Longrow 18 Year

Springbank motherflubbing distillery! They keep getting better. Because they put the extra effort to do whiskies right, I’m going to be a little extra in singing my praises. The bottle I am enjoying now was bottled on March 23, 2018. You cannot hurry into an aged Springbank product, least of all Longrow 18. You pour it, and let it air for 15 minutes. This is an expensive bottle, so you don’t want to rush the experience. First, marvel at the bottle. Scotch has become about this prestige thing – feigned luxury and exclusivity; fancy clothes for fancy bottles; in these sordid whisky fests in the U.S., where your outfit better be more expensive than the expensive entry fee. Springbank is the plain-clothed marvel; white T-shirt and jeans, in a room full of Tom Ford suits and dresses. It’s all about what is inside. Confidence and character. The nose. THE NOSE! Pickled mangoes. Tangerines. Creamy and thick for something that’s only 46% ABV. The peat is floral and meaty at the same time, like flowers that have just started to wilt. Or that meat flower… whatchamacallit? I’m no botanist. Anways… a fragrant saltiness. Rather than the cool rocky coasts of Scotland, the nose takes you to a tropical island. But one where things are starting to pickle. It’s characteristic of a good Springbank, and this one nails it. Longrow 18 is not something most people will automatically like. It is what some reviewers would call challenging. It does not have the universal superficial appeal of a calendar model, a Prince Charming, a Princess Fiona before she turns into an ogress. Longrow 18 is Shrek. Good whiskies are like onions. They have layers. Missed the reference? Watch the movie (the original). You will not turn into a dapper young buck holding a dram of Longrow 18 in your hand, like if you hand an old mahogany Macallan. You may turn into an ogre, or ogress, or Ralphy. And you will be beautiful, like Ralphy. That dude – you can be him for Hallowe’en… not a bad idea for a whisky tasting theme actually. The palate. Soft, mouthcoating arrival that takes time to unravel. Tobacco, overripe starfruit, a little honey, a little citrus. Medium spice with a lot of complexity. White pepper. A little cinnamon, nutmeg, and fennel seed. And then there’s weird flavors that somehow add to the balance; the beauty of the thing. A taste like a wet sock smells, like one you’ve worn for an hour after stepping into a puddle. A seaweed umaminess… see? An onion has layers. Longrow 18 epitomizes the distillery that refuses to change. It does nothing to try to reach into new markets; to change its flavors to appeal to the common trepid consumer who likes to stay at the fringes of every adventure. This whisky will never come to you, if you are standing way over there, in the Pappy van Winkle line, like a baroque cow. You must come to it. The finish. Long, mercurial, chimeric. A peat that walks the line between a tobacco smoke and a meaty smoke. A slight matchstick Sulphur – that’s not just okay; that’s quite lovely. A potpourri of fruit jams. Some roasted nuts. It’s well rounded, and evolving. And the next sip will be something different. Like the truly great whiskies, this one changes for the better with time in the bottle, and also with time in the glass. So, what is the best distillery? Some people are offended by the question. Some have the patience to rationalize a political answer. “It’s all subjective, and depending on your taste. It’s like I might say that Brussel sprouts are the best vegetable, while you can just as assuredly say spinach. There is no single right answer.” But there is, so just stop. It’s Springbank. Mark: 96/100

Rating: 21/23 I recall actually preferring the regular Longrow to this last time I tried them. I think my palate was off that day though because now I'm finding the regular Longrow to be too brash. Or maybe this is a different vintage; I'm not sure whether I also had the 2015 last time. N: Rich with bitter herbal and smoky scents that remind me a bit of asphalt on a hot day. Dry grass with some quite subdued malty sweetness. minerals leading into light vanilla. Distant roasted meat encroaches. A hint of tangerine mixed with apple. There's a mellow wood richness filling in the bottom of this too in way that ties it all together. Sweet bourbon scents of vanilla, caramel, and cinnamon. A hint of licorice. P: Oh, yeah; this is immediately better than the regular Longrow. There's so much complexity and balance here in comparison. There's a lot of interesting funkiness. Some of it is definitely challenging, but none of the flavors are inherently bad. Peat with a bit of tar, smoke, toasted grain, roasted meat, minerals, vanilla, light cinnamon, dried out wood, a touch of tangerine and waxiness, a little caramel, subdued malt, maybe occasional whiffs of dungeness crab. Some dry grass with a heathery character. Occasional hints of orange peel. It's hard to catch everything that is happening here because there's a lot. And it's delicious. The complexity is excellent here and the balance is great too. The maturity is very substantial, though I wouldn't be guessing this was in its late 20s or anything. F: Mellow peat with vanilla, toasty grain, a bit of mineral with light sea spray., a sprinkle of cinnamon. Smoke farts through for a long time. Very faint farmy earthiness and dry grass. A mellow barrel layer helps the finish to last a while. Occasional slightly notes of meat and iodine that make me think just a little of crab. - Conclusion - I'd take this over the Longrow 13 Cabernet Sauvignon. Both are great, but this really delivers on the core Longrow profile with more maturity, letting the character show through with minimal interference. I find this to be pretty competitive with Springbank 18 (2018) (22). The Springbank 18 might be just a bit more refined and balanced, but this is really close. The more assertive flavors do stand out more. Lismore 21 (19) is quite a fine dram. It strikes me as a bit more coherent than this, but also more sulphuric and muddled. I would say that this is the better of the two for sure, though the cap isn't so wide that I'm confident this is better than a 20. El Dorado 21 (21) is getting a comparison here because it's so complex. I find the complexity here to be superior, though the balance might be a little rougher. Considering that I thought Springbank 18 (2018) was on the borderline between a 22 and 23 and this is so close to it while also being competitive with El Dorado 21, a 21, I'm looking at a 21 to 22 for this. The nagging doubt I have in my mind is that the Lismore 21 was surprisngly close, so a 20 is still a possibility. It would be a high 20 though. Giving this a nice 45 minutes to breathe, it really comes together beautifully. I'm now thinking that it's closer to a 22. So I'll give it a solid 21. Really excellent. A big thank you to @ctbeck11 for the sample of this one! I'm thinking now that 18 years might be the magical age for Longrow like it is for Springbank. Well, there may be some older stuff that's better, but I won't find out because I don't have that kind of cash to burn.

