Ballindalloch: Vintage Release 2015: United Kingdom (Scottish Speyside Single Malt Whisky: 46% ABV)
Visual: Medium pale gold body with generally slow thick puckering from the spirit
Nose: Alcohol jelly. Pencil shavings. Raspberry trifle. Green grapes. Light strawberry trifle. Light menthol. Water adds more like sherry soaked cake sponge. Clearer oak.
Body: Fresh. Apples. Lightly waxy. Vanilla. Tinned tropical fruit. White chocolate. Green grapes. Water makes for smoother and sherried cake sponge notes.
Finish: Lightly waxy. Tea bag tannins. Lightly peppery. Dry white chocolate. Tinned tropical fruit. Mild menthol. Green grapes. Light sherried cakes sponge. Water adds Madeira cake. Raspberry yogurt hard chunks.
Conclusion: My first ever encounter with this distillery and it is impressing me – not a show stopper but there seems to be a lot to enjoy here.
I’ll skip straight examining the body here, as the aroma, while fine, didn’t really give me much insight into what this dram is about. My first sip told me far, far more. It is quite fresh, green fruited, and flavor wise definitely feels solidly in line with Speyside expectations (or more Speyside stereotype, there are so many distilleries there accurately grouping them all is nigh impossible). What was interesting to me is it also felt lightly waxy, definitely not a heavy part of the character but gave some extra grip there and made a lot more interesting.
There is well used but not dominating influence from the two casks – white chocolate and tinned tropical fruit from the bourbon, trifle and mild red fruit from the sherry. The bourbon seems to show its influence more in the body and the sherry subtly works the top and tail in aroma and finish. They are rounding notes though, making the whisky more nuanced while keeping it easy drinking. The real story is the bright green fruit held in with that touch of waxy grip.
It is easy drinking, tasty, gripping – it doesn’t have the IT factor that makes it a must have yet, but it is very solidly enjoyable. Best summation I can give is while it is not yet as good as this implies, it feels like a Speyside gentle take on Clynelish.
A whisky that is good now, and hope to see some very special drams from the distillery to come later as they dial it in.
Background: This was given to me by Independent Spirit with roughly a double of whisky left in it for me to do notes on! Many thanks! A new distillery to me as well, I always like checking out new places. This was bottled in 2024, so depending on when exactly it was distilled 2015 and bottled, i’d guess around 8 years aged. Decent age to try. Non chill filtered, this is a mix of one first fill sherry and one first fill bourbon casks resulting in 3600 bottles. As the name indicated was made for the UK market. Music wise, I decided to go back a bit for Pure Hell: Noise Addiction. Recent world events have me on a punk kick again for some reason.
