As part of Hopscotch last year, I was lucky enough to attend a “Scotch and Chocolate” tasting at the amazing Legacy Liquor Store. One of the selections was this Coopers Choice bottling of a Knockdhu 10-year from 1998 (which was paired with a Madagascan dark chocolate if you’re interested!). It stood out immediately as a very different experience to the other whiskies at the tasting, and I bought one of the few bottles available immediately afterwards. So what was it that made it so memorable?
Before we get into that, let’s take a look at the origins of this delicate and delicious spirit. Knockdhu is not one of the major single-malt distilleries and you could be forgiven for being unfamiliar with it. Located in Aberdeenshire in the tiny village of Knock, the distillery was built in 1893 and and began production in 1894. Knockdhu was producing spirit for almost a hundred years before closing in 1983 during a widespread slump in the Scotch whisky industry. Happily, it was bought some time later by Inver House Distillers and re-opened in 1989. These days it produces single malts under the name “anCnoc”, as the name “Knockdhu” was considered too close to Knockando, another distillery not too far away.
This particular bottling is from The Vintage Malt Whisky Company under their Coopers Choice brand. While the label doesn’t actually state it directly, this is certainly a single-cask offering, matured for 10 years and bottled from an unspecified type of “oak cask” in 2008 (I’d guess it’s an ex-bourbon cask myself).
The colour is a very pale straw. Incidentally, don’t consider this a sign of a lack of flavour – colour tells you very little about the taste of a whisky. To take an extreme example, Ardbeg offerings for instance are often very pale, almost clear but they’re anything but thin when it comes to the flavour!
The Knockdhu distillery's location within Scotland - up in Aberdeenshire near Speyside.
As with any whisky, take your time nosing before tasting to get the full experience. I got cereal, honey and apples when nosing this Knockdhu. It smells very fresh; it is a young whisky, but while it’s certainly got that freshness that comes from youth it doesn’t want for complexity. When tasting there’s vanilla, more honey sweetness, lemon and cream. It’s really, really delicious and juicy, and as I mentioned before quite unique. I can’t think of another whisky I’ve tried that tastes quite like this one. The finish isn’t too long, but has some black pepper spice and leaves you with a creamy aftertaste, as if you’ve just had a very light sponge cake.
The best thing about this bottle, and what convinced me to grab one, is that even here in BC it costs less than $70 (this is a province where Glenfiddich 12 costs $50). It represents an amazing value for money, especially for a single-cask offering from an independent bottler. If you happen to be in Vancouver, Legacy have a few bottles left. I’d highly recommend you pick one up!