Longrow Red 10 Year Old Refill Malbec Whisky Review - Plus A Bonus!

The latest 2021 release in the Longrow "Red" series, the series of wine cask whiskies from Springbank's dirtier, funkier variant. This one is very promising though, because of one word: Refill! But since I'm feeling generous, there's a bonus review of another wine cask Longrow to chase it!

I am a huge fan of Longrow, and I wish we saw more of it here in Australia. Aside from this annual-ish "Red" series, there's only really the NAS entry level bottling and the expensive 18-year old to choose from. The same does apply to the entire world, aside from the lucky markets who receive exclusive single casks. The reasons for this scarcity are many, but the main one is that Springbank Distillery just doesn't make enough Longrow (or Springbank, for that matter). While the distillery's theoretical annual production is over 750,000 litres per year, in reality the actual production is far, far less - well under half of that, in fact. And the long periods of pandemic-induced shutdowns during 2020 and 2021 won't hit us for quite a few years yet, but they're going to cause some problems. The same applies to the recent ramping up of production in an appreciated, but practically impossible, effort to keep up with the increased demand for Springbank whisky. The current capacity and those production numbers apply to the whole distillery though, which produces three separate spirits - the unpeated and triple-distilled Hazelburn, the namesake lightly peated and 2.5-times distilled Springbank, and the heavily peated and double-distilled Longrow. And Longrow accounts for just 10% of that annual production, as does Hazelburn. So there really isn't much of this special liquid around, and the massive increase in demand over the last year or so isn't helping the situation at all. Thankfully that seems to be focussed more on the namesake Springbank brand than it is on the distillery's other two products. And I'd say that a good portion of that "new money" investment crowd don't even realise that Longrow or Hazelburn exist! And I hope it stays that way...

Aside from the heavily peated malted barley and the double-distillation, there are two other little factoids that make Longrow special. Named after a Victorian-era Campbeltown distillery that closed in 1896, Longrow spirit only goes through the first two pot stills in Springbank's trio, skipping the third still altogether. That's important because the first of those stills, the wash still, is direct-fired rather than heated by internal steam coils, and the second still or first spirit still is equipped with a worm tub condenser, the more traditional method of condensing the spirit vapour back in to liquid which results in less copper contact and (all things being equal) a heavier, dirtier & more characterful spirit when compared with an equivalent modern shell and tube condenser. And those two facts make this quite a unique whisky. But there's a caveat with Longrow. Many peated whisky drinkers are disappointed when they first try one of these because they're expecting an Islay or Island (e.g. Ledaig) style of peated single malt. They see the words "heavily peated" or they read the ppm measurements, and they expect Campbeltown's version of Ardbeg or Laphroaig, which is not the case. That's largely due to the peat itself that is used to smoke the barley in the malting process, which comes from the mainland of Scotland rather than the islands, among other factors. In general that gives Longrow an earthy, smoky flavour rather than the heavier & deeper peaty styles of Islay, despite the ppm specifications being significantly higher than most - which is yet another reason not to pay too much attention to those figures!

There's another factor to consider though. Very rarely do we see a Longrow that has been matured solely in refill casks, or even solely in first-fill bourbon casks, particularly at a relatively young age and at cask strength. Most are either matured or finished in first-fill wine, sherry, or port casks, which while adding other flavours they can also overwhelm the lighter peat influence in this funky Campbeltown spirit. The "Red" series is a good example of this, being the most accessible higher-ABV iteration of Longrow. As the name implies, this series of nine cask strength bottlings to date is either fully-matured or finished/secondary-matured in red wine casks, or red fortified wine casks in the case of the port cask bottling from 2014. The Red series kicked off in 2012, and has employed red wine casks from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Chile, generally used for a finishing period of a few years after initial maturation in ex-bourbon or refill casks. But two of those nine bottlings to date stand out among the rest, because they've used refill red wine casks rather than first-fill - or "fresh" in Springbank-speak. They were 2019's 11-year old refill Pinot Noir cask finish, and this 10-year old refill Malbec cask finish which was bottled in late 2020. Why are refill casks significant? Well I can't yet claim to have tasted all nine bottlings in the series, despite the fact that these releases are generally "only" finished in wine casks rather than being fully-matured, the amount of wine cask influence in most of them is significant - and in some cases if you ask me, too heavy. Using refill wine casks for the finishing period preserves more of that delicious dirty, earthy, funky spirit character without imparting too much cask influence, which is a very good thing if you ask me! While I've enjoyed basically all of the Longrow single malt that I've tasted, my all-time favourite example to date was the 11-year old refill port cask bottling that I've reviewed here, which for my tastes had just about the perfect balance of cask influence and distillery character. Technically that is an independent bottling from Cadenhead's, but like Springbank and Glengyle distilleries that independent bottler is privately owned by the same company, J&A Mitchell. 

