Dram Review: Limeburners Cask Strength Heavy Peat Barrel M225

[61.0%・NAS・Cask No. M225・Official Bottling・Single Cask Release of 183 Bottles]

Nose:

Dark chocolate, vanilla essence from charred oak staves laced with icing sugar.  Coarse rock salt, quite an oomph of peat smoke providing a perhaps fiery foreshadowing, heavily peated indeed by Australian standards.  Ground flannel seeds as notes of freshly plucked fruits slowly come on.

Palate & Finish:

Orchard fruits with a thick syrupy note, think caramelized banana splashed with even more crumbly brown sugar.  The spices apply a constant pressure with the peat smoke fizzling through out.

The peat continues to press on in the finish, charcoal and burnt barbecue seasoning aided by the presence of lemon peels.

Thoughts:

I vaguely remember sampling its sister cask M226 last year, if I remember correctly it wasn’t to my taste.  I was told that this has won a couple of awards.  I then did some browsing, and it would appear that it was in fact the M226 that won all those awards..

Perhaps I just don’t have an Australian palate..

✓

-Nicholas

P.S. cheers to Asit for pointing out that the M225 has in fact also been awarded.