Ardnamurchan Cask Strength & Paul Lanois Whisky Review!

Two recent cask strength releases from Ardnamurchan Distillery! The unpeated 'Paul Lanois' second release AD/06.22, and the peated Cask Strength first release AD/02.22. I could've stretched these out to two separate reviews, but they were begging for a head-to-head comparison!

Ardnamurchan is the latest venture from Adelphi, the privately owned and highly regarded independent bottler. When I say "latest venture" though, the distillery is more than 8-years old, having officially opened in July 2014. That makes it middle-aged compared to the swathe of new Scotch whisky distilleries that have popped up in the last five years or so. There were a few "work in progress" releases of Ardnamurchan spirit during the early years, including some single cask bottlings and annual larger batches from 2016-2019, while the first official Ardnamurchan whisky, romantically titled AD/09.20:1, was released in September 2020. That wasn't as young as you might expect, it was actually a 5-year old with some 6-year old whisky included in the vatting, meaning that Ardnamurchan/Adelphi were happy to wait until their whisky was ready rather than pushing it out the door on its third birthday. That first official whisky release was a mix of both peated & unpeated spirit, aged in 65% ex-bourbon casks and 35% ex-sherry casks, and was bottled at 46.8% ABV. The distillery bucked the first release hype trend since it was a large batch of nearly 16,000 bottles, and with reasonable pricing at $110 AUD in Australia, or just 45 GBP in Britain. It was a very impressive whisky, showing what this distillery's characterful spirit can offer at a relatively young ages and setting the bar quite high for the future. These core range releases continued with five more small batch releases since, all a mix of both unpeated & peated spirit and bottled at 46.8%. There have also been a few single cask releases for various markets, and more recently a few larger cask strength special releases including two unpeated 'Paul Lanois' batches, two small batch Cask Strength bottlings, and now a Madeira Cask finish, which hasn't made it to Australia yet (fingers crossed for that one!). 

The distillery is located on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula on the west coast of the Scottish mainland. It may not look it on a map, but this is a very remote distillery, requiring a 4-hour drive north-west of Glasgow or 1.5-hours south-west of Fort William, the nearest major town and the nearest decent supermarket. Both options involve a long & arduous stretch of single-track road (which means my wife will refuse to drive there). While I'm sure you'd be comforted by some stunning scenery while waiting for oncoming traffic, I'd consider staying at Oban and then taking the ferry across to Mull - stopping at Tobermory, naturally - and then another up to Ardnamurchan. Partly due to its remote location, all of the distillery's power (by hydro-electric generator) and heat (by biomass boiler fuelled with local woodchip) requirements are supplied in-house. A portion of Ardnamurchan's barley requirements are grown in in Fife on the east coast, and while there are plans to install a floor maltings at the distillery, for the moment that Fife-grown barley is malted at Bairds and is combined with their commercial malt before being transported to the distillery. There are three dunnage warehouses on site, although unusually one of them has two stories with casks stacked three-high on both floors, and bottling takes place at Adelphi's plant over in Fife. Ardnamurchan is a Highland distillery, and a very coastal one at that, so capturing - or at least encouraging - that location in the spirit was always the plan. Production was largely designed by the late Dr. Jim Swan, using his preferred method of long fermentation (72-110 hours), slow distillation, and relatively narrow spirit cuts. There are a few minor departures from his typical distillery blueprint though; production is split 50/50 between peated (30 ppm using mainland peat) and unpeated and employs two different distiller's yeasts, they make a cloudier wort in search of a slightly heavier, oilier spirit, and there are no STR casks in the warehouses. The idea here was to make a slightly heavier spirit allowing for longer, slightly slower maturation, which can be seen in the ages of their bottlings so far, and to stick to more traditional cask types. Naturally, as you'd expect from Adelphi all Ardnamurchan whisky is non-chill filtered, naturally coloured and bottled at 46% or above. 

