Royal Lochnagar 12 Review

Hi everyone,

From my article on worm tubs, I knew that one of those few distilleries still using them is Lochnagar.

What I didn’t realise is that Lochnagar is Diageo’s smallest distillery (of the 28 malt) and that often it is used as a training distillery for Diageo staff. I guess because if you fuck up, its only on a smaller scale. Isn’t Malt Madness the best site for random distillery trivia?

Perhaps because it’s the smallest there aren’t many official bottlings mucking about, or many bottlings at all really. So here’s the basic 12, although they do a distiller’s edition too and sometimes you’ll see it pop up in the Special Releases under some NAS name.

Royal Lochnagar 12 40%

Colour: Gold (Probably a bit of E150a)

Body: Light/Medium

Nose: Bright and fresh. Vanilla, lemon, grapefruit, green apple, menthol and mint (quite cooling), pastry, croissant, a little butter.

Taste: Very gentle arrival (a little watery actually), then lots of vanilla, caramel, juicy apple and then grapefruit, a little sour, then burnt pastry and oak into the finish.

Finish: Short length. Vanilla oak and a burnt note, some sour lemon too.

Again, one of those whiskies that has died a little inside when being watered down to the absolute maximum and chill filtered the shit out of. Which is a real shame but perhaps it helps to mask any of those fuck ups from the new Diageo staff…

64/100

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #579

Whisky Network Review #684

Network Average: 74.7

Best Score: 93

Worst Score: 22

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

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