Great Drams Christmas Series 2022 Limited Edition

Great Drams is best known as the award-winning whisky subscription service that sends you monthly bottles of whiskies you cannot get anywhere else – extreme rarities (for example from the rarely seen Glentauchers or the ghost distillery Port Dundas) and high-aged whiskies, concept releases and unusual finishes (such as tequila or Château Margaux), as well as high-quality drams from unexpected quarters (for example, Israel). Monthly subscription options start with 25ml samples (£9.50 a month) to 500ml bottles (£79.99).

However, Great Drams also releases limited-edition bottlings for direct purchase. For the past four years, these releases have included a Christmas whisky. This will be something that evokes the festive season in the minds of the team behind Great Drams – warm spices, dried and cooked fruits, perhaps a bit of smoke… For 2022, it’s a an 8YO Ardmore (200ml, £30; 500ml, £65) aged in an Oloroso sherry cask: all winter spices, with a wisp of peat smoke, but mainly sweet with a chocolatey undertone. With numbers limited to around 200, you may need to look for an alternative… The mysteriously unattributed Islay (200ml, £35; 500ml, £75) was awarded best in class at the prestigious San Francisco WSC, among several other shiny medals. It finely balances vanilla, spice, citrus and smoke.

greatdrams.com/whisky-shop/

Prima & Ultima Brora 1981 40YO

Each year, one of the master distillers at Diageo is given the honour of curating a collection of whiskies that is not only luxurious and rare but wonderfully diverse. Prima & Ultima III, curated by Craig Wilson comprises a Brora 1981 40YO, Cragganmore 1973, Lagavulin 1993, Mannochmore 1990, Port Ellen 1980, Royal Lochnagar 1981, Talisker 1984 and The Singleton of Glen Ord 1987 – not one of them under 25 years old and each representing a first or a last of their kind.

For the first time in 2022, in addition to the 317 full Prima & Ultima octets (£36,500), individual bottles were made available at retail (previously, they could only be found via brokers down the line). So, for £9,000, it is possible to purchase a unique whisky from the Brora ghost distillery – the last stock from 1981, when the distillery was moving from a period of peated whisky into a lighter, waxy style. Earlier this year, we described it as ‘a mystery wrapped in an enigma, with a nose of waxed fruit, then sweet spices on a rich smooth palate, with elusive will-o’-the-wisp smoke dancing in and out of the scene’.

justerinis.com/prima-and-ultima-3rd-release/#purchase

The Knight’s Golden Triumph (Cameronbridge 26YO Grain)

With the rarest of Diageo’s stock being set aside for the Prima & Ultima collection, fans of the annual Special Releases drop may have feared that the liquid in that other yearly themed gathering of whiskies would lack interest. Not so. While there are no longer four-figured bottles among Special Releases (prices range from £105 to £275), there are real gems at a more approachable price level – justifying the collection’s title this year, Elusive Expressions. (There is a whole manga universe created around each expression.) There is an extra-smoky Lagavulin 12YO, a particularly rich and deep Clynelish 12YO; a no-age-statement Mortlach, which has something of the night; and a classic pepper and smoked salt Talisker at an unusual age of 11YO.

However, the pick of the bunch is The Knight’s Golden Triumph – a grain whisky from the Cameronbridge distillery in Fife. Normally the workhorse in various blends, when aged for 26 years in bourbon casks, it is a revelation. It’s both smoothly rich and intriguingly zingy. Buttered cinema popcorn dominates, but there are pings of recognition from childhood of various penny chews. Plus a funky note somewhere between candlewax and wood polish. It’s a dram that makes people shake their heads and chuckle.

harveynichols.com/brand/cameronbridge/3966445-26-year-old-single-grain-scotch-whisky-special-release-2022/p4385098/

Loch Lomond Distillery Edition 1

Loch Lomond is best known for sponsoring The Open and, as a result, whisky snobs often overlook the distillery as more interested in marketing than making. That is a mistake. By experimenting with elements long before the wood ageing – the mash bill (ie the balance of differently kilned barley), fermentation times, the choice between the several different still shapes he can use – the Northern Ireland-born master distiller Michael Henry creates highly distinct profiles of spirit.

