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Friday, April 29, 2022

Glen Scotia 14 year old 2006 Tawny Port Finish for the Campbeltown Malts Festival 2020

This week's reviews included very good to great bourbon cask matured peated Glen Scotias. Now it's time to find out how the spirit holds up to a tawny port finish. Like Wednesday's SMWS cask, this peated Scotia was released in honor of the 2020 Campbeltown Malts Festival, which existed only online and in hearts rather than in-person that year. Unlike the SMWS cask, this 14-year-old official bottling was available everywhere. And by "everywhere", I mean it was even sold in Ohio. Time to find out what the bottles contained...

Distillery: Glen Scotia
Ownership: Loch Lomond Group (via Exponent)
Region: Campbeltown
Age: 14 years (2006-2020)
Maturation: refill American oak hogsheads + medium char American oak casks + 1st-fill bourbon barrels first, then six months in Tawny Port casks
Outturn: 15,000 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 52.8%
Chillfiltered? No
e150a? No
(from a bottle split)

NEAT

Candy, candy, candy in the nose. Cherry candy, grape candy, cotton candy. A little bit of butterscotch. Some seaweed and ocean in the far back. Just a whiff of kiln appears after 20 minutes. The palate leads with a very strong perfume/cologne note and lot of sweetness. No peat, but plenty of burlap/bung cloth and black pepper. Kool Aid and clementines take over after 10 minutes. It finishes with spiked Kool Aid, ginger candy and a hint of bung cloth.

DILUTED to ~46%abv, or <1 tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose becomes slightly farmier, with butterscotch and orange peel on the side. The palate still has that cologne note, and remains candy sweet. There's more pepper now, and a squeeze of tart lime. It finishes with cologne, cotton candy and lime.

DILUTED to ~40%abv, or 2 tsp of water per 30mL whisky

Ocean and parmesan cheese in the nose's fore, cotton candy and orange pixy stix in the aft. Zero peat in the palate, just lots of sugar colored by tart and bitter citrus fruits. And that's how it finishes.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

This feels Lumsden-ized. Some of you will find that idea sexy, some of you won't. You know who you are. I will not judge you, but I will judge the whisky. When sipped alongside the SMWS bottling, this 14yo shows that all unique style and character has been wiped clean away, replaced with sugar sugar sugar and (weirdly) cologne. It's rather generic — aside from the cologne and burlap which give it slight quirk — rather than being crummy, in fact it could work decently as a dessert pour for a sweet tooth. But I'd rather try other single maturation peated Glen Scotias rather than chasing the Bordeaux and PX finishes seen in the 2021 and 2022 festival editions.

Availability - Some bottles are still available in Europe as of today
Pricing - £75
Rating - 76