New Zealand Whisky Collection 16 year Dunedin Double wood

One of the strangest whiskies i have ever had, this Willowbank (also called Dunedin) (also called Wilson distillery) (also called Milford) (also called Lamerlaw) used to be the farthest southern distillery of the world, located in Dunedin, New Zealand. It begun operations in 1974 and was bought by Seagrams somewhere in the 90s. Then, the whisky giant sold it back to the town people in Dunedin in 1997, and they mothballed it around the year 2000. There is this "New Zealand Whisky collection" company managed to score more than 80k barrels from different distilleries, specially from Dunedin, and stored them in an airplane hangar. Then they bottled some of it, and one of those rare bottlings is this 50cl Willobank, 16yo, matured in exbourbon and french oak red wine casks. Bottled at 40%abv, this is a blend of 70% single malt whisky with 30% grain, all from the same willowbank distillery. It is very cloudy and has this crazy reddish color as a tree tomato juice. On the nose, it is a bloody mary, it smells exactly like one. There is also some white chocolate and vanilla. After a first sip it gave me some maple syrup and... ketchup (that's a first!) On the palate, it starts with a cookie dough note. Vanilla cookie dough, red hot chilli peppers (not the band). The second sip was "swampy"; again this bloody mary flavor, olive oil. It is light and weird. Not bad, just weird. Aftertaste was all about olives, pepper and salt. It is super dry, it feels like a cherry tomato salad.  Raw rice. Overall, i am glad i had a New Zealand whisky, even if this one could be a little strange. I was surprised because of the cloudiness of the dran itself. Some weird tasting and aroma notes here and there, but definitively worth trying to cross it out of the list. My score for this unlikely dram is 75 over 100.

Dramfest '18. Light, weak inoffensive. Its cask strength brother stomps all over it.$80USD. 3