The Whisky Alternate releases an April Idiot’s bottling in the present day (of which I’ll most likely publish my overview later), but additionally this Speyside Single Malt 1989. It’s a bottling from the Thompson Brothers unique to TWE.
This 1989 classic comes from an undisclosed Speyside distillery – Phil Thompson has no clue the place it’s from. It was initially bought as mixing inventory and the unique vatting was reracked into completely different refill bourbon barrels, the place it sat for 4 years earlier than bottling in February 2022. I already tried a sister vatting final 12 months.
Speyside Single Malt 32 yo 1989 (51,4%, Thompson Brothers for The Whisky Alternate 2022, refill barrel, 255 btl.)
Nostril: a profile we’ve seen earlier than, nevertheless it by no means tires me. A comfortable fruit salad at first, exhibiting peaches and yellow plums, but additionally bananas and papaya. Some biscuity notes and meadow flowers. A layer of beehive notes seems as effectively: beeswax, nectar, honey. Refined vanilla and canvas. This takes me again to the Nineteen Seventies.
Mouth: good hints of polished wooden up entrance, with extra biscuits and creamy fruits (apples, payaya). Refined sourness too (gooseberries). Then a barely aromatic contact of potpourri seems earlier than it turns in the direction of nutty notes (almond cake), comfortable hints of tobacco leaves and extra waxy/resinous notes.
End: fairly lengthy, on vanilla biscuits, citrus honey and hints of coconut.
It is a advanced, delicate and dangerously drinkable old-style single malt. Completely according to earlier releases, you actually can’t go improper with these glorious casks. Now solely obtainable from The Whisky Alternate.
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