Tamdhu Batch Strength Batch 004

Lots of flavors

Prune and vanilla on the nose. Great velvety mouth feel. Aged stone fruit and sweet vanilla with a pleasant oiliness on the tongue. Genuinely enjoyable Speyside dram.

Nose is sweet and spicy, with notes of cinnamon and apple pie. Medium body, with a long finish and a bit of alcohol burn. Added quite a bit of ice water to this one...57.8% is nuts! 2019 advent calendar, day 14

Nose: walnuts, maple, brown sugar, alcohol, pine-sol, floral Palate: oak, slight brine, nice warmth, brown sugar, cocoa bitterness, baking spice Finish: oak, nice warmth, slight brown sugar, cocoa bitterness

2019 advent smells of oak and maple tastes of spice hint of dark chocolate

Boozy and smooth

Spash of water, neat. Very good. Smooth with some heat. Oak and walnut nose, sweetness. Oak, Christmas spices, biscuits. Fruit on finish... berries. Has an almost higher quality Walker (I hate you, JW) peat puff but very mellow. Flavors of Gen Scotia 15. Not a Sherry bomb; simply adds some profile.

My God it's even better than batch 003! The nose! I could just nose this one for days and not get bored. Even though it's marketed as a sherry bomb, it's terribly well balanced. Dark chocolate and dates and baking spices and currants and wave after wave of mouth watering smells. Every visit is a bit different but equally delightful. The taste follows suit, with the addition of creamy, balanced malt with all the other flavors. This is obviously a high quality new make spirit. I went and watched the videos on the Tamdhu website about how they make their spirit and acquire their casks. It clearly isn't just marketing BS, but true integrity in the production process. Absolutely worth the extra $$$. The finish is endless, warming, with reminders of Christmas cookies, particularly ginger snaps, and these little almond sugar cookies I make with maraschino cherries, along with all the same notes from the nose. This is an insanely well integrated malt, and well worth all the effort I took to track it down. My fear was with this being batch 004 that the quality would have slipped, like with the Aberlour that everyone here complains about now, but it mercifully hasn't. The producers at Tamdhu have clearly put high value on quality over quantity, and even at $90, I feel like I got a great deal on a quality malt. Batch 002 was a bit harsh for my palate, and batch 003 was one of the best things I'd ever tasted until now, and batch 004 is even better. The peak of sherry cask aging. Cheers!