[Review] Strathmill 1991 G&M Connoisseurs Choice

So for what was supposed to be Wednesday's whisky review turned into Thursday's and hopefully tomorrow I will have the last review of the week completed otherwise that will be done for Saturday morning.

So this whisky I'm looking at today is a bottling from Strathmill distillery. Strathmill is a small distillery owned by Diageo who primarily produces malt whisky for the Justerini and Brooks blended scotch whisky. It became a distillery out of the remains of a corn mill in 1891 during the midst of the 1890s scotch boom and is one of the 3 distilleries lying in Keith, the other two being Strathisla and Glen Keith who are owned by Chivas Brothers. The distillery produces 1.8 million liters of whisky per year out of 2 wash stills and 2 spirit stills which pretty much solely goes into blends. Strathmill has only produced 1 distillery bottling in recent memory which was a 12 year old Flora and Fauna series release by Diageo that was very much panned by many whisky afficianados as being not as complex as the other distilleries shown off in that series like Glenlossie or Mortlach.


However this single malt is not a distillery bottling, it is an independent bottling by Gordon and Macphail under the Connoisseurs Choice label (which is currently in the midst of being re-branded yet again by the company to put out 46% ABV and cask strength selections) and is bottled with no color added at 40% ABV. What's also interesting is that this single malt was distilled during Strathmill's 100th birthday so in a way this is definitely a celebratory whisky for a little known distillery so let's see how this one goes despite the low proof.

• Colour: Light gold
• Nose: Honey, toffee, sweet oak, apple, pears, tiny bit of grass, some citrus in the back, overall a very typical Speyside nose
• Taste: Lush tangerines, honeydew, caramel cream, sweet almost like cream soda, bourbon vanilla, very light woodspice, apples, grapes, with water we see more lemon citrus appear with this whisky, it has a very nice medium body and it almost feels like a 43% or higher instead of a 40%
• Finish: Medium-long with creamy vanilla and nuts

Didn't expect too much from this being 40% but wow is this some surprisingly solid juice. It's not going to WOW you by any means but this is relatively complex for the proof and does a lot of things right. Sadly my preference for more delicate malts is to have it at a higher ABV to really show off the individual qualities of the malt but for what it is I'm not complaining too much.

80 pts

It doesn't hit enough notes to be considered excellent but it comes very close I would love to try Strathmill at cask strength someday and if you can find some higher proof stuff from this distillery in the future please let me know how you feel about it.

Current Review Scoring System:

0-49: Horrible

50-59: Bad

60-69: Mediocre to Average

70-74: Average to Good

75-79: Good to Great

80-84: Great to Excellent

85-89: Excellent

90-94: Superb

95+: Masterpiece

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