Regular viewers of my channel will know that I usually dedicate my time to discussing some of the finest whiskies in the world. However, this was an exception. I wanted to talk about what is arguably the worst whisky ever committed to a bottle: the Loch Dhu 10 Year Old. It is terrible, it is mega collectible, and it has fascinated me for a very long time.
So what on earth is Loch Dhu? The name is simply a trademark, and the liquid itself was produced at the Mannochmore Distillery in the heart of Speyside. This is important, because Mannochmore is a genuinely brilliant distillery. It produces some sensational whisky, including the Ghost Piper of Clanyard Bay, a 90-point stunner on Whisky Fun that sits comfortably alongside Macallans costing thousands of pounds. Yet back in the mid 1990s, the distillery decided to release this.
The first thing you notice is the colour, and I mean seriously, it is black as night. There is no transparency to it whatsoever, and if you shake the bottle, it leaves a dark residue clinging to the glass. Man alive, it is quite a sight.
The label boasts of a whisky “as black as the night” with a “rich velvety taste,” patiently rested in charred sherry casks. The reality is rather different. That colour does not come from long maturation in exotic casks, the way the legendary Black Bowmore earns its darkness. This is a mere 10-year-old whisky, and its inky appearance comes almost entirely from a huge dollop of E150a caramel colouring, the only additive permitted in single malt Scotch.
Predictably, it drinks about as well as it sounds. It scores just 49 points on Whisky Fun, where the nose is apparently decent but the palate turns bitter. There is a wonderful anecdote about Charles MacLean requesting a dram precisely because everyone knows how bad it is meant to be, only to swiftly switch to something else.
That is the whole appeal, really. It is like a car crash. You know you should not look, but you cannot help yourself.
This morbid curiosity has created a remarkable secondary market. Loch Dhu has sold over 1,100 times, with a record price reaching around £400 a bottle. Supply is dwindling fast, and in five or ten years there will be almost none left to buy. As the ultimate conversation piece, the world’s worst whisky may just prove a very shrewd investment.
Would you spend hundreds of pounds simply to taste how bad a whisky can be? Let me know in the comments.
To see the bottle and hear more about its history, check out my YouTube video.
Read the full article at Loch Dhu: Why the World’s Worst Whisky Might Just Be the Best Investment