The two bottlings that I'm looking at here are the second of the unpeated 'Paul Lanois' releases, officially titled AD/06.22, and the first of the peated Cask Strength releases, officially dubbed AD/02.22. That coding system is simply the month and year that the release was bottled, and if there's a third number, e.g. AD/04.21:03, that's a standard batch / core range bottling. We'll look at the unpeated Paul Lanois first, and we'll start with the obvious question: who is Paul Lanois, and why has Ardnamurchan named a whisky after him? Well Paul Lanois is a French champagne producer, and the two releases so far have been finished in ex-Paul Lanois wine casks - technically not champagne casks, because champagne is legally required to undergo a secondary fermentation in bottle. So the wine from these casks technically wasn't yet champagne, but it did become champagne after bottling. This is the second Paul Lanois release (the first was AD/04.21 and was 57.6% ABV), taken from casks of unpeated spirit that were distilled in 2015 and bottled in June 2022 at a cask strength of 57.5% ABV. Initial maturation was in ex-bourbon barrels, followed by an unspecified finishing period in the Paul Lanois wine casks. This was a relatively small release of 2,661 bottles, around 100 more than in the first release. This second Paul Lanois batch hasn't made it to Australia yet, and the sample for this review came from a generous fellow whisky nerd who didn't want to wait! Tasting time!

Ardnamurchan Paul Lanois Second Release, AD/06.22, 57.5%. Highlands, Scotland.

Colour: Bright gold. 

Nose: Fruity, malty & sweet. Vanilla marshmallows, touch of cotton candy / fairy floss, rich toffee fudge, and golden malted barley. Soft sweet oak, pinch of sea salt, white chocolate. Tropical fruit underneath: roasted pineapple, dried mango, sweet white grape. 

Texture: Medium-heavy weight. Oily, malty, rich. Touch of heat but very bearable.  

Taste: Less sweet than the nose suggested. The maltiness is amplified here and has turned drier and biscuit-y. Clean vegetable oil, dried tropical fruit, and that vanilla marshmallow again. Chilli salt with a higher proportion of chilli, and a little burnt popcorn. 

Finish: Medium-long length. Big oily, biscuit-y maltiness carries through, with the burnt popcorn and vanilla marshmallow following behind. Becoming more fruity & lightly acidic now, with more guava, pineapple (not roasted this time), white grape. A couple of walnuts, and toffee fudge. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. 

Notes: This is my first go at an unpeated Ardnamurchan, but as you'd expect there are still some parallels with the peated spirit. That rich oily profile, the heavier weight and the coastal influence is all there, although the latter is obviously more subtle than it is in the peated stuff. This is a very malty whisky, in a drier, more biscuit-y way, and that oiliness does help to obscure both the youth and the ABV slightly. I haven't tried a straight ex-bourbon cask unpeated Ardnamurchan yet for comparison's sake (has anyone?), but the wine influence in this Paul Lanois release does seem very restrained - which is a good thing. I can see the tropical fruit notes coming from the wine casks or at least being amplified by them, but the balance here is impressive, particularly compared to some red wine finished or matured whiskies from other newish distilleries. That's the advantage of white wine casks, they're far more gentle, leaving more of the distillery character intact, and I hope we see more of them!

With that, on to the peated AD/02.22 Cask Strength release. This was the first cask strength batch and the only one to have made it to Australia so far (the second batch has been released in Britain, coded AD/09.22). AD/02.22 was taken from 50 casks, 10 casks of unpeated spirit and 40 of peated spirit, all distilled in 2014 and 2015 and bottled in early 2022, making it a minimum of 6-years old. 5 of these casks were first-fill sherry hogsheads and the rest were first-fill ex-bourbon barrels, primarily from Woodford Reserve. This detailed information can be gleaned by scanning the QR code on the back label, which tells you just about everything you could want to know! There were 12,886 bottles in the batch - so not particularly limited, which is a good thing considering how highly anticipated this bottling was - bottled at a cask strength of 58.7% ABV. Pricing was around $160 AUD locally, which is quite reasonable in this day & age. Tasting time!

Ardnamurchan Cask Strength AD/02.22, NAS, 58.7%. Highlands, Scotland.

Distilled in 2014 & 2015, vatting of 50 casks; 10 unpeated & 40 peated, 5 ex-sherry and 45 ex-bourbon. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 12,886 bottles. 

Colour: Pale gold. 

Nose: Malty, coastal, oily. Olive brine, black peppercorns & dried (mild) green chillies. Touch of honey-roasted almonds, and blowtorched herbs - sage & rosemary. Wafts of gentle wood smoke & lemon juice as it breathes. 

Texture: Medium-heavy weight. Salty, lightly peaty & smoky, malty. No heat at all. 

Taste: Sharp lemon, and a lovely fizzy / effervescent peatiness, clean & earthy. Rock salt with freshly-emptied oyster shells. Green olives, yeasty sourdough starter, touches of roasted pineapple and vanilla bubble gum (if that exists!). 

