Single Malt Report: Springbank 16 year old 1991 Rum Wood

I'm a little surprised and disappointed by my experiences with the first two rum cask Springbanks I've tried.  Grade-wise, the first one was a low C and the second was a borderline C+/B-.  Those aren't whisky fails, but come on, this is Springbank.  My expectations are higher.  Perhaps they're too high since I'll be enjoying the excellent Springbank 12yo Calvados Wood alongside all three of the whiskies I'm reviewing this week.  Perhaps (perhaps!) what's needed is a secondary maturation approach (not a finish), like the Calvados Wood.  Then how about a 16 year old Rum Wood?  Eight years in ex-bourbon barrels, then eight years in "fresh Rum" barrels...

Distillery: Springbank
Brand: Springbank

Owner: Springbank Distillers Ltd.
Region: Campbeltown
Type: Single Malt

Age: 16 years (June 1991 - August 2007)

Maturation: refill bourbon barrels for the first 8 years, "fresh Rum" casks for the other 8

Alcohol by Volume: 54.2%
Limited Bottling: 5,100 bottles
(From a purchased sample)

NEAT
The color is a light yellow gold, paler than Monday's 9yo.

The nose leads with peaches, clementines, and flower blossoms, which is a surprise after my experiences with the other two ex-rum Springbanks.  Toasted grains in the background and wee hints of brown sugar and vanilla.  Pie crust.  After 20 minutes, a bright madeira note develops.

A bit of heat on the palate.  Lots of limes and lemons.  The peat reads more roasted than smoky.  A combination of vanilla extract and tapioca pudding.  The sweetness increases with time.  Eventually notes of roses and peaches appear.

Vanilla ice cream leads off the finish.  Tart limes and lemons, that drift a bit acidic at times.  Sweet rum and a peppery heat.

WITH WATER (~46%abv)
The nose gets even fruitier, like Balblair fruity, picking up some honeydew notes.  Demerara rum around the edges.  Cow Tales candy.  Milder floral notes.

Melon, peaches, and watermelon Jolly Ranchers candy in the palate.  Hints of vanilla and toffee.  As per these notes, it gets more desserty.

The shorter, though similar, finish has louder sweeter fruit and a bit of toffee.

COMMENTS:
Whew.  A good ex-rum Springbank that works well with or without water.  I like the strong fruit notes, and can definitely appreciate the light rum touch.  The peat is barely there, so sometimes this reads a little more Highland/Speyside than Campbeltown.  It doesn't hold a candle to the Calvados Wood, but it's still a solid B-grade whisky.  It would be nice if Springbank gives this rum cask maturation approach another spin again, and not charge $200 for the result.

Availability - Scarce
Pricing - all over the place, from $180 to $350
Rating - 86

Single Malt Report: Springbank 9 year old 2001 Demerara Rum Cask by Cadenhead

In honor of my 900th(!) post, I'll be doing a week of Springbank.  Because.

At some point last year, one of y'all commenters referenced something about seeking out rum cask Springbanks.  Well, I reviewed one last May and that did not go positively.  How about we try again with TWO rummy Springbanks in a row?

The first is this single cask of 9 year old Springbank matured entirely in a Demerara rum cask, which was probably an ex-bourbon barrel judging by the bottle count.  It was released by Cadenhead, an indie bottler who has the same ownership as......Springbank!  So the hope is Cadenhead would have a leg up on the honey casks.

Distillery: Springbank
Region: Campbeltown, Kintyre

Independent Bottler: Cadenhead (their website never works)
Range: Wood range
Type: Single Malt

Age: 9 years old (2001 - October 2011)

Maturation: Demerara rum cask (which may have previously been an ex-bourbon barrel)
Limited bottling: 228

Alcohol by Volume: 57.1%
(Many thanks to Lee Zaro for this sample!)

NEAT
A sticky young rumminess shouts out first in the nose.  That's then joined by estery florals and pear eau de vie.  A medium molasses note meets a hint of peat.  Golden Delicious apples and granulated sugar.  It's very bright, but it's mostly new distillate of some sort.

