Bought: Whisky Mouse, 4th November 2015
Ratings:
76/100 – Whisky Bible 2006
86.9/100 – Whiskybase (average from 12 member votes)
Poor Banff distillery, if it wasn’t catching fire it was being blown up or bombed. The distillery had quite an eventful life from its beginnings in 1863 before finally closing in 1983. It has subsequently been demolished but single malt examples can still be procured from auctions and certain whisky shops. It makes a good investment as well as a tasty tipple.
My example, distilled in 1976, was bottled by the independent bottlers Gordon & MacPhail in 2005 so it was a new addition to Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2006. Sadly the author only has 4 words to say about it, which are “soft with chalky oak”. His score of 76/100 classifies this Banff as “average and usually pleasant but sometimes flawed”. Contrast this with nearly 87/100 on Whiskybase from 12 member votes, which is a fantastic score. Perhaps Mr Murray had a bad sample because the majority of tasters appear to love this dram.
Below is the end of a You Tube video by John “Whiskyman” Loftus, who is said to have the largest private whisky collection in the southern hemisphere. Here he discusses Banff and tastes a typical example from the distillery:
Whisky Den 