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Friday, January 17, 2020

Edradour 13 year old 2005, cask 145

On Wednesday I reviewed a heavily-peated bourbon cask NAS single malt from Edradour. Today it's a non-peated single sherry cask 13 year old malt from the same distillery.

I knew this one was going to be a hellion. It is bottled at 65.9%abv. Single malts north of 60%abv tend to require a lot of tinkering before their palates reveal their best sides. That's just my experience of course. Yours may differ. Though how on Earth is a 13yo whisky still flexing a nearly 66%abv? A hot warehouse? A higher barreling strength? A wonky cask?


Distillery: Edradour
Ownership: Signatory Vintage Scotch Whisky Co., Ltd.
Region: Highlands (Central)
Age: 13 years old (28 June 2005 - 14 November 2018)
Maturation: sherry butt
Cask #: 145
Outturn: 532
Alcohol by Volume: 65.9%
Chillfiltered? No
Colorant added? No
(from a bottle split)

NEAT
The nose is plenty poisonous, almost all ethyl and glue, for the first 15 minutes. Gradually notes of almond butter, urine and fish oil slip out. It takes 45 minutes to open up: prunes, dried cranberries, mixed berry jam and dirty hay. Compared to the nose, the palate is not that hot. It's still a bit gluey. It's also spicy, with sweet shisha and dry sherry. The hot, acidic finish is nothing but aggressive tartness, earth and dry sherry.

I'm going to attempt to bring it down to a more approachable level: 100 UK Proof.

DILUTED TO ~57.1%abv, or < 1 tsp of water per 30mL whisky
The nose becomes less gluey. More candy notes: Good 'n Plenty and cherry lollipops. The calmer palate gains fruity notes, like raspberry jam and tart lemons. There's a definite woody smoke to it, which carries through to the finish, which also brings a hit of tart berries and limes.

Is it all that it can be? Perhaps not.

DILUTED TO ~46%abv, or > 2½ tsp of water per 30mL of the original whisky
The nose is earthy, grungy, metallic and yeasty, but also candied. Fruit cake and a little bit of smoke. The palate is sweet and tangy, but doesn't let go of the heat. Smaller notes of wood smoke and metal. It finishes farmy, metallic, sweet and tangy.

WORDS WORDS WORDS
This cask's ABV does it no favors. It's violent stuff until it airs for 45-60 minutes, but even then it feels tight. Bringing it down to 46%abv reveals a quirky, challenging creature, interesting but difficult. Though "Edradour" is the distillery's unpeated malt there is definitely something smoky running throughout this particular whisky, unless that's my palate burning down. That note is welcome. The metallic side, not so much. This Edradour gets points for being nonconformist, but that's about it.

Looking at its whiskybase scores, I see I'm probably alone in my opinion of the stuff. I've set aside one ounce of the whisky, reduced to 46%abv. It'll sit for a bit, maybe a month. If the whisky changes at that point, I'll update this post. But right now, the Ballechin wins by a good measure.


Availability - might still be around in Continental Europe
Pricing - around €100?
Rating - 79