Daftmill Inaugural Release 2005 55.8% 2005

Professionele reviews

Serge Valentin (89)

Angus Corner:

Colour: Light Gold.

Nose: Clean and fruity malt whisky. Full of lemon barley water, many cereals, freshly churned butter, a hint of something more surgical like lanolin, then fresh gooseberries and white bread. Continues with toasted sunflower seeds, rapeseed oil, trodden clover and some chopped parsley. It’s superbly fresh and pleasingly elegant. With water: some kind of mirabelle and barley eau de vie. Further lemony aspects and some starchy notes of porridge infused with runny honey.


Mouth: punchy! White stone fruits, lemon rind, raw barley, mint jelly, crushed ivy and white pepper. Goes on with notes of white jelly beans, pineapple cubes and various blossoms and nectars. Quite beautiful and in possession of a subtlety that you feel a Lowland whisky should possess - if you’re going with the flow of tradition that is. With water: a tad more spicy, more fruity (on white and orchard fruits) and floral. There’s also a more prevalent sappy element as well - green wood and green pepper and grass. I feel that it really works perfectly with a drop of water actually. Lemon jelly, bay leaf, fresh thyme and pear drops.
Daftmill back label
Rear label, pithy sentiment

Finish: Good length. Various seeds, some bitter lemon, quinine, baking soda, sunflower oil and the slightest earthiness.

Comments: It’s tough to separate tasting this from the knowledge that, amongst all the many, varied and often uninspiring distilling projects that have arisen in Scotland over the past decade, this is the one distillery that has sat quietly turning out whisky and biding its time before releasing its distillate commercially. This is undeniably excellent, well made and extremely quaffable whisky; a style that is close to the raw ingredients and feels in synch with its place of origin. It’s not utterly stellar, but for a first year of production at a brand new distillery it is remarkable and suggests that this is a whisky to pay very close attention to in years to come

BOW (91)