Blair Athol 9 Years (2014/2023) - Signatory Vintage
The 9-years Blair Athol - number 3 in Signatory Vintage's 100 proof series - was distilled in 20214 and bottled in winter 2023 and sold out within a few hours, just like the other two bottlings in the series. And rightly so? At 57.1% ABV, the alcohol content of the bottlings corresponds exactly to the minimum level at which gunpowder soaked in alcohol ignites - or 100 British proof.
The panel
Mean 79.0 · spread 0
Value for money 5/5
- Distillery
- Blair Athol
- Bottler
- Signatory Vintage
- Type
- Single Malt
- Region
- Highlands
- Country
- Scotland
- Age
- 9 years
- Strength
- 57.1% ABV
- Character
- rich
Tasting
Nose
Wow. That's exciting. Cough syrup, eucalyptus and Ricola Swiss herbal sweets are the dominant aromas on the nose, followed by coffee, leather and blackcurrant. If that wasn't enough, we also smell a good portion of liquorice. All extremely intense.
Palate
Clearly 99.9% dark chocolate paired with freshly ground coffee, tobacco (almost ashy) and rubber. The herbal and cough syrupy notes are also present in the flavour. On the fruity side, we taste a few plums. The whole flavour is overwhelming (both positively and negatively), intense, dry and extremely full-bodied.
Finish
The long, smooth finish is characterised by tobacco, pepper, leather and burnt oak.
Verdicts
Marcel
This Blair Athol is a wild ride through dark flavor realms – intense, almost overloaded, but precisely because of that, exciting. Ideal for enthusiasts willing to embrace a powerful character with notes of chocolate, leather, and robust herbs, but definitely not an easy-going whisky for casual social evenings.
Sascha
The cask strength of 57.1% delivers an overwhelming presence that structurally dominates the Blair Athol and shifts the balance in favor of intense, bitter notes. A demanding malt with complex aromatics, distinguished less by harmony and more by power and depth – not necessarily accessible, but technically fascinating.
What it is worth
We do not yet hold bottle-level auction results — that sits behind Whisky Hunter’s authenticated feed. What follows is the market for Blair Athol as a whole, which sets the weather for this bottling without pricing it.
Latest mean bid £86 across 84 lots · 2024-08