In to the final week of the Boutique-y Whisky Company Advent calendar (boo!) and door number 17 reveals some middle-aged single grain whisky in the form of a 24 year old Cameronbridge. Adorned with a sketch of competitive Tiddlywinks player Dr Patrick Barrie who Boutique-y sponsored at the 2017 National Tiddlywinks singles competition, it’s bottled at 50.7% ABV.
Nose: Quite pronounced, with bushels of lightly roasted cereals, rich chocolate, honey nut loops, toffee and more than a hint of varnish and glue. Woodiness is tempered with some spicing – cinnamon and some light pepperiness. There’s a background dustiness to it all, part earthy, part well-aged grains. The addition of water increases this dustiness further and lessens some of the woody varnish aromas.
Taste: Sharp, sweet and sour. Honey immediately – quite thick. Then toasted bread, burnt corns, sappy wood, balsa and cork and again with the varnish and glue. Pepperiness and cinnamon remain, and are joined by some light golden tobacco. A few drops of water brings out vanillins and wood influence – a little sour.
Finish: Medium and delivering varnish and sour wood – water lessens the sourness and allows some of the brighter sugars to come to the fore.
Batch 2 of Boutique-y’s Cameronbridge offers some pleasant and well-defined aged grain flavour. There’s some sharpness and sourness of wood here, so in this instance I preferred a few drops of hydration just to smooth off some of those edges. Would make for a good early evening starter whisky to warm up the palate.