Kingsbarns: Doocot (Scottish Lowland Single Malt Whisky: 46% ABV)
Visual: Medium darkness grain gold body. Slow puckering comes from the spirit.
Nose: Soft lime. Alcohol tingling front. Strawberry. Plum wine. Blackcurrant. Red wine to NZ style Pinot noir. Red grapes. Slight toffee. Pencil shaving. Slight raw spirit alcohol. Water brings out whipped cream.
Body: Quite smooth mouthfeel, but still with an alcohol tingle. Oak. White chocolate. Raisin pocked shortbread. Darker fruit hinted at at the back. Water makes brandy cream like.
Finish: Dry white chocolate. Oak. Raisin pocked shortbread. Slight black liquorice air. Dry Eccles cakes. Water makes brandy cream like.
Conclusion: Ok, this is another whisky where water changes it. In this case so freaking much. Neat it is good, nothing too unexpected, which is not a bad thing by itself, and it is nicely nuanced.
In fact neat it has a remarkably wide ranging aroma from the twin ageing, with lots of red grapes, dark fruit and red wine notes. It is a bit spirity, a bit alcohol touched, but for only 10% of the whisky, the red wine barrel aging is doing a lot of work here.
The body is more balanced in how the barrels show themselves, smooth despite the alcohol still being noticeable with sweeter shortbread and white chocolate at the front, but that dark fruit still hints out at the back. Nothing unexpected, but a balanced and rewarding whisky that I definitely enjoyed. Not perfect, but a good mainstay as their main release.
Water, water makes this brandy cream – the whisky. Which … isn’t exactly bad, but it is a tad unexpected. Also makes it very one note, so is pretty much all you get until the end. Its enjoyable, just , ya know brandy cream like notes and nothing else. Can get dull if that is all you have.
Anyway, a solid mainstay of a whisky that gets fun but odd and one note with water. I am intrigued to see what else will come from this distillery.
Background: A lot of new distilleries do not do miniatures, I guess as they have quite small output so have no problem shifting all the stock they have in standard bottles, Thus when I saw this distillery I had not tried yet at The Whisky Shop, I jumped at the chance to give it a try. There is quite the uptick in lowland distilleries now, used to be so few still in existence, almost as small as Campbeltown, but there is a moderate amount of new ones now. This whisky is a mix of 90% bourbon barrel aged spirit, and 10 re-charred red wine barrels aged spirit. Music wise I went back to Nine Inch Nail: Year Zero. That album has never stopped seeming relevant.
