Midlands Whisky Festival 2017: 2/3

Midlands Whisky Festival 2017, round two.

 

Aultmore 2006/2017 10yo BBR cask #308088 46% WB0

• N: Creamy lime icing distillate.
• T: Decent refill action though without a great deal of complexity.
• F: Milky>mineral chocolate.
• C: Yay for refills.

Scores 85 points

 

Glenrothes 2001 [2017] Ob. 43% WB83.67[5]

Not the 1995 vintage as pictured – that was surprisingly a dream dram.

• N: Think sherry-sweet cream with sulphury hues and you’re ready to go.
• T: Yeah, classic Rothes. Overwhelming neat but add water and it purrs. More sherry thickness before the sulphury tyres dig in. Develops a warming mouthfeel. Water brings Caramac chocolate and woody raisins.
• F: Huge rubber sulphur and dry woody fruits, the sherry dominant.
• C: Perfect example of the rubbery=sulphury-sherried house style that Glenrothes execute so well. You just have to like sulphury sherry, which i do in moderation.

Scores 84 points

 

Glenrothes 12yo DL cask #14095 [492 bts] 50% WB83.67[5]

• N: Super creamy-sour cream, stale Farley’s rusks, shitty buffet beef – sweet n sour plus suet dumplings.
• T: Creamy sulphury curd and sour n sweet sour cream.
• F: Continues it’s excellence.
• C: Superb one trick pony.

Scores 86 points

 

Bunnahabhain 2005/2017 DL Provenance Single cask [275 bts] 46%

• N: Decent bourbon and sherry mix, or is this a single cask? Hmm it is,.. puzzling me. Sweet-savoury barley now indicative of a bourbon cask shows.
• T: More sour,…mash with a decent cask balance.
• F: Continues well, fades, done.
• C: Uneventful yet decent all-rounder.

Scores 85 points

 

Bowmore 2001/2017 15yo DL cask #11804 [321 bts] 48.4% WB0

• N: Smoky bacon potato crisps is all i wrote but there’s plenty more aside.
• T: Salty/mineral, potato-sweet with oyster sauce,..
• F: More of the same. The crisps are back with some grainy bitter tar trailing off.
• C: Standout decency like so many current SMWS Bowmore’s.

Scores 87 points

 

Platte Valley 100% Straight Corn Whiskey 40%/80 proof WB67.61[20]

From Indie brands [McCormick].

• N: Light chalky-sweet, much like some of those young Koval grains.
• T: Light, waxy mentholated spirits & fake candle wax.
• F: Not really.
• C: Not the best example but there aren’t a great deal of 100% corn whiskeys around. My money would be on the Hudson Baby Bourbon. On the plus side, it’s very light and accessible.

Scores a near miss

 

Muckle Flugga NAS ‘Over wintered in Shetland’ cask #900001/900002/900011 [btl #0949] 40% WF79

Undisclosed malt[s], further-matured in Shetland for a year+. According to Feusi [WB]: ‘The whisky, made by drinks company Blackwood, is a blend of three eight-year-old malts from across the north of Scotland. It is matured on the isle of Unst for 18 months, making it the first ever whisky to be produced on Shetland’.

• N: Creamy sherry sweet with the emphasis on the cream.
• T: Rounded thickish malty, mainly bourbon-y sweet.
• F: Shortish, tannic>chalky.
• C: Ok.

Scores 80 points

 

Dailuaine 2009/2017 7yo Hepburn’s Choice Single cask [138 bts] 46%

Filled from a rum barrel.

• N: Dusty, winey, creamy-sweet, smooth milky/fusty/dusty honey=hessian porridge.
• T: Sweet tannic/metallic with sweet weetabix.
• F: Metal grainy raisins.
• C: Perfect spirit-driven whisky demonstration from a proud seven year old, young but never immature

Scores 84 points

 

Let’s finish this round with an older Dailuaine.

Dailuaine 1992/2016 24yo Carn Mor ‘Celebration of the cask’ #3135 [203 bts] 53.7% WB90[1]

Carn Mor is a brand owned by Morrison & Mackay whisky.com

• N: Chalk and tropical dried fruits, dried mint, green herbal teas, comfrey and woody cream curd. More waxy, almost synthetic dry [Diageo] fruitiness with water – a more natural Diageo style if that is such a thing.
• T: Dunnage-y bourbon fruits with a lovely honeyed body. Not a great deal of movement. Pokey even diluted and drying but it just needs some time.
• F: Flows nicely from the palate with chalky-sweet barley and dry rose-blossom-honey with a dry lime-vanilla finish and some wood bitters.
• C: I’m buying this if funds allow.

Scores 88 points

 

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Let’s call that tea