Wow, two weeks get around to the second in five from Tasmania’s Spring Bay distillery. Still, here now and taking some time to work through what I suspect is going to be a heavy hitting dram. Distilled in 2016 this NAS offering was matured in ex-Tawny (Aussie Port) French Oak and bottled at 58% ABV. Not cheap at $235 but at least its a 700 ml which keeps it relatively competitive in the Aus market. This pour is from cask #138. N: This is instantly a rich and velvety whisky, beautiful toffee-butterscotch and sweet stewed plums and strawberries. Slight acidity and a refreshing herbal spice note of menthol and anise. Although thick and heavy, this is still inviting and taking me towards a Christmas invocation. P: Surprisingly gentle there is a generous brown sugar dose that turns towards a darker caramel. Plums and dates join with deep spices of clove, cinnamon and warming pepper. The oak is tannic and a little drying but compliments well. The palate develops into something chewier and sweeter, stewed pears and honey perhaps. The high ABV keeps things interesting and releases the profile slowly and with consideration. F: Long. Dark cherry, a slightly bitter dark chocolate-mocha note and more tannic spices. A dash of water brings some youth back to the nose, the alcohol becomes a little acetone-y but also unlocks a little of the underlying malt character, not as gristy as in the bourbon cask, but slightly youthful none the less. The palate becomes quite thin and loses richness and, sadly, character. Much more menthol and anise heading into the finish. There is a new rhubarb and custard vibe thats a little vibrant but otherwise water didn’t do this any favours for me. I am a sucker for a port cask, and whilst I acknowledge that over casking can result in too much of a port driven liquid, this stays inside the goal posts for a balanced spirit-cask offering. I quite like this but wouldn’t stretch to buy a bottle as I think it lacks the nuance the VFM that is offered by, for instance; Arran Port Cask. Still, good to get a dram in this fortnight! Probably see whoever is still kicking around in another two weeks! Distiller whisky taste #234 [Pictured here with a Pudding Stone for this portly desert of a dram. This is an ~55 million year old siliceous-conglomerate from Hertfordshire in the UK. The rock formed as a shore deposit; a bed of pebbles that was infiltrated by silica rich waters. A major control on the formation of silica cements is silica dissolution due to temperature change. This Puddingstone is from close to the time of the “Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum” when average global temperatures were 8 °C hotter than today. The PETM trigger is attributed to uplift associated with the onset of the mantle plume that created Iceland. Thermal pulses from the Iceland Plume also caused shifts in sea levels and pumping of waters through sedimentary basins.⁣ So, a mantle plume underneath Iceland led to the heating of seawater that caused silica dissolution, and helped drive thesilica-saturated fluids through shore-line pebble deposits that sat in a sedimentary basin underneath a 55 million year old land surface, eventually cementing them into this conglomerate.] Spring Bay running scores: Bourbon Cask: 3.5/5 The Rheban: 3.25/5