable to drink.
• 70-74: Solid, wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
• 60-69: Meh, still drinkable.
• Below 59: If you have a bottle of this, start cooking with it instead.