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. Continue reading →

I really like the Springbank Local Barley series. So far four different expressions were released, each using different barley strains, different ages and different casks combination.

The latest one is the 9 Year Old which was released late 2018. It’s distilled from Optic barley strain (grown locally of course), and was aged for just 9 years (after having 16, 11 and 10 year old). The casks mix is 80% Bourbon & 20% Sherry casks (For your reference, the 10 year old had a casks mix of 70% Bourbon and 30% Sherry).

Shall we see how does it fare in comparison?

Springbank Local Barley 9 Year Old (57.7%, 9700 bottles)

Photo credit: whiskybase.com

Nose: Intense and rich, Lots of caramel and greenery notes, honey, green sweet peat, motor oil, grease. After a few minutes it becomes more ‘green’ and honeyed and there are pears, peaches and caramel toffee and perfume-y edge. Continue reading →

Today we’re going to check out the sixth incarnation in the Longrow Red series – Longrow Red Cabernet Franc.

The Cabernet Franc casks are from De Toren in Stellenbosch, South Africa, same place where the Malbec casks used for last years Longrow Red were taken. The whisky was matured for 9 years in bourbon casks and then additional 2 in the Cabernet Franc casks.

Longrow Red 11 Year Old Cabernet Franc Finish (55.9%, €89,95)

Continue reading →

This is the sad story of how I once went to lunch without my phone and when I got back to the office I found out this Springbank 20 Year Old which I coveted for over a week since I heard on it was suddenly released and got sold – all during lunch. Allow me to add that since then I don’t go out to eat without the phone. 😀

And the whisky itself? A sherried Springbank in a fantastic price. The whisky was distilled 14.03.1997, filled into Sherry Hogshead #108 and bottled 5.09.2017 after 20 years. The cask yielded 268 bottles that were sold out in a matter of 10 minute.

Springbank 1997 20 Year Old (Whiskybroker) (48.9%, £135)

Source: whiskybase.com

Nose: Silky, dried fruit, Kirsch and cherries, soft earth dirtyness, peat smoke, oily, vines greenery, brown sugar, citrus peels. After a while getting a bit floral with dark chocolate. Such a smooth texture! Continue reading →

It’s about time I’ll review the third (and latest) Springbank Local Barley release, the 10 Year Old distilled from Belgravia barley, following the 16 Year Old Prisma Barley and 11 Year Old Bere Barley releases of previous 2 years.

This time it’s a 10 year old, the youngster in the series so far, distilled in June 2007 and bottled November 2017. Also of notice is that this time, there are 30% sherry casks in the mix (70% Bourbon) unlike the first two releases who were matured exclusively in Bourbon casks.

As in the previous Local Barley releases, 9000 bottles were released globally and most of them were snagged away within minutes of release in the local markets and what’s still available out there is usually priced way above RRP.

Springbank 10 Year Old Local Barley (57.3%, €124,95)

Nose: Sweet red fruit with red apples, a touch of strawberry and even mountain ash (rowan). Then there’s the familiar Campbeltown funk, peat smoke, greenery (but sweet), not much oils and fumes this time (I think the sherry casks tamed some of it), spicy honey, sour berries. With more time there’s less sourness and funk and instead there’s a s sweeter red fruitiness and machines oil. Overall soft and great nose. Continue reading →

Last night at the BTC 2017 competition we had Springbank 14 Year Old Bourbon Wood that was bottled last August and it was quite an infuriating experience. I tasted it, took notes, filled in my guess and continued to drink a few more drams with a friend and one of those drams was also this Springbank 14 Bourbon. So I had the same whisky twice in a single night, just a few drams apart but oh what different notes did I take for each of them. Luckily I got points for age and ABV (12yo and 55%) but if I’d had any resemblence between the notes, I could get more points. Bah!

Here are the notes I had for the blind dram:

Nose: A bit floral and green, salty, honey, white pepper, hard candies and pears, dusty, malt and cereals.
Palate: salt, greenery, honey, white pepper and gentle oak spices.
Finish: medium-long length, gentle fruit sweetness, pepper heat.

Would you guess a Springbank whisky based on those notes? Well, I didn’t. And here are the notes I had for the bottle I tasted later:

Springbank 14 Year Old Bourbon Wood (55.8%, €94,99)

Nose: Restrained, tons of sweet honey and the Springbank funk is there right behind the sweetness with dirt, oils, green vines and exhaust fumes. Very dominant cask influence. Continue reading →