Cask 1090    Distilled 3/8/1972    Bottled 9/7/2011  First fill sherry butt

Bottled exclusivley for La Maison du Whisky

Nose;  Fruity with sweet sherry notes

Palate: Lifght fruit, grapes

Finish:  Earthy, rancio with some bitterness, Cognac like.

Nose and finish are A quality but palate is only a B, which averages to a B+

N: Prune juice, concorde grapes, grape juice, used coffee grind, with some earthy herbal stuff.  Anise and and purple flowers.

P: Sweet, bitter and tangy.   Burnt smoky soy sauce, very woody (old library). This is a bit effervescent (kind like cola).

F: Robutussin with some musty notes.  Grilled mushrooms and rose water.

n:  Dark fruits, Big Red gum

p:  Briefly sweet cough syrup but then goes too bitter.  Nose to midpalate a winner.  After that, meh (so sip it fast.) 

N: Very concentrated sherry, plums. Very sweet, but with a slight bitterness. Butterscotch

P: Chewy mouth feel. Not as big as the nose leads on. Explodes nicely, complex. A nice dance of sweet and bitter contrasts.

F: More heat than the sweet and fruity palate, but pleasant enough.

Although it has a nice complexity to it, which I like, it misses the mark by not being well balanced. There's a lot going on here, but it's hard to pinpoint because of this lack of balance. Delightful nonetheless. Yum.

B+/A- 

n: dark charred fruit sherry. Fruit cocktail in grandma's basement. Heavy on the wood with a bit of BBQ peat. Smoky soy sauce.

t: initial is all wood and dry with a heather/floral peat smoke to it. Lacquered wood in a musty basement with a bit of spice. Mouth drying finish that's bitter and ends of liquified wood.

I enjoyed this due to the high intensity of the oak. [B]