Slainte-Mhath
Springbank 18 Year 2022 Edition
Single Malt — Campbeltown , Scotland
Reviewed
April 13, 2024 (edited April 21, 2024)
Purple, the color associated with royalty, spirituality and of course Springbank 18. On the nose, spiced oranges, grapefruit and funky notes take turns with incense sticks, bandages and parsley. A complex flavor explosion kicks off the arrival: sweet, sour and bitter, then savory, peaty and briny. I won't even try to decipher this malt, it is truly sophisticated and will overwhelm an inexperienced palate. Lime juice, subtle peat smoke and hints of salt lead into the prolonged, zesty and herbal-fresh finish. This distillery remains a mystery, an enigma. It is… purple!
RATING: 4.4/5.0 stars ≙ 90 pts → SUPERB [-]
266.0
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per
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@Slainte-Mhath great review! Couldn’t agree more; definitely prefer the more bourbon focused batches
@cascode There is quite some batch variation in the 18-year-old. It really depends on your preferences, I like bourbon-forward batches which display the distillery character and funk rather than being heavy on sherry cask influence. Some people didn't like the 2022 batch, probably because it is less sweet and quite acidic and zesty. The 2023 batch had rum casks in the mix, I guess this will change the picture altogether. I'll open that one later and make a comparison.
The previous 18 year was just slightly disappointing for me but this sounds very fine. I'm going to a tasting this week which will probably have this on the mat so I'm eagerly anticipating it now :-)
Change of plans, I will conclude my series of Springbank reviews with the 10-year-old Sherry Wood PX Cask. It's a tough one to rate, more shortly...
Additional information: This review is for batch 22/143, bottled July 11th, 2022. It was matured in 65% bourbon and 35% sherry casks.