For tonight I’ve got a trio of vintage St. Magdalenes. This is a well-regarded closed Lowland distillery, that I’ve tried a couple of time before (#196). Let’s see what old lady Maggie can do this time.
St. Magdalene | 18yo (1964) | 40% | Gordon & MacPhail
from a 2cl sample bottle
🗒️ Tasting notes
Nosing
Orange peel and apples, with a floral note as well as some liquorice. Thereto caramel / brown sugar, leather and vague musky/meaty and dusty notes.
Sipping
Sweet, round and rich, with malty notes, caramel, candied orange and milk chocolate, a dash of baking spices, and some smoky and woody undertones. A hint of the old-bottle “cardboard” note, growing stronger towards the end of the dram. Dried, sweet fruits (sultanas, gooseberries) in the relatively long finish.
💭 Comments
Not very complex, but well-balanced and a well-integrated sherry profile. It certainly exceeds the expectations I would have of almost any modern 18yo at 40%, but seriously, the 91.43 score with a 100 votes on Whiskybase can’t be taken at face value. Though the whisky guru Serge gave it a whooping 92, waxing lyrical about shoe polish and metallic notes. Doesn’t at all sound like we drank the same thing…
Deliciousness
Fun factor
Value for money
Punchline
⚫🟡🟢
⚫🟡🟢
N/A
60s success
St. Magdalene | 18yo (1981) | 40% | Gordon & MacPhail
from a 2cl sample bottle
🗒️ Tasting notes
Nosing
Bright lemons, and some tropical and orchard fruit, turning towards lightly funky fermentations notes, along with heaps of grass and some flowers, shortbread, and even a coastal saltiness. And soot, to boot. Plenty going on and it comes together really nicely.
Sipping
A well-balanced brine of sweet, salty and umami; oily texture, and I couldn’t really tell the ABV is so low. Lots of honey, perhaps glazed ham, orchard fruits, and a bit of smokiness.
💭 Comments
The nose is like a fusion of tropical-fruity-and funk malts like Craigellachie and Springbank with floral or grassy malts like Rosebank, Tullibardine, Teaninich… and briny and coastal like a Clynelish. Very good! Here, I think we can legitimately talk 90 points but on Whiskybase it’s got 85.40 with 17 votes. One of the best drams this year! If this was something modern and not exorbitantly prices, I would for sure get a bottle or two. Actually, something like this bottle is what I’d like to have as the “house dram”.
Deliciousness
Fun factor
Value for money
Punchline
⚫⚫🟢
⚫⚫🟢
N/A
My house malt (if only!)
❤️
St. Magdalene | 17yo (1982) | 43% | Signatory Vintage
from a 2cl sample bottle
🗒️ Tasting notes
Nosing
Citrus, green apple, and other “green” notes of grass and rather unripe fruits, with some glue. More towards the sweeter side there’s some cotton candy, vanilla, coffee, and a quite clear cardamom note. A lot of minerality and soot.
Sipping
Towards the salty, sour side and at most medium-sweet. There’s a decisive, though not intrusive bitterness too, in a herbal and medicinal kind of way; this is the main direction of the flavours, adding also some unripe stone fruits, paraffin, and sootiness.
💭 Comments
The reviews on this one are quite cool: 82.92 with 15 votes on WB. It is much more austere than the other two, but also the most unique. I quite like it, especially as a malt to analyse. It’s not unlike a young Ben Nevis.
Deliciousness
Fun factor
Value for money
Punchline
⚫🟡⚫
⚫🟡🟢
N/A
Bitter Aunt Maggie
I was thinking that I might get three rather similar drams, being the same distillery and age (thought not vintage), perhaps even hard to tell apart in a blind tasting. Instead each was really different, thought a few similarities can be spotted, at least between the 80s malts. What I’m left with is the major flavour impact delivered by each malt despite the low ABV, and this is without superlative age statements. St. Magdalene might well be one of the most lamentable losses among the ghost distilleries.
DuckDrams 
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