Cask No. 1.283 – Happy in a hippy shop
Flavour profile: Sweet, Fruity & Mellow
Date distilled: February 2013
Cask: First-fill Cosecha wine barrique
Age: 9 years
Alcohol: 60.3%
Region: Speyside
Outturn: 204 bottles
The nose offered an abundance of orchard fruits – pears poached in port, peaches and cream, and stewed plums with custard – plus sponge cake and pink wafers. On the palate, raspberry sauce on ice cream and black forest gateau preceded a curious finish of wine-soaked staves, incense smoke and Indian spices. The reduced nose included hippy shop joss sticks, sandalwood and lavender, sugared almonds and apricot jam. The palate combined Amarena cherries in syrup and shortbread with a rather exotic finish of perfumed wood and ash, menthol and eucalyptus. After five years in ex-bourbon wood we transferred this into a first fill cosecha wine barrique.
Cask No. 9.275 – Intricacy
Flavour profile: Sweet, Fruity & Mellow
Date distilled: September 2003
Cask: First-fill barrel
Age: 19 years
Alcohol: 50.7%
Region: Speyside
Outturn: 192 bottles
A lovely nose brimmed with soft green and yellow fruits initially, ahead of flowers in full bloom, heavy with pollens, and beyond that honey cake, lime curds and scents of new leather and shilling ales. Some water brought notes of burlap sacks, caramelised pineapple, buttered oatcakes and fruity muesli. The neat palate displayed a beautifully intricate and delicate thread of smoky and waxy notes, plus pumpkinseed oils, salted caramel and lanolin, as orchard fruits with dried coconut hung in the background. Once water was added it became dominated by sweet cereals, brown bread, hoppy ales, butter and freshly muddled green herbs. Hints of rolling tobacco and light waxiness lingered in the aftertaste.
Cask No. 8.43 – Shaded by flowers
Flavour profile: Deep, Rich & Dried Fruits
Date distilled: November 2015
Cask: First-fill Pedro Ximenez butt
Age: 7 years
Alcohol: 55.7%
Region: Speyside
Outturn: 642 bottles
This opened with a big, no-nonsense initial aroma of custard with mulling spices, warm coffee grounds, walnut cake, dusty old bodega funk, mace, allspice and toasted almond flakes. With time a slightly sweeter, earthier edge emerged, like earthen-floored wine cellar must and walnut wine. Water brought out more aromatic aspects such as hothouse flowers, tobacco leaf and boiled mint sweets, plus a touch of candied grapefruit. The neat palate was surprisingly rounded, featuring lots of demerara sugar, plum wine, fennel seeds and treacle tart with a hint of blood orange. With reduction we found a much more intense and direct sweetness, characterised by flavours of blackcurrant jam, dates, plums in cognac, raisins and toasted oak lactones.
Cask No. 3.348 – Mellifluous quince
Flavour profile: Old & Dignified
Date distilled: February 2004
Cask: Second-fill hogshead
Age: 18 years
Alcohol: 56.9%
Region: Islay
Outturn: 252 bottles
A gentle smoke poured over a bouquet of flowers, passion fruit and melon. This was immensely tropical on the nose, exhibiting hints of Caribbean rum and a fruity cake mix. Such an elegant palate, with the sophistication of rose water, the freshness of a sea breeze and the charm of an old dunnage warehouse. Mellifluous with water, we tucked into a syrupy fruit salad sprinkled with lemon thyme, eucalyptus and dolly mixture. The texture was now akin to olive oil, quince paste perhaps, revealing notes of lemon and a warm summer afternoon in the garden.
Cask No. 3.349 – A whirlpool of happiness
Flavour profile: Lightly Peated
Date distilled: February 2004
Cask: Second-fill hogshead
Age: 18 years
Alcohol: 57.9%
Region: Islay
Outturn: 240 bottles
A sweet fragrance of Turkish delight and coconut harmonised with aromatic riesling and moscatel wine, creating a perfect symbiosis with dried peat and wood ash. The palate too was a delight – layers of cherry fondant melted over pressed flowers, rose petals and crumbly earth. An enhanced fruity demeanour appeared by adding water. Now watermelon, pineapple and lemon zest swirled around with the riesling wine, like a whirlpool of happiness, carrying flotsam of flaked almonds, crushed hazelnuts and soft-centred meringue. The palate was now a splendorous amalgamation of apple candy and sugared orange peel, balancing with raw peat, campfire ash and suggestions of bay leaves and lemongrass.
Raffle for the allocation of the 1.9.8.3. 40th Anniversary Bundle
All members who would like to buy an anniversary collection of four bottles can enter the draw using the form below by 30 July at the latest – the draw will take place on 1 August. There are two versions of the collection, one version with the bottles 1.283, 9.275, 8.43 and 3.348, and one version with the bottles 1.283, 9.275, 8.43 and 3.349. We will receive six collections of each version for Switzerland. The price for the collection is CHF 599.–.