Chapter 7 Auchentoshan 22yo...

Chapter 7 Auchentoshan 22yo (51.8%): After their 21 year old Jura release here is a similar single cask from another distillery people like to dislike for reasons that beat the hell out of me... It is a twenty-two year old Auchentoshan distilled in 1998 and bottled in 2020 from an ex-Bourbon barrel which yielded 199 bottles in total after being reduced to the preferred bottling strength. Sounds great to me...

Color: Oaked white wine, bright dry straw color with a line of stationary tiny teardrops all around the glass morphing into thin but very slow moving legs after being allowed enough in glass.

Nose: Lemon twist, barley husk and dry yellow grass. Chamomile tea, planed timber and dry apple cider. After adding a couple drops water: Hot toddy, lemon halves on the grill and nutmeg.

Palate: Saw dust, yellow grapefruit wedges and lemon oil. Half baked oatmeal cookies, vanilla and unsweetened banana chips. Water works great: Pastry cream, crystallized raw honey and lightly toasted oak. Salted butter and whole cloves.

Finish: Long with a tingling sensation at the bottom of the tongue. White pepper, rock salt and shaved oak. Ground coriander and ground ginger.

Overall: A very spirit forward and vibrant whisky despite of its age. It's citrusy, grainy and peppery with minimal wood influence but not harsh by any means... In my humble opinion it is very important how a triple distilled spirit coming out of the still at a relatively higher abv. starts its life. The first contact with the wood can be very decisive. If it's a very active cask the interaction with the cask and the high proof spirit which is 82% abv in this case if I am not mistaken can result in a very tannic whisky in very early stages. I am pretty sure that this whisky didn't get racked and stayed in the same cask for its entire life which shows actually that the initial cask was possibly a 2nd or maybe even a 3rd fill but still a very high quality ex-Bourbon barrel that slowed down the wood interaction right in the beginning and kept this whisky away from getting woody for more than two decades. It's definitely my kinda whisky. I liked it quite a lot.

Price: £145

88/100

Comments

TopWhiskies said…
It's a lovely whisky, I enjoyed this a lot. In fact, I've enjoyed many of Selim's releases. Cheers, Ed