Sometimes there are bottles you eye but know you won’t buy them due to their high price tag and you hope you’ll have the chance to taste them somehow. This Springbank 24 Year Old is such one.

It’s an aged Springbank from a sherry butt so it came with a high price tag (£420 RRP but now cost is around £900) and outside my budget. But thank to a virtual tasting organized by Ian and the It’s all about Springbank Facebook group, I had the opportunity to try it.

Before we duck into the tasting some technical facts: It was distilled back in December 1994, matured in a fresh sherry hogshead for 24 years before being bottled May 2019. 294 bottles were released, bottled at 46.2%

Springbank 24 Year Old Sherry Cask UK Exclusive (46.2% £899.90)

Nose: Oak spice, sweet dried stone fruits, oak extracts so quite intense (but not too dominant) oakiness, oily, wood polish, chocolate, sweet espresso, peat smoke and tool shed, jammy with raspberry, gooseberries and some cranberries.

Palate: Starts dirty with full on Campbeltown funk, quite oily, then a wave of chocolate, lots of oak, coffee, peat, tobacco, green vines followed by dried fruits.

Finish: Long finish with lingering peat smoke, some oak extracts, espresso grounds, dried gooseberries, green melon.

Thoughts: A Springbank for advanced users. It’s full of oak impact but it’s not over-doing it. And along it there’s gentle Springbank peat and funk (gentle after those 24 years),  and a lovely sherry cask impact.