The Octave An Iconic Speyside 2011 53.7% ABV

iconic speyside 10yo octave

Aged for 10 years in Oak Cask before spending its final 9 months of maturation in a Sherry Octave, only 86 were then released in 2021.


Appearance: Very light, between white wine and rose wine. Decent viscosity coats the glass like rain on a window, lots of disparate legs and a good swirl line

Nose: A lovely fruity nose, nice balance of ABV. Pear drop barley, watermelon, lemon sherberts, lemongrass and then a more vegetal quality: cut grass and moss. Refreshers bar, green apple skin and peaches. There’s a slight funk to this one too, that I would bet becomes more dominant throughout the bottle.

Palate: On the palate, the initial flavours are a mixture of that milky coffee with lemon pepper and a slightly bitter note. There’s definitely a mellow hum underneath the spice heat and citrus. Kind of carrying these more dominant flavours across the tongue. Again, there’s a very small level of drying happening. It creeps up on you.

Finish: Medium in length. Creamy and citrus. The dryness remains from the palate too. There’s a small amount of spice and chest warming.

Overall: It’s a very delicate balance to get citrus, creamy coffee and spices to work. It does with this but it confuses the senses, you’re not quite sure what’s going on! But it’s a decent dram!

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