Speyburn 16 Travel Exclusive

Extremely easy to drink. Better with a bit of water

Nose: Initially grapefruit, pineapple, tangerine, green hay, cereal grist and oatmeal porridge. Fleeting notes of pine resin, menthol and eucalyptus oil. After resting for a while the nose gains considerable softness and depth with herbal honey, vanilla, musk and warm citrus aromas developing. Palate: A bright, almost sharp sweetness of pears with a warm core of malt on the arrival. As it develops there is vanilla, orchard and citrus fruit, pineapple, grist and … yes! the palate does the same trick as the nose. After resting in the glass for a while, and after a couple of sips, the profile gains more depth and character with honey, lemon pudding, banana custard and unusual fragrant wood notes noticeable. The texture is creamy. Finish: Medium. Herbal lozenges fading to barley sugar then turning just a fraction metallic but finally reawakening as milk chocolate coated honeycomb in the aftertaste. A strange whisky, but certainly not a bad one – just unusual. It starts off on first nosing very like a Mannochmore or a grassy Teaninich, but after resting for 15 minutes, and with a small sip or two to dial the palate in, it morphs into something more like Scapa and eventually transforms into a Linkwood personality! What a shape-shifter – it’s quite singular and delightfully complex. Speyburn is usually encounted through their 10, 15 and 18 year old expressions but this 16 was a special TRE bottling released in 2018. To start with I thought it was going to be fairly ho-hum but it definitely surpassed my expectations. The source where I obtained this taster has remainder stock bottles available for less than AUD$100, which I consider a bargain. It’s just a whisker short of being a 4-star whisky. Tasted from a 30ml sampler. “Good” : 84/100 (3.75 stars)