Finish: Medium-long length. More sharp lemon citrus, soft earthy peat smoke, clean & gentle. Vanilla bubble gum, green olives, touch of savoury honey and sea salt. Sounds like a weird combination, but it works! More of that oyster shell minerality and wafting soft wood smoke underneath. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. 

Notes: Great stuff for its age, and solid value for money too. There's plenty of flavour and a good dose of oily & coastal spirit / distillery character - that seems to be the Ardnamurchan M.O., and it's great to see it in these releases. This heavier, oilier spirit is going to be tough to beat in the coming years! It's big, it's complex, and it's coastal, and it's tasty. And this is just 6-years of age! I'd give the peated AD/02.22 the win between these two releases, but there's really no great distance between them in terms of quality. While it's not a fair comparison, the difference in maturity between this and the first official / core range release is immediately obvious, and there's only a year between them if you go by the minimum ages. There are shades of other coastal whiskies here, Talisker in particular, but it's quite unique with that heavier spirit-driven oiliness that is sadly missing from many distilleries these days. Very impressive. 

Cheers!

Old Master Spirits Joadja Whisky Review!

While Old Master Spirits has been dabbling in bottling cognac, armagnac and fortified wine for a while now, proprietors Deni & David are whisky obsessives at heart, and whisky was always going to make an appearance in their portfolio! 

And here it is. The first whisky release from Melbourne's Old Master Spirits ! This is an independent bottling of Australian single malt whisky from New South Wales' Joadja Distillery; a single cask release that was fully matured in a Pedro Ximinez fortified wine cask. But that's not all folks. Old Master have also bottled an actual PX fortified wine to be released alongside theis first whisky release! While they've bottled a fortified wine once before, a Spanish sherry in fact, the difference here is that this PX has been partially aged at Joadja Distillery alongside the single malt release. Which is a very cool idea! Only a couple of Australian whisky producers have released fortified wines to support their wine cask whiskies, and it's a rare occurrence in other whisky markets. That's partly due to the laws surrounding sherry production, but you'll notice that I'm using that term sparingly here. Sherry is protected by a designation of origin (a.k.a DOC/AOC) and can only be made in the "sherry triangle" of Southern Spain, but it must also be bottled in Spain. While this PX was made in Jerez and aged there for some time, it was shipped to Australia in cask, and cannot be sold / labelled as sherry. That also means it's not an apera, which is the Australian industry term for a sherry-style fortified wine. So instead it's simply a PX fortified wine, made in Spain, aged in both Spain and Australia, and bottled in Australia. As important as these regional designations are, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. And this one is certainly sweet! 

Joadja Distillery is located in the historic town of Joadja in southern New South Wales, roughly two hours' drive south-west of Sydney. When I say "historic town" there, you could actually use the words "ghost town". Joadja township is largely ruins, having been abandoned in 1911 after the local shale oil (for kerosene) mine had closed down a few years prior. The land was then sold to a private buyer, and the area became heritage listed in 1999. Joadja Distillery was founded in 2014 by husband & wife team Valero & Elisa Jiminez after they purchased the property at auction in 2011, and found that the previous owner had obtained a distilling license but had never put it into action. As you may guess from their names, Valero & Elisa were both born in Spain, with Elisa hailing from Jerez, the home of sherry, and family ties back to the region have helped Joadja Distillery source authentic Spanish sherry casks. This is quite a rare thing in Australia, where most whisky producers are using Australian apera (Australian sherry-style fortified) casks for logistical reasons. Unfortunately our lax regulations and lack of any real oversight mean that some of these brands can get away with using the word sherry on their labelling & marketing - obviously wanting to capitalise on the popularity of sherry cask whiskies. Joadja are sourcing their sherry casks directly from the sherry bodegas in Spain - and these are not short-term "sherry seasoned" casks like much of the whisky industry uses, these casks have actually been used for sherry maturation, which is a very rare thing these days. There's much more to this distillery than their casks, though - something that can't be said about some other Australian distilleries!

