Thompson Bros: Dailuaine 2016 (Scottish Speyside Single Malt Whisky: 7 Years: 57.1% ABV)
Visual: A deep gold whisky with slow puckering from the spirit.
Nose: Caramel to twix. Honeycomb. Light wisp of smoke. Oily. Heather. Wood shavings. Light black cherry yogurt. Water adds blueberry.
Body: Strong! Thick fatty butter. Drying. Dried blueberries on digestives and shortbread. Water adds rich plums. Fruitcake and fudge.
Finish: Dry oak. Ash. Fatty butter. Drying. Dried blackcurrant. Dried blueberry. Shortbread. Water adds plums. Fruitcake. Dark rum. Slight cloves.
Conclusion: Oh this opened up so much with even just a touch of water. Neat it is very strong – the aroma just punching out sweet caramel to honeycomb along with some dark fruit. All this is just accentuated for the better with that drop of water.
Neat the body was kind of closed for me, others in the tasting enjoyed it, but I found that, due to the strength, it didn’t really show itself to me. Like this is had a kind of fatty butter quality and just hints of the dark fruit the aroma promised. Now water makes it what it should be, bringing out full on plums and caramel that makes the whisky shine here.
Then as we head back into the finish you get real dark fruit packed into a variety of biscuity flavours. Again, good neat, but expands massively with water. Top and tail this whisky is good at any point, but the body really needs water to show itself.
With water this is epically fruity, with plums, fruitcake, everything making it really dark, heavy and delicious, with spirity leanings thrown in. At this point, now it has opened up, it is amazingly rich and rewarding – a dark xmas dessert style whisky, covered with spirits.
Like this it is a genuinely great whisky. Enjoy just a touch neat to see how it is like that, then dive in with the water and really appreciate it.
Background: Another one from Independent Spirit‘s Burn night tasting. This is an independent bottling from Thompson Brother’s who have been very much impressing me with their bottlings and their own, very hard to get hold of, whisky. This is a bottling of Dailuaine, not one you see much. At the tasting we were told all the badgers on the bottles was a nod to the Flora and Fauna bottlings of Dailuaine – which is a nice touch. This is one of 1006 bottles and was aged in an oloroso hogshead. As always with tastings I did my best to turn out decent notes despite the range of alcohol being consumed and limited time. Apparently Dailuaine uses stainless steel rather than copper condensers, which is an oddity and probably explains a lot about the unusual nature of this spirit.
