Our tasting notes.
Nose: A delicious ensemble of warm, lemonade scones, fresh red-apple skins and apricot flesh rise from the glassware to join a chorus line of vanilla milk bottles, almond biscuits and a gentle grassy note that weaves through the aromas turning quite herbal.
Palate: The palate picks up on the lemon from the nosing in the form of grapefruit rind that is soon joined by ‘three milk cake’ and a little brown sugar. Hints of fairy floss join the whisky banquet in a mingling of red-rippers, spotted cinnamon and fresh chamomile, all working in perfect harmony, never over-indulgent, simply in a state of liveliness, bringing the individual flavours to the fore in a complexity merry-go-round that keeps on giving!
Finish: This is where the cask flexes its lumbering structure bringing mellow notes of toasted oak, malted vanilla, white pepper and a lingering sweetness that soon morphs into a drying farewell.
Final thoughts…. Pour a dram, go nice and slow and let time in the glass settle the initial heat and cream up the whisky. Sampling the bottle over a two-week period kept offering additional layers and more flavour, settling on a complex union of cask and spirit with an almighty herbal punch. At a price point like this, we’re hoping the liquid touches as many lips as possible across our great Southern land because this is Linkwood with a Samaroli twist, at cask strength, un-chill filtered, of natural colour, unshakable, complex and quite the Speyside anomaly.