The Longrow Red that we're looking at today is the youngest in the series to date, at 10-years of age. It has been matured in bourbon barrels for seven years, followed by a 3-year finishing period in refill Malbec red wine casks that were sourced from South Africa - specifically the Stellenbosch wine-producing region around 50km east of Cape Town. Malbec is a dry red wine that isn't as heavy or tannic as Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz/Syrah. Despite its French origins around 75% of the world's Malbec actually comes from Argentina, although South Africa's wines are also highly regarded. 10,000 bottles of this Longrow Red were released in December 2020 at a cask strength of 52.5%, which is not huge at this relatively young age, but is still more than enough! Naturally, being a Springbank product this whisky is non-chill filtered and of natural colour. 

But that's not all, folks - there's a chaser review of another Longrow as a bonus, and it's not one to miss! Both of the samples for these reviews came from a generous friend over in New Zealand, where they have access to more Springbank - and at far better prices - than we do in Australia. Let's get to it! 

Longrow Red Refill Malbec 10-year old, 52.2%. Campbeltown, Scotland.

Matured for 7-years in bourbon barrels, finished for 3-years in refill Malbec red wine casks from South Africa. Bottled December 2020. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Bronze. 

Nose: Surprisingly fresh & inviting to start with, and a good balance between cask & spirit. Dried raspberries, damp leather, muddy clay and fennel (think aniseed but milder and vegetal/green). Black cherries in dark chocolate, and black pepper. Hints of balsamic vinegar and earthy, spicy peat, and tobacco. Becomes lightly acidic/sour as it breathes - and I like that in a whisky! 

Texture: Medium weight. Earthy, dirty, lightly acidic. Slight touch of heat but not an issue. 

Taste: More leather, black pepper, and a pinch of solventy, diesel-like Longrow "funk". Drier here than the nose suggested. Touches of rubber & plastic - but in a good way - and more dried raspberry. Becomes a little sweeter towards the back. Touch of cocoa powder too. 

Finish: Medium-long length. Touch of petrol, then turns acidic & acetic with balsamic vinegar, black pepper and leather again, and black cherry with dark chocolate again. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Delicious. As expected, the refill wine casks have done a great job here. If you ask me the best of the Longrow Red series have some refill casks in the mix - yes there are only two examples so far, but I stand by that statement! Refill wine casks over a longer finishing/maturation period generally gives a better balance, preserving more of that "funk" and spirit character. Which is exactly what I want in a Longrow! There's still plenty of cask influence though, as you can probably tell from those tasting notes. But instead of overpowering the spirit it's been more subtle and more supportive. 

Despite its dirty, funky & rich character the Longrow spirit does seem to be relatively delicate when it comes to heavy cask influence. Susceptible to cask influence might be a better way of putting it. By that I mean that it doesn't seem to take a huge amount cask influence to quieten/dull-down the smoky, earthy and dirty spirit character & distillery character, tipping the balance to casks that are too assertive. But when that doesn't happen and the cask & spirit work in tandem - in a refill cask, for example! - that's when the magic happens!

And now for the chaser!

