Tasting notes·Tullibardine

Tullibardine Sovereign

Tullibardine Sovereign is the entry into the core range of whiskies from the distillery in the Scottish Highlands. At the same time, it also forms the basis for further core range bottlings, each of which receives a 12-month finish in a different type of cask than the bourbon cask.

The panel

Marcel
59
Sascha
61

Mean 60.0 · spread 2

Value for money 2/5

Distillery
Tullibardine
Type
Single Malt
Region
Highlands
Country
Scotland
Strength
43% ABV
Character
delicate

Tasting

Nose

The Sovereign is very faint on the nose. Somewhat oaky and malty, a little vanilla here and there and a hint of pear. Half a spoonful of apricot yoghurt.

Palate

The flavour is also relatively "compact". Also oak and vanilla. Instead of great flavours, we encounter hardly any fruit and more ethanol, which makes it tingling.

Finish

The finish is short with a hint of cinnamon and some oaky spice.

Verdicts

Marcel

The Tullibardine Sovereign remains rather restrained and unfortunately offers little drinking pleasure – a whisky that tastes more like cask than character. It might be nice for Highland beginners, but true highlights are hard to find here. Let’s see if the finishes bring more life to it.

Sascha

The Sovereign shows a solid but quite flat structure with dominant bourbon cask notes that reveal little depth or complexity. The balance between malt, oak, and ethanol feels unrefined, and the finish is short and unspectacular. A basic bottling that could be interesting mainly as a playground for experimenting with finishes.

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 Tullibardine as a whole, which sets the weather for this bottling without pricing it.

£1£10£100£1k£10k2005200820112014201720202023

Latest mean bid £68 across 95 lots · 2024-08

Source

Tasting note and scores by WHISKY:EDITION — tasted by Marcel and Sascha, published 2024-01-22.