Tomatin 30 Year Old Scotch Review

By Richard Thomas

Rating: A-

The Tomatin-Glenlivet Distillery is named for the village of Tomatin, plus the common practice 19th Century of tying the name Glenlivet onto things. If you making a study of distilleries in Scotland in 1897, when Tomatin was founded, you would have found quite a few this-Glenlivet and Glenlivet-that distilleries, and none of them had anything to do with the distillery we call simply “Glenlivet” today, so never let that throw you. The distillery was acquired by Takara Holdings, a Japanese sake and shochu maker, back in 1986.

Tomatin 30 Year Old is an expression that has a bit of a recent history. The current version dates to 2018, when they introduced Batch 1 to replace the 1988 Vintage expression, and at the time of writing they were on Batch 4. However, there was a 2,000 bottle release of 30 year old malt from Tomatin back in 2011, and there may have been other 30 years olds before that, but that would be before I started paying attention.

The Scotch
This well-aged malt looks like an extract of gold in the glass; the liquid looks so rich that to call it simply “golden” isn’t good enough. Sniffing at the glass gave me honey, pineapple and wildflowers, with a whiff of hoary, peppery old wood hovering in the background. Sipping takes that basic structure and advances a step wider in all directions: the honey grows richer; the pepper turns into gentler, more diverse spices; papaya joins the pineapple. The finish then evolves further, while pulling itself in a bit, to linger on with red fruits and cinnamon.

Frankly, if one trotted out a dram of a 30 year old malt and it wasn’t complex, that would be a disappointing waste of time in the cask. This one is both rich and complex, bordering on sublime without quite managing to get all the way there for me.

The Price
My price check shows you should expect to pay about $500 for a bottle of one of the four batches.