Mortlach Distillery post-tour tasting, 4th May 2024, whisky#2 Nose: Bright cereal (corn flakes?), grappa or plum eau-de-vie, sour cherries, green apples. With water it gains softness mainly due to the sharp alcohol notes being suppressed. This allows herbal bready aromas to come forward – like warm fresh white rolls with a smear of herb butter. Palate: Sweet, spicy and fruity arrival with cherries, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves all rushing onto the palate. The onslaught subsides in the development with red wine, cranberries, raspberries and caramel gaining ascendency, and this segue into sweetness continues when a dash of water is added. Reducing this to around 50% abv or less emphasizes sweet malt notes and creates a cherry jam quality. The texture is rounded and creamy when diluted. Finish: Medium/Long. Red fruits, the sweet character turns slightly drying and herbal in the aftertaste. A fine if somewhat unusual Mortlach. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted it quite like this or with such a variety of casking, but I did like it. It has the signature meatiness typical of the distillate but it’s not like Mortlach with straightforward sherry-cask maturation. Well worth a taste if you are a disciple of the distillery, but maybe a little bit of a challenge for neophytes. Also, I think this is very steep pricing for a NAS whisky. The previous year’s Mortlach Special Release (which I thought was better than this one) was a declared 13 year old but it cost only half as much, and if you look around you can still find it for that price, so it’s hard to give this one a recommendation. “Very Good” : 85/100 (4 stars)