Batch 219

First up is a fresh cereal note with light dusty earthiness, closely followed by demerara sugar on porridge and dried pineapple. Then things swing back towards the grain, with cashews and grilled hazelnut, while the dry elements shift to an undertone of baking powder and climber’s chalk. It swings around once again: now it’s pollen and some lemon with unripe banana. Water takes things off into this sweeter area, with pear, apricot and peach blossom.

There’s a sweetness on the tip of the tongue as the light fruits make their mark before, once again, toasted nuts begin to move in. Just before it dries completely there’s a release of oils which help to stretch the flavours out. Now there’s some mace-like spice added to the delicate fruits and, finally, some sweet oak. Water brings out green sencha tea and buttercups without losing any intensity.

Orchard fruit, then as it dries, peanut brittle emerges for one last time.

Bere continues to be a revelation. This somehow seems to move in opposite directions while remaining balanced. Remarkable for its age and, like all of this range, marked in its competitive set.

A sense of Time and Place.

The most robust of the trio. Once again, there’s a cereal note, but this time it’s more bakery-like with rising bread dough. Then comes a buttery quality which initially seems to come from the oak – there’s added hot gorse and lactone – but is as much driven by the distillate as it is by wood. Behind all of this is the bright intensity of yuzu and a herbal-floral element that brings to mind meadowsweet and stewed apple.

It steadily becomes fatter and funkier. Add water and this breadth of character becomes more overt, mixing butter tablet with silage, pear, hay and, in time, tallow.

That sweet fudge element kicks things off alongside a mix of lemon, grapefruit peel and a little banana before it thickens and becomes more silky. There’s hints of almond and coconut oil, a prickle of peppery heat and some maltiness. Water helps to bunch up the spicy elements which start to sizzle in butter.

Relaxes into soft fruits.

Already showing great concentration and balance. Yes, there’s oak playing its hand here, but the distillate character is very different to both the bere and the organic.

Andmoreagain.

The sweetest and most lifted of the set. You’re straight into apple danish, honey and apricot jam. It then starts to open into estery notes of pineapple chunks, melon, greengage jam and that recurring apple note. Water pulls things down a little, adding depth, a hint of vanilla, sweet fruits and a touch of steamed green tea leaves.

There’s light fruit (and some syrup) to start with that drifts into elderflower cordial and ginger, with a hint of calming chamomile that links itself to the subtle touches of oak. There’s a bite of citrus in the centre – more tangerine than the lemon seen in the others – before things once more become creamy and soft. Water helps to further promote this yielding quality and while things remain soft and perfumed, there’s still a bright estery quality.

Fragrant. Abernethy’s salted butter.

Fresh yet fruity, soft yet vibrant. All three are clearly related, yet all are significantly different. The exploration continues.

We enter The Gentle Softness.

Big, bold and heavily Sherried, this immediately hits you with balsamic, tamari soy sauce, walnut, raisin and prune. In time you notice a nodule of sweetness – black cherry chocolate, chestnut honey – then an earthy element starts to build. You’re in the woods in winter and the last berry is hanging there on the briar. In time, the scene switches indoors, sipping Sherry in a cigar lounge.

Dried fruit starts things off along with oil of clove, espresso and a concentrated quality akin to Marmite. The tannins come out to play early on, but they’re not overly fierce or astringent. Keep things unwatered and you can pick out earthy, fungal notes, clinker and dried fruits.

Drying. Figs, calamus.

Marmite on the palate and in the mind as well. For me, Longmorn’s fruits are long gone.

Time continues to press onwards, ‘…he lets it go on, everything, just as it will, turns the wheel…’, Der Leiermann.

Rich and elegant with chocolate leading the way, before things take an exotic, spicy turn with the arrival of five spice and tamarind along with light Sherried funkiness. As it settles, so you pick out dried fruits, coffee cake and oak. Like any ancient whisky it needs time (and hey, at this price you’re not going to shoot it) and this allows a slightly waxy element to develop along with (weirdly) pickled rhubarb. In time, you get more classical mature notes of cigar, hinoki and roasting coffee beans. A drop of water reintroduces those exotic notes of scented woods, incense and fig, but as we’ll see it plays havoc with the palate.

An expansive and lightly resinous start with the dried fruits now mixed with hawthorn jam. There’s tannins for sure, but they remain pretty supple although things do begin to dry towards the back palate, becoming almost smoky – think pu-erh tea. Water flattens the effect and brings out more bitterness, so don’t add it.

Rich. Liquorice and dark fruits.

A rare beast indeed and one which has held up remarkably well.

‘I dreamt of colourful flowers that blossom in May… you’re surely laughing at the dreamer who saw flowers in winter’, Frühlingstraum. 

This couldn’t be more different to the other pair. Lifted and softly fruited: overripe canteloupe melon, dried flowers and still a memory of meadow hay. Yet there’s also evidence of long maturation in a slightly disinterested cask: wax crayon, peach stone and fennel pollen, then a burst of dried citrus peels. When water is added, you get a burst of waxiness, golden syrup and linen freshness – even some unripe pineapple – before its age is revealed once again as a suede-like element emerges. It’s flirting with rancio - but isn’t quite there yet.

All of those still remarkably sharp, almost sherbety, citrus elements are there at the front before things soften into fruit syrup with that grass/vetiver quality you (or, to be more precise, I) get from old St Magdalene in the background which adds an almost smoky edge to the sweet and by now lightly oxidised fruit. With water there’s hints of manzanilla pasada, pear and melon panna cotta and hints of tropical fruits.

Gentle, quiet and fruity.

Balanced, refined and untroubled by oak and therefore filled with a sense of liberation.

‘New Scenes Of Joy come crowding on…’