Origin: Scotland
Type: Blended Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 50%ABV
Ageing casks: Ex-Bourbon Barrels and Hoghsheads
Chillfiltered: No
Additional coloring: No
Owner: The Scotch Malt Whisky Society
Average price: € 80.00
Official website: www.smws.com
Vote: 81/100
Released in 2018 for the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, a blend of single malts (unrevealed) from both Speyside and Islay, all aged in ex-Bourbon for a minimum of seven years.
The “peat fairy” comes from a blind tasting organized with some members of the club: Euan Campbell subjected the participants to blends different in the composition, to choose which one would have had the honor of ending up in the bottle.
The previous batch, born during the same session, had an aging of ten years, where the presence of Islay malts was less massive.
Tasting notes
Full gold in the glass.
Peat is initially pungent to the nose, fleshy and spicy, but in short it leaves room for a soul of yellow and tropical fruit (pineapple, peach, apple) with hints of vanilla, almonds, honey, lemon drop. Liquorice root. Quite light with sour veins.
The mixture of peat and speysider influences doesn’t seem to be the easiest on the palate, a bitter vein runs through the tasting that, on ginger tips, staggers between rough and tar peat and cooler and herbaceous shades with fruit, licorice, orange biscuits, lemon. Grumpy.
Quite long finish with bitter touches of ginger, citrus, wood, licorice, tar.
A marriage, in my opinion, not very successful, the two souls of whisky don’t seem to get along and mussel with each other in an unbalanced but not unpleasant dram, inconstant enough to be almost funny.