Tobermory 15 Year

This is the second dram I purchased at my local, big ticket whiskey bar yesterday. I picked this one in hopes it would play well with my dinner entree: a fancy, baked macaroni & cheese bowl piled high with smoked pork BBQ....I love it when a plan comes together. The Tobermory 15 is a peated, sherried single malt from the Isle of Mull. It's aged in Gonzalez Bypass Oloroso sherry casks, is non-chill filtered and comes in at the Tobermory/LeDaig house identifiable 46.3% ABV. That number is rumored to be the same on almost, if not all of their whiskies to help hint to the distillery at blind tasting events/competitions. That's either dirty or clever depending on your feelings about whisky competitions, lol. It's a worn penny, dark copper in the glass that looks thick and oily, while not making any legs when you spin it. It stayed glued to the walls of the Glencairn. The nose is raisins and smoke, cigar box, and honey while also being eerily reminiscent of liquified Kraft vanilla caramel candies. Strangely enough, it's different on the palate: after the smoke there's spice cake, chocolate creme and oak spice that really overpower the sherry aspects. It's actually a good thing that it does, IMO, as the nose was just too sweet. It was significantly drying as well and the finish was long, spicy and somewhat harsh. There was a lingering nuttiness that played well with my food pairing. Overall, I'm sure the smoky cheese/BBQ food changed some of the whisky's profile, but damn they worked really well together. I may have to buy a full bottle at some point just out of curiosity and I had to pay another hefty price for this pour at the bar ($21), but it was a great total experience. I'd recommend this one for sure. 4 stars. Cheers, my friends.

The Bottle: So it's interesting, the Tobermory 15 bottle is actually different than their standard 10 year old. It's taller and thinner with the label in a slightly different place. I'm not sure why the change, but I don't hate it. The bottle doesn't feel mass produced either, as it has some irregularities to it's shape that give it a hand-crafted feel. This thing looks like something that Blackbeard would keep on his desk. The label calls out that it's un-chill filtered, but doesn't say anything about a Natural Color. I kind of think that it is, since there'd be no reason to color something that spent this long in a sherry cask, and I don't think that they use any in the 10 year old...but, then again...Bowmore 15.... Whatever, I like it. In the Glass: Deep amber/topaz. On the Nose: Raisins soaked in dark rum, leather, hints of chocolate, fig pudding. Think of all the sticky-sweet, dark sherry and Christmas "holy hell, how can this cake be so heavy?" kind of treats and you get the idea. Taste: The relation to the standard 10 year old is present, but you can tell that this went to a different university for its education. There is still that underlying coastal dryness that you get with the 10, that dried sage thing that it does so well; but it's very much in the background. What you get here is a very heavily sherried expression that just screams, "Drink me next to the Yule Log." I've seen more than one person comment that this has a Raisinettes thing going for it, and I have to agree. Dark fruit and milk chocolate abound here; wrapped up in Uncle Oloroso's blanket. The 46% ABV is a welcome bottling strength as it helps carry more of the complexity. For me, this is in the same league as some of the sherry monsters from Speyside; but from a very different angle... Less Highland, more Island. I would certainly take my time with this one. Where I live, bottles of this are as rare as a good vampire movie, so I'm not sure how likely I am to come across it again. It was quite a bit more expensive than other 15 year old's out there(I think that I got it on sale for about $110), but that has more to do with scarcity than anything else. Tobermory is a a really interesting distillery in my opinion. Even as far as other coastal and island distilleries go, I've never come across anything that's quite like their unpeated expressions(Tobermory vs. Ledaig), and this one is no different. I look forward to trying the new 12 year old release!