The tight simple palate starts of mostly as peppery ethyl heat.  Raw new make, all grassy, sweet, and floral.  Then some salt and a little more smoke than on the nose.  A little bit of vanilla bean in the background.

The finish is mostly apple eau de vie and floral esters, a soft bitterness, and a nudge of peat.

WITH WATER (~46%abv)
On the nose, the eau de vie switches over to kirschwasser.  Maybe even something like peated cherries.  Then a little bit of caramel, molasses, and cassia cinnamon.  Some cereal notes finally peek through.

This is curious.  Tea?  The palate takes on a grassy macha-like note, as well as a grassy-but-bitter roasted mate note.  The peppery heat remains, but there's more sugar this time and just a hint of malt.

The finish is almost identical to its neat form.  Maybe with a little more pepper, but otherwise quieter.

COMMENTS:
This is the youngest Springbank I've ever had in terms of character, not in terms of numbers.  I'm not entirely sure why they bottled it at this point, but luckily I like eau de vie and other unaged brandies.  I recommend at least trying it with water.  The nose is the highlight, by far.  The odd tea stuff in the hydrated palate sort of works for me, but will likely not work for everyone.

Speaking of everyone, the online tasting notes for this whisky vary so widely it seems like everyone's drinking something else.  See Serge's notes, the whiskybase crowd's notes, and the official ones.  The only set I can relate to are the writeups by the two German whiskybase fellows.  But I will agree with Serge in that this whisky is a curiosity.

Availability - Scarce
Pricing - well over $100 at this point in time
Rating - 80 (I suppose)

The Autumn Whiskies: Clynelish Batch 2, That Boutique-y Whisky Company

Ah, the spoils of my contest victory:

All commentary aside, I would like to thank Master of Malt for my prize!  I really do appreciate it.  Now, onto the commentary.

In the three years that passed between receiving this bottle and opening it, I reviewed three whiskies from That Boutique-y Whisky Company (TBWC).  And none of those three whiskies were good.  The first batch of Allt-à-Bhainne was oh so ugly.  The second Aultmore batch was a mess.  And the first batch of Loch Lomond grain whisky was basically gin.  The catch here is that all three reviews were courtesy of 3cL samples purchased from Master of Malt.  And I've found a lot of weird issues with MoM's samples of their own whiskies.  So this would be the first time I'd be reviewing a TBWC whisky directly from the bottle.

I also came to this review irritated with TBWC's entire approach towards their whiskies.  As I wrote in a previous review:
No age statement. Check.
No indication of maturation or casks used. Check.
500mL bottle. Check.
Priced higher than whiskies bottled by more established companies who offer their products with age statements and maturation information and 700mL bottles. Check.
Oh, but the ultra-relevant cheeky labels! Check.

In this instance the label featured a dialogue starring the I Can Has Cheezburger cat and referencing Batch 1's label.  Indeed.  But MoM did send this to me for free and it is Clynelish, so I put aside my preconceptions and gave it a chance.

Distillery: Clynelish
Owner: Diageo

Independent Bottler: That Boutique-y Whisky Company
Type: Single Malt
Maturation: yes

Age: damfino
Bottled: 2013

Region: Highlands (Northern)

Alcohol by Volume: 50.6%
Limited Release: 319 bottles

NEAT
The nose begins with big oaky notes of caramel and butter.  But then there's the pine sap note I also found in the other TBWCs.  Alongside that are alternating notes of citronella candles and orange peel.  After 20 minutes notes of Valentine's Day heart candies and grapefruit-scented hand lotion appear.  After 30 minutes, here comes some maple syrup.

A solid combo of cocoa, caramel, and citrus leads the palate.  Then vanilla bean and pine sap.  Grapefruit lotion curls around a slight tannic bitterness.  This is much sweeter than the van Wees 23yo.

Big orange and lime notes make up most of the finish.  Some pepper in the back of the throat, then the tannic bitterness.  Very warming and very sweet.

