Tamnavulin: Double Cask (Scottish Speyside Single Malt Whisky: No age statement: 40% ABV)
Visual: Burnished bronzed gold. A few thick and fast streaks form from the spirit.
Nose: Thick. Alcohol touch. Mild Baileys cream. Pencil shavings. Brown sugar granules. Rock dust. Water adds cake sponge and cherry pocked digestives.
Body: Slick. Honey. Raisins. Vanilla toffee and vanilla custard. Rock dust. Light malt drinks. Smooth. Alcohol jellied feel to the middle. Figs and plums. Water adds more honey, golden syrup. Light menthol. Soft cherry. Sherry trifle and orange zest.
Finish: Malt drinks. Rock dust. Raisins. Heavier oily alcohol notes. Figs. Spotted dick. Vanilla toffee and vanilla yogurt. Dusty.
Conclusion: Hmm, I’m about to add water to this, but before I do that I’m going to get some thoughts down first. This seems decent so far, but I have a feeling that it is leaning very heavily into the barrel aging to achieve that. The dark fruit notes from the cask are distinct and pleasant – figs, raisins and the like are laid over a smooth body with honey sweetness at its base. Similarly the vanilla toffee of bourbon aging gives a sweet and simple backbone to this.
So when I say that it leans heavily on the barrel aging it is because, under that there is something slightly heavier and rougher tasting in the alcohol notes, if not giving rough mouthfeel to match. Elements you would expect from a heavier, shorter still but here in this lighter and smoother whisky. This being my first Tamnavulin I’m unsure if this is due to young spirit being used in this, or if the heavier, more oily viscous rough notes are part of the house character. Either way these rougher and sometimes dusty notes are off notes that feel like they should not be present in the whisky.
Water brings a lot more out – zesty orange notes that are delightful, against softer cherry notes that give body. It uses both aging barrels to shoot flavor out, but even now there is a kind of heavier, oily off note underneath everything.
At twenty quid for a bottle I’m not complaining too much, but for all its flavor range it feels like they are trying to paper over the cracks of the base spirit. I would be interested to see what they do with older expressions – if that cleans it up at all or if they still show there.
So, not super great, but packs in a lot at a lower price than most.
Background: Another first set of notes from a distillery. Though not my first time encountering this distillery, or even this whisky. I first tried this at a mates house as part of a whisky night at theirs. Later I saw in in Sainsbury‘s going for just over twenty quid a bottle, so decided to give it a proper try as well, at the whisky night I may have been a tad drunk. Looks like this was their first official bottling for a while, an expression aged in both bourbon and sherry barrels. Prior to that it think it was predominantly used in blends. Put on The Youngins – The Youngins Are Hardcore while drinking. Fairly short album of stripped down punk so I put it on loop so I didn’t feel the need to rush the whisky to match.
Advertisements
