Rebels The Guerilla 10yo 56.7% ABV (Brave new spirits).

Single cask bottling from Brave New Spirits of Auchentoshan 10 Year Old, 1st Fill Marsala Wine Barrique Cask 700427, 212 Bottles, June 2010 – March 2021, Un-chill Filtered, Natural Colouring.

Appearance

Mid gold in colour, and the swirl line beads up instantly into nice thick legs.

Nose

The first thing that comes to mind is the hard toffee flavoured coating on some toffee apples, custard creams, leading to pink wafer biscuits. Vanilla pastries and apricot jam come through next, royal ici……no royal icing Bert, and weetabix.

More time and an oiliness appears, linseed oil, light botanicals, and quite a lot of evergreen wood now.

Palate

Mouthfeel is pleasant, and there is some spiciness here, but it isn’t face slapping, it’s reasonably gentle, though I feel it will build with time.

So far the palate is a copy of the nose, and it’s nicely married too. A sweetness kind of dances with the spices, they play very nicely off of each other actually. Tropical and stoned fruits are all here, then black pepper and chilli’s. Butter pastries, then carpenters workshop, and the spices are indeed starting to build. White and black pepper come together, with cardamom and sweet liquorice. It certainly warms the palate.

Finish

Long side of medium for me, but the spices do linger longer. We now have Eccles cakes, black coffee with a sweet syrup added, black grapes, dandelion and burdock with cola cubes.

My thoughts

I have to say that i’m aware of these bottlings from Brave new world spirits, but not much more. As usual when i have no idea of what i’m tasting i don’t check them out until iv’e finished my tasting notes.

I must admit that knowing this whisky has been in a first fill Marsala wine cask excited me, it’s a favourite cask type of mine. In general i really enjoyed this dram, the development was lovely and there was plenty to enjoy. Then i looked up the bottle, and found out that it is a single cask, cask strength Auchentoshan!

I have to admit that iv’e been an Auchy fan for a few years now, and iv’e always had the feeling that a naked Auchy could be a very nice dram. Well i’m happy to report that in this instance i was correct. It’s a lovely whisky that i would love to have a bottle of in my whisky cupboard.

Bottle image courtesy of Inverurie whisky.