Springbank Whisky Tasting, The Oak Barrel, Sydney, 17 April 2024, Whisky #1 This tasting was from a 2023 batch, the bottle code being 6/2/23 - 23/31. Nose: Orange oil, leather, earth, brine. Adding water makes the bouquet more floral. Palate: The arrival is briny and a little spicy with ginger and gristy barley leading the flavours. Citrus zest and more brine show in the development along with a light smoke note. The texture is oily. Finish: Medium/Long: Spicy leather turning just a touch sour in the aftertaste. This was my second favourite whisky of the night which is not surprising as Springbank 10 is always a dependable dram. The palate was excellent but the nose was outstanding and definitely the best part of the experience. The palate seemed a little less complex in comparison and lacked the balance I expect from this whisky when neat, but adding a drop of water changed all that. This expression really benefits from dilution. The nose flourishes like a flower unfurling into bloom and the palate gains a touch of sweetness which removes the trace sourness in the neat aftertaste. More importantly, the whisky gains a formidable depth of integration and balance which makes its innate complexity obvious and a joy to experience. Then again, I expect that once opened for a few weeks a bottle of this would have the same sort of depth and balance when neat - Springbank loves to oxidise. I rated this at 87/100 when neat but adding water lifts it by a percentage point. 10 year old Springbank has been evolving very well over recent years and this is one of the best I’ve tasted for some time. Always an unquestioned solid recommendation on the basis of quality, but the price in Australia is now around $250 (when you can find it) which is pretty outrageous. Then again, unlike the 2022 batches, I think the expense is justified. “Excellent” : 88/100 (4.5 stars) Note: This is a repeat tasting but I no longer post multiple reviews of the same drink. My previous reviews for Springbank 10 have been deleted from Distiller but the text appears below. -------------------------------------------------------- Springbank Tasting at The Oak Barrel, Sydney, 15 February 2023. Whisky #2. Tasting of a bottle from batch 23/03/22. Nose: Freshly milled cereal, a mild floral vanilla note, gently maritime, a little lemon oil and damp earth with light aromas of plastic and putty. Palate: The arrival is full, robust and all on cereal and malt with vanilla and gentle oak tannins. The development brings out the earthy, farmyard qualities of the distillate and there is a hint of peat smoke but it is quite shy. The texture is good, but on the thin side for a Springbank. Finish: Medium. Cereal grain sweetness fading to slight citrus bitterness. Springbank is now famously difficult to get hold of so, as I did last year, I went to a formal tasting evening to check out the current releases. This one is less demonstrative than the 2021 batches, particularly when first poured, but a little water and some time in the glass deepens and broadens the profile a good deal. At first this 2022 expression may seem unusually light and floral, but add half a teaspoon of water to a dram, let it sit for 20 minutes and the familiar Springbank character is back. Water does slightly emphasise a plastic quality in the peat smoke at first (but this is not uncommon with many peated whiskies), however allowing this whisky to sit and rest in the glass ameliorates the effect and ultimately brings the most improvement. This is not surprising as Springbank always develops well in the bottle over time as the level goes down and it oxidizes. This is good as always, but not quite up to last year’s standard, and last year’s I thought was also diminished in comparison to previous batches. Once I used to rate this expression at 4.25 at least, but the score has been steadily dropping over the years and this time round it’s down to 3.75. Sadly, the price is rising in inverse proportion to the quality level, and at the current retail price of AUD$189 it is no longer desirable. There was a single bottle available for sale last night, by ballot. but even if I had won I would not have bought it. “Good” : 84/100 (3.75 stars) -------------------------------------------------------- Previous review posted May 28, 2022 Tasted at The Oak Barrel Springbank & Kilkerran evening, May 28 2022. Whisky #1. Tasting of a 2021 batch (sorry, I did not get the lot number) Nose: Smoked white fish, plaster, mud, a seaside farmyard, apple peel, malt extract, grilled tangerine, subtle and relaxed peat reek. Palate: Malt, citrus fruit, unripe berries, chalk in the arrival, which is unusually both sweet and dry simultaneously. The development sees brine, green peppercorns and soy arising as a combined umami quality, but it is not an intense palate. The texture is oily and creamy. Finish: Medium. Oily, citrus and earthy malt. This still a great whisky but it is lacking in comparison with earlier versions, and was just a little to "easy" overall. Consequently I'm dropping my rating from the 4.5 I gave it in 2017 [review now deleted] to 4. Earlier "orange label" batches from around 2019-2020 had a citric brightness that contrasted excellently with the core Springbank farmyard-earthy quality. They were some of the best releases of this expression but that quality has now diminished. Similarly, in comparison to "black-label" pre-2018 bottlings, the rich, oily intensity for which this whisky was famed has reduced. The current asking price is also exorbitant for a 10 year old whisky. Benromach 10 year old, while not *quite* as characterful as this whisky, gets you 90% of the way there for literally half the price. Springbank has been very hard to get hold of locally for a couple of years now so I went to this tasting specifically to see what the current releases are like. On the whole the quality is still very high and it was an impressive tasting, but it was not mind-blowing, and Springbank always should be. “Very Good” : 86/100 (4 stars) [AUD$165.0 per Bottle in 2022] --------------------------------------------------------