Littlemill Archives - The Distillates

Shane

Littlemill 26 Year 1988/2015 Sherry Butt 52.2% for Hart Brothers

Nose: Smells like an old person’s home. boiled down apple sauce, old 70s carpeting (still in use 50 years later), mothballs, graham crackers, old wood. Maduro cigar wrapper and leather.

Palate: Sour underripe berries. Mom rarely adds much sugar when making sorbet. Awesome when you nail the timing on the fruit, but a tough mouthful if you jump the gun. The taste and mouthfeel of spinach. Watered down peach black tea. The bitterness of grapefruit peel.

Rating: 3 / 10 – I’m starting to wonder if my palate and the hart brothers just don’t match. This is so well rated by so many people. I don’t get it. This is kind of yuck.

Littlemill 1992/2015 23 Year 57% for Kierzek-Berlin (KzB)

Nose: Champagne/sherry vinegar, grapefruit, organic Cheerios.

Palate: Mignonette vinegar. Sweet n sour. Stale stick of Juicy fruit gum. Peach gummy rings, packing tape and cardboard.

Rating: 5 / 10 – the most acceptable of the three sister casks, but I’m not looking to lick my way through a major shipping service.

Littlemill 1992/2015 23 Year 53.8% for Whiskybroker

Nose: Butterscotch cream frosting, oats, honestly smells like a wort, browned butter, pot de creme, banana

Palate: Hay, buttered popcorn, banana marshmallows, warming spices, cinnamon latte.on the finish something slightly unpleasant. Envelope glue and wet cardboard.

Rating: 4 (Ryan) 5 (Shane) / 10 – it’s pretty solid until the finish… then I wish it would just finish

Littlemill 1992/2014 21 Year 52.9% for The Whisky Mercenary

Nose: Perfumy, packing tape, pistachios and cardamom, patchouli, animal crackers, plain meringue – those huge ass ones you get half way through before you realize, that is just way too much sugar, cereal milk

Palate: That first time you have middle eastern or central american treats that use different sugars and flavors… pistachios and cardamom indeed, reminds me of grape nuts. And cedar. Lots of cedar and sandalwood. I feel like I just made out with a hippie.

Rating: 3 (Ryan) 4 (Shane) / 10 – different, but not in a good way

Shane

Littlemill 25 Year 1989/2015 First Fill Sherry Cask #1253 52.1% for Hart Brothers

Nose: Capri-sun orange juice. Guava and unripe banana. Marsh grass. Clove butter, almost flambee.

Palate: Tony Chocolonely salted caramel milk chocolate. Dark chocolate orange. Bitter almonds. A dark heavy german bread loaf. The kind which are actually edible bricks slicked as cracker alternatives.

Rating: 4 / 10 – okay, better than the 1988 but still no bueno. Maybe I’m missing something.

Shane

Littlemill 24 Year 1990/2014 50.6% for Maltbarn

Nose: Tangerine, subtle fleeting note of violet, meyer lemons, guava, essence of grapefruit, rose hip tea

Palate: Milk chocolate, grapefruit and lemon peel, perfume and cheap hair spray, that note of old wood again. Slightly bitter and herbal on the finish.

Rating: 5 / 10 – coming off the Hart Brother’s sherry cask samples, the core dna that is Littlemill is present here. Hats off to them for capturing that with the addition of the sherry cask at play. We are just finding that maybe we don’t love Littlemill, but we have more samples to try and will report back.