Glen Mhor 1978 14-year-old, Signatory

Bought: Whisky Auction, 22^nd November 2016

Ratings:
76/100 – Serge Valentin (Whiskyfun.com)
83/100 – Whiskybase (average from 2 member votes)

Glen Mhor was one of many Scottish distilleries to feel the brunt of the whisky slump of the early 1980s, closing in 1983 and being demolished in 1988. Whiskybase currently have 170 different bottles of Glen Mhor listed on their database, 10 by the distillery and the remaining 160 by independent bottlers. The top three independents are Gordon & MacPhail (38), Signatory Vintage (22) and Cadenhead (14). My miniature is by Signatory and at 14-years-old it’s the youngest of the 22 listed on Whiskybase. Although 83/100 is a reasonable score it’s the second lowest of Signatory’s 22 versions of Glen Mhor with 5 bottles scoring a very impressive 89/100 or more.

Serge Valentin of Whisky Fun (and one of the Malt Maniacs) reviewed this Glen Mhor in 2005 and gave these tasting notes:
Nose: rather fresh starting on some fruity notes like green apple, kiwi, pink grapefruit and also some sherry. Develops on cereals: grain, muesli… It goes on with some porridge, yoghurt, caramel. Whiffs of white pepper. Really fresh, fruity and lively, with some jolly nice yeasty notes. Just a bit dusty, but the cask was still very neutral, it appears… Oh, some nice and bold vanilla fudge developing after fifteen minutes or so.
Palate: the mouth feel is quite powerful, the attack being little sour and unbalanced. Certainly less clean and fresh than the nose suggested. Some hot milk, brioche, yeast… Green vegetables, hydromel, bitter beer (like Bombardier). It gets even sourer after a while, and drying at the same time. A bit of apple vinegar… Too bad, it gets then even worse, with some disturbing offbeat notes.
Finish: is very sour, on green tomatoes and over-infused tealeaves

Glen Mhor 1980 20-year-old

Bought: Whisky Mouse, 21^st August 2015

Ratings:
90/100 – Whiskybase (from 1 member vote)

I first tried to get an example of Glen Mhor (closed in 1983) back in February 2014 when I put in an order with Underwood Wines. It was only a miniature for £5.99, which was a fair price compared to auctions at the time. Unfortunately Underwood Wines couldn’t supply one of the two 70cl bottles I wanted and the order fell through. I tried ordering from Underwood later in the year and they didn’t respond to my messages. Their website is now ‘under construction’ but I strongly suspect they’ve gone out of business. Their customer service was certainly very poor and they couldn’t keep their website up-to-date.

Jump forward 18 months and I discovered ‘Whisky Mouse’, a drink supplier I’ve not used before. I struggled to find any reviews online about the company but someone asked on a forum in 2007 if anyone had used them. This meant they’d been in business for at least 8 years, which gave me enough confidence to put in an order. I’m glad I did! Although Whisky Mouse appears to be a one-man-band my emails are always answered promptly and deliveries are well packaged and speedy.

As a collector, one thing I’m rather obsessed about is evaporation. If you buy a new whisky you won’t know how good the seal is until it’s stood the test of time. The good thing about buying older whiskies (bottled 10+ years ago) is that you can see if any of the whisky has gone. This 1980 Glen Mhor by Signatory was bottled in January 2001 and nearly 15 years later the neck level is as good as new. It’s now up to me to store it at a steady temperature, out of sunlight, and hope it remains this way.

90/100 on Whiskybase is a fantastic score albeit from just one member. The whisky was matured in a sherry butt. A lot of that sherry has gone into the whisky because the colour is all natural and a wonderful, deep amber. This looks like a very tasty sherry-bomb to me! It’s a shame it’s only 43% but I’m hoping the maturity will make up for that.