Another month, another welcome release for Caperdonich. 26 years in refill ex-bourbon. Sweet, Fruity & Mellow profile.
Nose: Highly floral with cotton sheets, crisp laundry, heather and lavender. There’s a slight tropicalness of mango and guava supporting butter biscuit (base), peaches and creamy meringue. Running throughout – lovely polished wood, that reinforces the length of maturation – it’s perfectly integrated too. A few drops of water adds honey sweetness and golden syrupy – but most of all, it explodes the fruity floral aromas into a wonderful menagerie of ripe peaches and fleshly cut garden flowers.
Taste: Juicy, succulent and packed full of fruit. Mango, dragonfruit, lychee and peaches combine with tart ripe berries for an exceptionally fruity arrival and development. Polish and well-aged wood is never far away and provides a backbone on which the lighter sugary elements dance. The back palate presents garden mint and tingling white pepper both of which cut through the sweeter flavours. Reduction turns a good whisky into an excellent one here – bright, fresh and highly pronounced with clean cotton, ginger snap biscuits and apple syrup.
Finish: Long with garden herbs, dusty wood, biscuits crumbs and brandy-steeped fruit cake.
Exceptionally delicious Capernonich from what was clearly a cracking cask – a wonderful harmony of fresh, defined fruit with well-aged, well-integrated oak. Few if any tannins – this is juicy fruits from start to finish. Recommended.