Origin: Speyside (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 53%ABV
Ageing cask: Ex-Bourbon
Chillfiltered: No
Added colouring: No
Owner: Whisky Facile
Price: € 79.00 on Whisky Facile
Official website: Whisky Facile
Vote: 87/100
The third black cat of the Italian bloggers, with the choice falling on a distillery that isn’t exactly in the limelight and that has only recently ‘landed’ on this blog: coincidence would have it that in a month no less than three single casks have ended up in our glasses, perhaps destiny wants to tell us something… and it certainly concerns drinking.
Single cask ex first-fill Bourbon, 2011 distillate that after maturation produced 261 bottles still available.
Tasting notes
The nose is ambivalent, a very sugary nature of meringue, honey, plums and butter biscuits intertwining with cedar wood, nutmeg and buttermilk, composing a sophisticated and very intriguing aromatic picture: a sweet heart surrounded by nuances dancing between sour and rough. A balance that never cracks over time.
On the palate, it becomes very peppery with an extra hint of acidity, the sweet part drops in tone to give more strength to less complacent fruit components such as grapefruit and currants, introducing vegetable and mineral veins that make it very drinkable. A saline note emerges, while the sweetness remains squashed at the corner with some hints of apple, sugar paste and almonds that take on more body along the length.
The finish is quite long and dry, savoury, where the palette of impressions between sweet, rough and citrusy returns.
The diversity between nose and taste becomes evident during drinking, with a somewhat disorienting experiential palette that nevertheless finds an underlying coherence in the impressions, of a rich and vital distillate that knows how to be both elegant and drinkable.