Rating: 19/23 N: Sulphury farmyard with chocolate, baking spices, and fruit syrup featuring plums and oranges. It's an enjoyable, decadent nose, but the youthful sulphur is a bit too much. P: Rich and full with that farmyard hitting and unfortunately bringing a wave of sulphur. Juniper, baking spices, mellow wood, chocolate, cooked plums, and a bit of candied orange peel. I like the bit of waxiness and dungeness crab that this has. as a whole, the palate is nice and I like the richness and fullness, but the sulphur is a bit much here. Some vanilla bean in here too. A bit of oloroso nuttiness, I think. There's this nice papery grain flavor in the back with the vanilla as well. There's a lot happening. Springbank 15 and Springbank 21 suffer from having too blatant of sherry characters, with clear oloroso flavors standing out. This clearly has some sweet red fruit going on, but it isn't tart or syrupy and its sweetness only supports the Springbank funk. This also avoids the sort of timidness of Springbank 18 by being cask strength. This definitely isn't as refined, but it does a great job of showcasing the Springbank character with minimal rough edges. That said, the sherry and bourbon barrels add a big layer of sweetness that covers up some of the nice nuances. F: Farmyard, juniper, residual sulphur, chocolate, plum with a bit of a more bitter and tart nature. A little of that oloroso nuttiness too. - Conclusion - Look, this is a darned fine dram in all situations. That said, it isn't the gem that I remember. I've been savoring this bottle for a couple of years and dreading the day I run out and need to pony up the cash for a replacement. Well, based on this tasting, maybe I won't be buying a replacement. Now, it could be that the oxygen has negatively affected this, but oxygen is normally a positive influence on Springbank, young whisky, and cask strength offerings. This checks all of those boxes and the level of oxidation isn't comical, so I highly doubt that oxygen is to blame here. Furthermore, my main complaint is too much sulphur, which oxygen definitely helps with. Secondarily, I find some aspects a little imbalanced, but that's another thing oxygen helps with. My third issue with this is that some of the subtle flavors seem to be missing. That could be the fault of oxygen, but it's clear that the barrels are also a bit strong (this is definitely personal preference though considering how much I liked the bourbon-barrel-aged-only Springbank 2018, while most found it underwhelming). I can't really say that I think a different release of this would be better though because downplaying the barrels reveals more sulphur. The things I can think of that might help would be sourcing spicier bourbon barrels and maybe trying out some cognac ones. The one caveat I'll give here is that it's possible the oxidization altered the flavors in such a way that the oloroso came forward and melded with the smoke and other flavors to create the illusion of sulpur. I say this becuase I really don't remember much sulphur in this before and now it's quite strong (though not quite dominating). So where am I landing on this? Well, it's better than my bottle of Longrow (17/23), but it certainly isn't the 22 I gave it previously. A 17-21 is high praise for a whisky that I've criticized for having sulphur flavor. Sulphur is one of those flavors that repulse me, so it usually causes me to drop my rating several points. After more comparisons, I've moved into the 18 to 20 range for this. It just doesn't quite have that character to push to a 21, but that sulphur isn't always so overwhelming. Honestly, I'm surprised that I didn't notice that sulphur sooner in my tasting journey. For anyone tasting this and thinking "what sulphur?", I recommend Craigellachie 13, which I enjoyed in a similar way to this. This is still substantially superior to the Craigellachie - much like how Future Diary is superior to Deadman Wonderland - but they both have a lot of that interesting barnyard funk, but are hamstrung by sulphur. Also check out the regular Longrow if you like this. I placed this side by side with Ardbeg Uigeadail (19/23) and was really surprised by how much the Uigeadail tasted. I feel like that experience (despite the difference in spirit characters) caps my rating for this at 19. It isn't just the Uigeadail: this has been underwhelming me at the 20-21 level fairly consistently. So an 18 or 19 this is. OK, after more comparisons, my doubt that this is in the 18-19 range is minimal. OK, I'm going with a 19. Theres' a lot to love here. Still, that sulphur is a problem. This is a 19 for now, but it could fall in the future. I want to love this as much as I used to, but I just dont. This makes me really sad because considering the price I'm not sure when I'll be buying another bottle of Springbank. OK, after a mild moment of inspiration, this is a 19, but it's still hard to justify at this price. This is more like the type of unusual (but still quite good) thing I'd keep around to add variety at times. I wouldn't regret a bottle at $120 too much, but I sure wouldn't seek it out.