Tomatin Cuatro Series #1 "Fino" 12 Year

I'm with DSH. Definite improvement from the terrible terrible Goldlys but yeah well used casking and not a lot going on. Tomatin can do great stuff but it's always flashes of greatness..most of their stuff is middling.

OK so I didn't buy the PX finished bottle (wasn't at the store I bought these at) and I'll get into as I go through this. Otherwise I'll focus on the FINO but this will be a side by side review. Nose - butter scotch, vanilla, a bit of dark fruits, perhaps some grape/wine elements. Swirling I start to get some oak, almost buttered toast. The Oloroso is drier more sherry dark fruits and less of the grape/wine element. There's a lot less butter scotch and vanilla here. Manzanilla has the vanilla notes but not the butter scotch. It's sweeter and there's a lot more just overall to smell here, much more intense. The Fino is somewhat muted. Taste - Spicy, it has a good vanilla note, some nice fino notes (I know). Some fruity elements, light fruits, but spicy. Oloroso - more spice, perhaps spicier. chocolate, dark fruits (waxy). There's more influence from the finishing I believe. Manzanilla - sweet and oily, fruity, but no distinct finishing. I could believe this was just a speyside though it's a bit too fruit forward and sweet imo to not have some finishing. My first comment is that these have incredibly improved from when i first opened them and I got nearly no finishing. That said these are still fairly bourbon forward, likely some fairly well used casks for the secondary fill. Fino - overall this is an interesting drinker. It's however not really for me. 12 years is a bit young for this one. I think heavier finishing would really help if they were going for 12 years old. That said I'm still really happy with this. At 60+ I'd not recommend this unless you want to do a side by side comp like this. This is a bottle that isn't getting killed this year and maybe not next.

2019.01.29

Relic 2017-12-07.

extraordinarily smooth, notes of caramel