Springbank Green 13 Year

Well lets get the monkey in the room out of the way. Springbank Green? Is this environmentally friendly? Packaging is the same, but it seems they've chosen to use "organic" barely, but not their LOCAL barely. I'm not sure what exactly to make of this, not environmentally friendly and possibly using dangerous pesticides. Perhaps a light tongue and cheek joke at the organic industry. I will allow it! Nose - sherry comes right out and says high. Tart citrus with that wonderful red fruits and maybe a hint of dark chocolate mixing into it. I could see green apples and lemons as fruit notes with perhaps a touch of a honey combs cereal on the sweetness. Taste - The flavor is much less citrus and instead brings in more fall fruit notes, much more buttery and savory springbank malt notes come in here. Oh I'm starting to get dark fruits and old worn leather and nice oak notes. I don't get any salt or even any overt peat, just a touch of a meaty back here as it opens up. Water brings out honey, a lot of honey. Finish - oh that springbank sherry finish just lingers on the back of the tongue while a light and gentle sweetness just hangs around. This is just an outstanding younger scotch. Absolutely one to seek out or at least find a sample/tasting of. 4.25 because well...I just can't go any higher without a bit more of an older whisky note or perhaps something more complex in the malt character. Springbank shall be forgiven for the name "green" but they're on probation!

Now that I’m between rounds of the SDT I can catch up on a few samples that have been gathering dust. Up to bat is Springbank 13 Green. This was one of the bottles that was brought to the hotel room for Whiskyfest in April by fellow attendee @Telex. The Green designation is due to the fact that the barley used is 100% organic. Bottled at 46% ABV and is non chill filtered and natural color of yellow gold. The nose is tart with lemon and honey. A distinct note of citronella is present. Odd but strangely nice and comforting. Malty/barley, green apples and green bananas. Very earthy and vegetal, green oak. Very light peat and smoke, a touch salty/briny. Light sherry notes like raisins and sherry oak. More green bananas show up. Water brings out more honey and a little ginger. The barley varietal really makes a difference on the palate. Green/unripe fruits like bananas, melon and apples. Some lemon rind, citronella and floral notes. Water brings more cereal malt, light sherry and slightly bitter. Light to medium bodied mouthfeel, very mouthwatering. The finish is long, green and tart, mouthwatering throughout. I used the word green a lot as a descriptor because, well, it fits. This single malt is more green than any other I’ve had, except maybe the Glen Spey from Berry’s, but that one was garbage. This is not exactly something I would seek out as it is quite different, but different is good to have once in a while to keep the senses sharp. I’m not sure if the cost on this one, but being that there were only 9000 bottles released I would think it’s not cheap. Either way it’s still good. 3.75-4 Cheers

Some honey, grated lemon peel, fruit cake, a touch of oak and smoke. Very similar to the Kilkerran 12 though sherried and slightly more peated. It's outstanding!

Something amazing happened here tonight. I’m currently in the mountains of West Virginia visiting my dad. I brought along a couple of samples because I knew my sleep pattern would be screwed up from working overnight and overtime all last week. Here I sit, on the back deck at 3am, with everyone else tucked in and sleeping. I might as well review a scotch. The 13 year Springbank Green was given to me by my good friend @Telex. We initially had a sample at Whiskyfest several weeks ago, and I wasn’t really a fan. There was lots of great stuff floating around the hotel and this one just didn’t play well there IMO. Oh what a difference a change in venue makes...here in the mountains, I’ve left behind the pollution, smog and diesel fumes I’m used to from living so close to an industrial park and the beltway around Richmond, VA. The air is clean and my nose is working better than I could’ve imagined. Before we get into that, this Springbank is named Green because it uses organic barley for the fermentation. It spent all of its 13 years in sherry casks and is bottled at 46% ABV. It’s a dark gold in the taster and makes a few oily, thin legs in the taster. There’s a slight pinkish-red hue in there that tells me the quality of the casks used was fantastic. The nose is immensely complex. It was so involving that it sent me scurrying to the corners of the Internet looking for ways to try to explain what it exactly is I’m smelling here. First off, there’s typical sherry notes, raisins and light smoke swirling around, but then there is a perplexing funk. Not just your usual barnyard or band aid funk- it’s something else. It reminded me of unripened apples at first, so I googled unripened, fruit aromas and found something kind of cool: aceldehyde. This compound is a result of the absence of hydrogen molecules in fruit, particularly apples that fall from a tree too early. It doesn’t allow the aromas to form properly. It also comes into play during sherry production, while adding extra levels of apple and wet hay flavor to some wine. Man, science is cool. That’s the flavor descriptor coming into play with this whisky. I believe it’s tied to the organic barley in creating the depth here. Crazy aromas on the nose. The palate isn’t nearly as exciting: sherry sweetness, charcoal and a bit of smoke with some minerality, apples and custard. It’s a smooth mouthfeel while steadily growing warmer as you roll it around the tongue. The finish is warm, lingering while accentuating the bitter, funky hay again. It dries over time and turns peppery. A nice way to end things, actually. Overall, I would’ve given this a 3-3.5 back at the hotel in DC, but out here in the mountains of WV the smell of dirty politics isn’t around and it just smells like nature, and I’m sure that’s what was intended by Springbank. I gotta say it’s a 4.25-4.5, but taking “terroir” into play has made this a near perfect tasting experience, so I’m going to bump it up to a 5 star rating. It’s a shame we all can’t get a taste like this while in the perfect environment. Like the fine chaps at Bruichladdich say- terroir does make a difference. A big thanks to Jason for letting me bring a pour home, and it was purely blind luck that I grabbed this one for my review up here in the mountains, but it worked out so damn well. Cheers, my friends.