Tastes
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Springbank 10 Year
Single Malt — Campbeltown, Scotland
Reviewed March 16, 2022 (edited December 13, 2022)Nose: very rich, thick sticky raisins, with orange marmalade, little malty, with vanilla notes. Mixed dark dried fruits. Dark sherry notes, with dark honey. Little bit of citrus along with toffe fudge. Palate: mouth watering medium sherry notes coming back and presenting itself on the palate too. Creamy, oily, vanilla and bitter caramel forward. Nicely sweet with littel tannins and sourness. Finish is fantastic, with the signature springbank rubber funk -
Nose: heavily citrusy with peel and pulp too. Lightly malt forward which is not suprising for its age. Little bit oak with vanilla, also like cotton candy vanilla. Palate:very light, malty, sweet and sour, spirit forward. Finish: quick with hint of oak, with a little rubberines, it resembles to when a capsule of vitamin c start dissolving on your tounge
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On the nose it has the signature toasty slightly burnt maltiness of Glenfarclas, but a lot more subdued then on younger expressions or the cask strenght version. There is lots of crisp sweet green apples and fresh honey here also. Maybe some raspberry too along with oakiness, gentle. I am hesitant to add water since it is low abv, 43%, also nothing on the bottle says it is un-chillfiltered nor natural colored i have to assume it is not. I am a not big waterer so i am not gonna add any. And yes this is noticable on the palate too. The arrival is great. It is bold, it is rich it is malty, but the developement does not shine here. It gets a little too thin to be honest. And the finish is unimpressive, it is light oak tanniness, with light maltiness. I am a little harsh on this probably but only because there is no reason for Glenfarclas to not to present it as an integrity bottling as Ralfy would say. The modern market and the modern palate of us, whisky drinkers is just over and bored of these inferior bottles that they are putting out. We pay a quite the amount for bottles these years, and they should at least deliver quality for the price! I would rather have the 105 version instead of this to be honest any day of the week. This expression is a sorry excuse of a 21 year old single malt.
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Glenfarclas 105 Cask Strength
Single Malt — Highlands, Scotland
Reviewed February 8, 2022 (edited June 3, 2022)This is my favorite Glenfarclas so far. I’ve only had the 12 and 21 excluding this one, but the 12 was to malt heavy for my taste, and the 21 felt little thin and empty for its age. But this one has character. On the nose the first thing you get ir a fresh honey covered raspberry sweetnes, which is quickly followed by Glenfarclas’s signature toasted malt character, which comes from the direct dire stills. If you have started to wonder what flavors come from the spirit and what from the casks, this is a good bottle to start understanding it, because this toasted caramelized malt character is pretty prominent, distinct and fairly easy to pick out, and now you it comes from the spirit, not the casks. Soon after this i discovered a very heavy perfume note, almost like lighty-sweet rose. The palate is is mostly the translation of the nose, with dark honey and raspberries, little bit of sultana (if you dont know what is it, buy some dried sultana snacks, because this flavor shows up in lots of malts) including some charred vanilla. The toasted flavors come very alive in the finish with mild bitter oak tannins and red fruit skins. The reason they say Glenfarclas accomodates sherry cask maturation is i think because of these toasted-caramelized-roasted malt flavors which give a very nice depth to the sherry influence so it is not just another run of the mill sherried whisky. Definetly worth a second and third try too. For its price i’d say this is a good bottle, but if you are willing to spend a little a more money, i’d suggest the Aberlour A’bunadh. But dont take my word for it. Try em both! -
My dissapointben is immesurable, and my day is ruined. Memes aside, this whisky certainly dissapoints. I haven’t had much grain whisky, but there isn’t much to say about this Nose: quite strong vanilla and wood scent, heavy bourbon influence. They say its age is around 25yrs old, but there is no layers here, not even on the palate. Palate: You need quite a big sip, otherwise it just dissappears immediately. There is barely anything left of the vanilla from the those, it is mostly just barrel spice, wood tannins. Finish: non existent. As i said it almost fully dissappears, it only leaves some barrel spice and bitternes behind For a bottle named “Hedonism” this is very weak. Especially because they charge quite a bit for it. Seriously, this is like a flat bourbon. Since it is grain, there is probably corn in there, and it is matured in ex-bourbon casks, no wonder it smells and tastes like bourbon, only flatter. Don’t recommend buying this.
