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At The Whisky Shop Dufftown Autumn Festival this year we have been continuing our search for the best "Blend" or "Blend of Malts" in our Blind Blends competition - basically anything that's not a single malt or single grain. We are very liberally minded at The Whisky Shop Dufftown. This is different to being Maltstock relaxed. We have so far put 27 different blends through this competition.
Guests to our festival could sample 5 whiskies in a blind tasting and vote for their favourite. The winner from the same event the last 2 years running, Hankey Banister Heritage, went up against 4 new challengers: Spice King from Wemyss, Feathery from Spencerfield, Rock Oyster from Douglas Laing and Glenborrodale from Adelphi. As in very other years each whisky got a bunch of votes. Each person has a whisky and each whisky has its persons!!
Thus year was a fascinating competition and we were really pleased at the number of people who took part. OK we are all malt fanatics but we should not be closed on to blends particularly the exciting new crop of boutique blends that are coming through.
In second place was Feathery which is a blend of malts all matured in sherry casks and that really shines through. But just pulling away on the last day was Adelphi's Glenborrodale which is a vatting of whiskies that was made in 2001 in a refill ex-Sherry Butt. The composition is likely to have been Macallan, Highland Park, peated Bunnahabhain, Glenrothes and possibly Glengoyne. When Adelphi acquired the cask they did a bit of their alchemy and added a good splash (half a cask or so) of Glenrothes 8 Years Old first fill ex-Sherry. Why not? Get it whilst it lasts!
Our guests had a lot of fun with the competition this year which we were very pleased with. Not least as we choose and supply all the whiskies for this competition.