Unfortunately, this next Longrow is something that most fans will never get to taste. This is actually a Cadenhead's independent bottling of Longrow that was offered during the Cadenhead's Warehouse Tastings in Campbeltown, and it was only available to visitors who took part in said tastings. They're cask samples really, a similar idea to the legendary cage bottles I suppose, although in this case you do have the chance to taste them before purchasing, and the entire cask is selected for bottling rather than just a bottle or two being taken from cask during maturation. I haven't yet had the chance to do a Cadenhead's warehouse tasting, since I've only visited Campbeltown once and it was a whirlwind trip, but they certainly seem like a great experience. This Cadenhead's offering is a 16-year old Longrow that was distilled in October 2001 and bottled from late 2017 to early 2018 at a cask strength of 56.0%, but there's a major difference here. This Longrow has spent around 10-years being finished / secondary-matured in a Chardonnay cask! A white wine cask Springbank is an extremely rare thing, very occasionally seen as part of a larger vatting with other cask types, or perhaps as single cask bottlings that are sold to specific international markets. In fact a white wine cask Scotch whisky of any sort, and particularly one in peated form, is quite the rare beast! Despite the rarity, that and the owner's generosity told me that this whisky just had to be reviewed! Something also tells me that it'll be rather special...

Cadenhead's Longrow Warehouse Tasting 16-year old, 56.0%. Campbeltown, Scotland.

Distilled October 2001, bottled late 2017-early 2018. Finished in a Chardonnay white wine cask since 2008 (10-ish years), part of the Cadenhead's Warehouse Tasting experience in Campbeltown. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 

Colour: Amber gold. 

Nose: Buttery, spicy, dirty. Soft old leather, fresh boot polish, touch of mint around the edges which is surprising. Toasted buttery oak, a little whole passionfruit and cream, black pepper, and floral laundry detergent powder/granules - yes, really! 

Texture: Medium weight. Rich, oily & buttery. Lightly acidic and smoky. No heat at all. 

Taste: Buttery & oily, with vegetable oil and melted butter, and spicy peppery peat. More passionfruit & cream (but not sweetened), some bitter, dry smoke with a touch of ash, and dry leather. Buttery toasted oak and lightly-sour white fruit. 

Finish: Long length. Minerally - that laundry detergent powder again, and some chalkiness, and a touch of dry gravel. Touch of acidity again with that passionfruit & cream, and white / tropical fruit. Ground black pepper and buttery oak behind it. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. 

Notes: Fascinating! Not really what I expected, with far less white wine / cask influence than I expected given that decade-long finishing period. Those creamy notes, and the acidic passionfruit & white fruit would have to be coming from the chardonnay cask, and they're not something that I've found in a Longrow before. But this whisky is also quite medicinal in a floral, dry, powdery, chalky way, which is remarkable, and again not something that I've found in a Longrow before. Some will probably struggle with those notes, but I find them very interesting. I can see exactly why this cask would've been chosen for the warehouse tastings, it's fascinating!

So, two very different Longrows here. One refill red wine cask finish, and one first-fill chardonnay cask finish, but where the finishing period on the first whisky was only three years, the secondary maturation period on the second was somewhere around a decade - hardly just a finish! Both though are nicely balanced between cask influence and spirit/distillery character, which is not always the case with Longrow and is great to see. We need more refill cask Longrows please Springbank, and also more first-fill bourbon cask Longrows for that matter!

Cheers!

Caol Ila Feis Ile 2018 Whisky Review!

A 10-year old cask strength Caol Ila from refill & rejuvenated casks. That may not sound remarkable on paper, particularly if you consider the countless options from independent bottlers. But the clue here is in the title: it's a Feis Ile bottling!

