tOMoH: After-Party

After two jaw-dropping days [WLP],..

[& WLP], with The Old Man of Huy & co,…

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,… it’s time for a good chin wag over yet more golden liquid delights. Notes are scant.

Cambus 1989/2016 27yo SMWS G8.7 ‘Caribbean Banana Fritter’ [240 bts] 59.7% WB82.75[4]

• N: Pancakey, some subtle underlying hessian.
• T: ‘Classic’ rich grain that’s performing well at ‘just’ 27 years. Great balance is its superpower.
• F: Young sweetcorn,… really true finish – Nectar d’Or resemblances. 
• C: Another Sauternes thumbs up. Can’t fault it.

Scores 87 points

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Girvan 1964/2012 48yo The Whisky Agency/TWE ‘Fight’ ex-sherry butt [487 bts] 49.5% WB89.59[101] WF90

• N: Perhaps from the distillery’s first-ever spirit run, this has spent 48 years in sherry – no shit! A vibrant expression. Water = more ethanol,.. and fried bread?
• T: Same again really. Reminiscent of a 1977 sherried Strathclyde I once enjoyed (WLP), but with more power/presence.
• F: A straight shooter, the cask firmly driving a clean/neutral spirit where you can easily separate the two.
• C: The cask holds this one altogether. This was already relatively expensive [for a grain] when it came out – €220 – at a time when you could pick up (closed distillery) Port Dundas for £87 or a 48yo Caledonian for £102 (WB), for example.

Scores 87 points

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Tormore 1992/2019 27yo The Whiskyfind for The Mash Tun Tokyo cask #101154 [276 bts] 44.6% WB88.89[13]

• N&T: Sweet eggy dessert vibes, light yeastiness/bready/raisiny [white bread dough], rum n raisin icecream < coppery,.. Ben Nevis-y at times.
• F: Maintains the same trajectory as before with a soft middle and not a great deal at the end.
• C: Faithful, decent overall.

Scores 87 points

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Jura 1990/2020 30yo Thompson Brothers [186 bts] 46.33% WB89.55[55] WF90

• C: A light sweet subtle nose. Slightly sour and coppery to taste with some fragility overall. Would no doubt shine in a different context.

(Provisionally) scores 86 points

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[St. George’s] English Whisky Co. 2012 08yo SMWS 137.10 ’Smoky, Sweetie, Meaty’ [231 bts] 64.7% WB87[5]

• N: Sweet onion [relish], winkles, heap loads of oil: olive and 2-stroke.
• T: Onion-sweet-vibrant greasy gritty > salty, carbon, clay/earth, cake-y vanilla,…. 
• F: So much flavour [thankyou abv], the finish resonates over salty oaky vanilla, and those allium-ey phenols.
• C: Fabulously idiosyncratic. Another English cracker in as many months.

Scores 88 points

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Ardbeg 2001/2021 20yo Elixir for The Whisky Show 2021 Adventures in Flavour – ‘Phenolic Phantom’ 51.4% WB90.11[23] WF89

• N: Relaxed yet crisp, sweet > sweaty meaty salty hammy vegetal/leathery/plastic-y < (long time-banned) domestic weed killer, Bovril, [tawny] port,… Quite the nose!
• T: Oily greasy > Creasote, a splash of peach juice, sour lemon > sweet vegetal, salty – very salty!
• F: Salty/malty, vegetal, pine needles [without eucalyptus], diesel, oysters,.. all with an underlying ex-bourbon/barley legacy faithfulness.
• C: ‘Classic’ Ardbeg which, according to those that tried it at the Whisky Show in 2021, has benefitted from opening up, though the price-tag of £399 remains difficult to swallow.

Scores 89 points

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Alongside the Ardbeg, BA has also brought along beers and cider. I tried the Vienna beer from Mills Brewery and found it extraordinary. I shall be on the look out for more from this Gloucestershire-based micro brewery. Untappd.com says of the Vienna:

• ‘Vienna is a single barrel bottling made from one brew in May 2019. It struck us as perfectly balanced for a single barrel (very few are), with both enticing aromatics and easy drinkability. Far too nuanced to potentially be lost in a blend. We made a turbid wort with Vienna malt, rye and raw barley. Slovenian hops, both aged and fresh, were added during the boil. Fermentation and maturation took place in a well travelled 500 litre butt which was previously used for sherry, Scotch whisky and Herefordshire cider. The beer was bottled after 30 months in barrel, then conditioned slowly over winter‘.

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Talisker 30yo (+/-2022?) Ob. 48.5% WB90.82[69]

• C: What a whisky Talisker is, that it can fire so superbly at 10, 18, and 30 years of age. Yet another one I could/should have stocked up on back in the day, it’s only today’s pricing that prevents this from being a little more of an occasional dram than a once-in-a-blue-moon dram. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out this one’s bottling year but it’s brilliant stuff all the same.

Scores 92 points

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What a weekend!!!