WITH WATER (~40%abv)
The maple syrup remains in the nose, joined by simple syrup and vanilla.  Perfumed and mossy.  Sawdust, limes, and a broadening herbal note.

The bitterness gets a little cleaner in the palate.  There's vanilla, sugar, caramel, a light floral note, and some citric tartness.

The simple finish is tart, sweet, and bitter.

COMMENTS:
These notes were taken from the middle of the bottle.  The first third of the bottle was rough going, very sharp, bitter, and loaded with the pine notes.  Gradually the oak kicked in and the rest of the whisky opened up.

Like the other three TBWCs I've tried, this is likely a young whisky (<10yrs) though aged in a very active (new oak?) cask or casks.  The nose is better when neat, but the palate brightens up with the added water.

While I wouldn't call this a great whisky, it works.  It's the best of the four TBWCs I've tried and competes quite well with the much older Clynelish I reviewed on Thursday, though it loses in the complexity department.  But, sadly, this 500mL bottle of young whisky (long since sold out) was priced higher than the 700mL bottle of old whisky (which took longer to sell through).  Such is the state of this strange marketplace.

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - it was around £60
Rating - 82

That time I won a whisky

April 2013.  It was a different time, a time in which I was still reading a zillion blogs, including a number of "blogs" written by retailers.  One of the retailer blogs I perused was that of Master of Malt.  From time to time the MoM blog would hold contests and give away whisky bottles to the winners.  Sometimes those contests revolved around who could provide the best caption to a silly bit of photoshop.

On the 12th of that April, I was a stressed out wreck working at a job I hated.  Most mornings I snuck peeks at whisky blogs.  Sure enough, MoM was holding Caption Contest #4.  The prize for the best meme-style caption would be a bottle of Clynelish Batch 2 from That Boutique-y Whisky Company.  Here was the photo:

The moment I saw this, I knew exactly what I'd submit, if I'd actually submit anything.  I'd never entered their contests because I figured the prizes were limited to UK residents.  But I could see the caption very clearly in my mind and, crap, I was miserable.  So during my lunch break, I typed it up and sent it in.  And then forgot about it, because life went on.

On April 23rd, the MoM blog posted "Winner of the Caption Contest!".  I scrolled down, looking at the honorable mentions.  There were fun jokes about apes and dogs and Darwin and pooping and drinking.  All pretty solid silly stuff.  Then I saw the winning submission.

It took a moment for it to process but then ... .... Holy sh*t, that's mine!  I, I won...something.  I'm a winner!

Sure enough, MoM emailed me that day.  Then less than a week later, my bottle arrived.

I opened the bottle up this past Autumn, about a year and a half after it arrived.  Tomorrow, I'll review my winnings.

The Autumn Whiskies: Clynelish 23 year old 1991 van Wees The Ultimate

It remains a mystery.  A 23 year old Clynelish bottled by a reliable independent company, with a rave review from Serge, selling for €70(!!!!), remained unsold at European retailers for months.  Seriously, how does that happen?  Though I don't like buying blindly, I could not pass this up.

To put a finer point on what a bargain this was, consider that many of the needlessly mythical 1997 Clynelishes are going for TWICE the price of this older scarcer vintage.  In this case we have indie bottler, van Wees, to thank.  Their "The Ultimate" series is often both well priced and of good quality.

Distillery: Clynelish

Independent Bottler: van Wees (The Ultimate)
Type: Single Malt
Region: Highlands (Northern)

Age: 23 years (October 29, 1991 - November 11, 2014)

Maturation: Hogsheads
Cask numbers: 13213 and 13214
Bottle: 296 of 507

Alcohol by Volume: 46%
(Sample pulled from the middle of my bottle)

With all of that in mind, I was very unimpressed with this whisky when I first opened the bottle.  It was a swirl of odd musty notes and burnt plastic.  And this wasn't just from the first pour.  The upper third of the bottle was very difficult.  But gradually, very gradually, it began to clear up...

