Teaninich 10 year old 2008 SMWS 59.56

(Teaninich cluster homepage)

Now that the peated outlier is out of the way, it's time for a younger Teanie (I dunno, I'm just making it up as I go along) from a refill hoggie. Hopefully it, or something from this cluster, gets close to the distillery's unpeated spirit. I don't have anything else for this intro because I didn't caffeinate properly this morning.

Distillery: Teaninich

Ownership: Diageo
Region: Northern-ish Highlands
Bottler: Scotch Malt Whisky Society
Age: 10 years old (26 Feb 2008 - 2018)
Maturation: refill hogshead
Cask number: 59.56, "Gardener's question time"
Outturn: 312 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 56.2%
(from a bottle split)

NEAT

Spirit indeed! The nose is all grass, barley, and sugar at first. There's no raw heat, and just a whiff of possibly-yeast-driven florals. Hint of mango too! The palate is neither too sweet nor too hot. It's mostly tinned pears, some limes, and barley. And that's it. It finishes with pears, black pepper, and unripe plums.

DIUTLED to ~46%abv, or <1½ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

There's more outright yeast in the nose now, joining barley and wheat. Apricot skins up front, with a hint of cologne behind (apply jokes here). More notes appear in the diluted palate: those unripe plums, orange pith, some cracked pepper, and flowers. It finishes with more barley and flowers. The only fruit note is bitter orange pith.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

It's like mellow new make! A bit too mild on the palate, but right on the nose with......the nose. While I do wish more was going on with this whisky, that would require more cask time and probably more cask. Kudos to SMWS for bottling such an un-flashy whisky. And had I not consumed the entire sample, this would have been a great reference point going forward.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - around £55-£65 back in 2018
Rating - 81