Spicy & Sweet profile Tullibardine that’s been slumbering in a 1st fill ex-bourbon barrel since November 2010.
Nose: Crisp and breezy. Pressed laundry and clean cotton sheets sit alongside tart cases, crème brulee and orange-infused toffees. A stack of fluffy pancakes joins Apple flavoured Pop-Tarts, complete with their sugar crusted exterior. Dilution introduces shortbread biscuits alongside fresh Comice pears, Caramac and vanilla-piped choux buns. Great nose all in all.
Taste: A darker complexion. Crunchy toffee apples and café latte sit with shaved chocolate, oak bowls and carpentry benches. The development is all oak-wards with an increasingly wood focussed selection of flavours – sawn 2x4, sawdust, lumbermills and furniture shops. Too much for me. Reduction offers an improved balance with toffee pudding and apple compote joining lemon peels and gummy bears – the increased sweetness starting to cut through the overbearing oak influence.
Finish: Medium with cinnamon spiced apple and wood shavings.
Ah, so close yet so far. The nose of this Society Tullibardine is exceptionally – but it sadly proves to be something of a trap, with a palate that has become over-exposed to the cask and as a result struggles to find balance. Things are better with a drop or two of water, but nevertheless the oak is just a bit too bossy for my liking.