Whilst Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall highlights our global plastics crisis on the BBC, here’s yet more distraction in the form of random plastic-free drams I’ve enjoyed of late.
Aberlour A’bunadh Batch #61 [2017] Ob. 60.8% WB87.47[89]
- N: I smell lovely oily nutty husky sherry casks.
- T: Rather spirity neat. I poured in a whole heap of water with no detrimental effects whatsoever. The trick is adding enough to extract the underlying waxy herbal character.
- F: Not overly complex but it’s a good hummer.
- C: A slugger really, and a good ‘un.
Scores 86 points
Glengoyne 21yo (+/-2018) Ob. 43% WB88.15[785] [WF]84 [WM]84[13]
- C: Much like Glenmorangie, I find Glengoyne’s younger bottlings to be just as good as their older expressions, the [Glengoyne] 18yo & 25yo being the exceptions. I find this 21yo a super clean/rounded & faultless sherry driven malt, and that’s about all.
Scores 84 points
Laphroaig 10yo CS Batch #010 [2018] Ob. 58% WB88.54[359]
- N: A contemporary-styled, peated vegetal Laphroaig – that’s pickled veg with an aromatic chilli touch and lime & unripe mango pickle with shoe polish. Once you find yourself stood inside a bicycle shed with a slice of vanilla icecream in a cardboard-y wafer, that’s your lot.
- T: Tight, short/acute arrival, drying as it travels,…
- F: ,.. yet becoming fluid towards the tail, wrapping up with a bitter-fresh old oaky smokey profile.
- C: Water reveals there’s less under the surface but what’s on the surface will suffice.
Scores 83 points
Laphroaig An Cuan Mor [2018] Ob. 48% WB85.68[390]
A sample from Laphroaig’s Feis Ile Open Day in 2018, kept and tried a year later.
- C: Decent whisky certainly, but at £83 for a 70cl travel retail bottle is a push given the standard 10yo is significantly cheaper and of a similar standard.
Scores 85 points
[Springbank] Longrow 1991 16yo Un-Ob ref: 08/91-3 56.8%
This sample was saved from last year’s Campbeltown Malts Festival [WLP], which as far as I can tell never did see a release as a 1991 vintage. At Springbank’s New & Forthcoming Tasting I rated it 87 at the time, which for a 9 year Chardonnay-finished peated malt is quite something. Let’s see how it fares a year on.
- C: This is superb & unique whisky that has enjoyed every year in that Chardonnay cask. I’d definitely buy a bottle without hesitation but of course now I’m a year too late. Shucks!
Scores 88 points
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