Miltonduff: 10 (Scottish Speyside Single malt Whisky: 10 Year: 40% ABV)
Visual: Light gold.
Viscosity: A mix of fast and medium speed medium streaks.
Nose: Slight sulfur. Cake sponge. Heather. Coriander. Water adds oats and dried raisins.
Body: Sharp lime. Honey. Light oak. Energetic feel. Slight bready middle. Orange crème. Apple liqueur. Water smoothes and integrates elements. Some fudge comes out.
Finish: Orange liqueur. Light oak. Apple liqueur. Pepper. Water adds toffee, aniseed and a floral air.
Conclusion: This is quite the pleasant whisky – everything I had heard before trying it seemed to be damning the distillery with faint praise. So, with that in mind I was very happy to find it a pleasing experience.
It has a lot of fruit spirit and fruit liqueur flavours, sweet but without becoming syrupy. It is like a mix of sharp and creamy fruit liqueurs laid over a solid whisky template, In fact it reminds me of what would happen if those very bright flavours you often get in a make spirit managed to keep themselves present into a fully aged spirit.
Without water it is tasty but a bit over energetic which gives a slight fire to it. With water a soft toffee character rises, but more importantly the fire softens and the characters integrate together creating a very bright and cheery whisky.
I think what ties it together is the solid middle. The touch of sulfur in the aroma seemed out of place to me, but in the body it became a thickness, along with the bready character, which provides not so much a flavour, but instead a stability of character under the sweet elements.
It is a remarkably cheery whisky, easy to drink and a joy to do so. It I may fear to damn it with faint criticism, it does not do anything really to make it a stand out whisky – no fine polish or unique character. However it is a joy to drink for a night – I would guess anyway – I may have to test the theory with a larger bottle some time.
Background: Last of the set of miniatures I grabbed from The Whisky Exchange, a set I had grabbed to try sample whiskys from distilleries I had yet to do notes on. This one was drunk while listening to Rise Against: Endgame. Yes, recent comments in reviews made me return to more albums with “against” in the name.
