cascode
Oban 2006 Distillers Edition (Bottled 2020)
Single Malt — Highlands, Scotland
Reviewed
October 31, 2024 (edited December 14, 2024)
Nose: Oily cereal, peaches, vanilla, fresh wood, crushed dandelions, mustard, a trace of fortified wine. There is no peat smoke at all. Great nose 86/100
Palate: Spicy (ginger), very oily cereal and malt flavours. Grassy and herbaceous notes in the development (hay, tumeric, mustard greens, cress) together with a some bitter, astringent citrus pith and salinity. The texture is full and weighty. 83/100
Finish: Medium. Grassy cereal notes with chilli and ginger spice. There is a briny quality to the aftertaste. 83/100
This whisky is dynamically cask-driven, the mantilla fino finish contributing a great deal to its character. There is a grassy dryness and austerity on the palate that shouts “fino”, and after nosing the whisky several times this also comes through on the aromas.
The nose has a pleasant woody note but it’s not as light and raw as pencil shavings nor as mature as old oak casks. It has sweetness and depth contributed by the fino but also a light, crisp character. It’s like a timberyard stacked with trimmed logs ready for the mill.
In previous tastings of Oban Distillers Edition I’ve always found a subtle thread of smoke but that is completely absent here, and I can’t say I’m disappointed. It’s great to smell the bouquet without any occluding smoke.
There is, however, a slight disconnect between the nose and palate as the nose is sweeter and deeper and it set you up to expect a particular palate profile that is then not delivered. What it does give is good, but unexpectedly spicy and dry. Still, it is a good whisky and one that would be particularly enjoyable as an aperitif.
Tasted from a 30ml sample.
“Good” : 84/100 (3.75 stars)
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@cascode @Slainte-Mhath meanwhile, the rank amateurs of the world (enter me) are sitting here freshly reviewing on distiller and just using the 0.25 increments of 0-5. As a former educator I think a rating system should allow for the achievement of 0 or 100%. As has been said in your thread here, internal consistency is the ONLY important metric. For me my 5 stars correspond to perfect, excellent, good, acceptable, and crap. I have no qualifier for 0. I reserve five stars for those very rare drams that are transportive and emotive. I think my lowest is 1.5. I do not want to experience anything that takes me lower…
@cascode What further complicates the situation is that no one wants to buy and drink bad whisky. Everything above 80 points I'd give a try, but my average rating is 84 points (3.5 stars) which I consider a decent everyday dram. When writing my reviews, I attempt to include an average dram here and there (below 4 stars), but since I do not really buy bad whisky, I very rarely review whiskies below 3 stars. Life is too short for bad liquor.
@Slainte-Mhath I also have this conversation regularly and what confuses people most is why you would have a system where “average” is not in the middle of the range and “bad” is not 0. As you said it is an appropriation from the wine world, and particularly from Robert Parker’s system which is now used as a de-facto standard. My reasoning for adopting this system many years ago was that the majority of whisky is “average to excellent” and so falls within a narrow range of ratings from around 75-90. The occasional bad stuff does get very low scores from critics like Serge, but they are so infrequent that it looks like everything else is being over-rated. This system also looks at first to have a wasted top decile (91-100) that is seldom used but this likewise reflects the reality that while most whisky is seldom bad, it is also seldom truly magnificent. The highest rating I’ve ever given here on Distiller is 93/100. Cheers, mate!
@cascode We are having this discussion on a regular basis when newbies start to use a different interpretation of the 100-point system on Whiskybase, mostly by applying the 1-10 scale and adding a zero. As you pointed out, Michael Jackson's Malt Whisky Companion is the foundation for most rating systems, including the one used by Whiskyfun (Serge Valentin) and ralfy, although there are some minor differences. My personal average is 80 points = 3 stars, yours is probably 75 points = 2.5 stars. What they have all in common is that it is not a linear system, but that the majority of scores is in the 75-90 point range. The roots of this system go further back in time to the wine industry. Some people question the logic of a 1-100 scale where only a narrow range of 15 points is actually used, but I think the main purpose was to maintain a positive stance that even subpar whiskies (or wines) would be given 70 points or more. There is not one gold standard, but dozens of variations of the 1-100 scale, but all are rather similar. At Whiskybase, we never definied a common system and it is difficult to enforce it now, after some 15 years. Most experienced reviewers will not adjust their system because someone suddenly decides to present a system that everyone has to follow. What is more important is that you explain how your own system works, and then stick to it. Personally, I do not like that ralfy changed his system out of the blue, aiming for much lower scores. I understand his motivation, but it makes a comparison very difficult and almost useless.
@Jonathon-Benson Good question. There is no standard rating system for whisky but mine is based on the one used by whisky critic Michael Jackson in the 1980s. It’s essentially the same system used by Ralfy Mitchell and Serge Valentin, and @Slainte-Mhath uses a very similar system both here and at Whiskybase. I have a list of 12 one-word terms that range from “undrinkable” to “outstanding” and I apply whatever term feels appropriate to three aspects of the drink: nose, palate, and texture & finish. These words are associated with scores out of 100 (eg “good” can mean 83 or 84) and I choose the score based on comparisons with other whiskies that I’ve tasted and recorded in my journal. I average the three scores to get an overall score out of 100, and for Distiller I then translate that percentage score to a rating out of 5. However, there is a difference in the two scales. On my percentage scale “undrinkable” means less than 50/100 whereas here on Distiller I would rate something “undrinkable” as 0/5. I assume most people think of “average” here as being either 2.5/5 or 3/5, depending on whether they consider the scale to be 0-5 or 1-5. For me “average” here is 2.5/5 but on my percentage scale average is 75/100. So, in this case I thought the whisky had a “very good” nose and that equates to 85-87/100 and I decided on 86. However I thought the palate, texture and finish were not quite as fine, so I called them “Good” which is 83-84/100 and I decided on 83/100 for each. Averaging them gave 84/100, which is “Good” and equals 3.75/5. At first that might seem like a low rating but it’s 75% along the 0-5 scale and just one step down from 4 stars, which is exactly how I felt about this whisky … just short of Very Good.
Isn’t 3.75 a bit low based on your rating of 83+/100?? Honest question!