Caol Ila Feis Ile / Islay Festival bottlings aren't easy to come by. Much like the other Diageo-owned Ileach, Lagavulin, their limited releases are only sold from the distillery shop on Islay - although during the pandemic they've also been available online, but only to British postal addresses. The same scarcity actually applies to cask strength official bottlings of Caol Ila in general, at least aside from the massive array of independent bottlings that are out there. It's basically the opposite approach to that taken at Lagavulin, where the 12-year old cask strength bottling has been a staple of Diageo's Special Releases program for nearly twenty years, and independent bottlings are hard to come by - particularly with the distillery's name on them. There have been a few appearances from Caol Ila in the Special Release series, but most were either unpeated (which is really only produced for the blenders) or older single malts. Some of those unpeated bottlings were nice and some were interesting, but they're not really proper Caol Ila in my book. Otherwise the last time a cask strength official bottling of Caol Ila was available was back in 2008 when the fleeting & delicious non-age statement 'Natural Cask Strength' series (reviewed here) met its end. Since then, cask strength Caol Ila has really been the domain of the independent bottlers, thanks to the distillery's huge production output which is still mostly allocated to Diageo's blended whiskies rather than their single malt program - which leaves large numbers of casks available for blenders, independent bottlers and cask brokers. While some bottlings are naturally better than others, and on very rare occasion they end up being decidedly average, most independent bottlers do great things with Caol Ila, and it's not easy to find a bad one. 

And that makes things difficult for the distillery's owners when they decide to actually give Caol Ila some attention. Sure, they have the core range 12-year old and the non-age statement "Moch", and occasionally the moscatel wine cask finished Distiller's Edition that have all been around for a reasonably long time, but they're all bottled at 43% and are chill filtered. So when there are countless cask strength independent bottlings out there, how can the distillery owners differentiate their own? Well, in this case it seems that you don't really worry about it. Aside from the 30-year old and 35-year old from the recent Special Releases, Caol Ila's packaging & presentation is always minimalist. Brown glass with plain labels, simple designs and only the very basics of information - sometimes an age statement and a simple mention of cask type, but often just an ABV and little else. Like many of the independent bottlings of Caol Ila the vast majority of spirit is matured in refill casks, but that's no bad thing - refill casks means more distillery character and more spirit character, and since this quieter Ileach generally produces a lighter, less confrontational Islay whisky than some, that's really the best way to show what this underappreciated distillery can do. That's not to say that Caol Ila doesn't work well in first-fill casks, because it can. But it's also easy for a first-fill cask, particularly full-term maturation in a sherry cask, to completely overwhelm this comparatively gentler, lighter Islay spirit and leave you with a flat, dull and lifeless "sherry bomb" that is almost completely devoid of spirit character, even at a young age. And that's always a disappointment if you ask me. Now that's not a blanket rule of course - in fact I've had the privilege of trying a 22-year old first-fill European oak sherry cask at the distillery as part of their "Cask Strength Experience" that was absolutely incredible, one of the overall highlights of that trip to Islay, in fact. But that is obviously a serious rarity. On the other hand, not wanting to name names, but much younger independent bottlings from first-fill sherry casks have been massive disappointments, and their dark colour is actually something to be wary of rather than something to lust after. 

Diageo are not silly, and the distillery staff certainly know what they're doing, so when they're given the chance to do right by their quiet workhorse of a distillery, the results can be truly great. Aside from the more-recent Distillery Exclusive bottlings from 2017 & 2018 that were finished in red wine casks, and the sporadic older stuff from the Special Releases if you have the required disposable income, the only other option for official bottlings of peated cask strength Caol Ila is the annual Feis Ile bottling, released around May-June each year to coincide with the Islay Festival. The Feis has understandably been cancelled for the last two years thanks to the pandemic, so instead the Caol Ila (and Lagavulin) bottling has been offered from Diageo's single malts website - provided you have a postal address within Britain at least. Prior to that though, the only way to access these special bottlings was to get yourself or a "whisky mule" to venture down that steep winding road at Port Askaig to the distillery shop and grab one. But even then you'll also need to time it right - they don't tend to last long. These Feis Ile bottlings may be relatively expensive for their age, and no you won't get a box, and no you won't get fancy packaging or even a detailed label, but more importantly you might just get a great Caol Ila as a consolation prize! 

