Well-aged Linkwood from 1989 that’s spent 28 years in a refill ex-bourbon hogshead. Sweet, Fruity & Mellow profile.
Nose: Honey, bees and waxiness are joined by distant tropical fruits – flashes of mangoes and guavas, but both a touch dusty and austere. A little deeper there’s tinned fruit salad, overripe oranges and some steely minerality. Rested, both balance and definition improve and ginger spicing and lilies come out to play. Water reduces any sense of tropicalness, but adds in sweetened lemons and dustings of fine sugar.
Taste: Austere again – pleasingly so in places. Fruit salad (particularly mangos, oranges and lemons) is given additional bite from minerality – rocks, shale and slate. In the mid-palate, sweetness returns with honey and beeswax. Ginger runs throughout providing a touch of sharpness and pep to proceedings. The addition of water (quite sparingly in this instance) pronounces all aspects of the whisky further, adding stone fruits , more crisp minerals and additional honey sweetness.
Finish: Medium with garden-fresh honey, homemade lemonade and a squeeze of grapefruit.
This Linkwood and well-balanced and well-behaved, responding well to water, but being equally happy at its natural ABV of 48.4%. It’s quite a light a summery dram that benefits from a little resting period, but then offers light, delicate and fruity flavours and an easy-going nature.