Description

Tasting Note

Taste: The surprising, complex and promising nose has lots of fruit and malt character with a slightly drier, more rustic edge, while the similarly complex palate is replete with the typical grassy Dufftown flavours of fruit.

Nose: Mild, fresh and soft at first with a brief, sharp, fruity, top-note of lightly baked apples or homemade jam above grainy cereals and a slightly dusty, woody fragrance of apple stalks or old wooden fruit boxes. This unusual and attractive note increases with time, broadening into marzipan and jammy, ripe red berries as if to suggest Bakewell tart. Meanwhile the supporting dryness and faint, spirity note become smoother with hints of linseed oil, adding a waxy, leathery touch. Much later there’s a faint, over ripe sweetness. A drop of water increases the Speyside character while the dusty sandalwood remains.

Palate: Appetising and at first softly coating; smooth, minty and drying. Then lightly sweet, with the sharp fruitiness of stewed apples standing out against the slightly earthy, dusty background first found on the nose. Some balancing savoury notes too, with a little hint of brine. Water reduces the sweetness slightly and dries the taste.

Finish: Short and oily with a note of drying liquorice. Mineral too. There’s a menthol-clean and gently fruity aftertaste, in which marzipan, cherry and dark chocolate are offset by a tannic, herbal note, as with black tea.