For a start, they have their own natural spring on site, supplying all production (i.e. mashing and diluting) water for their spirits. Speaking of which, aside from malt whisky Joadja also makes gin from their own spirit - another rare thing in Australia - and also aniseed liqueur. Getting back to whisky, Joadja is one of the few distilleries in Australia that is growing their own barley, used for their "Paddock to Bottle" releases, while the other releases use NSW barley sourced from Voyager Maltings. The distillery doesn't have a maltings, although there are plans to build a floor maltings on site, so their farm-grown barley is sent off to Voyager to be malted and then sent back to the distillery for processing. So it's halfway between the setup at Kilchoman, where their farm-grown barley is malted on site and used for their 100% Islay bottlings, and that of Bruichladdich's Islay Barley bottlings, where the Islay-grown barley is malted on the mainland of Scotland. Joadja is also mashing & fermenting their own wash, which is sadly not a legal requirement for Australian single malt whisky like it is in Scotland. Some of the biggest names in our little industry do not ferment their own wash, often sourcing from local breweries instead. Whether this commercially brewed wash is made to their specifications or not, those distilleries are certainly losing the potential benefits of their site's microflora that could be helping with flavour differentiation & development during fermentation. If you ask me, this situation... no, let's call it what it is, it's another gaping loophole in the Australian whisky "regulations". This loophole is why many of our distilleries pay little-to-no attention to this crucial stage of the production process, and it's why many of them rely almost entirely on cask types and cask stories ("this 100-year old cask was used to finish our 2-year old whisky for a couple of months") to differentiate themselves in the rapidly expanding local market. Joadja has chosen not to take this shortcut by fermenting on site, which is great to see!

Like all of their bottlings, Old Master Spirits' first whisky release has been carefully chosen, hand-picked by Deni & David. This release is a single cask of Joadja single malt that has been aged in a 128-litre first-fill PX sherry quarter cask, cask number JW079. The spirit was distilled on the 2nd of April 2020 and bottled in December 2022, making it just over 2.5-years of age - two years being the legal minimum for Australian whisky. This quarter cask yielded 162 x 500ml bottles at a cask strength of 54.9% ABV - that means the angels had taken nearly 50-litres or nearly 40% of the volume from this cask in just 2.5-years! That amount of loss would send any Scottish distillery straight into voluntary administration, and just goes to show the power of the Australian climate, which is both a friend and an enemy, but often leans towards the latter! Old Master Spirits is releasing this single cask Joadja to their subscribers on the 14th of December, and pricing is very reasonable by Australian whisky standards at $149 AUD, while the general release is on the 15th of December with pricing set at $169 AUD. So it certainly pays to sign yourself up to their mailing list! 

Old Master Spirits Joadja Singe Malt, 54.9% ABV. NSW, Australia.

Distilled 2/4/2020, matured in a first-fill ex-Spanish PX sherry quarter cask, #JW079, bottled December 2022 at cask strength. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 162 x 500ml bottles. 

Colour: Dark bronze. 

Nose: Holy sweet sherry bomb, batman! Rich treacle, burnt golden syrup (bitter), raisins & currants macerated in syrup, eucalyptus resin. Surprisingly smoky, but we're far from peat smoke, this is an Australian bushfire (a.k.a. scrub fire / wildfire). Touch of dark chocolate, date syrup, and a fistful of blowtorched orange rind.  

Texture: Medium weight. Very, very sweet, rich, and syrupy. Dripping with sweet PX. No heat at all.

Taste: More raisins & currants macerated in sugar syrup. More rich treacle and burnt golden syrup. Surprisingly smoky again (bushfire, not peat smoke). Crystallised ginger coated in dark chocolate. Eucalyptus resin & blowtorched orange rind. Date syrup sweetness.  

Finish: Medium-long length. Burnt golden syrup sweetness, more raisins & currants in syrup, but poured over melting vanilla ice cream this time. That surprising bushfire smokiness running underneath, plus some coffee grounds and more burnt orange peel adding some (wanted & needed) bitterness. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. But that massive sweetness is pushing my boundaries!

Notes: Only sweet tooths & sherry bombers need apply! If you don't like PX sherry then you may struggle with this one. Personally I do like a good PX sherry on the odd occasion (i.e. Christmas), but this is one of the sweetest whiskies I've had in a long time, and I must admit a few of my teeth have lost some enamel. If you're trying to cut back on sugar before the festive season, one sip of this Joadja will have you falling off the wagon. It's certainly not an artificial sweetness though, and it stops just shy of being cloying, needing those smoky and bitter notes to counter that massive syrupy sweetness. What isn't there, thankfully, is a massive hit of oak. This is a PX-dominated whisky, but not an oak-dominated whisky; a hugely sweet sherry bomb yes, but a wood monster, no. Which I'd assume is due to the ex-bodega sherry cask that has been used for sherry maturation, as opposed to a new oak cask that was seasoned with wine for a short period. These ex-bodega sherry casks can be very old and have often been used for multiple sherry maturations, with the previous contents taking out much of the wood impact and the barrel staves becoming soaked with wine in the process. 

