Chorlton Inchmurrin 12yo

THE HOLY SPIRITS VIEW

A single first-fill barrel of lightly peated Inchmurrin, bottled by a small independent house at cask strength. Inchmurrin is Loch Lomond’s attempt to recreate the fruity style of Littlemill, the lost Lowland distillery, and this bottling shows it at full volume. Only 201 bottles, from a distillery that is always happy to be a little mischievous.

THE DISTILLERY

Loch Lomond Distillery grew out of the Littlemill Distilling Company, and its straight-neck stills descend from designs developed at Littlemill, the Lowland ghost distillery in Bowling, West Dunbartonshire. Inchmurrin is named after the largest freshwater island in the British Isles, which sits in Loch Lomond itself, and is the distillery’s fruity answer to that lost Lowland style.

THE BOTTLER: CHORLTON WHISKY

A small independent bottler in the Manchester area that releases only single casks, always at natural strength, with no chill-filtering and no added colour.

THE WHISKY: INCHMURRIN 12 YEAR OLD

Lightly peated spirit, matured twelve years in a single first-fill barrel. Cask strength, 56.3% ABV, limited to 201 bottles.

TASTING NOTES

Almond brittle, fruit salad, hibiscus tea, piña colada, mango lassi, funky esters, a whiff of old emulsion paint tins. Palate pure fruit juice, guava, lime, warm oranges, waxed paper, coal tar. The peat barely registers as smoke, just adds grit and backbone underneath. Charming, tropical, a little mischievous. Pot-still feel, almost Irish in its fruitiness. Super fun.

Serve: Neat, in a Glencairn glass, with a few drops of water to open the tropical fruit.