Girvan 25yo 42% ABV (Blind tasted).

This whisky was blind tasted during the Blind Tasting Consortium’s 25th session, the whiskies were selected by Billy, @BillyCowan on Twitter.

Appearance

Damp straw in colour, with a nice thick swirl line and slow medium thick legs. #BlindDrams

Nose

Initially I’m getting mineral water and and a foresty feel, it’s quite a light nose atm. Vanilla, mineral water, evergreen boughs, dried apricots and tea cakes. #BlindDrams

There is a white wine thing going on here, cereals, almost a whisk of smoke, slightly over toasted bread. #BlindDrams

Palate

Mouth feel is ok, not watery, but not oily either. And it’s a little spicy, with vanilla pods, cinnamon, white pepper, raisins, cardamom, espresso creeping in too.Red apple skin, rose water, leaning towards cherry Bakewell tarts. Cough candy has arrived, and ginger root. #BlindDrams

Red apple skin, rose water, leaning towards cherry Bakewell tarts. Cough candy has arrived, and ginger root. #BlindDrams

There’s a real sweet tobacco flavour in this dram, it’s developing more into black coffee and cocoa powder, but a sweetness continues to come with it. #BlindDrams

Finish

Still lovely and warming, I’m sure it’s 1st fill Ex – bourbon or Virgin oak cask. Cigar leaves, espresso, medium long in length, grapefruit and bitter lemon

My thoughts

I have to say that i did enjoy this whisky, i wouldn’t have guessed it was a grain whisky or it’s age to be honest. Ex bourbon cask suites me well, but unfortunately the price doesn’t. One of my biggest gripes with the whisky industry of late has been the mad price of aged grain whisky. Most had been left to languish in tired Ex bourbon casks, matured to go into blended whisky.

Ok it’s aged, and it needs to be to get anything from a few times refilled Ex bourbon cask, but really, the prices of these whiskies is way too high in my opinion. When some don’t compare to 12 year old Single Malt whiskies, something is wrong price wise.

The Blind Tasting Consortium use the hashtag #BlindDrams when doing tastings, use Tweetdeck to search archived tweets for 125 blind tasted whiskies as of today’s.

Banner image courtesy of @jwbassman_

Bottle image – The Whisky Exchange.