[51.5%・NAS・Bottled Circa 2016・Original Bottling・Limited Release]
Nose:
Some mild actions of tropical fruits on the nose, lime squeeze with a seaweed-y peat gently sweeping across. Creamy coconut milk, dried apricots and banana jam laid over wee hints of oyster shells seasoned with sea salt and pepper.
Palate & Finish:
Sea salt and honey with some sound orchard fruits along with some spices. The mouthfeel is a tad powdery with some shaved wood notes.
Some pepper in the finish with this light hint of salted caramel, the peat is subdued and only leaving a wee lace of earthy smoke.
Thoughts:
A plainly defined dram with some pleasant traits, it doesn’t pack nearly enough wow at 51.5% to leave a lasting impression as a somewhat limited release but then again it’s not plagued by obvious flaws either.
It’s easy to write this off as a NAS release but I think this one was probably just too safely vatted.. the expectation for a higher proof OB expression is that it gives a fuller experience but I get this feeling that the blending team was worried that this would be too punchy, too spicy, too peaty, or simply too much..
In American football terms, this is a game manager of a release..
-Nicholas
WhiskNick 