Longrow Red 7yo Pinot Noir Casks (2024 Release) & Longrow 16yo Open Day 2024

Longrow Red 7yo Pinot Noir Casks (2024 Release)

Region: Campbeltown

ABV: 57.1%

Price: £72.00

The latest Longrow Red was matured for 7 years in total, with the first 4 of those being spent in bourbon casks, before the whisky was additionally matured for 4 years in French Pinot Noir casks. It was released June 2024, and 10,000 bottles were made available.

Nose

The nose opens with a fairly sour character, pickling spice, moving into cured meats, salami, coal fires, and musty wardrobes. It’s a little restrained on the nose, there’s musty peat smoke but we’re having to dig deep for the rest of the aromas. Going back, there’s some treacle, grass, damp cardboard and musty cupboards.

Palate

The palate has a decent texture, but a lot of upfront earth, charred oak, bitter orange pith, black pepper spice and sour plums. It’s quite fiery, with a pronounced ginger ale flavour left into the mid length finish. Going back, we’re finding some milk chocolate, grape must, bonfire smoke and some light red fruits towards the latter part of the palate.

Nose (with water)

The reduced nose has more of the wine cask coming through, a mixture of red fruits and wood tannin. There’s still something quite meaty in the background too, and it’s still got a few sour notes. Not too much has changed for us overall.

Palate (with water)

The reduced palate maintains the mouthfeel, with slightly less spice and bitterness, more coffee and chocolate, and more earth too. The smoke is fairly restrained on the initial palate, but shows up later on and we’re still getting the ginger ale warming our chests as the finish goes on.

Conclusion

We’ve had some really good and .. less good Longrow red’s. This one is a bit in the middle for us, and it’s split the group. It’s a little one dimensional, with some astringent notes in places that we didn’t love. Saying that, there’s a some nice cask influence and a good underlying spirit. We probably wouldn’t order another dram however wouldn’t turn our nose up at one if we were given it. We’re between a 6.5 and a 7 on this, but we’ll settle on a 7/10.

Score: 7/10

Value

The price is in line with other previous releases. Although previous releases were generally older.

Longrow 16yo Open Day 2024

Region: Campbeltown

ABV: 54.7%

Price: £45.00 (35cl)

This Longrow release was bottled for the 2024 Open Day. It was aged in Ruby Port casks. Only 2,200 35cl bottles were made available.

Nose

The nose opens with smoked cherry jam, nutmeg, dark chocolate, dry soil, warehouse must, unwashed strawberries and coffee beans. The peat is there, but it feels more of an earthy, dunnage funk than heavily peat fires. Behind this sits some charred oak, over baked ginger biscuits and a little fryer grease. There’s a slight fishiness here too, right in the background. The alcohol has a decent balance, we perhaps wouldn’t guess 16 years old off of the nose, maybe around 12 years.

Palate

The palate shows a lot of the port influence up front, lots of red fruits, cherries, strawberries, red currant, alongside raisin and a bit of brandy. This is followed up by sweet earthiness, funky, only a mild peat smoke for us, it’s more savoury than smoky. There’s also some chocolate croissants and dirt.. an interesting combination that weirdly works for us. The finish is fairly long, hints of those red fruits alongside fireside peat sticks with us.

Nose (with water)

The reduced nose has more of a coastal quality, wet rope, salty sea air, but we’re also finding sweeter notes of candy floss and vanilla essence. There’s still a lot of the funk coming through for us, but considerably less peat.

Palate (with water)

The reduced palate maintains a nice texture on the mouthfeel, with red kola, a little ginger spice, warm toffee and cherry jam. Water rounds out some of the rougher edges on the palate, more fruit and sweetness, whilst still maintaining the Campeltown character.

Conclusion

It’s a big hit of fruity port and funky earth for us, and that’s perfectly fine. Lots going on, not as peaty as the usual Longrows but we’d attribute this to the mid teen aging. A splash of water really opens this up on the palate. Good quality whisky as usual, we’ll go for 7.5/10.

Score: 7.5/10

Value

Another bargain release from Springbank, and with 2,200 bottles hopefully one people will be able to get their hands on.

• 10 - Perfection. One in a million
• 9 - Outstanding. Exceptional whisky.
• 8 - Great. Would seek this out.
• 7 - Good. Quality whisky.
• 6 - Above average. Happy to have a dram.
• 5 - Average. Drinkable whisky.
• 4 - Below average. Passable.
• 3 - Flawed. Noticeable negatives.
• 2 - Defective. Significant faults.
• 1 - Offensive. Pour it out.

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