Springbank 8yr old 56.5% (Blind tasted)

Tasted during the Blind Tasting Consortium’s 18th session on 5-2-22, in which Damian – @newdramrising picked the bottles.

Appearance

We’ll, it’s dark, very dark, Coca Cola and mahogany dark, with a medium thick swirl line with very slow thick legs.

Nose

The nose is as dark as the colour for me. Raisins, blood orange rind, wood varnish, a little of the hot mashed potato thing, Turkish delight, rose water, Garibaldi biscuits, dates, and balsa wood.

Peeled tree bark, brown sugar, caramel, and a faint menthol bring the note to a close for me.

Palate

Reasonable mouthfeel, tropical fruits, a touch of cap gun caps, though faint, ginger root, black tea, egg custard tart, lots of stewed dark fruits, Xmas cake and mince pies, blackberry strudel, chillis, dark chocolate, and liquorice Allsorts again.

Finish

Long side of medium in length for me, orange rind, cranberries, a little drying, stout, lovely and warming, a real winter dram I reckon. Cigar leaves and dunnage, and damp Earth too finish this whisky for me.

My thoughts

I know, dark coloured natural whisky looks so inviting, but it can be misleading when it comes to flavour, i will come back to this shortly.

Well it’s only 8 years old, and it offers so much on the nose and palate, it’s crammed to the back teeth to be honest. I was surprised by its age, it could easily have been older in some respects. For me the aromas and flavours literally tumbled from the glass, no waiting or searching was needed, and yet there was something in it, though very faint, that dropped this from 5 out of 5 to a 4. Sulphur, from the 2 years spent in the PX cask i’m presuming though only faint definitely tainted my feelings about this bottling, a shame, though the vast majority wouldn’t agree, enjoying the “dirtiness” of it i’m sure. Overall i did enjoy it, i’m pleased iv’e tried it.

Banner image courtesy of @jwbassman_, bottle image courtesy of @newdramrising, follow John, Damian and indeed us on Twitter using the buttons below.