To paraphrase Vesper Lynd from Casino Royale: There are whiskies and there are whiskies, this is the latter. But more on that in a minute. Before this I’d never had a Longrow, and my experience with Springbank as a whole has been, sadly, limited to a precious few expressions. So when I came across this 2018 bottling of Longrow 18 year old at auction I just couldn’t resist. For the low low price of $110 (plus a 10% buyers fee, 3% insurance fee and a hefty shipping charge) the bottle was mine. I was deciding which bottle to open for my next Dapper Drams review and fate lead me here. This 18 year old single malt from Campbeltown is bottled at 46% ABV and is non chill filtered and natural color of an amber bronze. The maturation come from 60% refill sherry butts and 40% fresh bourbon barrels. Less than 100 casks per year are filled for the Longrow line, so this is a limited annual release. Right away the nose let’s you know that this is a different kind of single malt. Elegant, mature peat balanced with sherry, a savory meatiness, lemon and orange citrus/oil. They say let a whisky rest 1 minute in the glass for every year in the cask before approaching it. This one needs about 50% more to shine. Once it rests you will get old oak worn smooth, apples, plums, dark cherries and dates. Sweet molasses BBQ sauce, leather, pipe tobacco and creamy vanilla. Lightly salty, ginger, sulfur/spent matches and a light chalky/mineral note. Toasted marshmallows, dark chocolate with cayenne powder (but not hot), chili powder and chocolate licorice. Herbal at times with basil, oregano and mint. Hot fudge, caramel and toffee with a hint of strawberries and black licorice. The palate arrives with some peppery spice up front, followed by luxurious peat smoke and dark sherry. Molasses, walnuts, chocolate sauce, hazelnut and milk chocolate. Ginger, old polished oak, tobacco, leather. Caramel, caramelized peaches, juicy raisins, dates and figs. Meaty, sulfuric, slightly tannic and bitter but as a positive note. Chili spice, Worcestershire sauce, basil. Cigar ashes, lapsang souchong tea with honey and vanilla. A medium to full bodied mouthfeel that is oily, thick but silky, mouthwatering and fabulous. The finish is medium to medium long at times with peat, chocolate, molasses, sulfur, black tea and orange oil. This scotch is a game changer...quite possibly the most balanced whisky I’ve ever had. The nose is a bit closed off at first, but given enough time it opens up to reveal a beautiful array of aromas. I could seriously nose this for hours without taking the first sip, and find something new every time I went back to it. The palate is luxurious but also packs a bit of a punch. A bit of everything here. After over 350 whiskies under my belt this has to be the best total package bottle to date. My only complaint, if you could really call it that, would be that the finish isn’t long enough. I’ve had some that you drink at 9pm and still taste after you wake up in the morning. This kind of dies abruptly from time to time just as things seem like they are going to continue on. Still, if I could only drink this for the rest of my life I don’t think I would mind at all. 4.75 and I highly recommended that if you see it, just buy it no questions asked. Cheers

