A sherried Hazelburn, distilled by Campbeltown’s Springbank in 2007! The sherried, unpeated single malt spent its 13 years in Oloroso casks, and was bottled in September 2020 at cask strength, with 9,900 bottles released at 50.3% ABV.
Master Of Malt
Appearance
This dram is mid gold in colour, with perhaps a hint of orange, it has a nice thick swirl line and slow syrupy thick legs.
Nose
Some of fruitiness I found in the 10yr old is here, it’s certainly not lacking on the nose. Seared pineapple rings, apricots and guava, followed by royal icing and sweet lemon. Fragrant wood comes thorough giving a perfumed aroma, and a touch of wood varnish.
More time and it becomes dusty, old leather comes with it, there’s a lemonade sweetness, and then the Sherry cask notes start to come forward. Yes, here it comes, fruit cake, figs, dates, raisins, good Oloroso Sherry, no sulphur at all at the moment, the nose is superb.
Palate
We’re straight in with a lovely mouthfeel here, and lots of Ex Oloroso cask spiciness. Stewed dark fruits really bring a huge wave of flavour, along with cigar leaves, Pontifract cakes, black liquorice, the bobbly sweets in a pack of liquorice allsorts.
After it’s sat for even longer I’m getting blood oranges, cranberries, star anise, cumin, and vanilla. A slight cap gun cap thing does come out eventually, but it is very faint.
Finish
Quite long in length, staying spicy, more chest warming now to be honest, with mocha coffee, and cough candy.
My thoughts
I’ve only recently found the joys of Hazelburn whisky, when i blind tasted the Hazelburn 10yr old, and i have to say it was a bit of a “WOW” moment for me. The aromas and flavours in that 10yr old are very impressive, at least i thought so.
To be given the opportunity to try another Hazelburn made me smile, i would relish this dram sent to me by my whisky friend Sean. So in i went. Lovely nose, a robustly full palate and a good finish, it is a cracker of a dram in my humble opinion, but, something was missing.
As some of you may know, in my heart i’m an Ex-Bourbon cask whisk(e)y lover. For me for many years it has been an honest cask, and at times i have struggled with Ex-Sherry casked whiskies. For one, the sulphur thing, definitely not for me.
This isn’t the issue with this bottle for me, the issue for me here is that the Ex-Sherry cask has cloaked the beautiful zesty unique fruit notes that i love in the 10yr old that i’ve not found in any other whisk(e)y. They are simply gone, and this is in all honesty the first time i’ve had this reaction to a Sherry casked whisky. As a Sherry cask matured whisky it stands up very well, it has all you’d expect, but after trying the 10yr old i missed those beautiful flavours.
A big thank you goes out to my Twitter whisky friend Sean-@RockNRolla60, for the generous sample, do give him a follow using the button below.
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