Ardnamurchan AD/10:22: Madeira Cask Release (Scottish Highland Single Malt Whisky: 6 Years: 58.2% ABV)
Visual: Lovely deep gold color with medium speed thick streaks coming from the spirit.
Nose: Christmas pudding. Brandy cream. Plums. Vanilla fudge. Warming. Lightly salty. Salted fudge. Pencil shavings. Water adds menthol, green grapes and a peppery character.
Body: Fudge. Warming. Dry oak. Madeira cakes. Sugared orange. Lightly waxy. Fatty butter. Peppery. Water makes smoother. Thai 7 spice. Sultanas. Apricot and apricot syrup. Apples.
Finish: Drying. Madeira cakes. Pencil shavings. Port soaked raisins. Vanilla toffee. Light dry, black liquorice. Thai 7 spice. Sweet orange. Menthol. Water adds peach syrup and sultanas. Slight sulfur and smoke.
Conclusion: This is a surprisingly complex dram for something that must be quite young based on how long the distillery has been open. I was expecting it to be very Madeira led and the cask strength combined with youth making it a bit burning before water.
So, basically neat I was expecting some strong flavours but fairly simple. What I got was this initially booming with plum pudding/Christmas pudding notes along with associated spirity cream notes. A delicious start. It is warming but not numbing, it is dryer Madeira cake style in the main body as the alcohol strength does make it pretty drying overall but along with those spirit and vaguely Christmas themed dessert notes there are also a good set of woody notes and peppery spice as grounding. A tad more than what I expected and definitely not as burning, but generally in line with expectations and decent. It feels stewed fruit thick, drying and very heavy. There is a waxy touch and some fatty butter feel giving it some nice play in mouthfeel, but the dryness limits how much it can express that. Then you add water, and this is when things get surprising and very interesting.
The texture is smoother and shows that waxy and fatty better mouthfeel much better. What is the big change is the peach, apricot and associated syrup notes that come out,which I presume is spirit character as it sure isn’t the Madeira. There is still spice, dark fruit and such but now with a real soft, sweet fruit against it. It is an impressive balance and a radical change from what I expected.
It is spirity, fruity, and with a tiny smokey note despite being an unpeated spirit, it may be more a sulfur note, but it is there. Lots of spicy character comes in there, and with that a fatty butter sheen that makes for a very distinct mouthfeel.
This really shows what the spirit can do and I hope for more like this as the years pass as I am very impressed.
Background: Well, this is one that vanished quickly from stock. I’d been told it had been getting some buzz so picked one up quickly. Then took until now to finally do notes on it. I am not lazy honest. My first encounter with Ardnamurchan was interesting but not a must have, but had enough that this Madeira finished release definitely was one I wanted to try. There were 5,781 bottles of this cask strength, unchill-filtered release but they still vanished quickly. It is using their unpeated malt, and a quick google says it spent five years in first fill bourbon then one year in Madeira hogsheads so I’m guessing six years full age unless there are rounding issues at play .This was grabbed from the ever helpful Independent Spirit and drunk while listening to the Best Of Mel and Kim album – feeling a bit 80s pop throwback at the moment.
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