Morris of Rutherglen built its name on fortified wine, and its whisky carries both that sweetness and a craft-scale price. Of the three on the shelf, the plainest bottle is the one closest to fair, and the flagship asks double.
Three Morris whiskies are on the shelf this week, all from the old fortified-wine house at Rutherglen in north-east Victoria, and all three sit above their flavour-crowd, the ten whiskies the model rates nearest each on taste. That is the usual shape for a small Australian distillery charging craft prices. The useful part is the spread. The double-grain entry bottle sits only a touch over its crowd. The single malts sit a good deal further over, and the Muscat-cask flagship sits the furthest of the lot, at double what its taste-peers charge.
Know the house before the bottles. Morris has made fortified wine at Rutherglen, in the north-east corner of Victoria, for five generations, and the whisky is the recent chapter of that story. It leans on the casks the family already had: ex-Muscat and other fortified-wine barrels that give the malt its sweet, dried-fruit character. That is the thread running through all three bottles, and it is also why the range reads as it does, a sweet, dessert-leaning Australian style priced at the craft end.
Standing at the bottle shop doing the sums in my head, and the cheaper sticker isn't the cheaper pour. Morris Rutherglen Muscat Barrel asks $10 more a bottle than Starward Panettone, yet at 46% against 40% it's the cheaper drink — $4.53 a standard drink against $4.75. Pour the Morris for dates, cocoa and cinnamon, the Starward for candied orange and spiced bread, the Lawrenny Homestead ($6.33, white peaches and smoked almonds) when you fancy a longer sit. The first two come in under a pub pint's $6.28, the Lawrenny just over — a yes for each.
310 bottles at Dan Murphy's can be priced per standard drink this week. Cheapest first: Grant's Triple Wood 1 litre at $1.99 a standard drink; the median is $4.16; Dalmore 21 Malt is the highest at $42.68. 235 of the 310 come in under a pint at the pub, which works out at $6.28 a standard drink.
305 bottles at Dan Murphy's can be priced per standard drink this week. Cheapest first: McAllister 1 litre at $2.00 a standard drink; the median is $4.03; Dalmore 21 Malt is the highest at $42.68. 228 of the 305 come in under a pint at the pub, which works out at $6.28 a standard drink.
Rutherglen made its name on sticky fortified wine, and Morris matures its whisky in the casks that wine leaves behind. So this is a brand whose house flavour is written into the wood before the spirit ever goes in.
Morris of Rutherglen spent more than a century making fortified wine before it bottled a drop of whisky, and those old muscat casks are still the most interesting thing in the range. They are also where the price jumps.
| bottle | region | latest ticket | read | window price | CE 360° mean | premium | shelf rank | per std drink | drink rank | content |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morris 36 South Double Grain Whisky | Rutherglen | $67.99 | observed | $65.00 | $51.48 | 20.8% | #1 of 1 | $3.08 | #1 of 1 | 2 |
| Morris Rutherglen Muscat Barrel Single Malt Australian Whisky | Victoria | $151.99 | observed | $115.00 | $82.47 | 28.3% | #6 of 9 | $5.98 | #7 of 8 | 3 |
| Morris Rutherglen Signature Single Malt Australian Whisky | Victoria | $96.99 | observed | $87.00 | $66.16 | 24.0% | #2 of 9 | — | — | 0 |