Color: Medium amber with an orange hue and a ring of large teardrops hesitantly turning into thick and slow moving legs.
Nose: Dried strawberries, bruised raspberries and woolen scarves. Four fruits jam, burnt bottom of a mixed berry cobbler and vintage port. A few drops of water add some sulphur, smell of plastic food containers and red table grapes.
Palate: Mixed berries and rhubarb pie, blood orange sorbet and pink grapefruit slices. Mouthwatering... Touch of sulphur and raspberry iced tea. Water works great. It gets meaty and a little tannic: Black currants, jamon Iberico slices and lightly brewed black tea.
Finish: Medium to long with smoked cured meat, Lapsang Souchong tea and ash.
Overall: Unmistakably Longrow Red from nose to finish and one of the more subtle ones compared to some previous releases... Like I said above I am a fan of the Red series and I enjoyed this one very much as well but I am not quite sure if I would be that happy to see that one of the Festival bottlings is going to be basically just another Red after traveling 5,000 miles. Not for Campbeltown Malts Festival specifically but in general I like to see Festival releases bottled from a little bit odd, risky and out of ordinary casks. I always enjoyed bringing back bottles to share with friends which are actually conversation starters not crowd pleasers. Anyway, probably my words are not making any sense to anyone right now so I simply should shut up because this is a great whisky and I certainly would drink the hell out of it of it if I had the full bottle. Thanks to Ian Sunderland again for generously sending me this sample from his own bottle.
Comments