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I am fairly inexperienced with rum, but so far this is fav. Im still trying to het over the “rum is not always overly sweet” presumption i had in my mind, especially when i taste this. Is this a sweet rum? Surely it is, but it is much dryer than you would expect, which is a great thing because it leaves room for other flavors. First of all even tho, this is 57%, it does not need more than a touch of water to it, otherwise it looses its dense-ness i like so much about it. Tbh, im not a big waterer myself, you might be more comfortably adding more water Nose: Like with all cask-strengh spirit, you have to be patient. Initially the high esther aromas covered basically everything else - especially right after opening - and it was almost like i was smelling glue with just a hint of sweetness in it. After leaving it to breathe and open up, finally the more fruity elements came forward, much more on the 2nd and 3rd glass, then on the first. (Bear in mind i did not have the 3 glasses in a row, but with 3-4 days apart). The nose is mostly occupied by the high ester almost glue like nose, this is not a typical “overripe banana” hogo, this is far stronger. The most accureta description i can give you about the fruit elements is that, it is like a fruit punch bowl, where you put a bunch of fruits like cannes pineapples, apples, cherries, sour cherries, brambles together. Also a faint brown sugar note. Palate: almost these same things translate to the palate too, but the glue like nose doesnt come forward to much in the palate, molasses and oak sweetness and bitterness comes forward (yes go ahead and buy some molasses, taste it, it has a very unique flavor, and you will understand what is the base of most of your rums, also there is a strong bitter, rotting funk to it, very interesting that it comes through the rum). And if you were lucky to hit the sweet spot, the amount of fruit punch bowl/fruit salad mix sweetness will literally make your mouth water, and it will leave a nice barrel tannines after it. Overall, for the price i can get it, it is a very favourable rum, i mostly enjoy it neat, little water added to it, but i did make a Mai Tai out of this one and it was the best god damn Mai Tai i have ever had. Dont want to over rate this one, since i barely tasted any rums yet. I am very keen on trying a Hampden 8 and see how that delivers the fruitiness with the intense hogo
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This smells like sweet sweet vanilla with a tiny bit of oak, but not much since it did not stay in a barrel a minute longer than 5 years, a little young and harsh but still good, i like a spirit that has bite. The demorara aroma comes along nicely presenting some toffe and a little bit dried grass but in a very nice way. On the taste it has the typical El dorado funk which resembles overripe, nigh rotting bananas, very pleasent fermented flavor. It is a little bit thin, you can definetly tell they dont do much more then just ageing their spirit more, because the 15 is just the more mature expression of the 5y Still very good, especielly that it is very reasonably priced, like all el dorado rums. Definetly would recommend to anyone who would want to spend too much on rum but still wants something nice and flavourfull
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On the first whiff there is an intense vanilla aroma reminding me of soft creamy vanilla cotton-candy/or rich icecream. This dominates the nose for quite a while with some light earthy peatiness, none of the vegetal, almost seaweed like nose of the Islay malts. Then after letting it breathe, some light strawberry/raspberry scent sneaks around the vanilla, the dehidrated kind. Kinda what i would expect from a cask strenght bourbon/sherry aged whisky. The palate is much more heavy with the peat but there are also hinta of the berries i mentioned in the nose and more of the vanilla, maltiness and some pleasent bitter barrel influence
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GlenDronach Allardice 18 Year
Single Malt — Highlands, Scotland
Reviewed July 2, 2021 (edited May 9, 2022)Literally the best whisky i had so far Ok let me get into some detail. When you smell into this the first thing that hits you is how dense and thick is the aroma. The one that jumps out is this overy ripe almost sour fig or cherry, that is so dense it turns into a little savory note almost meaty with like sime sweet and sour vinegar or it, it is almost salty. And it also has the typical olorosso sherry character behind this turned up by 300%. It is stunning. And so is the taste. It is creamy it, it is mouthwatering. The overripe figs and sour cherry delivers on the palate too, with thick raisins and some zestyness. And this lingers on for long. I can only repeat myself: Literally the best whisky i have ever had, so far.
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