Oban Young Teddy Maclean

Excellent!

The Maclean family is a synonym of Oban Single Malt whisky. Old Teddy Maclean was the distillery manager since 1953 till 1985, when his son, "Young Teddy" took the reins till 2017, where he then passed the torch to Derek Maclean. To honour this family tradition, Oban released in 2019 a special limited bottle called "Old Teddy", only sold at the distillery; when that one was gone, they then released this "Young Teddy", which is finished in Oloroso and Palo Cortado sherry casks; and is bottled at 50.8% ABV. Only 4542 were ever made. On the nose, an instant haystack. Honey, peach and pineapple. There is a definitive predominance of the white sherry used here. White chocolate, malted barley and a lot of sugary notes. After a couple of sips, the oloroso sherry influence appeared. Peaches everywhere, like the Bowser song. On the palate, it felt watery, but it managed to pass the test. Sugar notes, hay; a rather grassy honey. Salty. Palo Cortado sherry. Aftertaste was very interesting since it has this ultra rare palo cortado finish. Crazy white sherry. It feels so weird and at the same time super bold. Great ending. Overall, this is one of the finest expressions i have ever tasted out of this not very surprising distillery. This was actually very good and enjoyable. The Palo Cortado cask maturation has given it a lot of crazy notes that i appreciated. My score for it is a solid 88 over 100.