In the last few years I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon regarding whisky releases from independent bottlers. Once every few months, a plethora of new independent bottlings from a specific distillery and year floods the market in the form of single casks (and sometimes a vatting of two casks), and all casks numbers are within a very small and definite range.
I assume that a stock of said casks were released from bond and independent bottlers rush, select and bottle a few casks within a short time period. In the last few years we’ve seen such waves of Laphroaig 1998, Longmorn 1996, Glen Keith 1992, Tamdhu 2004 and many many others and the last wave I recognized was a big wave of Ledaig 2004 bottlings.
While not all casks were born equal, tasting one cask and assessing its’ quality will tell us a lot about the general quality of the entire “batch” of said releases. The Ledaig 2004 under the scope today was bottled specifically for Specs (a big retailer in Texas), bottled in 46% (although many others in the wave were bottled in cask strength) after spending 10 years and 8 months in a first fill sherry butt that yielded 692 bottles.
Ledaig 2004 10 Year Old (46%, 692 bottles, $68.41)
Nose: Starts with sweet peat and quickly it turns out to be also dry and salty. Sherry sweetness, salted dried fruit, dirty sherry, pickled vegetables. With additional time more dried fruit and raisins are exposed in addition to unlit coal smoke and bonfire smoke.
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Nose: There’s that soft fruits and nuts notes so synonymous with Balvenie, but it does feel thin and watery at first. Thankfully over time it develops and we get a lots of honey, coconut, yellow fruits (mirabelles anyone?), sugar icing, sweet cookie dough, hazelnuts and gentle oak wood spices. 
Nose: Starts with a pleasant fruity, sweet and cream nose. A lot of pears and a dash of apricots. There are also hints of wood spices and pepper . Also showing up: honey and green oak barks. With additional time in the glass it gets more malty with barley and cereals, additional youth notes and vanilla. 
Nose: Very grassy, hey and straws, Vanilla and honey, some wet clothes and a bit of pungent, whiffs of nails polish and color thinner and overall a lots of greenery.
Nose: Light and sweet gentle smoke rises up, sweet peat, cured meat in sweet fruit sauce, canned apricots with vanilla topping. With time, it gets fruitier with more apricots and also peaches with whipped malt cream. I must admit the nose is great.
Whisky Gospel 