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Limeburners Darkest Winter
Single Malt — Australia
Reviewed
January 26, 2023 (edited January 27, 2023)
Nose: (Neat) Sweet light smoke, pine resin, malt, herbal cough drops, green vegetal and earthy notes. There are fragrant fruity aromas as well (pear, stewed apple with just a pinch of clove, cinnamon and nutmeg) but it seemed particularly tight when neat.
Nose: (Diluted) A few drops of water opens the nose nicely. The profile is now very similar to the neat nose with nothing good lost but a noticeable softening of the resinous quality and an overall feeling of completeness and balance. Over time in the glass the watered sample gained a lot of honey and become more coherent.
Palate: (Neat) Soft but hefty arrival with some powdered ginger and white pepper. Very malty with vanilla notes prominent. The development brings out a smoky presence backing dried mixed fruits and nuts, anise, white pepper, cereal and oak spices. The texture is lightly creamy and the whisky has a soft, warming, blanketing quality.
Palate: (Diluted) The smoke is much more immediate and defined when watered but the arrival becomes hotter and spicier, a little too much so for my palate and overall the whisky loses complexity. Arguably it also gains balance but it is an homogenising balance that sacrifices detail.
Finish: (Neat) Medium/long. Gristy cereal, malt and mild smoke fading out to a resinous aftertaste.
Finish: (Diluted) Long. Smoke is more apparent but a tart, almost bitter note surfaces and stays into the aftertaste. The resinous wood quality is much reduced.
Tasted from a sample generously provided by @DrRHCMadden I was very much looking forward to this well regarded and rated whisky. Normally when I receive a batch of samples I start at the shallow end of the pool but in this case I had to dive in from the high board.
I split the sample into two and tasted one neat and the other with just a few drops of water, both over an extended period so I could see how each responded to time in a glass. After 90 minutes both samples were “losing it”, which is par for the course. The nose and finish are much improved by dilution but the palate does not fare so well. This whisky is a bit fussy with water but I would still recommend just a few drops (literally - two or three to a dram).
It is certainly an interesting whisky and right from the outset it seemed both un-Scottish but also unlike most other Australian whiskies. Full disclosure, I’m not a big fan of Limeburners and there is only one expression of theirs that I have thought to be truly excellent, the Director’s Cut from a few years back (muscat cask matured, I think). This Darkest Night is certainly the closest I’ve tasted in quality to that, but it is also a completely different flavour profile.
This is not what I’d call a particularly complex whisky. It has some excellent points but it’s an array of a few very nice aspects rather than a forest or aromas and flavours, which betrays its comparative youth. I’d love to taste this if they could put the barrel in a cool warehouse and let it sit for another 10 years.
The nose is very good when neat and outstanding when diluted, so I’m calling it “excellent” overall and rating it 89. The finish is“very good” at 87 in both forms but the palate is where it does not hit the mark for me and although still “very good” I’m only giving it 85. The overall score is thus 87/100.
Tasted from a gifted 30ml sample.
“Very Good”: 87/100 (4.25 stars)
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Interesting to get your take on things. I shall read both our notes alongside my next pour, see what a little oxidation has achieved. The most remarkable element of this whisky is the production. The smoking for this is done on what is essentially three baking trays at a time. Literally only handfuls of barely at a time are smoked, then hand removed and sorted. The smoker is about 1 cubic foot in size. The labour involved is almost ridiculous and part of the reason for the high price tag. I agree that an age statement and all that goes with it would be really quite special.