The Feis Ile bottling that we're looking at here is from 2018, and I was lucky enough to buy it from the distillery shop on what (sadly) was my most recent visit to Islay, in October of that year. The ages of these Caol Ila Feis releases are all over the place, from non-age statement to the 22-years old in 2019, and this particular release is one of the younger age-stated examples at 10-years. Also not a bad thing though, refill cask bottlings from this distillery can be great, even with ages in the single digits. This 2018 release has been matured in both refill American oak hogsheads (250-litre casks) and rejuvenated European oak butts (500-litre casks), meaning refill sherry casks that have been internally shaved and re-toasted and/or re-charred - based on smell & taste here I'd say they were merely re-toasted. There were only 2,500 bottles released at a cask strength of 58.2% ABV, and despite the lack of information on the label I can safely say that it is non-chill filtered and natural colour. Pricing was rather hefty at 100 GBP, but that's roughly inline with similar Feis Ile releases from the other distilleries. Tasting time!

Caol Ila Feis Ile 2018, 10-year old, 58.2%. Islay, Scotland.

Matured in refill American oak hogsheads and rejuvenated European oak sherry butts. Non-chill filtered, natural colour (but not stated on packaging). 2,500 bottles. 

Colour: Gold. 

Nose: Sweet, salty & peaty. Sweet dried seaweed, salty smoked bacon, black jelly beans (aniseed) and shoe polish. Dried red chilli flakes, sweet lemon & orange further in. Sweet hot-smoked salmon, soft spicy peat smoke, touches of leather & damp wood. 

Texture: Light-medium weight. Lightly oily, but clean & fresh overall. Slight touch of heat. 

Taste: Sweet & oily entry, then a big wallop of dry & spicy peat, ashy smoke and red chilli flakes. Salty smoked fish, dried orange and burnt smoked bacon. Touch of old leather & dry shoe polish. 

Finish: Medium-long length. Sweet shellfish (crab?), touch of smoked ham and green chilli flakes this time. Gentle spicy & sweet peat smoke (ashy), touch of old bandages / old first aid kit. Black peppercorns, sea salt and dried fennel (think green, vegetal/herbal aniseed), and Caol Ila's trademark grassiness. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Delicious young Caol Ila. Fresh & sweet, salty & peaty with a touch of that trademark grassiness & the cleaner, relatively gentler style of coastal/maritime notes that this distillery does so well. And that's always great to find in a Caol Ila since they're all matured on the Scottish mainland - even the warehouse pictured above is usually full of casks of Lagavulin. This Feis Ile Caol Ila may not be the most complex whisky out there, and it did take a month or so to relax after opening, but it does everything you'd want in a young Caol Ila, and it does it well! The youth does show itself in places, but with breathing time - both the bottle and with each pour - it's a lovely punchy young Ileach with plenty of spirit character left intact, and those rejuvenated sherry casks have certainly behaved themselves - although there probably wasn't many of them in the vatting. 

A great little liquid souvenir from my most recent trip to Islay, and it's a great motivator to get back there ASAP. 

Cheers!

Springbank 11 Year Old Local Barley Whisky Review!

The second instalment of Springbank's modern Local Barley series, from back in early 2017. The one that almost got away from me! 

Before the secondary pricing became stupid and before demand exploded through the roof in the last year or so, the Springbank Local Barley releases were only really appreciated in smaller circles. Those who knew, knew. And those who didn't, well they were missing out. Now of course almost everyone knows, and everyone is now competing for the same relatively small number of bottles as that smaller audience was. Unfortunately I suspect that's largely thanks to the dark colour of the 10-year old 2020/2021 release, the first & only bottling in the series to be 100% matured in sherry casks, which attracted a huge amount of attention and pulled the entire series (and perhaps even the distillery) into the spotlight behind it. It's also due to the pandemic-induced mayhem of course, and the ridiculous surge in demand for whisky & other luxury goods that it has caused. I've already moaned about this sorry state of affairs in the review of that controversial latest release in the series (linked above), so have a read there if you'd like to know more. For now though, we're going to rewind to the before-times, the brighter days when these releases and other Springbanks were still relatively affordable and easier to find, and to when more of them were opened & enjoyed rather than being flipped and traded amongst speculators & investors like they are now. Through no fault of the distillery, these are dark times for us Springbank lovers...

