LPA Vintage Week: today Tomatin 1964
Welcome back! I hope you had a nice holiday! We will pick up the normal routine this week by filling up the Tasting Ledger with notes about new, old and everything in between whisky. Every Saturday, we try to do a longer entry, which is called the Long Pour Session. We have filled Tom’s Dram Diary well enough this summer, but there are still some stories on the shelves for the weeks to come. I will keep your eyes peeled to the screen for some nice reads about our favourite subject!
Talking about favourites, it is no secret that my whisky journey started with the Tomatin single malt, and that this is the brand you will find most bottles of in my whisky cabinet. As I recently got my hands on a Tomatin 1964, and I had some other samples from longer ago waiting in my drawer, I decided to reopen the year after the holiday season with a Vintage Week. Since the Tomatin is the oldest one in my possession, let’s kick off there.
What was Tomatin like in 1964, I wonder? Well, according to some books I rummaged through, the expansion that would make this distillery the largest in Scotland, was well underway at that moment. Count it with me. Until 1956, Tomatin operated with two stills, which were doubled in that year to four. In 1958, Tomatin had six stills, and in 1960 already ten. Probably for good luck, they threw in another still in 1964, and that is the year our sample was distilled. The operation was not over yet, but in 1974 records show Tomatin had maxed out with no less than 23 stills. Another 10 years later, Tomatin would go bust and end up being the first Scottish distillery in the hands of Japanese owners, being Takara and Okara. This situation remains till this day, even though the Japanese business has changed a little too, but Tomatin is stronger than ever. The capacity has reduced back to normal proportions, but still a sizable 5 million litres per year.
Tomatin 1964, +/- 30 years old, bottled at 40 % abv by G&M
First things first: A bottling in the previous livery of the Spirit of Scotland series by Gordon & MacPhail, but this is special: “celebrating 500 years of Scotch Whisky”. That fact was celebrated in 1994. This marked exactly 500 years since the first written record of Scotch distillation in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland in 1494. We are assuming this is a 30 years old Tomatin, or thereabouts.
Upon Sipping: Did you know that one of the first bottlings in the G&M Connoisseur’s Choice range was also a Tomatin 1964? And that Tomatin bottled a 12 years old vintage 1964 to commemorate the “first millionth gallon by a single distillery in one season”? Enough history lessons, let us taste some Tomatin 1964! First we smell. We have to decide the battle on what impacted this whisky most: the 30 years in the cask of the 30 years afterwards in glass. It seems the wood won. Very precise, concentrated fruit smells arise, kumquat, mango, dried plum, hints of apricot. In short: delicious! There is a hint of broth underneath it all, which was most certainly the screwcap rubbing off, but it does nothing to hurt this Tomatin 1964. The palate is logically dominated by oak notes, bitter chocolate and heathery herbs. The whisky has become a tad too watery, the 40 % abv doing it no favors. The most damage was done to the finish, which has turned into a sadly soapy experience. Most of these time driven flaws can be washed away with water, thankfully, so we can enjoy this very old vintage.
Word to the Wise: A Tomatin on the verge of passing from a robust Highland style whisky into the fruity realms we would come to know and love from the 1970s, with as particular highlight the 1976 vintage. Beautiful, anecdotal whisky, but fragile because of the 40 % abv.
Score: 87 points.