Nose: At first encounter the nose seemed to be more like a Springbank than than a Longrow. There was a little vanilla, malted barley, a soft briny maritime note, some leather armchair but only a faint sooty smoke. There was also a definite earthy aroma from the dunnage and some woody hints like old cigar boxes. Over time the aromas evolved and melded together and light honey and dried fruit aromas (apples, pears, prunes) appeared. A deep, enveloping, oaky smokiness gradually emerged to eventually present what is probably the most elegant and sophisticated smoky nose I’ve experienced. A calm, soft, huge and fragrant smoke that makes anything issuing from the Hebridean islands seem brash and callow. Palate: A soft and slightly briny arrival, which became saltier and quite spicy in the development. Ginger, but not fresh ginger - more like powdered ginger. Very lightly oily, but not mouth-coating, and also slightly dry. Light fruity notes, but again not fresh juicy fruit - older, like dried fruits soaked in water to reconstitute for cooking. Once again over time the palate opened and gained considerable polish, eventually becoming broad, rich and mellow. The whisky seemed to just float into the mouth and gradually inhabit the whole head, becoming the focus of all one’s attention. Finish: Medium, ginger spice - even peppery. A little sour salt and a hint of smoke or ash at the fade-out with just the perfect amount of sweetness to balance the briny and sour notes. This review compiles notes from many tastes of batches over the last decade and is a summary of my final impressions. This whisky is both subtle and tightly wrapped and it requires a couple of weeks to wake up after initial opening, and 20 minutes rest in the glass with a couple of drops of water is strongly recommended. The first time I tasted it I was not that impressed with Longrow 18, but it was my palate that was lacking - not the whisky. Over time I came to fall in love with its charms and appreciate its blossoming as it opens up from its long slumber in the bottle. I consider it, and particularly the most recent batches, to be just a hair's breadth away from faultless. It is characterful, satisfying, mellow and smooth with endless layering and depths as great as the sounding seas. Truly a top shelf dram. There have been three changes to the label over the years: The first, from 2008-2010 was a blueish purple label. The second, from 2011-3013, was a yellow-beige label, and the current batches have a white label with a prominent “18” in purple. There are slight batch variations but they are subtle changes of profile and not big differences in quality. That said, for me the current releases are the best it has ever been. “A bat's squeak away from perfect” : 92/100 (5 stars)

I swear, it's getting hard to remember what I have and haven't reviewed from my bottles. I haven't reviewed a longrow 18 yet? Lets first review the old purple box version. I'm guessing this was 2010-2012 bottling range. No date to be found on this one. And for anyone interested I do have a bit of cork floating in the bottle and I had to replace the original cork (and I just broke the new cork so this bottle is on to its 3rd cork...screw caps people!). These are going for about 200 these days, but my store literally dropped the price from 240 to 200 the day after I bought this bottle, the last of the old boxes. Oh well Nose - I get sherry and grape bubble gum on the nose. Rich wine and citrus and hints of sea salt. As i explore I start to get BBQ over salty pork ribs. Taste - So this is a really hard whisky to explain, perhaps why i haven't reviewed it yet. It's sweet, it's light, it's subtle up front. If the Longrow Red's are in your face expressions of finishing and high abv the longrow 18 is a prim and proper dram, worthy of a statesman. There's peat, there's sherry, but it's all muted and refined up front. It then explodes on the finish where everything from vinegar, red wines, salted meats, sugar cookies, oak, and this classic longrow funk remain. It's almost too subtle and muted at first taste, but there's a sleeping giant behind it. This is a bit under whelming for me, and I plan to review a newer bottling next to compare. Still the complexity is there, the nose is one worthy of hours of time, and the flavors are great. 3.75 - I cannot give this one a 4, it's a bit too light up front for me, but it's one hell of a whisky.

This is my last sample of Longrow and is the most expensive of them all at 240 at my favorite liquor store. The last two were incredible, so very interested in what this one brings with 18 years of age. This is the 2015 release that @ctbeck11 was generous to provide a sample for me to taste. The nose starts with the breakfast all adults really want of a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios floating in a pool of sherry, then comes those sun baked green and citrus fruits (apple, pear and lemon), dark chocolate covered raisins, light peat smoke with ocean sea waves crashing over coastal rocks then old leather bound books, polished mahogany with black pepper, ginger, vanilla creme brûlée and a light ethanol burn. The taste is a very viscous mouthfeel starting with Honey Nut Cheerios, dark chocolate covered raisins then green and citrus fruit (apple, pear, lemon) then light peat smoke with ocean brine, cavern minerality, old leather and polished mahogany with ginger, mild chili and black pepper spice finishing medium length with chocolate covered raisins, black cherries, vanilla creme brûlée, old leather bound books, polished mahogany, and light peat smoke. Wow, this one just blew the other two away! Those malty notes, mixed with salty funky fruit, minerality and those old notes of leather and mahogany make this an absolute stunning dram. I put it up against the Hazelburn 13 to see if it would best it and it turns out to be a draw in flavor and viscosity, but Hazelburn would win based on VFM due to it being close to half the cost of the Longrow 18. Either way you can’t lose with either as they are both just amazing drinks.