The modern Local Barley series - and when I say modern, we're excluding the legendary first series of unicorn 1960s vintage Local Barley bottlings - kicked off in 2016 with the absolutely epic 16-year old, followed by the 11-year old in 2017 that we're looking at here, then a 10-year old in late 2017 (reviewed here), then a 9-year old in 2018, and latterly two more 10-year old releases - the 2019 (reviewed here), and then the 2020/2021 sherry cask matured (reviewed here). Each release was distilled from barley grown in the Kintyre region and was matured in a different mix of casks, and all were bottled at cask strength. Of the six releases in the series that we've seen so far, the 11-year old was the only one that I hadn't tasted - until now! Of the five that I have tasted up until now the 16-year old is certainly the winner in my book. But really they're all winners, and you can't go wrong with any of them - at close to their original pricing at least. Are they worth the 400-800 pounds that they're (sadly) selling for at auction these days? Absolutely not. Not a chance in hell. For those of us playing in Australia, even the low end of that pricing spectrum at the UK auctions, which rather predictably is the delicious 9-year old bottling, the youngest release in the series, would roughly be a $750 AUD bottle landed here, after our customs agents & DHL have had their way with you. And that's utterly insane. Whoops, I'm moaning again! 

This 2017 11-year old Local Barley is the only one in the series so far that has been fully matured in 100% ex-bourbon casks. And that's a good thing, since the gentler cask influence is likely to show off more of the local barley character - which should be the point of the entire series, after all! But that's not all folks. This 11-year old is also the only release in the series that was distilled from the ancient barley variety Bere. In fact to my knowledge this is the only Springbank general release (i.e. not a society / cage bottling etc.) that has been distilled from 100% Bere barley, at least in recent years. Which makes this rather special! By the way, the word Bere is pronounced as "bare" and not "beer", but it could well be one of the origins of the word "beer" in the English language. Islay's Bruichladdich partake in Bere barley whisky more often than any, even growing it on Islay on one occasion, although Arran have also dabbled in the past. Most of this ancient grain is grown on the cold, windswept Orkney Islands north of the Scottish mainland, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the North Sea. Hardly the first place that comes to mind when you think of that postcard-image of sunny fields of golden barley! The reason for that seemingly-mismatched location is largely traditional, since barley has been grown in the Orkney Islands since the invention of agriculture, well before the Vikings came ashore. But Bere barley has survived & thrived there because it is more hardy, being less sensitive to soil quality and weather conditions. With a helping hand from the Orkney farmers Bere has evolved more through natural selection over those millennia rather than being scientifically bred in laboratory conditions (or even genetically modified) in search of higher yields and better disease resistance like most modern barley varieties. But this is not just an older, more natural version of the popular modern barley varieties like Optic and Concerto that we're more familiar with. This is actually a six-row barley grain, something that is found more often in Indian single malts, and also in livestock feed, than it is in Scotch whisky. As the name implies, six-row barley has six grain kernels per row rather than two, which are arranged in a star-shaped pattern if you were looking at a cross-section of the barley stem. Along with differences in protein content and starch content, and also enzymes - all of which affects malting, milling, fermentation and yield - compared to two-row barley, the kernels in six-row barley are smaller in size, and in general give more of a nutty flavour in comparison with the sweeter, more honey-like flavour of the two-row varieties. That's probably down to a slightly higher protein content and lower starch content, and also the thicker husks on the grain itself - which I'd assume would also affect kilning. I'm guessing this stuff would be a real pain when the time comes to mill and mash it!

