Overview
This bottle needs some explanation. If you visited Bruichladdich then sometimes (only once in my 3 visits) Jim McEwan would pick a cask to shove in the shop for people to “self bottle, self label and self tin”.
I went in 2011 and this was the offering. Never having filled a bottle of whisky up in my life (I’ve emptied a few!) and wanting to make sure I got my money’s worth I set to, filling the bottle. Only when it was at the top did I decide to turn the tap off. Except it didn’t “turn off”, it “fell off”.
Now faced with whisky pouring out all over my bottle and hands I resisted the temptation to just “call it quits” lie down and save it from hitting the flagged floor. Instead, I struggled to replace the tap, turn off the flow and nonchalantly proceeded to lick the bottle and my hands in the most “just missed a bit” way I could before proceeding to the cash desk poker-faced.
| Colour | Nose | Palate | Finish |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ronseal wet rot wood hardener | Musky, damp gunpowder, wet dog, mushrooms, cheese, wet oak. | Cola bottles floating in flat cherry cola. Leather, tannins, peat ash. | Long, long, long. Blue cheese with figs and a cigar. |
Conclusion
This is a quite bat-shit-mental whisky. Quite unlike anything you will have ever tasted before, I can’t make my mind up if it’s a work of genius or it’s like “noble rot” in grapes or “blue veins in Stilton” and just some bizarre serendipitous accident that ended up tasting better, in an “acquired taste” sort of way.
Wish I’d lain on the floor to finish the cask off now.
79%
Rating
