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Fahrenheit 173 - Aged Spirits

"If it's not good enough to drink slowly, then it's not worth drinking"

Dalmore Mackenzie

 25 Mar 2010  
Dalmore Mackenzie

The "Mackenzie", a new ex­pres­sion of the Dalmore single malt, was launched on March 17 at the National Gallery of Scotland. It seems an odd place to release a new single malt, so why there, you might ask?

It's all connected to the stag head that adornes Dalmore's bottles of whisky. The stag symbolizes the Mackenzie clan and comes from the time when the Dalmore dis­til­lery was owned by members of that clan. (Dalmore's motto "I shine not burn" is also the motto of the clan Mackenzie.)

The stag head symbol derives from the legend that king Alexander III of Scotland was once saved from being killed by a stag by an ancestor of the Mackenzies. This event was illustrated by Benjamin West in his painting "The Death of the Stag" which hangs - guess where? - in Scotland's National Gallery in Edinburgh.

Ok, that was a nice story but what about the whisky?

The casks for the "Mackenzie" were selected by master distiller Richard Paterson. The whisky was dis­tilled in 1992, matured in bourbon wood for 11 years and then finished in fresh port pipes. Bottled at 46% and limited to 3000 bottles. Now, if I could only get to try it... =)

—   o   —

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