If Tomintoul 21 is your bottle, there's really only one question worth asking: is there anything this much like it for less? The closest answer comes from the same distillery. Tomintoul 16, $132 for members, gives a Tomintoul 21 drinker about 89% of what their own bottle does. Same house, same gentle manner, much less to pay.
What it is, and how it drinks. The nose opens with sweet floral fruits and then settles into spice — sweet barley and old-fashioned boiled sweeties, with aniseed and a lick of furniture polish, refined the whole way through. The palate is smooth, with a lovely complexity to it. But the thing you remember is the finish: incredibly long, almondy, turning to vanilla and refusing to let go.
What to pay. Tomintoul 21 is $340 for members at Dan Murphy's this week. It usually sells around $369. Put another way, that's about $15.39 a standard drink across the roughly 22 drinks in the bottle — a pour at home that sits a touch over a pint at the pub, which runs about $13, or $6.28 a standard drink.
What its neighbours' drinkers would pay. Start with the bottle sitting nearest Tomintoul 21: Glenfiddich Grand Cru 23. Its drinker would pay about $426 for a Tomintoul 21, which is 83% of what their own bottle costs them, marking it down for the name on the label and the wine-cask fruit they'd be leaving behind. The other way round, a Tomintoul 21 drinker puts Grand Cru 23 at 80% of their own bottle, for those same two reasons. Across the drinkers of the bottles nearest Tomintoul 21, the answers run from $161 to $715. At $340 for members, this week's price sits inside that spread.
Three stand-ins.
Tomintoul 25, $733. Peaches and honey on the nose, then ripe apples and cocoa underneath, full-bodied and drying to plain chocolate. To a Tomintoul 21 drinker it gives about 92% of what the 21 does, for 216% of its price.
Tomintoul 16, $132 for members. Fruit gum drops is the note that stays with you — fragrant, firmly malty, caramel with a little almond and anise, and a soft wood-spice finish. Very easy to drink. To a Tomintoul 21 drinker it gives about 89% of what the 21 does, for 39% of its price.
Glenfiddich Grand Cru 23, $511 this week; it usually sells around $559. Toasted marshmallows up front, apricots in syrup and apple blossom, then pears, caramel and milk chocolate on a full palate. To a Tomintoul 21 drinker it gives about 80% of what the 21 does, for 150% of its price.
Who it's for. If Tomintoul 21 is already your bottle, $340 for members is what it costs this week, and nothing here is going to tell you to change. If you love it but want to spend less, Tomintoul 16 is the one — the same gentle house style, 89% of what you already drink, for well under half the price. If you keep the 25 in the cupboard, you already know the step up to 92% asks more than double. And if Glenfiddich Grand Cru 23 is your usual, the wine-cask fruit is the thing you'd miss crossing over — but what you'd find in its place is that long, almondy finish.
None recorded.
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