As you can guess from the name of this series of special Springbanks, the Bere barley used for this 11-year old Springbank didn't come from Orkney. It came from the Kintyre peninsula - Aros Farm to be exact, which is less than three miles from the distillery, and since there are no farms within "the wee 'toon" of Campbeltown itself you can't get much more local than that! This being a Springbank single malt of course means that the barley was lightly peated to roughly 15 ppm, and that it was 100% floor-malted on-site at the distillery, and that it has been distilled a sum total of 2.5-times through a complicated regimen where at the end of the process some of the spirit is only distilled twice, while some is distilled three times. And that process includes Springbank's direct-fired wash still and worm tub condenser-equipped second still / first spirit still. The ABV here is "only" 53.1% in this case, which is the lowest in the series so far, and that may have been due to that lower yield from the Bere barley, or it may just be natural variation. In terms of volume of liquid though this release wasn't any smaller than the others with 9,000 bottles released. This 11-year old was distilled in Feb 2006 and bottled in Feb 2017, without chill filtration and naturally coloured as with everything that Springbank Distillery releases. While there was plenty of interest when it hit the shelves, this second bottling in the series now suffers from a touch of middle child syndrome, possibly because it followed the epic 16-year old first release which did cast a very large shadow, or possibly because of the slightly lower ABV. But more likely it's because it was "only" matured in ex-bourbon casks, which for some wouldn't have been as appealing as the other bottlings. Personally though, that plus the Bere barley used means it'll be very different from the rest and should show plenty of barley character, which makes it even more exciting if you ask me! The sample for this review came from a generous friend over the water in New Zealand. Oh and just to annoy everyone, the original Australian retail pricing on this 11-year old, around 4.5-years ago admittedly, was $220-240 AUD. Compare that to the $400-500 Australian retail pricing of the recent 10-year old sherry bottling... OK, I'm doing it again. No more moaning!

Springbank 11-year old Local Barley, 53.1%. Campbeltown, Scotland.

Distilled from 100% Bere barley, grown in Campbeltown region. Distilled Feb 2006, fully matured in 100% ex-bourbon casks, bottled Feb 2017. Second release in the LB series. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 9,000 bottles. 

Colour: Pale gold. 

Nose: Lovely. Loads of waxy / unwashed lemon wedges, rich egg custard that is hardly sweetened but with a touch of vanilla. Dusty hay and a touch of spearmint. Sea spray and dried grapefruit around the edges. Dried herbs with a slight earthy peat smoke. More time adds sugared almonds. 

Texture: Medium weight, oily & creamy. A little dirtier than the nose suggested. Slight heat but very pleasant. 

Taste: Creamy egg custard again, but no vanilla this time, and again barely sweetened. Soft earthy peat behind it. Touch of dirty engine oil, sharp lemon which builds as the peat recedes. Touch of sweetened grapefruit and grassy malt, then those sugared almonds again with a good pinch of sea salt. 

Finish: Medium-long length. Touch of spirit-y heat, turning into white pepper when that creaminess comes through again. Then the lemon wedges, almost salted lemons now, touches of clove spice & petrol. Surprising creamy milk chocolate note in the background as it winds up. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Lovely stuff. Predictably I'd say the other releases are all more "typically Springbank", while this is cleaner and more conventional, for lack of a better word. But this 11-year old is a lovely oily, creamy, lemony dram and it still has that coastal, old school Campbeltown character that we all love. Albeit without as much of the dirt, the funk, and the dunnage warehouse dankness. It's hard to pinpoint the Bere barley difference of course, that could be where those almond notes are coming from, although that could be coming from the oak. But it does also seem drier than your typical ex-bourbon Springbank. Regardless of the reasons it's certainly different to the other Local Barley releases as you'd expect, but make no mistake, there's no shortage of character or flavour here! And if it wasn't different, what would be the point!

The 11-year old certainly deserves its place in the LB line-up, and it's great to see something different in the mix - variety is the spice of life. And the quality is right up there with the rest of 'em. Let's hope we see more 100% bourbon cask releases in the series since it has now been extended indefinitely. And let's hope that plenty of the recent bandwagon-jumpers turn their noses up at them in favour of darker colours, so we can keep enjoying them! 

Cheers!