...calm opening on the nose, filled with fresh melted caramel and fudge chews, shavings of coconut and light fresh fruit of apricot and apple slices. A touch of spice follows, with ginger, aniseed and black pepper, before we head back to the fruit and find a bit of fresh mango, honeydew melon, rock-melon, and then a bit of vanilla ice cream and banana chips to finish...
...it moves to chai, and apricots that move from bursting with juice to dry in the mouth, with sweet cinnamon, cherry’s, humbugs, raisins, and dark sugar. Its then the mouthfeel starts to come in, and the whisky is hot and sweet yet so incredibly dry, stripping all the moisture from the cheeks and tongue as though you’ve stuffed your mouth full of cinnamon sugar...
...Pepper moves atop raisins, plums, apricots and dates dunked in a pot of sherry with a touch of iron moving through, a mineral element that really helps to change the whisky up, and then it turns to a Christmas cake heavy on the ginger and cinnamon. And then the peat hits, and hits hard. All the flavours start to be swallowed by the fog, that little bit of cocoa nibs? Swallowed...
...old wood, twigs, wet leaves and bark heaped upon iron rich dirt and set ablaze. In the middle of it all the fire parts, and as the smoke still rises, we can see the core of the flame; sweet malt biscuits, roasting pineapple...
...also once hide a nut tree sitting in the distilleries courtyard from the German forces during the second world war (the wood used is apparently perfect for gun stocks)...
...chocolate that somehow was missing from the nose. As I bite into it thick chocolate and fudge ice-cream appears alongside liquorice, honey dew melon, dancing pears, prancing bears, jumping caramel, spinning plums, sweet coffee and a black forest gateau winking...
...Rich tobacco, thick tannic notes, carrot cake and caramelised dark sugar. Once we start digging into that caramel glob we find smoky raisins, sulphuric honey, saffron and paprika before a bed of marzipan, a big difference to the nose that I was not expecting. The mouthfeel is cloying...
