Origin: Lowlands (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 48.6%ABV
Ageing casks: Ex-Sherry and ex-Bourbon
Chillfiltered: No
Added colouring: No
Owner: Ian MacLeod Distillers
Average price: € 2,800.00
Official website: www.rosebank.com
Vote: 90/100
Day four, and I have arrived at the first edition produced by the new owners of Rosebank, who, while waiting to reignite the stills of this historic distillery, began in 2020 to distribute celebratory bottlings made from the stocks left over from the past, initially with a trilogy called Legacy, of which the present was the first edition.
Distillate from 1990 (three years before closure) aged in refill ex sherry butts and refill ex bourbon hogsheads, vatted in the respective proportions of 62% and 38%, with 4,350 bottles produced at an obviously significant price.
Tasting notes
The nose offers a liveliness you wouldn’t expect from a 30-year-old: lots of fruit (peach, ripe apple, apricot, white melon, banana, pineapple, kiwi, currant) with custard, pastry, honey and the usual waxy note. A touch of lemon and a mineral vein provide freshness, while a rather curious vegetal and agricultural aspect emerges along the length, between tea leaves and peeled and washed potatoes. The aromas remain vivid and powerful over time, with the bright colours and elegance of a haute couture dress.
On the palate it’s drier and sharper, the sweetness tapering off in favour of the more mineral and acidic aspects of the nose, bringing citrus fruit (pink grapefruit, lemon) to the forefront over the rest, with peach and ripe apple leading the way (in crescendo) punctuated by gooseberry and currant. Ginger and white pepper sprinkled over the vegetal aspects of tea leaves and tobacco, with a slight dusty, damp, old library impression.
Long finish in which it’s the peach that drives the impressions, ripe and turning to aromatic tea, together with light spices, vegetal and mineral notes, wood in the background.
Despite its great elegance and depth, it convinced me a little less than previous tastings: the impression is that the richness of the distillate is beginning to be overwhelmed by the long maturation of the wood, losing part of its identity.