NEAT
The nose leads with lots and lots of lemons.  Other fruits roll in and out: peaches, tangerines, pears, and a hint of banana.  There's also quite a bit of honey and barley on top, with small notes of cocoa powder underneath.  After 30 minutes in the glass, the whisky picks up notes of sugar snap peas and watermelon rind.

At first the palate proves simple.  A jumble of citrus fruits meet pepper meets baking spices.  Then a small musty dusty note in the background.  But after 20+ minutes in the glass, the whisky opens up.  A big spry fresh herbal note bolts forward, followed by honeydew, Angostura bitters, and a wisp of smoke.  It's never sweet, but it does have a slight plastic note.

In the impressively long finish, the citrus fruits take a backseat to toffee, fresh tobacco, barley, and the musty dusty note.  Like the palate, it's never sweet.

WITH WATER (~40%abv)
The oak moves forward in the nose with small notes of caramel, vanilla, and pencil shavings.  But the fruit (grapefruit and watermelon rind) remains.  New curious notes of parsley, cilantro, and burnt barley appear, as does a brief floral note.

Fresh parsley and thyme hit first in the palate, then cucumber skins.  It's slightly bitter and has a whiff of mossy peat.  A bit of the plastic note lingers.

Those vegetable and bitter notes carry into the finish.  It also picks up the watermelon rind note form the nose and gets slightly sweeter overall.

COMMENTS:
As you may have gleaned from the notes, this is a quirky whisky.  Actually, the nose is great, period.  The palate presents more of a challenge.  Not only does one need to get to the middle of the bottle to find the good spot, but once one pours it in a glass it needs a lot of air to really open up.  Once there, though, it can be very entertaining (positively or negatively, depending on one's palate).  The plastic and strange musty notes never really left this whisky and they're what keep this whisky from soaring.

Availability - Scarce
Pricing - it was priced €70-€80 last year
Rating - 84

The Autumn Whiskies: Ardmore 13 year old 1990 Gordon & Macphail, cask 12275

Calm yourselves.  Calm yourselves.  Yes, I finally opened a bottle from my Ardmore stash.  For those who don't know, I'm a committed fan of independent Ardmore, specifically of the distillations done before they switched to the indirect heating of their stills in 2002.  I bought several bottles of single cask Ardmore, then guarded them like Smeagol and his ring.  And then this one found its way to freedom.

Being that the whisky lived in the bottle almost as long as it lived in its cask, the expected happened upon opening:

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU-

Thanks to my increasing (but still novice) skill at salvaging broken corks, I was able to pluck out the lower half the cork without losing it into the whisky.  As you can see in the background, I have a stash of saved corks with various gauges, and I was able to match up the George T. Stagg closure to this bottle.

Distillery: Ardmore

Independent Bottler: Gordon & MacPhail
Region: Highlands (Eastern)
Type: Single Malt

Age: 13 years old (October 19, 1990 - October 1, 2004)

Maturation: refill bourbon barrel
Cask: 12275

Alcohol by Volume: 58.6%

NEAT
Its color is of pinot grigio.  A good start.

The nose is very spirity up front.  Barley with a light band-aid peat.  Salt water and beach tones.   Mild horse stable and citronella candle notes.  Soft sugariness meets green grapes and limes.

The palate is a touch hot at first.  There's a moderate sweetness, tart citrus candy, a slight herbal bitterness, and wood smoke.  Hay in a horse stable.  The oak feels more toasted than charred giving it an aromatic spice note I can't pin down, though it reminds me of Spice Tree.  A cayenne pepper bite develops after some time in the glass.

The finish is full of cooling menthol with a little bit of sweetness underneath.  Then wood smoke, herbal bitterness, and the hay in a horse stable note.

WITH WATER (~46%abv)
The gentler nose picks up more citrus and mint.  The peat mingles nicely with the fruit.  The farmy note remains, now existing alongside a little bit of seaweed.

The palate gets creamier and saltier.  The peat goes peppery, Talisker-style.  A little bit of cocoa floats in the background.

The simple finish becomes more warming, holding onto that peppery peat note.  It's sweeter than the palate, but keeps the nice herbal bitter note.

