DuckDrams

Scotch Single Malt • Sherry seasoned oak • €150 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 3cl sample bottle

Nosing

Warming spices, well-integrated sherry notes, and earthy, lightly peaty undertones. I’m getting honey, dates, orange peels, liquorice, cinnamon and cloves, as well as lightly metallic, muddy, and vegetal notes.

Sipping

Relatively sweet and mouth-filling, with with oak influence befitting the age statement. Carmel, salted Brezel, cola, orange, leather and a light vegetal peat running through, with heather and cigar smoke.

Comments

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I still think 43% is unacceptable for a €150 bottle (though it’s common for an official bottling of an 18yo flagship). But the profile and general balance of sherry and peat is really great.

I was fearing it would be yet another overoxidized sample from whic.de (especially at 43%), but I detected nothing wrong here except in the very last few drops.

Scotch Single Malt • Rioja Seasoned Wine Casks & 1st Fill Bourbon • sold out • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 3cl sample bottle

Nosing

First impression is soft and buttery. Citrus, stewed apples, maybe some champagne. And woodiness: dry twigs, pine cones, that sort of thing; and vegetal, hempy, smoky aromas.

Sipping

Here we are a step up in the expressiveness of the palate – that extra ABV does the trick. Very oily and mouthfilling, with sweetness and saltiness. Again, salted Brezel, toffee, orange peel, but a much more pronounced yet rounded tobacco.

Comments

No obvious sherry notes, which makes sense because this is ex-bourbon and Rioja cask. I’d like the 18yo, with that sherry profile, with the same oomph in terms of strength and peat as this one.

Scotch Single Malt • First Fill Sherry American & European Oak • Natural Colour • €70 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 3cl sample bottle

Nosing

Buttery, aromatic, and dirty! Sponge cake, citrus, raspberries, flowers. A little rubbery and metallic, and earthy animal shed notes.

Sipping

Sweet, salted caramel. Works neat, but more drinkable water. Juicy stone fruits, honey, vanilla, and lightly dirty, farmy.

Comments

It packs a punch, but comes up short of the Twisted Tattoo.

Scotch Single Malt • Refill hogshead • €130 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 3cl sample bottle

Nosing

Starting to notice a theme: buttery, heathry-floral and earthy. Here the sherry is asserting itself again (moderately), with dried fruits (dates, raisins), fruit cake, fresh citrus, and some warming spices. Slightly fermented, beery-y, and earthy, dirty. With water, I’m getting a delectable old-Armagnac, rancio’d note.

Sipping

Powerful, rather drying and a little tannic, but to positive effect. Honey-draped, roasted almonds, dry wood, leather, tobacco, vegetal peat.

Comments

This one hit the mark – it has the tobacco-y notes of the Twisted Tattoo, but more of the lovely sherry notes of the 18yo, with the single-cask punch of the “Release No. 3”.

Scotch Single Malt • Refill butt • €95 • WB🔗

Tasting notes from a 3cl sample bottle

Nosing

We’ve been here before: buttery sherry notes, honey, stewed apples, floral, heather-y notes, freshly baked bread. But then there’s a real waxy, oily note here that wasn’t as strong in the other ones.

Sipping

Similar to the 11yo (2009), but dial down the peat and sherry somewhat, and make it more creamy. There’s a tonic, almost medicinal quality too.

Comments

I’m a bit saturated, but this falls somewhere between the Release No. 3 and the 11yo for me.