North Star Campbeltown 5 year 2014

North Star Spirits tasting event, Sydney, February 21, 2020, Whisky #2 Nose: Fragrant leather. Apricots, peaches and golden syrup. Honeysuckle flowers and rosewater in the distance and a waft of minerality. The tiniest hint of tarry smoke. Palate: Sweet spices on the arrival. Brisk and juicy with very sweet malt and sugar-encrusted dried fruits coming to the front in the development. Lots of syrupy fruit jam. The texture is thick and unctious and as it opens the palate gains toffee and caramel notes. Finish: Medium/long. Sweetly sherried malt with a leathery aftertaste. Warming. North Star obtained a quantity of spirit from some Campbeltown distilleries a few years back which was married and has been released as two single-cask blended malt bottlings, of which this is the second. The distilleries are not identified, but as there are effectively only two companies in operation in Campbeltown you can make a pretty accurate guess. The first bottling was released in 2018 as part of North Star's series 005 and it gained some notoriety at the time for proudly bearing a 4 year old age statement. It was a 57% expression matured exclusively in refill bourbon and frankly it was very spirity, grassy and young. It was a whisky-nerd's dram and pretty tough work, and It was a brave move to release it at 4 years old. Following focus-group response, Iain Croucher (the owner of North Star) did the most sensible thing possible and re-casked the remaining stock in what I'm sure was a very wet first-fill PX sherry cask. After a year of this finishing the resulting whisky is totally different to the 4 year old. The series 009 release is very pleasant, sweet, easy to approach and highly fragrant with an enormously over-the-top PX influence. It's so sherried it's almost a caricature, but at the same time it's not really a sherry-bomb, being saved by the fact that the underlying spirit is so feisty and bright that it balances the fortified wine finish. It may not sound that great from my description, but it is in fact delicious - in a sort of mad scientist way. The only real fault I could find is that over time the nose becomes very toffee-like and the palate becomes almost monotonously sweet. As for what this is, obviously it must be Glen Scotia and Springbank/Glengyle, but there is a catch. Springbank sells spirit to no-one anymore (except Cadenhead, which they own), and neither do they sell Kilkerran to IBs. The whisky also simply does not smell or taste like anything Springbank. The obvious explanation is that this is a teaspooned Glen Scotia, which seems to be the prevailing wisdom. Whatever it is I loved it and sprinted to the shop counter to buy a bottle after the tasting. The AUS$125 price was a tasting event special and I thought it was fair. The regular price is AUS$165, and at that point the value for money is debatable for what is, after all, a sort of drooling sweet-jam monster of a whisky (but it's great fun). "Good (just)" : 83/100 (3.5 stars)