COMMENTS:
Thanks to the refill barrel, this Ardmore is youthful without being under-matured.  It may read closer to 8-10 years than almost 14, but it works because the spirit is so damned good.  I would have loved if more fruit had shown up on the palate to give it more complexity and to demonstrate the best Ardmore characteristics.  But still, it has the beachy peat, wood smoke, and good bitterness I like so much.  If you can find this bottle, I think it's worth the $70ish I paid for it two years ago, but definitely not the $125 I saw it selling for elsewhere.  Save that money for an older Ardmore or for groceries.

For another take on this whisky, see Chemistry of the Cocktail's review of this very bottle.  He found more fruits than I, but also more alcoholic heat.

Availability - Happy Hunting!
Pricing - probably all over the place
Rating - 87

The Autumn Whiskies: Smooth Ambler Old Scout 7 year old Rye, batch 39

Spring has sprung.  That means it's time for me to write about my Autumn Whiskies: one Old Scout Rye, one indie Ardmore, and two indie Clynelishes.  I'll review them in the order of expected post complexity: from easiest to hardest.

First, up the rye.  As you may know, Smooth Ambler is a West Virginia-based spirits company that has until recently bottled only whiskies produced at Midwest Grain Products WonderFactory™.  Like a few other new companies, they did the NDP (non-distiller producer) approach while their own distillery was being built.  Now they are distilling, so now they're bottling their own stuff, MGP stuff, and their stuff blended with MGP stuff.  For instance, their Old Scout line will continue to be MGP whiskey probably until their own bourbon and rye gets old enough.  Though I have heard stirrings that the rye batches were temporarily(?) discontinued.  If you know more about this than the usual rumors, please let me know.  (After I'd written this post, I found out the rumors are true, this rye has been discontinued for the time being.  Crap.)

I've haven't had a bad Old Scout yet: two single barrel bourbons, one K&L exclusive bourbon, and three of the rye batches.  Click here for some of those reviews.  My Autumn bottle was of the 7yo rye, batch 39.  It was a good drinker.  My wife and I enjoyed it, but I got the last drop.

Oh, my beard was so tiny at that time. Adorbs!

Brand: Old Scout
Bottler: Smooth Ambler
Type: Straight Rye Whiskey

Age: 7 years

Maturation: New American Oak

Region: Maxwelton, West Virginia (Distilled in Lawrenceburg, Indiana)
Mashbill: 95% rye, 5% malted barley
Batch: 39
Bottled: 6/9/14 (by Nathan)

Alcohol by Volume: 49.5%

I'll keep these notes short and sweet because this one hits the target every time.

The nose has some nice dark fruitiness, like black cherry syrup.  Rye bread at the periphery.  Cloves, nutmeg, and carob in the middle, then smaller notes of oak pulp, clover honey, and lemon zest.  After 20 minutes in the glass, the whiskey picks up some barrel char, mint, and caramel.  The black cherries become maraschino red cherries.

The palate is very creamy, full of vanilla extract and spice cake.  Corn chips (though there's no corn in this).  Gingerbread, heavy on the ginger.  With that time in the glass, notes of black pepper and rye bread show up.  A little bit of lemon, a pinch of salt, and a hint of umami underneath.

More ginger in the finish, along with the nose's black cherry syrup.  Some tannins and citrus tang on the tongue.  Vanilla bean and soft rumbling heat.

Comments:
This was such a reliable rye.  I know these Old Scouts are getting tougher to find, but if you locate batch 39, know that you won't be disappointed.  That is, of course, only true if you like MGP rye.  Smooth Ambler set the ABV at a good point so that it's very drinkable neat.  Its price is/was very reasonable for a 7 year old MGP rye, especially since other companies (specifically Redemption) are selling 7yo batches for twice the price, though all of 10 degrees higher in ABV.

Availability - Many batches are still being sold by specialty liquor retailers, but they're getting harder to find
Pricing - $40-$55
Rating - 87  (this batch only)