Another mooching malt, thanks again to the great @cascode for something I am very excited to try. This liquid is the brain child of Cape Byron Distillery Co-founder and distiller Eddie Brook and Jim McEwan (Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Ardnahoe). N: Soft, gentle, and creamy. Plenty of cereal presence as shortbread and barely, with strawberries and peaches. Vanilla, a zing of citrus and an almost sweet saltiness. At 47% this isn’t shy, but there are no rough edges for what is a young spirit. P: Medium body with a ginger vibrancy and creamy texture. Fleshy fruits, mango, pineapple, honeydew melon. The creaminess comes from coconut, vanilla, and brown sugar, maybe even macadamia. At the back end, a little warmth with a silky saltiness. A touch of water adds an exquisite sour touch to the tropicals that is very enjoyable. F: Medium. Ginger, creamy vanilla, and something not too unlike malibu rum with pineapple. Australian whisky has blown up in recent years, and in a saturated young market there are a lot of experimenters and rogue hipsters that have forgotten or are ignorant to the basics. Not here it seems. A balanced and blissfully simple approach to working with the Byron Bay climate. Brook and McEwan have forgone the use of smaller barrels to ‘accelerate’ the ageing process in an almost polar swing to the approach of so many Australian distillers. 200-300 litre ex-Buffalo Trace barrels, specially designed warehouses to account for climatic extremes, and patience with exposure to coastal moisture. The result is a wonderfully delivered profile of tropical fruits, gentle textures and presence of the coast. Nothing complex, nothing overbearing, just a clean and confident presence. I am reminded of the Arran 10 and Arran Bothy releases as well as the Classic Laddie in this, and I am pleased to say I am impressed and will be looking for a bottle, as well as its counterpart Chardonnay release. Undoubtedly an Aussie future classic. Distiller whisky taste #165 [Pictured with a biotite-kyanite schist from the Harts Range of central Australia. This excellent metamorphic rock started out as a muddy sediment around 1.78 billion years ago. Later heating and deformation of these sediments resulting from compression of the crust ending at around 1730 million years ago. Much later intrusions of pegmatites represent the conclusion of a tectonothermal phenomenon 520 million years ago that provided the right conditions for the formation of large, high-quality mineral specimens such as these lovely blue beauties - a little known Aussie classic]