Let us (the royal us), keep the Teaninich party going with something slightly more contemporary, an 11 year old single cask from the Berry Bros. As referenced in the previous post, the distillery switched over to a mash tun-free, hammer mill + mash filter approach in 2000. The result is a huskless flour that turns into a nearly-clear wort. Whisky Magazine has a post that explains the process, but I warn you, the lack of paragraph breaks may drive you insane.
To the whisky!
Distillery: Teaninich
Owner: Diageo
Region: Northern-ish Highlands
Independent Bottler: Berry Bros. & Rudd
Age: 11 years old (2007 - 2019)
Maturation: ???
Cask number: ???
Outturn: ???
Alcohol by Volume: 55.9%
(from a bottle split)
NOTES
The lovely neat nose leads with barley, citronella, lemons and pineapple. Cardamom and mint candy notes develop later on. Despite these notes, the whisky doesn't come across as very sugary when neat. But when reduced to 46%abv, it's nearly all sugar. The actual fruit essences retreat, and some mineral notes appear.
The malty mouth has a good balance of tart and sweet. Lime juice + tangy oranges + cayenne pepper. It ditches the sweetness with time, picking up some stones, turning into something like a dry white from Bordeaux. Dropping the abv to 46% delivers what the diluted nose promised: lots of sweetness. Malt and limes swim around in the sugar and heat.
A nice raw almond note combines with tart limes in the finish. Malt and oranges appear later on. Though it's neither too sweet nor too hot, the finish has a good length to it. At 46%abv, the finish gets hotter and sweet, while some of the limes hang on.
WORDS WORDS WORDS
This would be a very comfy summer whisky when one desires something stronger than the aforementioned Bordeaux whites. At full power, it's pretty and easy to consume but loses its charm a bit once diluted. I appreciate BB&R bottling the whisky at this point. Though it's not the most complex Highland single malt, this Teaninich could have taken on some undesirable tannins after a few more years in oak.
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