A sample I’ve been looking forward to popping up into the Advent calendar for a long time. The only other time I had this I did not care for it, really at all. But that was out to dinner and who knows how long the bottle had been opened, etc., so I reserved my judgement at the time. That experience had me intrigued by its regular praise and I was looking to really check it out for myself in a proper context. Rather than pop out the sample, I decided to wait until it was drawn for an Advent calendar to avoid any bias going in.
Minutia: Matured for some amount of time in quarter casks, presumably at least one other type in the mix as well. Reviewed blind, neat in a glencairn.
Color: Burnished, 1.1.
Nose: Medicinal, maritime smoke. Bit of dunnage. Chemical quality to the ethanol. The vaguest hint of tropical fruit.
Taste: Earthy, bitter, some smoke. The smoke grows as it sits on the tongue.
Finish: Big smoke, huge. Like the mistake that retail worker made. Takes on an earthy, charred meat quality. This wowed me. Medium.
Guess: On the nose it was either Laphroaig or Caol Ila, with a lean to Laphroaig. The taste solidified that. The finish though, gave me whispers of Octomore, but the ABV was too drinkable to make me change course to that. A Laphroaig, either an Elements of Islay or an OB.
Ok, I get it now. This is a top dram. Something was definitely off either with the bottle or my palate when I had it at a bar. Even if it was bad before the finish that alone would put it into drinkable territory. While nice, the nose isn’t terribly compelling, the taste takes it up a notch, and the finish just really sends it all home. It makes total sense why people recommend this, and why I really enjoyed the Cask Strength Cairdeas release.
Score: 89
Musical Evocation: Behemoth – “Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer”
Here are links to the other posts from this calendar:
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