Macallan 25, 1957-1982, 25th anniversary of the foundation of Rinaldi Brothers Inc. Bologna, 43% abv.

Bartender told me there are 4 different rypes of this red ribbon Rinaldi bottle at 1938, 1940, 1950, and 1957. All being 25 years old. Usually the year of distillation is stamped in the upper right hand corner but this one was missing. Rinaldi was, and still is, an Italian importer of whiskies. So hard to find information on this bottling, if anyone knows details, feel free to let me know.

Nose: overdue xmas tree, tree sap, caramel, wood based, some dill, abv burn.

Palate: cooling, spice builds up, initial and mid palate has a sweet, dill-spiced caramel-like flavor, back palate has wet old steamed lotus leaves, a good amount of chocolate, caramel, syrup. After awhile, everything goes out the door and it is honey caramel, light grape syrup, a little bit of smoke and light wet old lotis leaves in the background. Not viscous but really sweet.

Finish: short, slightly spicey, pumpkin rind, white grape skins.

This one was a subtle lesson in tree wood diversity, had several woods which I couldn't really identify, but of the xmas tree kind and not of typical oak, redwood, douglas fir, etc. Its in betweem xmas tree and dill. But after awhile, it transforms into a cooling super sweet caramel-type juice. Really sweet and really good!

Grade: B+

Malt maniacs, 93 points on 2 reviews

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

🇭🇰 🇺🇸(LA, SF) -> 🇯🇵 (京都, 東京) -> 🇰🇷 (서울, 부산)