A fairly old bottling from a pretty respectable IB from a distillery I quite like. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while, so I’m glad it turned up in this calendar.
Elements of Islay Ar1, Islay Single Malt, 58.7% ABV
Minutia: Distillates from the 1990s and 2000s matured in hogsheads. Reviewed blind, neat in a glencairn.
Color: Old gold, 0.5.
Nose: Smokiness, feels medicinal. Also feels a bit like dried fruit.
Taste: Smoke, spicy fruit, dry musty fruit, oak.
Finish: Vegetal smoke (pronounced), heat, a weird bit. Feels musty at the tail in a really nice way. Maybe bump this up a point or two if you like that.
Guess: Fire and Cane? Talisker? Springbank 15 Rum? Nothing distinctive enough for me here. All I can venture is a respectable ABV.
And the ABV is all I got close on. This was an ok dram. The finish was the preferred part for me, and I think the memory of the dram is more fond than the dram itself. Over the course of this glass, a feeling grew that this is a dram that a sample is really entirely incomparable for a proper judgement. It’s never great, but often a sample gives you at least the big picture. This evolved a good deal, and the finish improved the longer it was left to develop without a sip. This would benefit a lot from having many opportunities to lest for various times after pouring, as well as between sips, and see what comes out of it after those intervals. A weird and neat dram, and neater for its weirdness, but short of a revelation.
Score: 83
Here are links to the other posts from this calendar:
No comments:
Post a Comment