Hazelburn 13 Year Oloroso Cask Matured

Very smooth, light oak, subtle honey, balance

The last drop I had was the 2003 bottling with 12000 made. This is the 2004 bottling 1 of 9000. I did something I rarely do these days and bought a bottle without having sampled off the back of the previous years edition. So was it worth it? Beautiful olorosso jammy toffee, burnt caramel are all pluses. I can't remember when or if I've had such a strong sulphur taint though...man struck matches galore on the palate and gun powder on the nose. Reminds me of a gunpowder rum I once had (with actual gunpowder in). This year's bottling was 3000 less and I'm wondering if it was due to sulphur taint but they still mixed in a few affected barrels. My tongue really has a sulphur tingle which builds the more I drink. I think I hold off on rating for now. The whisky itself is at least a 4 maybe 4.25 but the taint drags it down a fair bit. I'll wait to see how the bottle evolves with oxygen. Update: It didn't and so I did something I never have done before or since - return it!