Connoisseurs Choice: Inchgower 1993 (Scottish Speyside Single Malt Whisky: 18 year: 43% ABV)
Visual: Toffee touched grain.
Viscosity: Many medium sized streaks.
Nose: Very oaken. Heather. Slightly dusty. Pepper seeds. Empty tea cups. Water makes peppery and other dry spice.
Body: Light lemon front, rapidly becoming oaken. Tingling alcohol. Salty dryness. Light sweet syrup. Water smoothes a little, peppery rather than oaken.
Finish: Dusty. Oaken. Toffee touch. Dry and drying. Water makes peppery and lime notes come out.
Conclusion: It is rare to find a bad whisky, there are whiskies that aren’t as good as other whiskies, and there are some that are a slight let down, but very few are genuinely bad. Outside of the worst of the cheapest blends that is.
This one isn’t genuinely bad, but it comes a hell of a lot closer than most do. It is just so dry and oaken, like all the interesting elements seeped into the oak and just got oaken notes in response. After making up my thoughts for what I was going to write for these notes I took a look in a few whisky books to see if this was an intended character – mostly listed astringent and slightly salty as deliberate house character – so, while I did not like it, it looks like this is what they are aiming for. Still doesn’t taste good to me.
It feels drying and kind of empty, with a general spirit character. Water turns from oaken to peppery, and while this is an improvement, when something tastes like a condiment that should be added to meal rather than the actual dish itself then it is a bad sign. Then again, it could be good for soaking meat in overnight – albeit in a kind of expensive way of doing that. There are probably cheaper ways.
There are some softer notes there, lemon and lime backing, but they are mostly lost in the fray. Maybe it has its place, and probably its fans, but it tastes like just salt and peppered fish skin to me – which can be great as part of a range, as many Islay whisky have show – but here it is pretty much the only element. So, not a fan.
Background: Miniatures experimentation time! Yep, Inchgower is yet another Distillery I had not tried before. I am really racking through them at the moment. This one was bottled in 2011 and grabbed from The Whisky Exchange as part of a set I had grabbed a while back.