While the eucalyptus notes here can be found in many Australian whiskies, the smokiness in this dram is very surprising and completely unexpected. Since this was a wet-fill cask I can't see that being cask char, and it's more intense here than what I've experienced from freshly-charred casks. If memory serves this is actually my first taste of a Joadja, so I can't really comment on what could've caused this. It's a pleasant mystery though, trying to keep that sweetness in check. There's not really any spirit character or barley character to speak of here, but there's obviously a massive market for this "sherry bomb" style - see Glendronach, Macallan, Kavalan, Glenallachie, et al. This Old Master Spirits Joadja could actually pass for a young PX matured Glendronach single cask, perhaps one of the teenaged bottlings that were released a few years ago during the Billy Walker era. Which is rather high praise for a 2.5-year old Australian whisky!

But that's not all, folks. We're following this sweet dessert whisky with a sweet fortified dessert wine! This Spanish PX was aged in Jerez, Spain for 5-years, then was transferred to a small 64-litre ex-brandy cask before being shipped to Australia in barrel. It spent another two years in this brandy cask, resulting in the ABV climbing from 15% to 17% as it lost more water than ethanol - there's that Australian climate again! Funnily enough Joadja didn't realise that this cask was still full of fortified wine until the Old Master team stumbled across it while searching through their whisky casks, so this little number was meant to be! This PX fortified wine (technically neither sherry nor apera) is going to be released simultaneously with the whisky above on the 14th of December (pre-sale for subscribers), in a 500ml bottle at it's natural strength of 17% ABV, with 110 bottles available. The asking price for this PX is only $39 AUD, with Spanish sherries often going for $50 or more here, and often in a 375ml bottle. So that's quite a reasonable price again. I'd say sweet tooths will want one of these...

Firstly, this stuff is as black as a Kardashian's soul. Loch Dhu seems light grey in comparison. This is an extremely concentrated, intense, thick & viscous wine with plenty of raisin sweetness, but also with bitter orange peel and plenty of wood spices. Massive length on the palate, concentrated sultanas in syrup, with extra sultanas and extra syrup. Even as rich & sweet Pedro Ximinez goes, this is take-no-prisoners. I imagine it would be awesome poured over some ice cream. Just be ready to catch your teeth as they fall out afterwards!

As I knew from the start, this is far from a mere add-on or an up-sell. This PX is truly delicious in it's own right, I can see why Deni & David just had to bottle it. Massively rich & intense. It'll make for a brilliant Christmas Day tipple, particularly if it's chasing a dram of Old Master's first whisky release! Happy Hunting folks.

Thanks to Old Master Spirits' Deni Kay for the samples of these two delicious drinks, and congrats to the team on their first whisky release! Something tells me we'll be seeing more of them in the future...

Cheers!

The Whisky Jury Ben Nevis 1996 Whisky Review!

It's been a long time since I reviewed a Ben Nevis, about 5-years in fact, and my opinion of the distillery has changed completely since those earlier days. Which is all thanks to a few great independent bottlings, including this one!

Highland distillery Ben Nevis is not what you'd call consistent. Their whisky is the polar opposite of something like Caol Ila or Clynelish, which never really go wrong. Ben Nevis's spirit tends to be on the dirtier, heavier side, particularly when sherry casks are involved, although official bottlings now seem to be moving away from that heavier style. Ex-bourbon cask examples can be excellent as well, in the best case scenario they offer a very fruity and almost tropical style, but I personally prefer the heavier, more funky style of Ben Nevis that tends to come from time in sherry casks. Older independent bottlings of the make can be brilliant, again particularly when sherry casks are involved, with a plethora of examples available from just about every bottler out there. Official bottlings from the distillery are still relatively few & far between, with the long-standing but very inconsistent 10-year old joined by a second core range bottling in 2021, the non-age statement 'Coire Leis', named after the distillery's water source. Ben Nevis is named after the mountain that sits behind the distillery, and is located in Fort William, just north of Glencoe and about 2.5-hours drive north-west of Glasgow. The distillery produces around 2-million litres of spirit per year, uses wooden washbacks and a portion of brewer's yeast, with relatively fast distillation in four plain copper pot stills - i.e. relatively squat & wide-necked stills with no extra reflux devices - that feed into modern shell & tube condensers. That lack of reflux helps with the heavy, rich & intentionally "rough around the edges" spirit character that requires a good amount of time to mature, but it can pay off in the end when the right cask is involved. 

