Tamdhu Batch Strength Batch 001

I had a sample of this last night, while waiting at the Denver airport during a 4 hour flight delay. Sample courtesy of @Generously_Paul. I actually bought the sample with me to Denver, hoping to have it while working in the hotel room...but am instead glad to have as solace during a ridiculously long flight delay. This really reminded me of the Macallan Ckassic Cut. Probably in every sense except the price. At $20-30 less, this is a better VFM. Classic sherry cask profile—-hazelnuts, creamy vanilla. Deeply rich and flavorsome. Thanks Paul for the sample—-came in immensely useful considering the circumstance

Tamdhu entered my life a few months ago by way of the SDT. The 10 year old Speysider old blew me away and I had to have more. I quickly went out and bought the 10 and not long after I decided to start a collection of all of the Batch Strength releases. This review is for batch 001. Batch 001 is bottled at 58.8% ABV and is non chill filtered and natural color of a rusty copper typical of a heavily sherried whisky. Let me start by saying that over the multiple tasting sessions I forgot to separate out the nosing and tasting notes with and without water, so please know that somewhere between neat and varying amounts of water this is what I found. Strong sherry and spicy oak open the nose. Powerful. Red berries and maybe blackberries, caramel apples and cherry cordials. Nutty - walnuts, pecans and cashews. There was a strange detergent note but I wouldn’t call it unpleasant. Oranges, tobacco, fennel or anise, a little mint and some candle wax. Some BBQ sauce shows up with brown sugar, vanilla, maple syrup and salted caramels. Tangerines and chocolate. At times it’s malty/yeasty like buttery biscuits. Raisins, dates and some chocolate chip cookie dough. Strong spicy oak and intense sherry on the palate. Pepper, cherries and berries. Orange peel, tangerines and tobacco. A touch of almonds, some nice spiced fruitcake and raisins. Medium to full bodied mouthfeel. Hot, dry then mouthwatering. A long finish. Orange oil, sherry, cherries, oak and spices. At first tasting this was really a difficult whisky to wrap my head around. The ABV really closed off the nose and made the palate too intense to pick out the nuances. Such is the case with most cask or batch strength whiskies I suppose. Once I put my ego aside and gave in to the addition of water I was greatly rewarded with a nice robust sherry bomb. I found the sweet spot to be a 15-20% addition of water. This is enough to bring out much of the greatness that is in the 10 year old and still leave some of the batch strength power. I still prefer the 10, but this is pretty damn good. I hope the subsequent batches are just as good. Out of the bottle I’d give a 3.75. With the perfect amount of water it’s a 4.25. So I’ll split the difference and call it a solid 4. Cheers

Hot Speyside style scotch with a great finish that leaves you pouring more despite the 58.8% punch.

Really deep mahogany red hue. Rich vanilla pulls me through this one. First cask strength scotch, and I’ll be back for more.

09/12/2017