After 30 years of friendship and a lifetime of whisky appreciation, Saltire Rare Malt officially launched this summer during the Spirit of Speyside festival as a new independent bottler of fine single malt whiskies.
Saltire Rare Malt has grown from a longstanding partnership between founders Nigel Heywood and Keith Rennie. Over three decades, the two friends have collected many fine and rare single malts. This shared passion for the ‘water of life’ has led to the creation of Saltire Rare Malt — a vehicle to share their outstanding collection of Single Malt Whiskies.
Joined by experts from across the industry, the collection boasts curation by Hans & Becky Offringa — ‘The Whisky Couple’ — and UK & Europe Brand Ambassador, David McCallum.
The company has set up in the market square of Falkland, Fife, opposite the Falkland Palace which is where the first written reference to Scotch whisky comes from… see more here.
Some 530 years later, the Saltire team have launched their scotch whisky brand – named after the Scottish flag itself! – with a trio of single malts that all very swiftly sold out.
Here we have their fifth release: a 14 year old single cask from Dailuaine. This has spent its whole life in a single first fill ex-bourbon hogshead. In fact we know that this was distilled on 14th July 2010, and bottled on 15th July 2024 from cask number 308853. [ed: hows that for transparency?!]
Saltire look to bottle all their whiskies at a minimum of 48.8% ABV, as we have here, and present them as them come: without colouring or chill-filtration. There are only 299 bottles from the cask and, whilst you can get one, they are priced at £85 GBP per 70cl bottle.
Nose
An initial sweet and floral punch of grape skins and Parma violets. There are some musty/earthy orchard fruit smells with some juicier tropical fruit and citrus notes poking through. A gently drying nutty and oak smell round it out.
Taste
A sharp fruit and citrus burst with lots of baking spices developing that remind me of zesty key lime pie. Heather honey and a real cereal not sit behind the fruitier elements. A tingling white pepper heat – almost like a chilli heat – keeps this light and tantalising.
Finish
The heat from the alcohol keeps this zesty and zippy without being fiery or overpowering.
Verdict
A fantastic fresh, fruity, and feisty number. It has lots of flavours whilst remaining light and inviting.
I would love to know about the idea and experiments behind Saltire’s choice of 48.8% ABV as the bottling strength because it seems to be some sort of sweet spot here. The heat from the alcohol really seems to push all of the flavours in the right direction.
It’s a good aged single malt too. I have tried 4 of their releases as part of a promotional tweet tasting event, and all of their releases seem to be in the teens, and all of them were really singing.
I have little experience with Dailuaine itself, given their limited bottles of single malt expressions, my only real association of the distillery is with the 16yo Flora & Fauna release, and so I have never tried a purely bourbon matured Dailuaine before. And now I’m not sure why not. (Notes on that entry here: Dailuaine 16). Big fruit flavours and still a noticeable malty backbone.
Whisky prices are something of an alchemy and this seems pretty reasonable given the direction of the current market and looking at the price of 14yo single malts from established brands.
Overall, a really enjoyable single malt and a great sign of the stock, quality, and things to come from Saltire.
M
Sample disclosure: This sample was received as part of a Tweet Tasting event run by The Whisky Wire using #SaltireRareMaltWhisky. All notes are intended as an honest, fair, and independent review of the whisky, and not as a promotion. Please drink responsibly. Please drink wisely.
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