Now, in addition to the core range, the first of several Distillery Editions aims to show off and play with what Henry refers to as “the more technical spirits we can produce” (and when this impressive scientific mind thinks it’s technically sophisticated, trust him, it is). For the rest of us lay drinkers, the biggest experiment here is the use of Chardonnay yeast. This, aided by a long fermentation and a straight-necked still, really highlights the citrus and orchard fruit notes and (confirmed by Brummell in a blind taste test) adds genuine hint of white wine to it.

Should you feel the need to line your stomach before opening this bottle (57.1%, £65), Loch Lomond is partnering with London baker Bread Ahead (in Borough Market), which is selling a ciabatta loaf made using the same Chardonnay yeast.

lochlomondwhiskies.com/products/distillery-edition-single-cask-whisky

King’s Inch Single Cask Sherry Edition

Not all of the most interesting whisky makers actually have distilleries. There are independent bottlers releasing rarities and oddities, for example. But The King’s Inch is an unusual idea… a distillery without a distillery. The people behind the label have commissioned an unnamed Glasgow distillery to produce a Lowland spirit to their specifications (unnamed because they are not tied to the distillery forever). The King’s Inch was specifically distilled to the specifications of the late Jim Swan – who was no stranger to trying new approaches at Kilchoman on Islay, Kavalan in Taiwan and Amrut in India.

The core whisky (£45) is an approachable dram, which has lots of orchard fruit and a herbal tingle on the tail. In a nod to Glasgow’s cocktail scene, it is great in a Rob Roy. It is itself a limited edition, with only a few thousand bottles released, but there are only 586 bottles of the King’s Inch Single Cask Sherry Edition (£75), matured in one Oloroso cask for seven years and bottled at 58%. As well as that orchard-fruit core, it has creamy and cereal notes with a touch of umami – like a light spreading of Marmite on very buttery toast. There is a sweeter note to the finish though, with chocolate and nutmeg hints.

kingsinch.com/collections/all-products

Glen Scotia Seasonal Release 2022

The regions of Scottish whisky vary quite dramatically in size… they can be made up of half the country (Highlands) or just one island (Islay). Or one town, in the case of Campbeltown. Once this town on the Mull of Kintyre was home to over 30 distilleries. Only three remain. Campbeltown’s usual style is maritime, oily and peaty, but Glen Scotia confounds expectations with both peated and unpeated whiskies.

Glen Scotia’s annual Seasonal Release around Christmas is usually finished in sherry butts and this year’s is no exception… after 12 years in bourbon barrels, this unpeated whisky spends a year in Amontillado casks, pouring a spicy and nutty rich sauce over that dry mineralic heart. 53.3%, £80.

glenscotia.com/products/glen-scotia-seasonal-release-whisky-2022

Macallan A Night On Earth In Scotland

There are special edition whiskies aimed at the Christmas market, and then there are those laser-targeted on the festive season. This Macallan A Night On Earth In Scotland (43%, £90) is Hogmanay in a bottle. And not just a bottle. The beautifully (and ingeniously) designed packaging involves a box within a box and is jam-packed with fun details – look for the message on a little tab up by the stopper. The artwork is by Japanese-born illustrator Erica Dorn, whose work has previously featured prominently in the Wes Anderson films The French Dispatch and Isle Of Dogs. Here, she celebrates the tradition of First Footing, where guests (preferably including a tall, dark stranger) visit each other’s houses after midnight on the 1^st, bringing a lump of coal for the fire, some shortbread and, of course, a bottle of whisky.

Once the people you are first footing have stopped poring over the packaging and pour the whisky, there are some entertainingly seasonal notes – clementines abound, with a veritable Royal Mile’s worth of souvenir shortbread, plus lots of other baking and cooked fruit flavours. A proper “Here’s to a better 2023” hug of a dram.

themacallan.com