January order: Tomatin triple - 2009 rum cask, Cu Bocan Creation #2, a 18 mini - and a Glenallachie 15 mini.
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To my eyes the Glenallachie is the darkest, it's like Auchentoshan Three Wood on steroids. While the distillery's page doesn't specify, it uses the same kind of maturation scheme: ex-bourbon finished in Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez casks for a total of 15 years. Presented at 46% ABV, non-coloured and non chill filtered, it's a veritable sherry bomb. The distillery has an interesting history: established in 1967, predominantly used for blending, acquired by a trio of industry veterans - Trisha Savage, Billy Walker, and Graham Stevenson - in 2017 who scaled back production in order to focus on quality instead.
Neat:
Fat, lazy, slow legs.
Smells like what you'd expect: raisins, plum, prune, butterscotch, brown sugar, and then spices: cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg.
Tastes like what you'd expect as well: cherry, plum, raisins, high quality dark chocolate in the background, spices. In addition to this, faint citrus notes and Gros Michel bananas.
Finish: the spices and the dark chocolate go on, the vegetal, green taste of slightly unripe bananas.
A dash of water relaxes, mellowes it all out: the scent is the same, but softer.
Tastes sweeter and introduces fresh fruits: sweet orange, plum, figs. The dark chocolate loses some of its cocoa content, the cinnamon comes forward, and that Gros Michel ripens a couple of days.
The finish shortens. Easier to drink, but loses some of its initial character.
After 20 or so minutes pass, it takes on a whole new character: slightly overripe strawberries, the rest of the aforementioned fruits got fresher, the chocolate and the butterscotch got completely pushed into the background. Cinnamon and nuttiness, green apple peel in the finish. Wonderful experience from start to finish.
Superb. This is definitely older stock, so get it while it's available. $80 isn't cheap, so get a miniature instead if you don't want to shell that much out.
I suspect the distillery isn't very well known for now, though.
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Tomatin 2009 Rum Cask
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Overall 10 years old - 9 years in traditional ex-bourbon barrels plus 1 year in ex-Caribbean rum barrels. Presented at 46% ABV, non-coloured and non chill filtered.
This gives
exactly what the box and the site promises: rummy aromas and flavours of various tropical fruits - mango, pineapple, coconuts, bananas - with salted caramel leading and mocha lingering in the background. Long, sweet finish with slightly bitter and vegetal accents. Lovely dram from a distillery which has the decency of not making any promises it can't keep. I wonder just how much of this character comes from the rum barrel influence and how much of it is the innate quality of the spirit.
Adding the tinyest bit of water... doesn't make much, if any difference.
It's a limited run of 7200 bottles, but they might make it a permanent addition to the range if it performs well. At least I hope so.
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While I usually don't open new bottles while there's still booze in the old ones, I'm curious about the Cu Bocan, so that'll come tomorrow. The 18 will have to wait until I have enough time in the evening to let it fully open.
