57,9°
Distillery : Ardnamurchan - Highlands
1st Fill Spanish Oak Oloroso Sherry Hogshead
Original Bottling
Limited Edition
Single Cask
Bottled in 2023
Unchillfiltered, Uncoloured, Cask Strength
Peated around 18 ppm
Behind this rather uninviting code are the bottle references. 02:16 means that the juice was distilled in February 2016, and CK.65 is the cask number. What's more interesting is the nature of the cask, as the whisky spent its entire ageing period in an Oloroso Sherry cask. As always, the barley used is split in two, 50% unpeated malted barley and 50% peated malted barley. The cask was selected by Dugas Club Expert, a highly reputed French sales site, and is therefore reserved for the French market. I would have liked to know how many bottles were produced.
Let's Taste It :
The nose is pure Sherry Bomb, with intense and full-bodied aromas of red fruit, seasoned leather, cured meat and exotic wood. But also a good pinch of salt and seaweed, beeswax, cereals. Heavy toffee, treacle, dark chocolate, amid redcurrants and blueberries. On the palate, raspberries and blackcurrants, dried figs coated in a beautiful, bewitching smoke. Measured spices, nutmeg, cloves. Chocolate fondant. Long, powerful finish carrying smoke and peat, roots, damp earth, warm bark, chocolate cookies, pecans, roasted hazelnuts, cinnamon. Chestnuts and forest undergrowth.
In Short,
A very fine bottling, it doesn't need much more to reach excellence. Perhaps a few years. The Sherry is intense, but does not mask the distillery's character, which is costal, maritime and slightly foresty. The peat is light, not at all overpowering. Unfortunately, the price is a bit high, otherwise I'd recommend it without reservation. You'll have to wait for a promotion.
Score : 89
To Be Listened While Sipping :
Kat Von D - Fear You
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