Daftmill Summer Batch Release 2009 (USA)

Nose is all sweet bourbon pear and vanilla with fruit and hints of funky sherry. Palette follows suit but is dryer than expected with a bit of bitterness. Love it.

This Daftmill Summer Batch Release was distilled in 2009 and bottled in 2020 at 46% ABV. It sells for around $230. We all love local family owned small scale environmentally friendly ethically sourced homegrown composted products in theory. In practice, I bought a toy car for my son at a whole foods store that was all the above; I paid a hefty premium for the fuzzy feeling of helping some hippies who turn garbage into toy cars; and the wheels literally came off. I do not automatically associate some person’s or family’s labor of love with superior quality; the fact is that these quirky businesses often make things inferior to something comparable off the assembly line owned by a massive corporation. But I’m happy to say that there are exceptions to the rule: Daftmill is a rare example of the world functioning like we imagine that it should - a humble family of farmers gestating and birthing a whisky that can slay the Goliaths of the industry. You can smell and taste the passion that went into this whisky. It is extraordinarily complex and flavorful at just 11 years old and 46% ABV. The imagery that this whisky evokes is that of picking apples from your own apple tree on a late summer day, which you planted 11 years ago, in soil that you’ve hand nurtured by composting. A perfect, ripe but still crisp apple is the dominant note here. The sheer density of flavor is a tier above your average whisky - or apple, if you can allow yourself to continue exploring an extended analogy - the apples from the commercial lifeless soil abused again and again by fertilizer just cannot compare. The love of creation reverberates with every succulent, juicy bite. Other homegrown plants are abundant in this lovely dram: green honeydew, apricots, plums, and raspberries. There are also notes of fully open roses. The bright, floral, and fruity notes are balanced with some grassiness and Dunnage dustiness. I must say that this expression is like a revival of the legendary Lowlands distillery, Rosebank, which operated in an era when every whisky produced was a labor of love.