Here’s another review from one of the bottles I opened for our room “happy hour” prior to Whiskyfest DC, back in April: The Bruichladdich Black Arts 5.1 (24 year old, 1992). This is a blended, annual release from ‘Laddie that is meant to showcase their wine cask finishing/blending skills. These bottles tend to be on the pricier side, I got mine for $307 from an online, UK seller. Bottles in the US average $400+. This batch is dirty, dark copper and amber in color that makes very small beads in the taster. It’s extremely oily and made a few legs. It’s bottled at 48.4% ABV. The nose starts out primarily with muddled wine grapes, sugary syrup and charred oak with an underlying touch of Coca Cola-type sweetness. The oak leads toward a charred, burned astringency but still allows the fruitiness to shine through. It smelled really great when I first opened the bottle. Oxidation and time were not kind to this bottle, but more of that towards the end of the review. The palate keeps the wine cask notes front and center: grapes, red berries and some sweet corn constantly rolled around on the tongue, fighting off a lot of the barrel flavors. There was a little cinnamon and pepper that seemed like it was trailing the other notes as you move the whisky across the tongue. It wasn’t off-putting, but it didn’t seem to be in harmony like you’d expect. The finish was warm and long. The berry notes ringing through until you rinsed them away with another sip or a bit of water post-sip. The barrel notes remained suspiciously absent here, as well. It’s a sweet, dessert dram that went over well during the hotel tasting because it kept my palate changing as we switched from peated, to bourbony, to wine infused drams. I think at the hotel I was prepared to award this thing 4.5 stars. I loved it. However, as I’ve been sipping through the bottom of this bottle since then (mid-April) things have fallen off quite dramatically. The syrupy, wine notes have mellowed, the oak is completely gone and all that was left the last 2-3 drams was a Kool-Aid type of sugary mess. It was almost not enjoyable. I don’t do anything special to try to preserve my opened bottles, but they also don’t usually sit around long either. I could see this one falling away after 8-10 months, but not 6-7 weeks. Oxidation is not your friend here. If you purchase or open a bottle of this, I highly recommend you drink it quickly. Share this one with friends and marvel in it’s freshness. You’ll be amazed at how good it is, just don’t leave it on the shelf. My $0.02. That said, I have to dock this one significantly because it’s super expensive and didn’t hold up for me. What was a 4.5 on opening day turned into a 2.5 in less than 2 months. Maybe I got a bad bottle or the cork didn’t seal as well (doubtful), but this has turned me off on the Black Arts series. I’ll just try something else from Bruichladdich and keep on moving. My score reflects the good and the bad I experienced here. 3.5 stars. Cheers.