Ben Nevis is almost infamous these days thanks to its involvement with "Japanese" whisky thanks to owners Nikka Whisky who purchased the distillery in 1989, which is itself owned by Asahi. Even now with decent whisky regulations finally on the horizon in Japan, most of Nikka's products that are not single malt (so excluding Yoichi and Miyagikyo single malts) will contain some Ben Nevis spirit, shipped to Japan in bulk and bottled as part of many "Japanese" blended whiskies. More than a third of this Scottish distillery's production is exported for this purpose, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. The initial "labelling standards" recently put forth by the Japan Spirits & Liqueurs Makers Association only apply to their members (Nikka is one), and they don't come into effect until 2024. They're basically voluntary otherwise, and not legally binding, although that'll hopefully change in future. So Nikka is not doing anything illegal, and they're far from the only offenders here. A huge number of other "Japanese whisky" brands do the same, if they're even actually whisky at all by international standards, but that's another story. To Nikka's credit their official website now declares which of their products do or do not qualify as Japanese whisky under these forthcoming labelling standards, but as far as I'm aware they haven't actually changed any labelling as yet. Anyway, enough has been said about all that elsewhere, we're talking about Ben Nevis single malt Scotch whisky here. 

This particular Ben Nevis is an independent bottling from The Whisky Jury, a relatively new bottler of both whisky & rum that is based in Belgium. Their bottlings first appeared in 2019, with small quantities arriving in Australia from late 2021. All Whisky Jury bottlings are cask strength single casks, thus far mostly of considerable age, and their pricing is relatively reasonable given the currency that this sort of whisky commands these days. Less reasonable in Australia of course, but that's nothing unusual. Based on the three examples that I've tasted to date the level of quality in their bottlings seems very high, and all are non-chill filtered and natural colour. So let's hope we see more of their work down here in future. In this case we have a 24-year old Ben Nevis taken from a single 500-litre sherry butt, cask #1473, distilled in 1996 and bottled in 2021 at a cask strength of 52.8% ABV, with a yield of 354 bottles - those damn angels! Retail pricing was circa $600 AUD which is a tad on the high side, but is certainly not horrible given these specifications and the following that sherry cask Ben Nevis bottlings have. The sample for this review came from a fellow whisky nerd, unfortunately I've been sitting on it for a while now so the secondary market will be your only chance at finding a bottle. Let's see how it goes!

The Whisky Jury Ben Nevis 1996, 24-year old, 52.8%. Highlands, Scotland.

Distilled 1996, bottled 2021. Fully matured in ex-sherry butt #1473. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 354 bottles. 

Colour: Bronze. 

Nose: Fruity, rancio & peppery. Dried & fresh stone fruit (plum, raisins, apricot), vanilla bean. White pepper & dried mushrooms. Dank old wood, salted roasted nuts (almond, walnut, hazelnut), freshly dried mango skins. Caramel fudge, touch of cured meats (i.e. salami) in the background. Gets both fruitier & more peppered with more time. 

Texture: Medium weight. Very fruity, spicy, sweeter than the nose suggested. Slight heat but pleasant.

Taste: Rum & raisin fudge, white pepper, and salted roasted nuts. Creamy mango & vanilla ice cream coming through alongside before it dries out to cured meats & dried mushrooms. Dried mango skins & dried stone fruit underneath. 

Finish: Medium-long length. Touch of dank old wood & dried mushrooms again before that bright tropical fruit & fresh stone fruit (apricot & raisin here) take over. Mango & vanilla ice cream, salted roasted nuts (particularly walnut here), and white pepper rounding things out. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Very, very good! Thanks to a brief previous encounter I already had an inkling that it was a great Ben Nevis, and looking at it more closely and unencumbered definitely confirms that. What's interesting is that it's a mix of both the earthier, dirtier, spicier style and the brighter, tropical fruit style, and I don't recall getting both styles in the same dram before. While it does lean a little towards the former, maybe the sherry butt was a second fill, or maybe it was just a bit slow off the mark. Either way, it's a good thing! 

This Ben Nevis is a little rough around the edges, even after nearly a quarter-century of maturation, but it's rough around the edges in an endearing, characterful way, given how much flavour it's packing. That's a great description to sum up many of the heavier unpeated malts, and it's why many of them have such a cult following among the enthusiasts. Ben Nevis included!

Cheers!