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Appearance: Bright amber, soft oily tears (coloured).
Nose: Massive malt with lots of caramel and white beet sugar sweetness. Soft floral notes, what the noser might call “heather” combined with – very nice – old musty leather armchairs and somewhat irritating – wornout rubber tires in the back. Together with hefty (metallic?) whiffs of alcohol a good and complex nose but for me there is maybe a wee to much weight on the sugar caramel side.
Taste: Very firm and round: The power of the alcohol combined with the deep sweetness mingle most beautifully together, but, alas, the old armchairs are nowhere to detect. There’s just this overwhelming sweetness backed by soft floral (green apples, unripe apricots) notes. With very few drops of water added (take care, just one drop too much and your dram is watered), the complexity increases on the palate, vanilla, white and dark chocolate praliné and creme brulée step foward.
Finish: Rather long and mesmerising between the big sweetness and sour notes between unripe fruits and rusty metal.
Conc.: A whisky which is hard to describe. A lot of fascinating impressions, but something seems to miss for a real experience. I guess bottled in this expression are some too young whiskies which disturb the complexity of the older ones. But the (now trendy?) 48% are a great strength to make a weaker dram interesting.
Tasting date: 02/08/2010
Price in Germany: 29,00 Euro
2010