North Star Tasting with Iain Croucher at The Oak Barrel, 11 May 2023, Whisky #3 Nose: A light nose mainly showing fruit, nuts, cereals and a little oak. Fragrant but not floral – more like freshly baked blueberry and vanilla muffins, and the typical Dalwhinnie dash of honey is present. Balsa wood and light syrup in the distance. Palate: Soft cereal entry with just a hint of ginger spice. On the development it shows a more peppery type of spice note but it is still mild. The palate starts off slightly sweet but moves towards a more dry personality towards the finish. The texture is OK but not remarkable. Finish: Medium. Mildly spicy cereal with a salty aftertaste, like a salted caramel muesli snack bar. Dalwhinnie is seldom seen as an independent bottling and according to Iain he only obtained this by accident when it was mistakenly added to his Diageo cask list one time. Four casks were listed and when the error was discovered they wanted to withdraw them altogether, but eventually relented and allowed him to buy one cask. The purchased cask was a refill hogshead but Iain decided to re-rack and finish in an oloroso hogshead. I don’t know that this added a lot to the profile really, but it does not seem to have done any harm either. I have to confess I’ve never been a fan of Dalwhinnie – it always seems a very humdrum sort of malt to me. This is an OK whisky but the main interest for me was the chance to taste Dalwhinnie in a slightly different guise and I was not inspired to buy a bottle. I’m giving it the same rating I gave to the OB Dalwhinnie 15 a while back. “Above Average” : 82/100 (3.25 stars)