The Last Glass of Rosebank

The other night, on our way to dinner at Meritage in the Boston Harbor hotel, we looked into the Rowes Wharf Bar and noticed that, among their single malt scotch whiskies, there was a listing for Rosebank. Rosebank! How often does one find Rosebank anywhere these days? It's gone from the enormous listing at Keens; Federal occasionally picks up a bottle or two, and if we get heads-up from Joe, maybe we have a chance to stop by before they're sold; and aside from the Gordon Macphail bottling, which was finished in sherry, and which tastes quite different from most lowlands, I don't think I've seen it anywhere over the past couple years. So we immediately planned for a nightcap at the Rowes Wharf bar, once dinner had concluded.

Just for the record, the dinner at Meritage was great. The restaurant is planned around wine pairings; the menu is structured, not by course, or food category, but again by pairings -- i.e., dishes that go with sparkling wines, dishes that go with fruity reds, and so forth. Not surprisingly, they have a superior wine list, and a knowledgeable sommelier, name of Tanya. Back in the day, one would have been surprised to find a sommelier of Tanya's gender, but of course we are used to that, as we are regularly guided through the wine world by Janine at the Chophouse. The thing that was surprising about the wine list was how reasonably wines were priced. We ended up with a 2001 Guigal Hermitage for under a hundred dollars, and were knocked out, just as we hoped we would be. But I didn't set out to post about wine; I wanted to tell you about our favorite malt, the long gone lowland -- Rosebank.

The reason Rosebank has become so hard to find, is that the distillery has been closed since 1992. And unlike Bladnoch, the other great lowland distillery, it has never been reopened. So the world's supply of Rosebank is disappearing -- what Jackson calls a grievous loss. We first tasted Rosebank on a family cruise when the ship had a whisky bar called Maltings. They had an 18 year old Rare Malts bottling, for around $8 a pour. It was love at first taste. So much so that, regardless of what else we drank all night long, John stopped by the bar late each night, for a Rosebank nightcap.

The Rowes Wharf bar offered a nineteen year old Connoisseur's Choice that reminded us of the original Rosebank we had tasted way back when. It had that delightful floral nose characteristic of the good lowlands, and a light malt flavor with hints of citrus or fruit. And even though the malt had become silky smooth after nineteen years in the barrel, there was a hint of pepper behind each taste. For me, it's the pepper that distinguishes Rosebank from Bladnoch, and that, in the end, makes this lowland whisky so special.

But when we arrived at the bar after dinner, and ordered a round of drinks, we learned that there was only a single pour of Rosebank in the bottom of the bottle. They offered to look in back and see if there were any more bottles, but John and I knew how futile that search would be. And in fact, we were thrilled to be able to split a single pour, considering just how infrequently one finds Rosebank anywhere other than in our own private stock. And so, on December 28, 2010, John and I shared the last glass of Rosebank at the Rowes Wharf bar. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I don't think anyone will ever duplicate that experience. So next time we visit Meritage, perhaps we'll share a bottle of dessert wine. And in the meantime, we'll keep our eyes open for other food and beverage establishments that still have a dram or two of this disappearing lowland whisky behind their bars.