Springbank 10 Local Barley (2022)

I feel like I'm getting generic lately with reviews. The problem...I feel like whisky is all starting to hit these same elements. This one won't change that. Nose - If you could take fresh cut hay, barely, and age lemons on oak, you'd have this nose 80% of the way. Sprinkle in sea salt and touches of smoke and you're there man. Ok some of that crystalized sugar, rich vanilla, and yes those dang springbank sugar cookies. I love the simplicity and the complexity here. It's just that simple as my notes but it's so rich and has layers. Taste - So lets start with the bad. This is reminding me of a hazelburn single cask 10 year that was half this price on the finish. It's less sweet and more sour/bitter than the batch 23 springbank 12 (also ex bourbon). The abv is too low and it isn't as creamy as it could be. The good. The barely and earthy notes play perfectly with the light peat and salty notes. The finish is explosive, rich and long lingering. You know what, lets compare it to the hazelburn. OK they aren't comparable lol. It's amazing how your memory will bring out the notes you like in a bottle like this hazelburn but when you compare it, they don't work. Hazelburn is buttery and creamy sweet while this springbank is earthy, bitter, salty, peaty, and just down right HARSH. Both have amazing finishes but the springbank is so much more earthy(in a good way) and more bitter. The hazelburn is by comparison a caramel bomb with a sour thing out of nowhere. Oh the more I try the hazelburn the more sour comes out, but again in a great way. But different than this. So what springbank did after what I considered a disaster for the local barely brand last year, was go back to the extreme basics. They took a very earthy and core idea of local barely and just said here you go, this is our raw in your face, tired cask bourbon expression. And I gotta say, the more I vs it against other whiskies the more impressed I am. This isn't a whisky that is amazing on the nose. It isn't about the 10k flavors you pull out. It's about the mouth feel, the experience, the insane number of flavors you get, and how you're just full saturated in this experience from start to finish. Every whisky I think to compare this to, just doesn't work. They're all something different. Ok scores...yuck, this isn't a whisky that you score. It's an experience you need to have. I've come to be a bit of a nicer grader perhaps lately but 3.5. I'm not sure this is better than the 11 year but I just had a sample of it. This is great all be it more about the experience than the joy of the taste if that makes any sense.

At a time when Springbank has become the Gamestop of whisky, securing this sample counts as a small victory amid the insanity that has consumed a hardly limited release of 15,000 bottles. As a whisky, it’s good. For Springbank, it’s just par for the course, and not my favorite in the series. The nose is a sweet and sour mix evocative of honeysuckle and buttered toast. Sour citrus mingles with malty biscuit flavors in the mouth alongside a tang akin to a melted strong Cheddar. The finish oscillates between vibrant oak spice and a sour hard candy. It’s prototypical Springbank in many regards, less cerebral than some of the earlier local barleys and sure to please anyone who actually opens their bottle. Although I generally lean to bourbon cask Springbank, I much preferred the sample of the Olorosso matured 2021 Local Barley that I tried alongside this. Sherry casks can often overwhelm the Springbank distillate, but when the balance is right the results are very satisfying. The 2021 hits the right spot, delivering a mix of walnut and umami flavors with a luscious mouthfeel. To paraphrase the meme stock investors, this one deserves to go to the moon.